Life with an Engineer

I received a phone call this evening.  The lady on the other end was frantic.  "Help I need a Vet real quick to come look at a horse for me!" 

 

"Ma'am what's wrong with the horse I ask?"

 

"I don't know sir, I'm calling for some friends who asked me to call."

 

"Well where is the horse at Ma'am?"

 

"Umm, I don't know the address."

 

"Can you tell me the name of your friend that asked you to call, maybe I know where he lives."

 

"No, I'm not sure of the Man's name that asked me to call."

 

"Well, if you can't tell me where the horse is, and you can't tell me whose horse it is, I'm afraid I can't help you."

 

"I can call him back and find out his address and his name, and call you back.  Would that be okay?"

 

"I think that's a great idea.  Why don't you do that Ma'am."

 

What I assumed from the above conversation was that the friend was someone who doesn't speak English.  So they call another friend, who speaks some English, and asked themto call the Vet.  Soon enough she called back with a name and an address.  Turns out it was someone I know, and no this person doesn't speak English very well.  I asked the lady that was calling if she knew what was wrong with the horse.  She still didn't have any idea, just that they needed a Vet really soon.  So I assumed it was likely one of two problems that is usually the problem when a horse owner calls in a panic: maybe the horse is colicky, or perhaps the horse has gotten itself cut.

 

Well when I pull into the place, I see five gentlemen all gathered around a horse.  This must be my patient.  As I'm walking towards the horse, I don't see any signs of what I think might be the problem.  The gentlemen all seem particularlly worried though.  The one that speaks the best English approaches me with a magazine in his hand.  "We were reading this article, and we saw this picure, and we think our horse has the same thing!"

 

So I look at the article, and the picture.  The article is about Botulism in Horses, and is titled something like "Botulism, a deadly disease."  I believe that most of my readersare familiar with botulism, it's the same disease that humans get, so I won't describe it other than to say it causes muscle paralyis (I believe this is the disease that babies can get from eating honey.)  The picture in the article shows some sores on the side of the horse.  They appear to be pressure sores from laying down, due to muscle paralysis.

 

I look back up at the horse from the magazine.  I see no signs that would indicate to me this horse is suffering from Botulism.  So then the "spokesman" leads me around to the other side of the horse, and points out several sores on the horse that resemble those in the picture.  "See, it's the same disease!  Is our horse going to die?!"  Sure enough the sores have some resemblance to those in the picture.  I believe that these sores though are ringworm, a fungal infection (somewhat similar to athlete's foot).  So then the fun begins, of trying to describe to these men that no the horse doesn't have the disease, despite the resemblance of the sores on their horse to the sores on the horse in the picture.  This of course was muy fun, because my Spanish is not muy bueno, but I believe was at least as good as the "spokesman's" English.

 

So I now have a new differential to add to my list of possibilities of a frantic horse owner calling and needing a Vet right now.  It could be ringworm, err I mean Botulism.

It was my fault really.  I knew when I got dressed in the morning it was going to be one of "those" days. 

 

You see I have two piles of pants.  One are work pants.  The other Stacie has designated as "You'd better not wear these to work pants!  I want you to have something nice to wear when we go out."  Well occasionaly I run out of work pants (this means I negleted to do my laundry earlier.  But hey at least I do my own laundry; I'm almost house broken), so when I run out of work pants, I'll slip into a pair from the "Don't you dare wear these to work pants!" pile.  I always tell myself, it's okay, I can keep these clean for just one day, I go days at a time without really getting a pair of pants too dirty.  But in the back of my mind I always say "Who are you kidding?  This is going to be one of "those" days, where nothing goes right, and you're covered from head to toe in blood, manure, and fetal fluids."

 

It looked good to start with.  My preg check list was smaller than normal, and I managed to get out of my first dairy of the day without a single drop of anything soaking through my coveralls and into my pants.

 

Then I get my second call of the day.  My receptionist tells me "Drew Skip's dairy has a couple of sick cows for you to look at."  I think to myself "No problem there, Drew's dairy is a pretty clean operation I can get out of there without getting dirty.

 

Then I arrive at the dairy, the herdsman shows me the first sick cow with I get treated without incident.  Then I ask him where the second cow is at.  "She's in the barn" he says "She can't stand up, we pulled her out of the close up pen yesterday."

