SAINTS

the vet came out today on my lunch break to check on jeanette…all of our farm vets have seen her over the past couple of weeks. this morning they all sat down and talked about her…they said we are doing a great job of looking after her while she is down…she can walk a bit when we lift her up, she is well hydrated, she is on good pain control, her body temperature is good, even in this horrible heat, she is eating and drinking well…she is bright and alert and has not become unduly depressed…and they think she is not going to be able to get up again. they think she is just too old and weak in the back end and if she hasn’t been able to do it by now, she probably won’t ever be able to do it again.

so i am not going to get all emotional about this now…neither she nor i can afford grieving her loss yet. there is a practical side to losing jeanette with as much kindness and dignity as possible. the vets said they can come anytime, however carson’s cannot pick up her body til thursday morning at 10.. that means that between now and 9 am thursday morning when the vets arrive, jeanette has to be absolutely comfortable, she has to feel completely and totally safe, she has to feel perfectly well cared for and treasured beyond anything. she needs to feel how much we love her without feeling frightened because our emotions are out of control…so i have been giving this some thought because i am working until wednsday evening.

the plan is to up our current staffing…angelina will come and stay with her and care for her until i get home from work. we will spray her with marigold spray to keep the flies off of her, we will protect her shelter from percy’s dismantling so she doesn’t end up underneath a tarp because he is a busy body fool. we will scoop the poop away from her as soon as she thinks to poop, we will offer her water and hay and treats frequently so she doesn’t even have to wait, we will make sure as soon as she looks too warm that we wash her down with cold fresh water…we will do everything we can possibly do so she never worries about anything. i will check on her all thru the nights and if she is even the least bit distressed, i will brave percy’s stupidity if jeanette needs some human company.

it is so very little we can do for her to make these next couple of days as easy for her as we can…but the one thing i know about jeanette, she will appreciate even that little bit cuz she is one of those incredible creatures who overflows with amazing grace.

if anyone wants to spend some quality time with her (with your emotions under control please) she would enjoy some cheerful company to share her last days.

she is a very great cow.

everyone is suffering with the heat here…all fans and air conditioners are on full..inside is not bad, outside is brutal. we have to be on top of all water bowls and esp. unlimited water for the barn guys…these old guys just can not tolerate the heat. i have made jed and darla and cody and oka stay inside this afternoon…i finally let them out and they are now laying on the grass. we had to stop doing laundry cuz the dryer was throwing heat outside into the cat run and it was way too hot for the cats hanging outside in there…so now i know that was a stupid place to vent it altho it works well in the winter for warming it up too.

jeanette managed ok today…she has her shade shelter and was hand delivered water frequently plus we dumped buckets over top of her periodically to keep her cool. it is too hot for sick old guys, i want the temperature to drop a few degrees…for gawds sake i need a universal thermostat control so i can manage the weather around here too.

percy only trashed her shelter once today that i know of and that was more curiosity and boredom than anything else.

i have given some thought to my continued problems with people sometimes sucking the strength right out of me and i have come to some conclusions, like it is mostly my own freaking fault…like mo says…i trust too easily, and chris is right too…i suck at setting reasonable boundries, and deb is also correct that i have so much on my plate that when people show up and offer to help i grab onto them like a life boat before i check to see if they are truly sea worthy or if they are going to drown me instead.

do you know why folks don’t know alot of the real down and dirty senior rescuers around here? (i am talking about the ones who have been in the trenches for 20-30 years) two reasons…one is most of them don’t use computers and the second and biggest reason is many of them have retreated and shut the world out. to them most of the world is a write off, they don’t expect the unexpected, they know darn well what to expect so they gave the entire world the proverbial finger and went off to rescue alone….not such a great thing for the animals…certainly not a great thing for them….that is the hardest road in rescue and there is no turning around cuz once that contempt for others truly takes over you can never hide that contempt ever again.

ahhh the things to be afraid of in rescue…. users and abusers who turn you into a user and abuser and an all alone one too.

