Finally My Baby

Laura Highcove

So there’s something defiantly different about the foal being mine. I didn’t think it would make as much of a difference as it did. I mean I loved the three foals that were born last year, and watched out for them, and tried to train them as best I knew how, but I never actually worried about them the way I did about this foal.

When both mares waxed up and we came in Tuesday morning to find Maggie’s foal, I had this feeling that Nezi might go overnight, even though it didn’t look like she was going to go. Both Wednesday and Thursday morning I drove to work berating myself for not having spent the night, thinking that I would come in to find my foal had been strangled by his own umbilical cord, or been unable to get out of the placenta, or something else had happened where if I had just stayed all night I would’ve been able to save him.

But it ended up that she didn’t give birth those two nights. And during the day on Thursday Nezi has very soft behind and was dripping milk around time for afternoon chores, she got an odd lump in her stomach that Kate said was probably the baby moving. So that night Deb came to check on Nezi around 9:45. At 11:15 I showed up, prepared to spend the night with a baby monitor next to my head, only to stick my head into the stall to see a large amount of white butt in the dark.
I called Deb and went into the stall to begin to rub down the baby, though I was too scared/flustered to do anything else. The foal managed to get to his feet by the time Deb and Morgan showed up. Deb turned on the light and I saw that the baby was actually chestnut colored with a white blanket that covered his entire butt, down his back legs, and all the way up his back. All four legs had lightning marks up most of them. He also had a huge blaze that went down around the left side of his face.

Deb was the one who checked to see that it was a boy. She and Morgan then began praising how nice he looked, his legs and neck and heart-girth. I was, of course, taken mostly by the amazing amount of color and being happy about the unique facial marking.

I put the stuff on his umbilical stump and waited around until he had taken his first sips and Nezi passed the placenta, I cleaned out the stall and put in hay and headed home around 2am, which is a lot better than I thought. And still I worried on my way to work the next day that maybe the baby hadn’t drank enough milk to stay alive, or that it would be dead for other reasons. At yet he was there being all nice and happy when I arrived.

I had to do chores, and by the time the vets came it was getting cold. Nick passed all the tests except that his snap test was only average, and with the Strangles scare, I decided to go ahead and give him plasma to help boost his immunities.

Part of me is glad that he is a colt. If he had been a mare, I would have been extremely tempted to keep him for myself and my future broodmare band. Right now I’m probably going to talk to Deb about even gelding him. If I plan to sell him as a yearling then it might raise his worth to be a stallion if he turns out as nice as Deb might think. Also, if I sell him for a decent amount, I may be able to Choose Your Spots Nezi again next spring for another baby that may end up being a mare. If not, then that may be when I breed Tori.

Done and Gone

Laura Highcove

I think we downed this fight the second week. We would’ve had it the first week but we kept having instances of the lightning not jumping when it should have. But really, it was simple. I don’t think we’ll have trouble downing it next week as long as we get past Yor.

At least the quotes are better this time.

The Guy Finally Gets some Rest

Laura Highcove

So despite the fact that this fight is entirely rng based, which is something I dislike, I actually enjoyed this fight. To this date, I believe (knock on wood) that we never got a red-black-yellow (double adds) followed by the same. That would have simply sucked.
Besides that there’s no a ton to say about this fight. So, screenshot:

I am rather unhappy with the quality of the screenshot quotes from this round, so pick it up guys.

Details

Laura Highcove

It is rather often in my stories when I come across a situation where I would like more detail. Where I know a character would be more eloquent than I am able to write them. Where discussions between or among people would be more involved. When I know that if this story were ‘real’ it would take many more steps to get from Point ‘A’ to Point ‘B’. However, after my reading of Brisingr, the third in the cycle of Eragon’s story by Christopher Paolini, I have simply come to realize that while it is nice to have that level of detail, too much can be mind-numbingly boring. I understand there are intricacies with the running of a rebel force like the Varden, and currying favor, and helping the wounded, and getting food and supplies, but by Mark I don’t need every blasted detail. I found myself skipping over most everything that happened whenever Nasuada showed up. Reading bits of paragraphs until something of actual worth (in that the plot advanced AT ALL) showed up. And you know, I didn’t miss anything important.

Not that I’m saying it’s all bad. Christopher, I feel, has matured rather a bit through the three books I’ve read. I’ve been impressed by many of the details pertaining to Eragon and Saphira’s connection. As well as the interesting feel of sections written from a dragon’s point of view.

I just have to, in my own writing, realize that I don’t strive for the level of detail Christopher instilled in his books, and that the level I want to reach really isn’t as far away as I would have thought.

MorchokohcroM

Laura Highcove

Very clever there Blizz, on the naming of your baddies. I guess. I dunno, this fight didn’t feel all that heroic. However it’s one of those fights that when one person screws up and dies, it wipes the raid. Those types of fights are a challenge for 25-man guilds. RIH Archimonde.

Copper’s healing

Laura Highcove

So I didn’t put up pictures of Copper in the previous post cause I didn’t want anyone to worry. But now that she’s out of her collar and pretty much finished healing, I figured I can show a before and after picture.

Copper got half of her left ear burned off. Since cartilage doesn’t heal, it simply fell off. She had the deepest burns on her back just above her shoulder and on her front right leg.

And except for the first surgery which was mostly to remove the burnt hair and clean up the wounds a bit, everything healed basically on its own. Of course she’s young, and the vet said her growth was probably stunted quite a bit, but she seems to have come through this just fine.

