Motherhood gets lighter.

I hugged my boy this morning, a Happy Birthday Hug. I need to do that more. He's so tall now my head is at his shoulder. Which is so very odd. I know it will become not odd at some point, but it sure makes one nostalgic for the little, wiggly, heavy, curious sweet little guy I used to know.
And yet, and yet, here is this tall, kind, handsome boy that is full of joy and noise and helpfulness who I am ever so grateful to have in my life.
It is a birthday morning. Aunt Elizabeth started us on a tradition of a "birthday donut" years ago, so this morning I rose in the 5:00 hour to make sure I could share in the tradition. Today was a "birthday cherry danish" but with a candle stuck in the center, it works. I stared at him while he ate, not to make him feel uncomfortable, although I'm sure it did, but to attempt to lay the moment into my fiber. So it is retrievable as more than memory. This exercise is futile. I have tried this effort at every stage from birth to present, but it leaves me. I can no longer feel the heaviness in my arms of holding that baby, or hear the question "why?" in that cotton candy voice. Although, at the time, it seemed too colossal to leave behind. But I cannot stop myself from trying, anyway.
I offered to pull out the old photo albums and look at his baby pictures and sob. He was unenthused with this idea. So I settled for some fluttering about saying nonsensical things such as "How does it feel to be sixteen?", possibly wringing my hands.

And then he was gone. To school, but I how I know it will be more than the end of the driveway and back again hours later, all too soon.

Every year my Motherhood gets lighter.

And, my heart gets heavy.

One Tough Cookie- an equine surgery survival mystery.

This past summer, I took on a new equine partner. Chanel, or "Nelle" as we call her, has been Middlest's horse for the past few years, but with Middlest's departure to University, I decided to give a partnership with Nelle a try. My horse, Chaser, went on to another human partner, and Nelle and I started to get to know one another.
The start was a bit rocky. We had to work through her tendency to rush fences and then buck several times on landing. This we accomplished by just allowing her to do so, and riding through it and not getting defensive. Our instructor, Bev Newton, helped me get it right. Over and over, until Nelle trusted that she could jump and I was going to ride it through without repercussion. Slowly, she forgot to be defensive, and we could get through a jump round competently.
In dressage, we had to work on that trust, and stretching into my contact, allowing flex and flow. It came in fits and starts but by the end of the season, we were able to do a competent Training level test.
On cross country, we had to work on control. Really, that is what it is about. Speed can only come after control over fences, and between them too. And we had some, well, less controlled rides, so we stepped back until we had a lovely, slow, but controlled ride at the end of the season.
Our winter looked bright, with dressage to work on, adding lateral movement and team building.

This is Nelle's "tolerant of crazy people" face.

