"No hoof, no horse"

Lance's hooves are only temporarily out of commission

The title is a well-known saying to any horse person. This horse person has been living with "one toe, much woe" – I talked about it in my February 20 post and it continued to be extremely limiting, i.e. excruciating. On March 6 I noticed that my right foot was swelling, and I thought it showed some increased redness as well. Yikes; would I be okay until my Tuesday appointment with a podiatrist?

But on March 7 there was a change. The soft, unstructured shoes I wore to church were intolerable, so I slipped off my right shoe during study class and worship service. Interestingly, when I carefully put my right shoe back on to get out to our vehicle for the trip home, it wasn't as uncomfortable. After lunch when I changed clothes I looked at the offending toe and saw that the scab/callous had moved, and indeed was now just a flap. I showed it to Rick, who pulled off the flap to reveal a rather alarming hole.

He got some antibiotic ointment out of his vet truck and I kept that and a bandage on it. By appointment time Tuesday morning it looked markedly better. The podiatrist said it was clear there had indeed been infection, but the improvement was obvious so keep doing what I was doing. Then he addressed the toe itself, which had obviously been broken and healed bent, making re-injury from rubbing likely. The possible interventions aren't convincing, though, so for now I'm holding off. It's healing.

Enough about the toe already!!! There are much prettier things to look at around here, so let's look.

frog dogs

couch potato

chair potato?

Bernadette popped out of her sheep suit so I had to get her a bigger one

on the town with my honey

a rare morning rainbow in the west

Inglenook sticklebatt singles, done

navy singles, ready to ply with sticklebatt singles

starting plying while keeping my son company

Oh yeah, happy St. Patrick's Day from . . .

Back in the saddle, literally and figuratively

As of Saturday night, the last hours of the end of February, I am back to taking care of all my prior responsibilities, i.e. house and barn chores. As compensation, if you will, I am also able to ride again, even if my inaugural post-stroke ride was just a modest walk around the arena after dark for awhile. But Stella was very good and I enjoyed the saddle time very much; it was so normalizing! And after just one short month from a subarachnoid hemorrhage that could have killed me. I am so thankful for God's undeserved mercy and grace, and for my guys taking up the slack.

Oh my; shearing is approaching fast!

OH! And as of a tele-visit with my doctor's PA Saturday morning before church – which I attended without consequence so that was great – I CAN DRIVE! And drive I will today – to work, and about half a dozen other places where I need to stock up on things. I also plan to go to agility class Thursday night and meet up with my cousin at Costco afterwards. Still, my best views are at home:

This cloud photo may seem modest, but if you zoom in there is a LOT of detail!

My toe is still limiting my daily step count; I'm hoping with time and continued protection with corn cushions and careful footwear selection it will quiet down. I have places to go and new shoes to wear! 😉

I haven't gotten any farther on picking up stitches in my Dala sweater yet. Since 'BS' (Before Stroke) I've been itching to knit a hat pattern I purchased: Melt the Ice, but haven't located enough red yarn in my stash. Actually, I'm itching to knit more than one, as my sister and some friends would probably appreciate their own hats, so I should either buy or spin a quantity of nice red yarn. But I was also recently inspired by a Melt the Ice hat Donna Schoonover knitted that wasn't all red; I could do that for at least one. (I can't comment on WordPress blogs anymore, unfortunately, so I hope Donna sees this.)

That's it for now from . . .

Getting bored and getting out

I am more a woman of action than a woman of leisure. The forced downtime of stroke, sciatica, and then angry toe has me going a bit stir-crazy, but I'm reluctant to aggravate the former or latter (the drugs I'm on seem to have kicked sciatica's butt – yay!). I did go to two doctor's appointments prior to this week thanks to friends who drove me, and was ready for a good nap after each. Because of that, I decided to stay home from church again last Sabbath because there was a memorial service at 3:00 we needed to attend, and spending basically all day away was just too much. As it was, after the memorial service I rode with Rick to treat a patient; I fell asleep on the drive home and went to bed to sleep some more once we got home. On Sunday afternoon Rick had to check on the same patient, and I agreed to ride with him again. Afterwards we stopped at Costco, then the Italian deli where he has bought the heavenly cannoli; they didn't have cannoli but we got delicious paninis and even more heavenly tiramisu that we ate in the truck. I got home without needing to crash, probably because there was little human interaction (besides my husband) or other activity that took much brain power.

After taking it easy on Monday, I tackled working a few hours at the office on Tuesday. I rode in with Rick, then my boss gave me a ride home when I was done. There was work I could have done on the clinic side, but that had to wait for another day; it amazes me how fast my brain tires post-stroke!

Wednesday was sunny and dry, so I decided to walk down to the barn and turn the horses out in the arena. I don't know if/when the guys have turned them out since my stroke, so I decided to lead them out one at a time. Lance and Stella were both very well-mannered on lead, but clearly needed to let off steam once released. By the time I decided to pull out my camera, Lance – turned out first – had mostly settled down to grub any green stuff.

I've been enjoying some "dessert spinning," luscious Inglenook Fibers “Frost Moon” sticklebatts made up of all kinds of fibers + glitter. After spinning nearly a pound of black wool last year plus eight ounces of dark navy last year and this, I needed something light and bright and fun! The December fiber snacks were a daily diversion, but I also put pressure on myself to keep up; there is no pressure but pleasure with the sticklebatts.

The pressure comes from other responsibilities. I need to do the clinic payroll tomorrow, but first I must bring my payroll ledger up to date after talking my husband through the bare bones for January's payroll. While in town tomorrow I'll do whatever office work I can, so I need to vacuum today while I have time and energy. Boring stuff, I know, so here are some pretty pictures made this week to end on more interesting notes:

Poppy, standing alert on my chest

Even the best nursemaids need a break

My first time cooking since the stroke, a well-received curry

A lovely view from the deck

That's it for now from . . .