Wash a Cat/Med students/Longhorns

[Guest guest]

See, Teddi, Ed knows how to do it. Me---I just wet a paper towel and rub it all

over her while

she's busy lapping up her canned milk--she needs her own cow.

My husband has a rare disease also called Central Diabetes Insipidus (not sugar

diabetes) and when

we go to the Endocrinology Clinic at Univ. Hosp. in Denver we always see one or

2 med students who,

amazingly, seem to know all about DI but....they say that's because they've just

learned about it in

their classes and aren't years down the road removed from seeing someone with

it. It's an even more

rare disease than myositis. Central in the name means that the cause comes from

the brain not

telling the pituitary gland (back part is gone in his case for what reason we

just speculate) to

produce the anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) so he takes a synthetic nasal spray

called DDAVP, which is

also used for severe bedwetting cases. There is another kind of DI called

nephrological DI or

originating in the kidney.

I also always tell them there that I have polymyositis and educate them on that.

Might as well get

our money's worth.

Vicki, Longhorns are impressive with their horns and so was the bull (not a

steer) in my yard with

his horns. His " mother " wasn't home at the time they escaped so she couldn't

help corral them. For

the last 2 years the Greeley Independence Stampede has has a herd of Texas

Longhorns in their 4th of

July parade---imagine that. And....they buy most all of our first cutting grass

hay and those

Longhorns are fed with our hay. Last year the committee told us that some of

the hay made some

horses sick.

However, they knew exactly that they got some hay that was a little damp but had

promised to feed

that first. We did reduce the price a little for some of that hay but that

won't happen again

because (1) we don't know that they did feed it right away (2) we don't know

how they stored it (3)

we don't know what else they fed the animals--we know they grain them too. This

year they will sign

a disclaimer or we won't sell to them. Then....we wait 6-8 weeks to get our

money from them---do

you think the night show entertainers wait for their money or the TV channel who

broadcasts the

parade--not!! We have a buyer who buys for her alpacas who says she can find us

enough buyers for

all that first cutting. We're not responsible for what happens to that hay

after it leaves here as

we have no control over that.

It's warming up here---it didn't get below zero last night.

Lelia