so i think i would be less frustrated if i just assumed everyone in the world was a loser or a user or a liar or a thief, but i think i will try to withhold judgement at least until they actually prove it to me….so, i might still trust too easily, altho mo said she would keep an eye out for me now, and i might still suck at setting boundries cuz it would never occur to me to take unfair advantage of someone else, but chris is going to help me with that, and deb is making me corn bread so at least my full plate has some food on it once in a while…. i guess i will just struggle along for now and see where i end up in another 10 years….hopefully happily retired and proud of the life that i led.

both mo and i have a left over headache from trying to erect a shade shelter over jeanette in the blinding noon time heat. i wonder if jeanette has a left over headache too cuz she was the one who was really suffering in the heat. percy was a good boy, he left the shelter alone last night so jeanette is protected again today. the vet came yesterday and gave her an iv pain injection to help her to settle and relax. he said he would come again today if needed and just to give him a call..he is a very kind man. i am reaching the end of this and losing all hope…even tho the vets tell me that they have had cows down for weeks before they got up once again…we all know that jeanette is truly ancient and weak in her back end on the best of days and this might not happen for her.

it sucks to watch her struggle to rise and survive and fear that she just can’t win. to whoever is in charge of saints….we need a miracle..i promise i’ll kill her quickly the next time she goes down but please not now after she’s tried so very hard. help her to get up and stay up and lay down and get up again on her own…it is what she wants so badly, it is what she is fighting for every single day…that cow has courage and strength and determination and she is even a very kind and generous and compassionate cow…please, one little miracle for all that she is.

don’t ask me why but maude is curled up in one of our giant litter boxes this morning…that dog is simply wierd…there are 2 large unoccupied beds, plus the entire floor and maude has to lie in a box full of sawdust…thx babe that ought to make a nice mess when you decide to start your day.

ok…i better get dressed, mix up some more beet pulp (cuz i forgot to do that last night) and give jeantte a drink of water…mo will be here early to watch her while i am at work and i am hoping if i work hard and smart, i can get off a bit early cuz i am pretty sure i am on my own inside the shelter today…no staff, no volunteers so i need to get back here and clean the place up as early this afternoon as i can.

elaine just came and got me (cuz i am not answering my phone)…joey her foster dog had hurt himself and was laying out in the yard, trying to bite her when she tried to help him (he is a bit of an ass)…so i pop on down to check on him and it looks to me like he has buggered up his knee. his timing is perfect cuz wed. he goes in for a dental and while he is under they can xray his leg…i left him some pain meds to see him thru til then, he is now up and partially weight bearing but he does look sore.

the OMG!!! part comes from the bloody mosquitoes that ate me alive while i was there…freaking things, never leave the house in the summer months during the evenings without a ton of bug off lathered on. anyway, i just about killed myself again driving home, not from falling asleep but from trying to scratch my very itchy feet.

i had a quick bath and poured on some stop itch and was just starting to feel a little bit better when phoebe decided to be a hag. she went after raymond who was just trying to lay down but she took offence because it was too close to her couch. i have her shut out in the cat run right now and i was going to let her back in but then she tried barging thru the blocked doggy door and knocked over the garbage that was full of like 20 pounds of old cat litter. so she is still out there til i get un-mad at her and i hope the mosquitoes are having a great red and whirling wonder hag snack….relax tammy, i will let her back in a minute or two.
now that is what rescue should really be about, pain in the butt animals, not pain in the butt anything elses…and even with blood sucking mosquitoes that torment innocent rescuers… i can manage those if i remember to put on bug off to keep them away.

4:30 in the afternoon and i can’t keep my eyes open and on the road. i started to cry when talking to nicole and zoe on my lunch break about mugsy and jeanette…i am just so bone weary tired and it is not just because jeanette can’t get up and sparky had a stroke and mugsy died and i feel crushed by those responsibilities. there are unhappy donors whose tax receipts didn’t arrive, people who come here without any notice at all and at the very worst of times, a legal battle to regain occupency of one of our buildings that we desperately need for storage that i made the mistake of renting out cheap as a favour when we didn’t currently need it’s use.