Then, on the Wednesday after Christmas, Youngest and I returned home after a two day Pony Club Dressage lesson/ Christmas party. We unloaded his "wonderpony"- Zac, and drove into town for some errands.
We returned home in the late afternoon, and went to the barn to start evening barn chores.
I started with Samantha's stall (always the dirtiest! How does she do it?) and was busily filling up manure baskets, when Youngest went to take out the first load of manure. This is done by pushing the barrow through Nelle's stall and paddock to the pile out on the north end of the property.
He started yelling for me.
So, I ran out and to see Nelle, on her side, and what we would call "cast". Which is when a horse gets stuck when rolling and can't get their legs back underneath them to get back up. She was between a large water trough and a fence post. Part of my mind was thinking "this is very  odd" while my other part was processing how to get her up. I threw over the water trough and drug it out of the way then told her to get up, which she did. But even in the dark shadow of the barn, I could tell something was very wrong. I brought her into her stall. She was cut up on her legs, and had sliced open her lip, but worse were her eyes. Nelle wasn't home. Then she started to stumble and fall. I made a call to the house, for all hands on deck (love cell phones).  Huz and the girls came on the double and started to help. By this time, Nelle was throwing herself against walls violently, and when she was on her feet, she was circling, and had a head tilt. An odd squeak and crunching noise came from her shoulders and chest when she paced. Neurologic and painful. She passed two decent piles of feces- is this really a colic? Middlest started calling our wonderful equine vets, as Huz and I had our hands full trying to keep an 1100 lb horse from great destruction of self- and the barn too.
Dr. Chrissie Schneider arrived as fast as she could, and into the scene of an unbelievably painful horse. Lots of drugs, and the assessment that we needed to ship her quick to the OSU Vet School if we wanted her to have a chance. With kids following orders barked by me, we got her out into the snowfall and onto the now heavily bedded trailer for the fastest ride in a trailer ever crafted by this driver. Dr. Schneider had loaded her up again with meds before we loaded her on the trailer, but the meds had about 20 minutes of useful levels, and the vet school is a 43 minute drive. I had images of my trailer being tossed about on I-71/I-70 through downtown Columbus by a horse out of her mind. Would the doors hold? Would the walls even hold?  Huz was asked to just give directions for fastest way to get there. As I drove, the truck got very quiet. Middlest had elected to come with us. It is her horse after all, but I'm sure she questioned that wisdom as it became apparent that we were not going to take a full 43 minutes for the drive.
31 minutes after leaving Cowfeathers Farm, we pulled into the large animal hospital, amazingly, to a still-standing horse, that walked off the trailer fairly normally. There is a philosophy that a trailer ride can be therapeutic for a colic. A lot of bouncing around can change gas patterns and such. I suddenly had hope that Nelle was going to be okay.
The triage team quickly assessed her with a naso-gastric tubing to look for reflux, a rectal palpation that felt different than that on the farm by Dr. Schnieder (I'm giving you horse people clues all along here, but you still probably won't get the answer without being told!) Dr. Schneider had thought perhaps a torsion, the critical care doc thought maybe impaction? They did an ultrasound and a belly tap, placed an IV catheter. They tried to wash all the wood shavings and splinters out of her eyes, as she had neglected to close them in her thrashing on the ground.
She was moved to a stall with a pile of pain meds and fluids. If it is an impaction, maybe it will pass with fluids and time. If the pain meds don't keep her under control, then it is surgery.

It took about three minutes in her stall for her to go down hard and painful. I went in to hold her head and say goodbye. I told her, "You made it through a broken foreleg. You were barely lame when you sliced your hindleg to the bone. You are the toughest cookie I know. If you can, I know you'll make it. If you can't, I'm sorry."

And they took her to the anesthesia stall.

I hate seeing my horses under anesthesia, and chained upside down by their legs to move them. I don't mind how it happens, or that is does happen, I just didn't want to remember her that way. It is also how they move them to the necropsy room when they die.
So, I hid. Anxiously fluttering around the edges of the halls with Huz trying to alternately comfort me and distract me. Middlest hid too, by going to sleep in the truck.
After a few lifetimes, and not hearing that they recommended euthanasia on the table, I worked up the courage to stand outside the surgery suite, which has a big window in it. We were told it wasn't a torsion or an impaction.
They thought maybe a slip through the epiploic foramen? Nope.
How about a hold up on the gastrosplenic ligament? Nope.
By this time, taller stools had arrived for the surgeons. The surgeons are tall women, but not tall enough for going deep!
By "running the gut", or painstakingly, hand over hand moving the gut through your touch, and sight where possible, they found the issue.
The small intestine disappeared under the liver.


Anyone medical types figure it out?

Nelle had a diaphragmatic hernia with 20 feet of small intestine in her chest cavity.

Okay, extra points for whoever guessed it when I mentioned the odd squeak and crunch noises noted way back in the barn!

So, for everyone else, a diaphragmatic hernia is a weird, weird diagnosis.
If you have ever had the hiccups, you have felt your diaphragm. It is a sheet of strong muscle that separates the chest cavity, with the heart and lungs, from the abdominal cavity, with the liver, stomach, intestines and other organs. The diaphragm is NOT meant to have a hole. This is bad.
It seems as if our Nelle had been born with a hole in the diaphragm, at the top, near her spine. It was only a few inches long and wide, about the size of a fist. She had raced for years, then ridden for more, jumping, running, playing, bucking, rolling.... all horsey stuff, without an issue. How do you win races with a hole in your diaphragm?
Then, on the Wednesday after Christmas, the intestines found that hole, and went on a lookie-loo into the chest cavity.  They should've stayed home.

