Photo A Day / Week 7 / 2015

Hello Friends!

Seems we've come to the end of another week. My, how the time does fly! It was a good week. We're on a quick break starting tomorrow, and let me tell you, I felt it near the end of this past week. My motivation for homework went way down! Normally I don't mind it too much and I stay on top of it, but golly I didn't want anything to do with it. Don't worry though, I'll be staying plenty busy with two take-home tests, and three papers to work on!

Linking up with Natasha once again, so go check out what everyone else posted!


One // These paws are wonderful. And kissable.


Two // Umbrella tree. I'm not trying to kill it, but it gets forgotten a lot, poor thing.
Luckily it's very hardy!


Three // Someone kindly brought Apples to Apples this past game Wednesday.


Four // My mud flap fell off.
It's been freezing or below for twenty some-odd days now. I can't get this stuff off.


Five // One of the shelter dogs we are hosting this semester, Maisy.


Six // Another one of our shelter pups, Nicole. I spent my weekend caring for them with another student; we're on break this week!


Seven // My brother Ben's car in the back yard. It's been a little snowy!

Until next time,

Mouse CPR

I am in school to be a vet tech, and the other day I was reminded about why I chose this field.

I was in lab with my box of mice. We each receive four and they are either males or females. I chose males. We are encouraged to check on them each day and bring them treats or toys or something to enrich their existence. It also serves as a reward for them. They get handled and then they get treats and fun things to play with. When we first got them, they were wild little rascals, but now merely four weeks later they are much sweeter and used to being handled. We do scary things to them. Scary for us and a little scary for them. We had to put them under anesthesia last week and let me tell you my hands have never shaken more. I was so nervous. He was napping happily while I collected blood and (he) never felt a thing.


To recover them we roll them gently in bubble wrap (with their little noses sticking out) and set them on a warming pad. Sounds weird, but animals under anesthesia can't regulate their body heat and it's up to us to keep them warm. Once they are aware and are capable of righting themselves when you turn them on their side, they can go back to their cage mates. I was nervous about my little guy climbing out of the warming container so I put him in my lab coat pocket for awhile until he tried to climb out of it – then I knew he was ready to go back.

Let me tell you I was terrified while that animal was under anesthesia. This limp little guy you are responsible for: he can't move himself out of danger, he can't keep himself warm, and he can't blink and wet his eyes. You have to do all that for him. It was something else.

Our colony is sick. They have a debilitating disease that can cause hereditary bone issues. There have been losses associated with that disease. It also causes breathing trouble. My smallest mouse, the second week, went into a respiratory fit and I was sure I'd lost him. Panicked, I called over my teacher who took the mouse from me.

My teacher is a very tall man with blunt, wide fingers. He handled that tiny, tiny mouse with such care and he talked to me in such a soothing voice. He asked me what I'd done, gently. I told him the truth: I'd given the mouse an injection of sub-q fluids and nothing more. I was just restraining him when he went limp. My teacher, holding that limp mouse in the palm of his hands, gave the tiniest chest compressions I'll ever see.

Right there is where I realized I was in the right field.
I strive to be as compassionate and gentle as that man was every day.
Just when I'd given up hope, the little guy sat right up, a little wobbly, but just fine. He still is fine, healthy and thriving!

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Photo used under the creative commons license on Flickr.

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Until next time,

Photo A Day / Week 6 / 2015

One // The maple tree is making new leaves.


Two // My new necklace.


Three // We've started playing Jenga between classes on Wednesdays.


Four // This is one of my mice, Slingshot.
He lives at school because he's just assigned to me for the class.


Five // Nova in the morning light.


Six // Kismet (a Milking Shorthorn). She's very sick.
She is receiving painkillers and powerful antibiotics via a jugular catheter.


Seven // Doodling instead of homework.
White boards are awesome for sketching ideas without wasting precious sketch paper!

I like dragons, what can I say? :)

Linking up with Natasha once again!

Until next time,

Photo A Day / Week 5 / 2015

Linking up with Natasha once again!

It snowed this week. Real snow, and lots of it. It was wonderful. It was what winter is supposed to be: going to bed with little to no snow and waking up to a white winter wonderland.


One // The storm begins.


Two // Snow comparison. Left: Feb 1st. Right: Feb 2nd.


Three // Sawyer's nose.


Four // My hair. With an adorable decorative feather comb.


