Thursday, November 21, 2013

Snippets

Sometimes, I read, hear or see something that really sticks in my mind.  Usually it's a sentence or phrase that just reverberates inside my skull and starts me thinking about all the little tendrils that lead off of it.  The big picture that is summed up inside a little snippet.....


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From a conversation with the vet who did x-rays on Lakota a few months ago, we were talking about putting Lakota on isoxuprine (a drug that is supposed to help improve blood flow to hooves)...He said, "just about all the quarter horses live on isox nowadays, even mine...".

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From Dr. Robert Bowker's portion of the book, "Care and Rehabilitation of the Equine Foot" by Pete Ramey, et al, "Conformation of the horse foot is merely a point in time, as the internal structures of the foot appear to continually change and adapt over time."

I come back to this thought nearly every day, it gives me hope.

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During a conversation with one of the pathologists I work with; we were discussing flu shots and I wondered if they actually worked.  He told me that it didn't really matter whether they worked or not in any given season. The main reason that the health department wanted as many people vaccinated each year as possible was to expose the general population to as many flu strains as possible so that the next time a truly deadly flu epidemic occurs, it won't wipe out the entire population.

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The trust of a donkey is a fragile, humbling thing.  Earn it and be careful with it.

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There is a whole other world happening out in the countryside that most of us never see.  Working an odd evening/night shift that has me driving home at 2:00am, I see parts of this hidden world now and then that most of us never think of.  For example, did you know that August 7th is apparently THE day for porcupines to come out from wherever they hide all year long in order to play mating games?  Yeah, I didn't either until I drove past 32 pairs of them that one night and have not seen another before or since.

Oh, and just in case your wondering how porcupines manage to mate, that old joke really is true - very carefully:)


8 comments:

  1. Good quotes to remember! I love that about earning the trust of a donkey. That is so funny about the porcupines!

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  2. MORE interesting stuff! You are a fountain of information. Thanks, from someone who has never had a flu shot. I had the 24 hour flu back in 1957, and it must have "cured" me.

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  3. You have just given me hope as well. :-)

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  4. Ok. Now I know three things about the world I didn't know five minutes ago. The 'snippet' about donkey trust is a reminder - a good one too.

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  5. "Things" stick in my mind too, for all different reasons. I don't do roulette flu shots, I take my chances. Blanket statements cause me to be suspicious, Dr. Bowker's advice seems more sound (pun intended). How absolutely strange to see that many porcupines, must have felt surreal!!

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  6. Great post! Can't imagine what it must have felt like to drive past so many porcupines in one night. :) I don't get flu shots either. Try to avoid any shots at all actually. I have multiple chemical sensitivity due to late stage lyme disease (now getting better at last) and am pretty sure something in the shot would get me.

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