So, our brave, and strong surgeons managed to repatriate the intestines that were stuck in the wrong room, hold up all those organs (horse is upside down when having surgery!) and blindly staple a strong mesh over the hole in the diaphragm, preventing recurrence. All whilst trying to suction all the fluid they had been dumping into the abdomen, thinking it was a colic, out of the abdomen and the chest- into which the hole had kindly allowed free fluid flow. And fluid in your chest is also a very bad thing. There are no speakers outside the surgery suite to hear what is being said inside. Just as well. I can imagine the colorful words I would've chosen had I been lead explorer on that adventure.

 The next day, she looked like a prize fighter who had gone many, many rounds.
Her eyes were practically swollen shut, and she was bashed up most everywhere. But, she was standing, and almost alert.

She spent a week in the equine ICU with great care. A few setbacks here and there, and some worries, but she is tough. Really, really tough.

 And it wasn't long until she was off her IV line, and eating some hay. Then eating a little grain, and being allowed out on short walks. The big shaved patch on her side is so they could do ultrasounds.  Huz brought her down to his neck o'the woods to take x-rays of her diaphragm to see if the mesh was still in place post surgery.

Dear Pony Clubbers, yes, this is a chain shank, and we know it isn't correct use, but it was hospital issue, and we are not about to split hairs at this point. Horse is alive and walking!

And then came the day when we could take her home!

Alert, and happy and ready to return to Cowfeathers!
She has an incision from the base of her sternum practically to her udder, and that's freaking me out, but one foot in front of the other!

That was nearly 6 weeks ago. She has done well. I'm glad her stall is so huge, as stall rest is trying for a thoroughbred. This week she was given access to a small paddock, and in a few weeks, she can have access to the whole paddock and allowed to trot and canter, and kick up her heels! This last bit has been achieved far too many times on her hand walks. She's a bit stir crazy. So, I will be chuffed to stop expecting her intestines to fall out when she gets wild.

Great team work by our family, Dr. Schneider and the able -and I'm sure eloquent under-pressure team at the OSU Galbreath Equine Center; Drs Schroeder, Mudge, Dern and (soon-to-be) Dr. Weaver. They were a God-send and truly life savers. And, so very thankful for support by my lifetime partner, Huz.
With continued good fortune, I will be back to working on my partnership with one tough cookie by late spring, early summer. She may have earned a new show name:
"Next out on cross country is Cate Drost riding 'One Tough Cookie'!"

Moving a 400 year old tree to get a new door.

As I said at the end of the last blog, we needed to get back to "Cowfeathersschlossienhofpalais", or, at least, Cowfeathers Farm, our beautiful home.
One of the biggies on my "to do" list was to reboot the north side of the barn. When we arrived here, there was only a 8 foot span of wall left on the north barn bottom story. Someone had cut off the siding about 9 feet from the ground. Presumably for better access for cattle? But it also meant better access for weather, and wind. In the winter the north wind is...formidable.
So, I went about blocking it up, not very professionally, thinking it would be mostly temporary until I decided how to configure the barn to our liking. That was 13 years ago.  Eye Roll.
Like many things, once they are somewhat serviceable, they become "good enough".
I had built a door into the wall, where the row of stalls were located, so that if I put a stall there it would have a north door. It was a double dutch door with windows in the top half, so it could be open on the top, closed on the bottom, or half all the way open other half closed, or both wide open. I like versatility. Then, promptly turned it into a stall.
But last year, after 12 years of battering north winds, one quarter of the door gave up and ripped right off.
Thus, on the "to do" list. Before next winter ( which is now this winter).
I decided, with the help of my wise counseling neighbor, Dave, that a sliding door would give me the versatility and wind control I needed, plus last a lot longer than my charming, but battered previous creation. He even gave me a lead on someone who could do it for us.
So, into the picture came another capable helper, Jim. Who looked at it, measured it, and said "Sure, I can do that!"
It seemed so easy.

