Welfare Mentality

The first ten days of the month are hell. That's when everybody gets their foodstamp money. See, Colorado came up with this idea that rather than have everybody get their money at once, they'd spread it out over the first week of the month. Whatever the last digit of your social security number is, that's the day you get your deposit. And I detest this portion of the month working where I do.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm glad there are programs out there for the people who are honestly struggling to support their families. I'm glad that the single mother who was widowed after the birth of her third child has a way to get assistance.

However. I am sick to death of seeing people come in my store and buy thirty dollars worth of junk food on food stamps. Their children are badly behaved, unkempt, and frankly they smell.

And, if you're doing your grocery shopping at a convenience store, you're doing it wrong. Sure, we carry staples like flour, sugar, bread, etc. But if you're feeding your children entirely out of a c-store, paying our prices for lunchables and junk, you are flat ass doing it wrong.

Oh, and when I see you buy thirty dollars worth of soda and candy on the gubmint card, then whip out a hundred dollar bill to buy name brand cigarettes? You automatically lose any respect I may have had for you.

Stop feeding your children junk. Stop sending your children into my store with the card. Stop abusing the system because you don't feel like paying for your own shit.

You! Yes, you, with five hundred dollars in food stamps and a brand new SUV. Get the fuck off my lawn and out of my paycheck, I'm sick of supporting your chocolate and soda habit you overweight entitlement whore.



I'm sorry, did that come across a little bitter?

EHV:1

Gotten a few questions about my last post, so here's the quick and dirty skinny:

EHV is Equine Herpes Virus. There are four ways it can hit but the main two are usually a version that causes spontaneous abortion in mares and a respiratory version.

Unfortunately one of the other versions creeps into the spinal fluid and brain and causes a severe infection, a myeloencephalopathy. They call this version EHM.

No one knows why any one horse gets EHM or why one strain of the virus is more likely to hit as EHM. All they know is when it does, you're pretty much screwed. Your horse's brain and spine will become inflamed, blood vessels swell, and it can just flat out lose the ability to stand. Once that point is reached there's really not a lot to do other than to put the horse down: chances are the damage is done and it'll never stand again.

To top off this big birthday cake of suck, the mutation in the virus's DNA that allows it to enter the nervous system (and they've only found one in comparative DNA analysis) also causes more shedding of the virus: the version that creeps into the brain is the version that is the MOST contagious.

This outbreak started at a cutting competition in Ogden Utah. So far Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and Utah are tied for fatalities with two each, and Arizona, California, and Oregon following with one each. Confirmed cases numbers are far wider spread, and the associated deaths are higher as well, as not everyone reporting a case has a vet run the test before they euthanize.

So far the stats I found (read, the first place I pulled up, which is tagged as of 5/25/11) are reporting 35 horses from the Ogden event with EHV:1, 25 with EHM, and 9 total deaths related, suspect or confirmed.

That's primary exposure. All those horses left that event and went other places. Secondary and tertiary exposure stats stand so:

14 EHV:1, 3 EHM, 2 deaths related, suspect or confirmed.

The stats I quoted earlier on the state by state death count were slightly more recent, as of 5/27.

The scary part of this is, even if they manage to quarantine all of the effected horses, this virus is a lot like Parvo in dogs: the virus can live on surfaces for a period of time and in fabrics and woods for a longer period of time. Contaminated tack, buckets, clothes, blankets, stalls, all of those can infect another horse. I'm not sure about the time period but I sure as hell wouldn't put any of that stuff near another horse without a good disinfecting.

The current on-the-market vaccinations for EHV:1 may or may not protect a horse against EHM. They just don't know. None of the current vaccines claim any efficacy against the neurologic strain, but even the "normal" virus is nasty enough to be worth vaccinating against.

Events have been postponed or canceled in order to try to control the outbreak and minimize exposure, horse owners are being advised to keep their horses home and isolated, monitor temperature and nasal discharge if they may have been exposed, and generally just use caution until the outbreak is contained.

Some reports I've gotten from friends, who got them from friends, say that it takes about eight hours from a horse showing neurological symptoms for it to lose the ability to walk and or just fall over dead.

If ya'll have more questions by all means ask and I'll dig up answers if I can, but right now it's late and I'm tired and going to bed.

Equine PSA

Sorry for the dearth of posting guys, things have been hectic without many of the entertaining moments that would create blogfodder.

However, at the moment I feel like I should do a PSA for anyone who hasn't heard about this yet:

There is a variant on EHV:1 going around, it's hit an Ogden Utah event and a few others that I know of, and it's bad folks. Instances of the neurological symptoms are high and on average horses are reportedly dying within eight hours of displaying the neuro symptoms. If you travel with your horses, if your horses aren't vaccinated against EHV:1, hit your vet up for the shot. If they've traveled in the middle of the country recently, get em tested.

Several events in my area and potential range of travel for breeders and shows have been canceled or rescheduled.

My horses will be staying quite firmly home until this outbreak dies down. Nobody here but us chickens on our place, so the chances of picking up the infection are slim to none, and not even good friends are gonna borrow pasture/pen space without an all clear from the vet.

