Bus Living, Truck Living, Boat Living. You name it, if you live in a home that is capable of moving by itself, or have the desire to, then this is the place for you.
Not my favorite image of Trace, taken by my brother while snapping photos around the yard, but the best I could come up with during a fast search of my hard drive. I may have others, perhaps in print form, and I'll look for them over the next days and weeks.
I've moved the posts about this subject over from the "30 Days" thread as a matter of housekeeping on the forum. Reading the new post I've added below may not be pleasant, but hopefully not as painful for you as it was for me as the events were unfolding.
The topic started with my reply to a post in the "30 Years" thread, here is that text:
I am about to experience a huge shock wave in my life, as my horse hovers near death, unable to eat for the last three weeks. I'm not feeling very creative, and am not in control of my emotions. I was in the grocery today buying frozen apple juice and carrots, the two things she will eat, and felt like I was a visitor from a different dimension, watching shoppers in the store from a great distance. Driving is probably not very safe for me for the same reason, much of the time I feel like I am watching a movie of something happening to another person. It may be possible to feel more sad, but I can't see how.
I may not be around much for a while, depending on the outcome in the next few days. This is not a particularly happy time of year for me to begin with, having lost two friends in separate tragic accidents on Christmas Eves past, and the death of my mother on New Year's Day 1996. I don't dwell on those events much, but neither do I feel much holiday spirit, either. What I am going through now would be devastating for me any time. I hope to find healing in the grieving which has already started.
Last edited by Sharkey on Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Gosh Sharkey, I feel badly for you man, you’ve had a tuff year and a half. Hopefully good spirits are headed your way soon. I was only messin with yah about the house truckin episode. The kid and I will be sending our thoughts your way but if you need anything else just drop us a line and we’ll see if we help out some how. I’ve always treated all living things the same. There lives and if you chose to take charge of one and have it as part of you for many years it’s very difficult when that life comes full circle and you have to say good bye to a good friend and companion weather it be a person or an animal it‘s no deferent. So hang in there man and don’t forget to stay fed and rested it will help you get through the dark times
You are continuously in my family's prayers, and we encourage you to be strong, as death is indeed a part of the life cycle. The loss of family is always devastating, especially when prolonged, but the love and memories that the loved one provides shall never be lost.
I offer any assistance of any kind that I may be, just send word. I am sure your community here would also rally to support you during these difficult times.
Again, be strong my friend, and grieve, for it is part of the healing process, but also rejoice for the love and friendship experienced, and that your loved one's suffering shall be ended.
Thanks for the thoughts. Here is a copy-and-paste from an email that I composed and sent to TMAX. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing the less personal parts of it on the board:
Trace (horse) is dying. The Vet and I had some hope yesterday that we might be able to revive her with sulfa, aspirin and a pharmaceutical that attacks a protozoa that may be causing her to have central nervous system problems. Unfortunately, the treatment is much too late in coming.
Last night at 11:30 PM before going to bed, I gave her the last food she will eat, three sliced carrots. This morning at 3 AM, she couldn't chew carrots any longer. I gave her a gallon of diluted apple juice. This morning, she was still unable to chew, so I made a porridge of oatmeal and wheat bran. She was interested in it, but could not get any into her mouth. The gallon of apple juice I offered her was consumed slowly and with much difficulty. As of 11AM, she could no longer swallow, and her tongue is hanging slack in her mouth.
Surprisingly, I've passed the sadness stage already, and now feel only numbness and remorse.
We went for a couple of walks around the yard today. In spite of her barely being able to stand and walk, she will willingly follow me like a dog, with her forehead in the hollow of my spine. We visited her favorite scratching tree, and I reminisced about memories to her, talking calmly and in a light tone. Afternoon, I groomed her, and tried to take a couple of photos, but she wouldn't stand still long enough to get a decent focus.
As of tonight, she is restless, uncoordinated and drooling uncontrollably. She stands and walks aimlessly. I'm trying to get her to stay in the barn and just lay down for the last time. I rigged a couple of 120 volt extension cords to carry 240 volts, and put the radiant heater on the ceiling of the barn, not so much for her, but for me. Once she goes down for good, I'll stay in the barn with her until the end. There is a huge storm coming tomorrow evening, and I don't want to have to withstand that and try to be with her, so I'm hoping for a rapid finish, as callous as that may sound.