Two hundred year old barns are never easy.

 

So, when Jim eventually arrived to put up the sliding door, it became apparent we had not noticed a little "glitch" to putting it in place. 

To orient you, the wood at the right side of the photo is the siding. The beam through the left side of the photo is the east-west horizontal support beam. Visible betwixt the two is the vertical beam that supports the north wall and the roof.  It is supposed to be resting squarely on top of the horizontal beam, but instead is about 3/4 of the way OFF its support! This is not only bad news for the barn, it also pushes the siding out, causing a bow, and making it impossible to hang a slider door attached to the horizontal beam. 

Ugh. 

 This is looking up from the base of the barn. through the hay drop (hole in the floor for tossing down bales of hay from above.) It doesn't look too bad, but the vertical beam is obviously not resting squarely on the support beam!
So, who do you get to fix, safely, a two hundred year old barn, built with wood that was centuries old when it was cut, honed and pegged into place? That's tough. I tried Amish builders, but there was a communications problem. I don't know what the rules are with telephones and the Amish, but my go-between, another helpful neighbor that does some business with Amishmen, never got us successfully connected. So, I emailed a few folks, asked questions fruitlessly, and hoped for a break through. When our barn was straightened, way back in '05, it was done by a knowledgeable German fellow, who was in his 90's. I couldn't find him for this repair, so I assume he retired.
Then, the break through arrived. I phoned the right guy. Structural Erectors of Columbus said they would have a look.
They have experience working with these precious old buildings. And each year that goes by our barn becomes more rare as the old barns around us get pushed over and burned or buried.

The team put a come-along between the beam that needed to be pulled back onto the support and the center barn beam.

They then placed two 4-ton jacks on either side of the beam to pick the beam up enough to pull it in with the come-along. But, the bottom of the beam is not sound. Years of weather has made the bottom uneven and not a good flat purchase.

So using a most braw reciprocating saw, they cut off the bottom of the beam (cutting through wood this old is like cutting stone). Then found an equal thickness of wood in our ancient scrap pile to fill in the base gap.

Lastly, they put two angle braces in through all the pieces to hold it there for another 200 years.

 So now, the door!

 Getting the structure in place.

 From the inside of the stall. So tidy!

And the finished product. Delightful.

And the result is a happy horse with a new door. This is the first day she has had access to a paddock since her surgery in early January. The paddock has been fenced off to be rather small, so she cannot get up enough room for a trot or a canter, but Nelle loves to survey her territory.
An open door is a beautiful thing. Progress!

Postdam- Back in Time-AND PALACES!

Let us pretend you are an Emperor. Wait, back up, let's just say you're a Hohenzollern. That is, to say, a member of the dynasty that began somewhere around year 1000-1100, and continued the upward climb to hereditary German Emperors and Kings of Prussia by the late 1800's. 

So, you're a Hohenzollern, thus the owner of lots of stuff, and that includes places, land, towns, cities, nations..right? And, being the inheritor of the title "King of Prussia", you're expected to conquer more stuff, and rule the people etc. The problem is, you like poetry, and philosophy, and gardening. Your Pops is not happy about that. He wants a conquering son. So, you become Frederick II, King of Prussia, conquer stuff, win a war, take over a bunch of territory, get called "Frederick the Great" and then get back to the real interests you hold;  Enlightenment, free press, philosophy, and gardening. But, you need someplace to do these things suited for an Emperor. 

Look around, you've got lots of choices! 

But, the sweet little holding of Potsdam is close to Berlin, and a real modern, thriving city. Open to immigration, religion, ideas and arts. 

Build a house there.  Just something simple, a single story, with a nice back yard.

Probably need some fountains. Add a few naked statues.

And a fine man.

Call it "Sanssouci". Without a care. 

Invite your friends over for philosophical discussions in the palace. 

Realize that sometimes your house parties are going to get pretty large, with important heads of state, and you don't want them that close. 

Build a guest house.

Make sure its down-a-ways, and not grander than your place. Call it an "Orangery" and put a few citrus trees in it, just to make sure your guests feel like they're visiting the country. 