I would like to thank Companion Animal Clinic, who made this whole process really painless and pretty cheap. Especially Dr. McCormick who took care of her, kept us in the loop, and even came in on his day off when her stitches came loose.

New NaNo

Laura Highcove

So I had a lot of trouble with NaNoWriMo this year. Partially because I started raiding again. I ended up not writing any on those weekends and then catching up on the weekends. It got rather annoying, and more than once I wanted to just give up and not bother with it anymore. However, I did not give up and actually finished early thanks to a desire to play Skyward Sword on the Monday after Thanksgiving. But I kept going and managed to get my 50k words. And I am very glad that I did it. This year was “The Colors Of” my rovas story.

Cataclysm Averted

Laura Highcove

Even though I swore it already happened. I mean they named the stupid expansion after it. But no, I guess Deathwing didn’t bother to get it right the first time. This time there was a whole lot of black…/cough…I mean I have no idea what happens if Deathwing gets off that cast because we certainly never let it happen. Ever. >.> Don’t judge me.

Anyway, normal mode was easy, as is it’s wont. There was stompy man, and tennis man, and ooze man, and “put me to sleep” man, and airship man, and Deathwing’s back, and then Deathwing. Nothing all that clever, but except for “put me to sleep man” none of the fights were absolutely horrible.

Anyway, two screenshots. One of my rad achievement and all of the quotes that I had saved up. And the second our actual killshot. Next week we start heroic mode. I hear it’s hard. Like bleeding from your eyes hard. I can’t wait.

Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns

Laura Highcove

So new Harvest Moon game. After Bazzar, which I put down mid summer and never picked back up again. This one is called Tale of Two Towns, and oddly enough there are two towns. You pick whether you want to live in the farming Japanese style town of Konohana or the animal raising Eurepean style town of Bluebell. I started in Bluebell and moved over to Konohana in the summer. I will be moving back to Bluebell in Spring 2.

Bluebell Pluses:
Townsfolk (I like them better)
Focus on animals (Like animals)
Lots of flowers (So happy I can plant flowers again)
The man I want to marry lives here (Yay Cam)
Beehives (Intrigued by keeping bees)

Bluebell Minuses:
The mayor isn’t as good looking as Konohana’s mayor
Make money slower with animals (Though money still comes really fast in this game.)

Konohana Pluses:
Cute bachelor who likes horses
Make money faster with crops

Konohana Minuses:
Townsfolk (Just don’t like them as much…maybe cause so many are old.)
I’m getting disillusioned by growing crops (More on this below)

So as you can tell I just like Bluebell better in general. And end game I will likely max out my Bluebell farm.

Game Pluses:
The horse and carriage that carries all of your inventory around is just handy and cool.
They kept the dogs and cats that turn your animals in and out, which is really nice once you get them trained up.
There are “request” boards which are like quests for townsfolk. You bring them items and they give you stuff and money, which helps with the general monotony of HM games between festivals.
In addition there is a cooking festival every week which has a rather long cut-scene, but also helps with monotony.
There are “furrows” that allow you to water multiple crops in one shot, even with the lowest level watering can.
You can get an umbrella, which doesn’t do anything, but is totally cool.

Game Minuses:
The furrows are rather hard to pull off. Like really hard. And when you mess up you don’t only have to start over, but first you have to hammer what you already did back down. This has seriously pissed me off on many occasions. (When you upgrade the hoe this problem goes away.)
The higher level requests (everything above the lowest level) ask for items it is impossible for me to get at this part of the game, so it kinda just makes you feel bad.
The shops not only have more than one day a week that they’re closed, but close at 5pm, AND if it rains all day they’re also closed. Not only that, but they have a random assortment of a limited amount of items per day, so it’s possible to not be able to get a something you need for a rather long period of time. I didn’t see tea tree seeds through winter or spring of my first to second year.

Silly Kitty, that’s not a Copper Pipe

Laura Highcove

So Monday night we had a bit of a oil fire. Nothing serious, we had watched a Mythbusters recently about how oil fires and water are a nono, so it was smothered with a lid instead. Anyway, I came home for lunch and walked in the door and smelled burnt. I figured it was leftover lingerings of the night before since I had been out of the house and was now just coming back I smelled it more intensely. I was about to wash my hands when Matthew comes up from downstairs and tells me in his rather rare (when he’s not mad at me or someone else) serious voice, to ‘come downstairs, now’. So down we go to the basement and he tells me “She’s stuck in there.” My first thought is, “Oh, the cat managed to run downstairs when he had the door open…but where would she be stuck that has him all grr?”

But oddly enough he pointed to the furnace and handed me a knife. Apparently our hopper of an orange kitten had pulled up a vent cover in the great room, traveled down the tubing, and managed to get herself right on top of the furnace. When it turned itself on in an attempt to keep us warm, Matthew had begun smelling the burnt smell I smelled on coming home, which was apparently not lingerings, but burnt cat hair.

In any case I hopped right up and with superior vertical advantage sliced through the duct tape between the metal pipes and out popped an orange head, which I immediately grabbed and yanked out. Copper had a large black mass of burnt fur on the back of her neck just behind her head and as we took her upstairs to go immediately to the vet I noticed that one of her ears had shrunk around the edge and sort of curled in on itself.

She is spending the night with the vets who commented on how lucky she was that we got her out of there before too much damage appeared to have been done (though apparently with animals burns work a bit differently.) and that she was very sore, on painkillers, and not yet eating or drinking (though they are giving her fluids under the skin). The vet did seem fairly confidant that we’d be able to take her home and care for her here as long as she begins eating again. I’ll find out later this morning.