animals sick, animals dying, desperate animals trying to get in here every single day and i have to waste time and energy and money on lawyers and hearings for a building that i busted my ass and mortgaged my life to be able to own and use for the animals when needed and apparently i am not supposed to reclaim it for saints use for storage, i guess i am supposed to build an entirely new building for saints…it is just sickenly stupid.
i am so tired of being exhausted, i am so tired of being a caregiver, i am so tired of being a victim to selfish petty human greed and need. i am tired of being called a F’ing B’ by those who i won’t let walk all over me because the animals actually need me to stay upright…i am tired of people thinking we owe them something…if no one owes me anything for all that i do, then how could we possibly owe someone else for so much less?

where is the honor and kindness and fairness in life…. the simple clean act of giving and taking with fairness and honor?…why do humans just have to make things all dirty and above all why do they have to do that here and when we are struggling to care for the animals that no one else wants…including them?

that is what i am really tired of…humans that come into saints dream and try their damnest to turn into a nightmare for all of us here.

i swear to god i am so close to shutting this place down and letting it fade away, i am so tired of everything….this is not burnout….this is a very deep and abiding anger and protest to the unfairness of it all and i am tired of feeling angry too….i want my peace back, i want to do my work in peace and harmony…that is the only thing here that truly belongs to me anyway.

i can’t remember when i have ever returned to work from my vacation so utterly exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally too.

it doesn’t feel right here  without my baggy buddha.

sparky had another stroke..not as bad as the last one but still not a small one either.

jeanette got heat stroke today…cooling her off was difficult. she has had several accupuncture treatments today, been lifted to her feet and is still toddering around after almost 3 hours.

we had a few different sets of visitors, by late afternoon i was completely done in…my day starts at 6 am  and by the time we finished with jeanette it was 13 hours later…. i just can’t function that long anymore.

bath..at least one load of my personal laundry because i have no clean clothes to return to work tomorrow and then i am going to bed and screw everything else cuz this set of very stressful holidays have pretty much burnt me to a black dried out mess.

i believe he had an abdominal tumour that ruptured tonight…he was lethargic and his mucous membranes were white, he was obviously bleeding internally…deb and angelina came and helped me get him to the vet. mugsy was a tough old farm dog and he did not like human things…like collars and leashes and mini vans and it terrified him to go anywhere. but he managed really well, he was so very brave and he died quietly and stoically…. full of his own kind of unique dignity..he was a very great dog.

i will miss your utterly beautiful face, good dog mugsy, very good dog.

up and down and all around so many things to deal with, my head is still spinning.

the shavings arrived unexpectedly so we quickly had to toss out of the bin 75 bales of shavings to make room for the bulk delivery…our 2 month wait ended up being 3 weeks. i wasn’t about to turn it away cuz gawd only knows when we can get some more.

jeanette, jeanette, jeanette….such a troublesome cow. i popped into the vets to talk about her…they REALLY want her lifted at least once a day….so i got on the phone and started making calls to farmers and carters and haulers and here is what i came up with….i have an excavator fellow bringing in and leaving one of his machines here…he will come for an hour each evening and with borrowed hip lifters, lift jeanette to her feet….how long she stays up is entirely up to her. we do have to pay for this…a $125 pick up and drop off charge for the machine and $100 per hour for each daily lift…so we are looking at about a thousand dollar bill to lift her for the next ten days. jeanette is well worth it so i don’t care about that and the ten days will give her time to gather her strength if she is able. if she is not, i think we have done all that we reasonably can do and might have to look at admitting defeat…i hope not, but the possibility exists.
Dr. Patrelli is coming tomorrow to do some accupuncture with jeanette. she also wants me to get a TENS machine so we can stimulate her muscles in between lifts and accupuncture treatments…so i guess i better find a TENS machine somewhere and it will probably be really good for spritely’s leg and arthritic old dogs too….sheesh, now i am a physiotherapist and a soon to be expert cow mover…i have the “cow on the tarp to be dragged around” thing down to an art and soon i will have the “motorized cow in the hip lifter” thing down to an art too. it boggles my brain.
it is amazing the things that you have to learn to do in rescue each day….i used to think rescuing animals was just about taking them in and finding them good homes..honestly, once they are here, finding them homes is the least of my worries, i need to take care of them first. and that makes me a constant student as i learn more and more and i do more and more in meeting more and more caregiving challenges each day.