Increase guest fitness by making the gardens for the places a focal point, must stroll, but include some steep stairs, or for extra challenge, just a hill. 

Realize that your back yards are spectacular, but the front entrances, meh.

 So for your Palace "Without Care" add some Grecian columns around it, and throw in an authentic, new-build "Ruin" in the distance (more fitness plans : "Hey, wanna go se my ruin?").

For the Orangery, dwarf the building with a giant wind mill.

 

You know, gardens, really great ones, need a green house. Build one of those too. Down-a-ways. 

Not a small one.

Now,  here you are, having a great time hanging out, talking philosophy, with guys like your pal, Voltaire- he can stay with you at Sanssouci. Give him his own rooms. 

But, France and Great Britain are tussling. And one thing leads to another, and you find yourself taking over Saxony, and now you're in it. Deep. For seven years, you're stuck in a war. Let's call it The Seven Years War. And, you nearly lose, but don't. The thing is, the world is talking about you, saying your country is bankrupt after this war. 

HUH!

So, you show them! 

Build a new palace. 

Just down-another-ways. 

Make it a bit showy. 

Call it the New Palace. 

You're an Emperor, and you expended all naming creativity with "Sanssouci" and "Orangery". 

So, "New Palace", it is. 

This time, concentrate on the entrance a little more.

And add some gold folks, Three Graces,  holding up a crown on top. That's impressive.

Then, get back until the good stuff, art, philosophy, gardening, apparently walking a lot. Emperors rode horses? Carriages? Piggy Back? Probably whichever they cared to. We walked. A lot. 

Well, even Emperors die. And Frederick The Great did, childless. ( Not Great at romancing his wife, it seems Frederick was likely gay, and married, but Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern is rarely mentioned and never visited his Potsdam palaces.) 

So, his nephew Frederick William I inherits, but doesn't like the digs very much. Sanssouci is too much his uncle's place. The New Palace is fine, but really, not to his liking. 

Build another palace!

 

The Marmopalais, or Marble Palace, is right on the lake shore. Now, it seems, also not creatively named, but the Marble Palace is brick!  

And, yes,  full of Silesian marble from the area of Poland Huz and I just left, and conquered by Uncle Frederick- the Great in his youth.

This was Frederick William I's summer place. It has stairs down to the the lake, and with access to the River Spree, you can boat right down from Berlin to visit. Remember the stairs from the Berliner Dom to the water? That was the Spree! So, boat to church and back to the Marmopalais. Doable. 

The Hohenzollern line liked this place. They used it a good bit. The last residents were Prince Wilhelm (eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II) and his wife Cecilie. They lived here from 1904-1917. But, they were more keen on architecture of Tudor style, with half-timbered walls. Besides who really wants a used palace?

Build another palace! (Truly. Not kidding.)

Cecilienhof Palace has 176 rooms, and 55 different decorative chimney stacks. It was completed and moved into by Wilhelm and Cecilie in 1917. You might note that while this palace was being built, there was a bit of a kerfuffle going on, the First World War, The Great War, World War I.... anyhow, their inhabitance of Cecilienhof was short lived, as the German people revolted in 1918 and overthrew the Kaiser and the whole Hohenzollern bunch. They had to vacate in a hurry, but Cecilie and sons came back to live here at times. 

Fun Fact- this palace is the location of the Potsdam Conference, where the leaders of the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States got together to hash out how to divide up the spoils after World War II- the very folks, I suppose, who thought chunking up Berlin into "halvsies" was the best plan. 

Which brings us back to A Morning in Berlin- The Wall. 

And, in our time travel, Huz and I are now footsore, about 20 miles hoofing it around Potsdam. Where is a Piggy-backer when you need one? 

 I had wanted to see palaces, and the Hohenzollern line did not disappoint. Bear in mind, we only saw the palaces I've outlined above. We skipped Babelsburg Palace, also in the neighborhood. Prince William, later Emperor William I and his wife Augusta built that one. 

Another time. 

For now, we need to get back to our own palace.

Cowfeathersschlossienhofpalais.