Notes from Maine - 2026/07/05
Lilly (the little filly) had her last pill yesterday. Over the past two weeks she has taken 392 pills to keep her healthy after her hernia surgery. She did this without a single complaint. Granted, the pills were ground up and mixed with applesauce and then squirted into her mouth with a big old dosing syringe, but she was still a very good sport about it. I’m happy that part of her recovery is over. She and her mom (Maybelle, Spotted Draft) have one more week trapped in a stall and then they get the relative luxury of a small, dry, paddock during the day. Two weeks after that, they’re sprung.
Earl (Shire Horse) hasn’t strayed more than fifty feet (fifteen meters) from the barn this whole time. His door is wide open—the entire pasture is available to him—but he rarely even steps outside of the barn. Because of that, the pasture has grown tall with lush, green grass for the first time in a long time. It’s usually fairly well grazed at this time of year. When Lilly has healed enough for turnout, I’m going to have to keep a tight schedule of how long the horses can be outside at a time. Too much grass all at once after eating hay could lead to more medical issues. Nobody wants that.
We’ve all settled into a routine. In the mornings, I force Earl out into the sunshine so I can clean one stall and make it comfortable for the ladies. Lilly used to try to rush past me to see if she could coax open the door to the outside. She has given up on that dream. Now, she simply tries to push past me in order to get to the fresh hay in the fresh stall. It’s sad that she has been conditioned into accepting the indoor lifestyle. It’s only temporary. She still loves putting her head down in the bucket when I’m filling it with water. She loves to stretch out and take a long nap in the middle of the afternoon. The freedom of being outdoors will return and everything will be back to normal before the end of July.
When they’ve been situated, I start to work on cleaning the other stall. Earl usually sneaks back into the barn at this point to make himself helpful. Throughout the day, I check on them to top off water buckets, give them more hay or grain, and reposition the doors as the sun swaps from one side of the barn to the other. The last few days were scorching! Horses sweat profusely when they’re hot. Combined with fans, open windows, and shade from the maples, they were plenty comfortable. Still, it wasn’t the best time for a hot spell. This morning was peaceful and cool—quite a relief. In the evenings, I reverse the chores and tuck everyone in for the night. It’s all a little easier now that I don’t have to give Lilly medication every time I’m out there. We have three more weeks of care. After this, normal chores are going to seem like nothing.
Todd stopped by yesterday. He lived here until 2012 and still had some tools around my house on long-term loan. He’s finally getting around to working on his kitchen (supposedly), so he picked up his giant tile saw. I gathered up everything else I could find (nail gun, jack, routers, etc.) so that we could declare this load to be the last of his possessions here. It’s not that I resented keeping his tools here—I didn’t. Several of us (with permission) got a lot of good projects done with that giant tile saw. Recently, I used it on the floor of my kitchen. Before that, it was at Chip’s house and Tom’s house. Having access to really high-quality tools is a major advantage. I’m sure that experts can use much simpler methods to get their work done, but a novice needs a lot of help. He told me that if I find anything else of his in the house, I’m free to either keep it or recycle it. I don’t think I will. I went through every corner of this house in the past week.
I would love to be able to help him out with his kitchen project. Unfortunately, his place is in the farthest corner of Vermont, and it’s a good four hours each way. His work is always methodical and precise. I’ve helped on several of his projects and I’ve always come away with more knowledge and experience than I would have gained on one of my own.
Recently, I mentioned the Chipping Sparrows nesting in the begonia that my mom hung on the front porch. I believe now that I was wrong—they aren’t sparrows at all but are likely House Finches. They’ve all fledged now. I went out the other day and saw that there was still one in the nest, alone and chirping. After a moment, I spotted both parents on a branch of the tree across the driveway. They were calling. A brother and two sisters waited as well. The fledgling might have been frightened by my presence or maybe just finally found the nerve. It took off from the nest and flapped to a soft landing in the flowerbeds. Later, I saw the parents swooping down to that dense ground cover. They might have continued to feed their baby down there. I didn’t see any sign of the bird later and the nest now appears abandoned. The first time I saw the chicks after they hatched was on June 22. It’s amazing to me how fast they grew and left the nest. It would probably amaze Maybelle (Spotted Draft, mother of Lilly) as well if I could somehow communicate that to her. She has been stuck in the barn looking after her healing yearling for weeks.
It was a busy week and I could sit here remembering things for the next few hours, but I have to go. I have to go to the feed store twice today to restock.
Hatchlings (2026/06/22)
Fledgelings 2026/07/02