 

Uh oh, the flashing red lights go off in my head.  You see to me, a sick cow from the close up pen usually means only one thing.  This cow is having trouble calving, and they missed the signs.  So I quickly do the math in my head.  Down since yesterday, that's 24 hours of being in labor at least, I'm sure she was in labor quite a while before she got to the point she couldn't stand up.  This cow has a rotten emphysematous fetus in it.  Getting it out is going to be a dirty job, it's going to stink, it will probably require a C-section, so it will also be a bloody job.  I've ruined my "Don't you dare wear those pants to work" pants again.  Yes Stacie, I did get them bloody, but I hope I got the stains out.

 

Well, it turns out that she did require a C-section.  But fortunately the calf wasn't as rotten and nasty as I had expected it might be.  In getting set up for the C-section I walk past Drew's office.  He's in it and waves to me.  Drew is kind of an absentee owner, and isn't around the dairy too often, he has good help (most of the time, they don't miss too many cows in labor), and the dairy kind of runs itself.  However, when Drew is around he's like a ticking time bomb, he's going to yell at someone, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of it.  Seeing a Cow that's down, and needs a C-section is just the kind of thing that might set him off, and although it's not our fault she's down, you just might get caught in the cross fire.

 

So when I return back to the cow I mention to Stretch Berlin, "Hey I just saw Drew, so make sure you're minding your P's and Q's he might come back to see what we're doing."  Stretch replies "You just had to do it didn't you, you had to go and wake the sleeping bear.  Didn't your Dad ever tell you not to mess with a sleeping bear?"

 

Suddenly I'm transported back in time to the only conversation I ever remember having with my Dad about sleeping bears.  I'm an elementary school age kid again and Dad stops at the house.  "Hey Michael, do you want to go see a bear?"  Of course, what kid wouldn't want to go look at a bear.  Well it turns out that a bear had come out of the hills, and was up a tree on the towns golf course.  The golfers that had discovered it called the fish and game office, and the fish and game office had called their local veterinarian, and he had picked up his oldest son on the way to the golf course.

 

The plan was for my Dad to shoot the bear with a Tranquilizer gun, and for the fish and game to haul it back to the mountains.  So Dad shoots the bear, the bear falls asleep.  This is where the plan falls apart.  No one had thought of how to get the sleeping bear out of the tree.  I think they all thought it would fall out of the tree once it fell asleep.  Well the old gray haired golfers were too old to crawl up the tree and push it out.  The fish and game guys, and my Dad were all too big to get to the heights where this bear was perched and to push it out.  So they all turn in unison and look at me.  "Hey Michael" my Dad says "Climb up that tree, and push the bear out."  Or maybe this was part of their plan all along, and is why I was invited along to "see the bear."  I respond with an "Are you sure that Bear is asleep? Maybe you ought to shoot it one more time just to make sure!"

 

"Mike" Stretch says.  "Did you hear what I said?  Didn't your Dad ever tell you not to mess with sleeping bears?"

 

"No Stretch, he didn't.  He told me to push them out of trees."

I spend a lot of time in my truck driving between different dairies.  The trip to one dairy is normally about half an hour away.  However, there's been a lot of road construction on the only road between here and there for most of the summer.  If you get there at just the right time you can slide right on through, and it's still a half hour trip.  However, if you get there at just the wrong time, you'll be stopped for up to a half an hour waiting for your turn to get through.

 

Well, the other day I got there at just the wrong time, and was the first one stopped to wait in line.  Finally we can see the pilot car coming through.  As is the custom with the pilot car, as it approaches us, it pulls over into our lane to turn around, and to take us back.  At this time the car following it is supposed to see the big open stretch of road in front of it, and continue on their merry way.  However on this particular day, the car following the lead car must have taken the "Pilot Car:  Follow Me"  sign to heart.  Because they apparently couldn't see the big open stretch of highway, and followed right over into our lane behind the pilot car.  They were followed by the next car, and the  next car.  At which point the lady holding the stop sign, drops her sign, and runs off screaming and waving her arms at the cars behind the pilot car.  Some other people later in the line and more familiar with the routine, they just stayed in the proper lane and tried passing the cars now pulled over into the wrong lane.  Now the first car behind the pilot car realizes their mistake, and zips back out into the open lane, almost hitting the now passing cars from further back.  Of course the cars following it try to do the same thing, and the cars trying to follow the lead passing car try to follow it.  It created a huge piled up stand still.  You could see a look of major embarrasment on the first cars driver as they came zipping by me.  I of course did my best to help by doing my best Nelson from the Simpson's impersonation.  I pointed my finger and yelled "Ha Ha!"