Although it is taking longer that I would like for the end to come, she appears to be in no obvious discomfort, perhaps confusion, but no pain that I can see, Her body temperature is still normal, and aside from a slight palsy, no spasms or other signs of distress. Unless things get nasty, I'll just leave her to her own time, and try to share the end when it comes.
Since I don't believe in an afterlife, heaven, or even consciousness after death, I have no delusions about "meeting again" or any such. I think death is the unknown from which we were born, and once it comes, the spirit blinks out like the light from a burned out light bulb. Not very a promising outlook, eh?
It looks like I'll be getting the double New Years Day whammy to live with for the rest of my days. I have a funeral to conduct, one that involves a backhoe. At least small pets can have a quiet ceremony in the corner of the back yard. I have a big, painful project that includes strangers with construction equipment.
I guess I made my peace with this situation Tuesday morning. A log shifted in the wood stove and made a noise, waking me up sometime in the early hours. With a clarity I hadn't experienced before I realized that the time I had so long feared had come, and that I was ready.
Yesterday was very tearful. Today I am much more composed, although still feeling like I am in a waking dream. Tomorrow is the new year. I have no expectation of what comes next. I am released and utterly alone. Free to travel without worry about Trace's well being, but too poor to go anywhere.
I used to wonder how much more crap I could take without breaking down. Now I see that crap is the stuff of life, and there will always be more than you want or need.
RIP Trace, the only being I have ever loved unconditionally.
New Year's Eve, Trace went out of the barn into the corral, went down around 9 PM and was unable to rise. It had just begun to rain, so I covered her with a blue plastic tarp and crawled underneath with her, laying next to her body along her back, my right arm around her neck.
For the next hour and a half, she lay fairly calm, occasionally starting, attempting to upright herself. I talked soothing words to her, speaking directly between her ears.
During the next three and a half hours, she became more restless, having convulsions, and trashing her hooves, attempting to run while laying on her left side. The rain intensified and the wind began to come up. At 2 AM Thursday, Jan 1, 2009, I decided that I needed to go inside and take some of the chill off of my own body, and went into the Housetruck for a hour of cold-sweat sleep on the couch. Outside a storm mounted, and the rain came down hard.
I got up to check on her at 3 AM, hoping that she had grown weak and perhaps expired. That was not the case, and she was now thrashing with enough vigor to throw off some of the tarp and churn the ground into muddy soup. I decided that I could do no good, and went back to the couch until 5 AM.
Another check showed no lessening of her distress, and I knew that I was going to have to have her euthanized as soon as I could get Hayden the Vet to come out.
I called Hayden's home phone at 8 AM, and left a message. At 9 AM, I left a message on his cell phone. This call he returned within a few minutes, and said he'd be out in a half hour or so. I began to have an anxiety attack after hanging up, and quickly made a cup of coffee and gulped it down, pacing the floor of the Housetruck the entire time.
The storm had slackened a bit, but it was still raining some when I went down the hill to open the gate. I sat down on a large rock with the back of my raincoat to the wind driven rain and my head in my hands.
Hayden arrived soon thereafter, and motioned for me to get into the car to ride back to the house, I opened the car door and told him that I'd stay down at the gate, and to please cover her body with the tarp when it was done. I sat back down on the rock while Hayden drove up the hill to the house.
In a very short time, there was the report of a handgun from the house, a single shot.
I'll describe my reaction only as a short burst of uncontrolled hysteria. I slumped from my seat on the rock, and sat limply on the wet ground. A calm, and very empty feeling of relief came over me.
It took Hayden what seemed like a long time to come down again. I imagined he was checking for a heartbeat with his stethsoscope. I dreaded the sound of another shot, telling me that the job had not been finished.
When Hayden did come down, he rolled down the car window, and I weakly said "Thank you" . He told me to get up and get in the car, he wanted to talk to me, so we would go for a short drive. I peeled off my wet raincoat, the muddy windbreaker underneath that I had been laying in the corral in, and one of the three pairs of sweat pants that I had on and threw them into the shed next to the gate, took off my rubber boots and put them on the mat, and got into the passenger side of his car. Hayden headed the car east, up over the ridge to Mapleton. Once we were away from my place, he told me that he was taking me to his home for the day, that I needed looking after. I was too wracked with grief and sadness to offer much resistance.