This ain't no joke, folks.

My Feet Won't Like It

But may paycheck will.

Cow-orker called in sick tonight, which means that another clerk and I get to split her shift... I'm home to put my feet up for a couple hours after an eight hour shift, only to return and do another four.

My feet already hurt, and I've been up since seven thirty this morning. I think I'll make it all the way to my bed before I fall over tonight.

Maybe.

Ahhhh

So, I haven't ridden since late last fall. First, it was winter, and I'm a weenie. Then things were hectic enough that I just didn't have time.

Then I broke my rib and I had tons of time... and couldn't ride. It was driving me batty. So when mom told me we needed to move cows, I practically did a happy dance.

Since I'm back on regular schedule at work as of tomorrow, it was the perfect excuse to go ride before I run out of time again.

Of course... I haven't ridden since last fall, so all of my cowgirl callouses have... well... vanished.

And, the move was seven miles, but I'll bet Rebel and I did ten, what with all the back and forthing and circling to keep pushing everybody along in between wheat fields just full of juicy green stuff we had to keep them from nomming on too much.

So, I'm sore. My seat bones hurt. The insides of my knees feel like hamburger. My abs ache. I'm reminded quite vividly that I haven't been to the chiropractor since the accident and my back isn't exactly the way it's supposed to be. Plus, I got a nice sunburn.

Damn, I feel good!

Of course, I probably won't say that after work tomorrow, since it'll be the first shift over four hours that I've done in over a month, and I'll probably be walking like an old lady, but still... damn I feel good.

He Never Should Have Taught Me That Rule....

DM and I were talking earlier tonight and had the following conversation:

DM: New Rule, which I just made up, can't let it pass the morning. No smothering me the next night.

Me: New Rule, which I just made up, you don't get to make up rules.

DM: Bollucks. How does that work?

Me: Cause I blamed you first.

DM: That rule sucks, or blows, or something.

DM Is Indeed Darling

After listening to me whine about wishing I'd gotten a bigger tank for Bart, for multiple reasons, including but not limited to the fact that the tank I had couldn't be filtered effectively without tossing the poor fish around in the current, DM decided to be indeed darling (alternately read: got fed up with it) and while we were at Petsmart on another errand told me "Pick one, it's yours."

So I got this one:



Minus the dinosaur decoration and the boy's room, of course, that's the product picture from Petsmart's website. Three more gallons than I had with an integrated filter system that is far more gentle (and surprisingly enough, effective) than the one I had for the old tank, so Bart doesn't have to swim his little fins off just to keep from being tossed all over.

The difficulty of keeping Bart's tank clean had caused me to try to introduce a rubber lip pleco in the old tank, which didn't last long, alas. I feel bad about it but all signs pointed to things being, if not settled, at least not murderous, when I abandoned my watch, only to come back and find the poor thing dead.

Did a little digging and found some tips on introducing new fish to a betta's tank, the best of which seems to have been to temporarily remove the betta and re-arrange the tank, remove or add decorations and move any that you leave in, to make it a new territory.

I wasn't entirely confident but the tank was to the point of having to clean it every couple of days, so I tried something with a little more protection and attitude next. I introduced a Cory Catfish, which managed to survive, either by dint of being faster than Bart or poking him in the snoot a few times with it's spines to teach him the error of his ways. Or both. Whatever it was, it worked, and he survived.

When I got the bigger tank, I added another Corey, since I had room, and named them Darrel and My Other Brother Darrel.

I also got three mystery snails cause they're reputed to be an awesome cleanup crew, more than for any real desire for them for themselves.

I've been pleasantly surprised, though, at the snails. They're far more interesting to watch than I expected... I got the mystery snails cause they're more fun to look at than the other species, expecting them to hang out on the walls of the tank and putter around not doing anything quickly enough to be interesting.

So now I have plenty to watch to keep myself entertained when I can't sleep, as Bart glides around the tank, the Darrels do their little catfishy searching for food in the crevices dance, and the snails do their thing, which sometimes, apparently, includes training jumps for the First ParaSnail Platoon.

Every so often they'll take it into their heads to turn loose of whatever they're clinging to and dive to the bottom of the tank. We're not talking fold up and fall down the wall, here, they always land more to the center of the tank. None of them has made it that far yet but they're definitely not just falling.

So far the most common time to see this behavior is about three to five minutes after I've put in some shrimp pellets. I'm assuming that as the pellets soften they release a taste or a smell into the water alerting the catfish and the snails that dinner is on, but around that time you'll often see one or more of the snails suddenly unass the wall of the tank and go diving for the bottom, only to race (and I use this as a relative term, they are, after all, snails) across it and pounce on one of the shrimp pellets.

They must be crack, or something, cause they'll push and shove at each other to get to them if one snail manages to cover up the whole hoard.

Here are a couple pictures of the black snail and the white one (they deserve names, I'm undecided between something extremely politically incorrect or something in keeping with the fact that they're MYSTERY snails...) today with the shrimp pellets:


In the second photo, the white snail has actually pushed the black snail over, leaving it clinging to the few pieces of gravel it had been able to hang on to, and of course, the shrimp pellet.