Five // The raspberry bushes produced well into the fall,
and they weren't done when winter came 'round.


Six // Practicing my knots for large animal lab.


Seven // Gratuitous meat head/Sawyer shot.

It was a busy week! Some really exciting opportunities came my way. The instructor for my large animal lab let me bottle feed the orphan goat, I got to give a cat subcutaneous (under the skin) fluids, and a distemper shot to a client's dog. Routine for some, but I haven't done any of that before and it was very exciting.

Until next time,

A Plea (and Recipe) For REAL Waffles

What is that in your cart? Is it what I think it is? FROZEN waffles? Are you crazy? I'm very tempted to lower my eyebrows at you and scowl. (And then slap them out of your hand. And then gather them all up and throw them away forever... but I may be slightly overreacting at that point.)

BUT instead I will give you my family's treasured waffle recipe. We used to have these once every two or so weeks for breakfast. I quite love waffles in general, since I'm not a big pancake fan and I loathe french toast. (I know, I'm an awful person. You can't say anything about that that I don't already hear from my family on french toast days.)

Luscious.

Delicious.


Viva la waffle!

Definite member of the waffles over pancakes movement.

Okay, I'm done now. Please enjoy the waffles!

Real (Awesome) Waffles

- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 Tablespoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Get that waffle iron preheating. (Link is to the newer model of the waffle maker we have.)

In medium bowl beat eggs until thick. Mix in milk and oil. Add dry ingredients, beat until batter is smooth.

Grease waffle iron. We use saved bacon fat.

Pour approximately 1 cups onto the preheated 4 section waffle iron. Close and back until done, about 5 minutes. (The light on our goes off when they're done.) Makes 2 4-section waffles.

Double or triple this recipe and keep the leftovers in the fridge. They fit perfectly in the toaster for easy warm up! Homemade Strawberry Sauce is amazing over these with some fresh whipped cream. I will link to it when I get that recipe up.

Enjoy!

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Photo used under the creative commons license on Flickr. Photo taken by Brendan C.

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Until next time,

Ewe Saving

I am seriously in love with going to school!

Sure, it costs, but really, how many people get to go to school and play with pretty much any animal they want? Vet tech program for the win!

I'm taking a large animal care course this semester and part of the course is a three hour lab once a week in which we go to the school's barn and learn. This week we did cow restraints: haltering, nose leads, casting, tail jacking, and tail twisting. Our girls are pretty well behaved and stand for most of what we do, but they didn't much like casting. We have one who is expected to calve any day and I can't wait to meet the new little one!


After lab ended this past week, the farm manager dismissed us for the day. I hung around and talked to one of the instructors who is also a friend. The farm manager came over and asked her to help him with a sheep with a prolapsed uterus. He had something called a Ewe Saver in his hands and gave it to her along with some thin rope and went to get the rest of the supplies.

My teacher looked at me and said, "Would you like to come see us replace a prolapsed uterus?" You can bet I practically danced a yes!

So we drove over to the sheep shed and isolated the poor ewe. We got her haltered and tied to part of the hay manger. Then the farm manager met us and handed us a bag of sterile saline. We washed her uterus off and then he carefully and gently worked it back in. (He had the gloves, not us.) It took maybe ten minutes because she struggled and grunted and groaned and protested. I'm sure it hurt, but as with most things animal medicine related, it was for the best.

He inserted the ewe saver and tied it with the ropes and bam she was all better. She also got a nice big dose of antibiotic to stave off infection.

Poor sheep, but she'll be okay. I thought the whole thing was awesome! My first real experience with farm animal medicine, and it was wonderful.

Until next time,

Photo A Day / Week 4 / 2015

Hello all!

Here's another round of Photo A Day. Linking up with Natasha again! I missed Thursday this week. Thursday was exceptionally busy. Enjoy!


Jan. 26th // My beautiful mountains, all around.


Jan. 27th // Studying parasites. This one is Taenia saginata.


Jan. 28th // Miss Nova Mae.

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Jan. 29th // No photos today. :(

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Jan. 30th // A second Nova picture! She was being exceptionally photogenic this week.


Jan. 31st // It snowed! Real snow this time!

Today I'm grateful for snow! I feel like a little kid when it snows, especially more than a few inches. It's supposed to snow tonight into Monday morning and I'm pretty excited. (Sincerely hoping for safe driving to school though. It was scary on Friday morning.)

Until next time,