 

Finally the stop sign lady returns picks up her sign, and shakes her head in disbelief.  So I of course roll down my window to talk to her.  I say "Now do I need to give you the address of where I'm going, so the pilot car can take me all the way there?  How am I supposed to know when to quit following the pilot car?  Because I'm not sure I'll notice the half mile long string of cars in my lane when we get up there."  She shakes her head again and laughs "You'd be amazed at how often that happens!"

The other day I was at a Dairy Bangs vaccingating a group of calves.  As we were doing so, I couldn't help but notice all of the doves flying around. 

I figured that with so many doves flying around, they must be raising the farmers feed bills for his cattle by stealing feed from the feed bunks.  Also doves are related to pigeons, which are known to poop on things, and make a big mess.

 

So being the thoughtful individual that I am, I asked the dairy farmer if he would like me to go euthanize a few of those doves for him.  Fortunately, knowing that it's dove season, and carrying my shotgun behind the seat I was well equipped for the job of euthanizing a few of these birds.

 

It only took a matter of minutes and I had three fine looking doves for dinner.  I don't think they were Mourning Doves though.  They were slightly larger, and looked and sounded a little different.  I believe I've heard Tory call them a Eurasian collared dove, but I'm not sure.   I hope that they are legal to shoot as well, maybe I should consult the proclamation.

 

Anyways I took these home to eat for dinner.  I thought Taylor would enjoy helping me clean them.  She thought it was fascinating, she liked to touch them and say "Daddy the birds are soft."   She also thought it was fun that Daddy was getting feathers all over the back yard.  At one point Stacie came outside and said "Eww, Taylor don't touch those!"  Too which I responded with "Here Taylor, hold this one for Daddy, it's soft too."

 

You see there is an old proverb that says something to the effect of "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Being the Biblical scholar that I am, now that I think about it, I think that's an actual proverb, from the book of Proverbs.  Anyways back to my point, I can't raise a new hunting buddy saying things like "Eww, don't touch that."  I was quite impressed by how well Taylor helped clean the birds.

 

Then I tried a way I thought up of cooking them on my drive home.  I filleted the dove breast off the bone, wrapped it around a piece of Jalapeno (without the seeds, I didn't want it to be too hot), then I wrapped the whole thing in a strip of bacon, stuck a toothpick through it, and cooked it on the grill.  Yes, you heard that right, I finally have a new grill up and operational again after the Tornado.  They were delicious like that.  Taylor and I loved them, well I loved them Taylor at least tried them, which is more than I can say for her mother.  I guess she just wasn't trained up right as a child.  I was pretty proud of myself, I'd shot and cleaned the Doves myself, grilled them with Jalapeno's I'd grown myself.  I hadn't raised the pork for the bacon, but two out of three isn't bad.

 

So if any of you have some nuisance doves around that you'd like euthanized, I can recommend a good Vet that is perfect for the job.

Stacie and I have spent the last week at a family reunion with her family in Chelan.  Let's see if I can remember the highlights of my week.

 

Saturday before we left I was reading TB tests on a Dairy herd.  One of the cows kicked, and nailed me pretty squarely, I'm not sure we're going to be having any more kids anytime soon.

 

That night we took our baby and our two year old on a long flight to Seattle (you can guess how much fun that is).

 

Then at like 3 in the morning Stacie wakes up, and decides the rest of us should wake up to.  So the Travel Nazi drives us over the mountain to Chelan after only 3 hours of sleep.

 

I'm told on arrival that I won't be seeing my girls at all for the next four days.  This was not true, they were handed back to me every time one of them pooped.  Who knew kids could poop so often?

 

Then Uncle Mike tried to kill Robby and I pulling us on an inner tube behind his boat.  He didn't succeed, but did manage to bang up one side of Robby's face, and to really hurt my ribs.

 

I did manage to catch the biggest fish of my life, but couldn't bring myself to mount it as it's not even a third as big as the one I grew up looking at on the wall at home.

 

So then we take another long plane ride home with two tired kids, and one very tired mommy and daddy.  I get up early and go back to week, and manage to jam a dirty needle right into my knee. 

 

So lets see, got kicked in the groin, lots of traveling with kids, banged up ribs, a dirty needle in my knee, and oh yeah I forgot to mention the worst part, I had to spend the better part of a week with my Mother-in-law!  We really did have a ball though, and can't wait to do it all over again.