by the time i drop dead from exhaustion, i am going to know so much freaking helpful animal stuff….someone should steal my brain.

my mother told me 30 years ago that broken people construct walls of defences around themselves. she said you can never breach those walls from the outside because to strip away all of those defences would destroy the person hiding inside. those walls were built brick by brick because they just couldn’t cope so they began a life-long labour to construct and maintain a fantasy world in order to survive.

my mother told me a few wise things that i have always remembered. and they have been a blessing and a curse in many different ways…like…now i can’t say the things i sometimes want to say loud and clearly because now i know it is mean.
on a personal note, i am forever digging around inside me…i self evaluate, i practice insight, i am always on the look out for any walls creeping up inside me that i need to get rid of…sheila once told me i was paranoid of people in rescue (she later said i was right to be afraid)…what she didn’t know was that i am also paranoid of myself.

i learned in one of my college psych classes that we have 3 people inside…one that only i see, one that only you see and i am blind about, and one that no one sees…not even me….it is the last two that i worry about….those are the two that can cause problems…unknown entities can cause havoc.

and on top of worrying about the reality of truth on what is going on inside me personally…i have to try to deal with the constructed lies of others hiding inside themselves when they start assaulting my world because they don’t so much like looking around their own….my world is much more fun to tear down.
and that sucks…and it sucks because of my mother. knowing what she told me more than 30 years ago, means i can’t start spewing out truths in chronological order to prove a point and get them to stop causing me trouble. so i have to play out the game until they get tired and hope they go away fairly soon to torture someone else.
some people give me way too much credit, they actually believe i care enough about them to waste my time getting even. the truth of the matter is, i don’t care at all, i don’t care who wins or loses, all i care about is that the ugliness that entered my world, goes away…i cold heartedly balance asset against liability. and once we descend into red, i cut the loss and move on. this is not a very nice truth about myself, but it is the truth so why pretend it is not?

anyone who thinks i got to where i am at saints today because i am kind and generous and compassionate and caring and patient is wrong…they are not wrong that i am all of those things, because i am all of those things but i am here at saints today because i am strong and determined and stubborn to a fault and i actually am very patient (even if it drives me nutz) i will not foster or try to appease or fix faulty relationships that bring negativity, dishonesty, or potential harm to me, to the animals, or to this place…it is the cold brutal truth….i cannot afford the time or the energy and it is not something i am good at anyway…my mother was, but not me.

so i might as well send out a fair public warning to those in the future who choose to come looking to saints…don’t come here looking for salvation or a good place to hide cuz that is not what you’ll find here…you will find me and i can’t always afford to be nice.

jeanette stayed down today…the vet suggested we lift her with the tractor 3 or 4 times a day…so let’s be realistic…i don’t have that kind of help around here and we are already imposing on alot of people’s kindness and good will. so jeanette will get lifted again tomorrow evening when trina’s farmer friend is free and i will ask our neighbor again if he minds bringing his tractor over…please jeanette just get up on your own soon before everyone hates us both.

i finally got my snow tires off and my all seasons put back on…gee it only took me til the end of june…way to go carol, time flies when you are having no fun. my holidays are almost over, i go back to work on the weekend…can’t say i enjoyed them all that much, they pretty well sucked every day….i think i will be glad to get back to the real world, rescue is too freaking hard.
i forgot to mention that the reason rusty can’t use one of his back legs is because it is fused…a stage four luxating patella with full muscle atrophy…we won’t be able to fix it, it is a good thing he is a pom….they can easily motor around on three legs unlike big and goofy jed-dogs.

i am so not ready to go back to work yet, i have too many loose strings around here that need to get tied up….loose strings are like junk piling up here, it drives me completely up the wall.

tiger lily is absolutely adorable.. she is standing here looking at me, sending me hungry mental messages…apparently a certain 18 yr old poodle is in need of an evening snack….she is so freaking cute.

do you think that if everyone in the world truly believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that god was watching and keeping score on each and every one of us…that suddenly alot of stupid, unkind, cowardly, and dishonest human acts would suddenly disappear?…food for thought.