The other day the tech that was riding with me and I were getting behind.  So we pulled through the McDonald's drive thru for lunch.  We placed out order at the ordering spot.  Then we pulled up to the first window, and payed our money.  Then at the second window the lady handed us all of our food, except for my tech's Extra Large Coke that we had asked for.

 

After we didn't pull off immediately, the woman in the window said "Do you need something?"  I responded "Yes, we also ordered an Extra Large Coke."

 

She says "No you didn't it's not on your ticket."

 

I reply "Well we asked for one, and we'd like to get one."

 

She says "Let me see your receipt."  I hand it to her.  She says "Nope it's not on here, you can't have one."

 

So I reply "Well then we'd like to make a new ticket, and put an Extra Large Coke on it."  To which she tells me "You can't do that here, you'll have to come inside for that."

 

At this point I'm starting to get irritated (I think maybe I'm tired of getting jerked around by contractors working on our house, and have learned that sometimes the squeeky wheel really does get the grease).  So I say, "We ordered a Coke for my friend here, and it's a hot day, and I'm not leaving this window until I get one."

She says "You can't do that."  So I put the truck in park, and say "Well then you're going to have a long line of angry customers behind me, because we asked for a Coke, and I'm really not leaving until my friend gets one."

 

She snorts "Hmmpf!  That'll be 95 cents!"  So we give her the money, and she says "If I get in trouble for this you have to talk to my manager, and tell him it's your fault, that the line is getting held up!"  I reply, "I'd love to talk to your manager, why don't you send him out here?"  At this point my tech, cannot hold it in any longer, and he is just dying laughing next to me; and the more he laughs the angrier the lady in the window gets.

 

I turn to him and say "Larry I'm not sure I'd drink this Coke when it comes, she's probably going to spit in it."  He says "I don't care, watching this was well worth the 95 cents."

 

Finally the lady comes back to the window and says "You can pull forward now, someone will bring it out to you."  I look forward to the place she indicated, and notice another car parked up there.  There's an entire family of skeletons in the car, and I figure someone must have asked them to pull forward around 1983, when the poor souls had probably asked for Cheese on their burgers.  Not wanting to join the skeleton family I reply "No thanks, we'll wait here."  Plus, from where we were sitting we could see in to the drink machine to make sure no one spit in our drink.  At this point the lady is pulling her hair out, and yelling to her coworkers "He's not going to move!  He's not going to move!  He's not going to move!"

 

Finally with 95 cents less in our pockets, we get the said Coca-Cola with a gruff "Here's your Coke!"  To which I glue the most pleasant smile on my face that I can muster, and say "Thank you very much Ma'am."

 

I never did get to talk to the manager, and I think my tech is still laughing over the incidence.  But I'm not sure I can ever go back to McDonald's again.  I think I may have been banned.

So we made it to Monroe for Jordan's baby blessing, and we had a wonderful weekend.  Stacie and I both had a lot of family there that it was fun to spend a little time with.  After the blessing Grandma hosted a lunch for all of us at her house. 

 

Everything seemed to be going great.  Then I started to notice that people were starting to whisper and to point.  What was I missing out on?  After all I like to be in on all the family gossip.  Finally I overheard what people were saying, "That's her, that's THE mother-in-law!"

 

That's when I realized, I should have been charging admission to meet my Mother-in-law, that you've all heard so much about.  Of course I'm sure you were all quite disappointed that she wasn't nearly as horrible as you've been led to believe, and she didn't do anything crazy while we were there.  In fact many of you may have found her quite charming.  But don't be deceived.  You've got to remember it was a short lunch, and she had on her best company manners to be seen in public.

For any interested parties, Carrie has reported to me that Dad is out of surgery and is awake now.  Thank you for all your love and support and prayers on his behalf.

 

Carrie first told me at about 11:30 this morning that he was out of surgery, and that the Doctor was reporting everything had went well, and they were just waiting for him to wake up.  So I took the opportunity to remind her that when people are coming out of anesthesia they can be very impressionable to suggestions made at that time.  I believe she was planning on reminding him how he was so grateful she was there to look after mom while he was in surgery, that when he recovered he was going to take her on a King Salmon fishing trip to Alaska.  I told her she needed to make sure she got both of his favorite kids (Me and her) on this fishing trip, but I think I'm going to be left out in the cold since she's the one there to make the devious post anesthetic suggestion.  You think she'd include me though, since I gave her the idea.

 

I believe she was also telling him the Doctor said he had to eat lots of Jello during his recovery period (Dad hates Jello). 

 

Again we appreciate everyone's love and prayers.  Thank you.