I don't remember much of the drive, the familiar road, or landmarks. Hayden wanted a complete report on Trace's condition over the last 48 hours, how much she ate and drank, at what times, and when various stages of her failing functions occurred. I thought that he was just trying to keep me busy talking, but in reality, he was trying to determine whether or not she had died as a result of rabies infection, which would mean that I had been infected by contact with her over the last few days. I answered his questions with as much accuracy as I could and with as little emotional disruption as I could manage.
By the time we arrived at the turnout to park at his home, I was going into shock. My arms and legs were going numb, and I could feel my blood pressure slowly dropping.
Hayden and his wife Dawn live on an island in the Siuslaw river channel. In order to reach their house without miles and miles of back-road driving, it's necessary to take a boat across the river. Hayden used his cell phone to call his laborer to come across with the boat and pick us up. When he saw the boat back away from the dock on the other side, we exited the car, and climbed down an embankment. It's necessary to cross Highway 126, which is a very busy road. As dazed as I was, I knew that it was important to watch for traffic. What I wasn't prepared for was that I was nearly immobilized by the shock, and could only walk in a drunken stumble. I did make it to the opposite guardrail, which I climbed over. Down a steep metal stair to the waiting launch. I scrambled to the rear of the craft and fell into a fetal position against the transom, dimly aware of the slap of the water on the hull and the rocking caused by the turbulence of the storm-provoked river.
On the south shore, it was up the dock ramp, through the gate and over to the house, staggering all the way.
Once inside the pack porch, I asked to use the restroom and was directed into a small back toilet. That the walls were so close was beneficial, as I bounced off of them several times before I was able to gain enough balance to take care of my task.
Before leaving the service area of the back of the house, I washed my hands, arranged my clothes and attempted to smooth my hair. Hayden had mentioned that he had house guests, and I was going to present a fairly rough picture. I couldn't remember the last time I had brushed my teeth, hadn't shaved in three days, and was wearing rumpled, partially muddy sweat clothes. Not surprisingly, I looked like I had spent the night laying in a field.
I emerged into the living room and attempted to enter with as much grace as possible. I was introduced to Bev and Eileen, the house guests, to whom I apologized for the intrusion, and my physical and emotional conditions.
I needed to sit back and raise my legs to try and recover my strength, and so flopped down in a leather recliner. Dawn brought me a cup of coffee, a peanut butter and jelly muffin, and lots of paper napkins, which I put to use. I chewed vacantly at the muffin, and if I seemed to get too far away and stop eating, Hayden or Dawn would come over and encourage me to eat, that I needed to raise my blood sugar. They also plied me with home made sugar and ginger snap cookies.
Waves of emotion washed over me. I attempted to take an interest in the conversation in the living room so as to not seem too much of a wreck. The two guests had stayed overnight, and they had all stayed up talking until 2 AM. Breakfast was just coming off the stove. It was about 10:30 AM. Unhappy New Year!
Time seemed to crawl, but not unpleasantly so. By noon, Hayden Dawn, Bev and Eileen had set up an electronic keyboard and began to practice their choir singing. I sat, dazed in the recliner, listening to their voices blend. I was in far-away observer mode, but it was good.
Shortly after noon, Sharon, my across-the-road neighbor called. They had sensed that something was wrong, and Sharon had sent Tim, her husband over to check. Tim found Trace laying in a pool of blood with a bullet hole in her head, and knew what had happened. Sharon came over a short time later to find me and became concerned when all my cars were here, all the doors unlocked, and no me to be found. She called Hayden's looking for me. Dawn assured her that I was being taken care of, and that I'd be home later. Sharon told her to have me come over and pick up some prepared food when I got home.
An afternoon meal was assembled, large "King Tut" beans, cooked up as a stew with onions and garlic.
Outside, the rain got heavier, and the wind picked up again. A cold front was coming in over last night's warm front, and storm force winds were predicted for the coast and coast range. Looking out through the house's large windows across the estuary to the south of the house sheets of heavy rain could be seen pounding down from the sky. Trees rocked and rain beat against the skylights. Hayden suggested that if Bev and Eileen were not planning on staying that night, that they might want to start packing so that they could get across the river in the boat before the conditions became too hazardous.
About this same time, the water in the kitchen stopped, and Hayden and his laborer had to leave to go up to the water intake and clear the intake screens. Since this required a trip across the river as well, Eileen and Bev readied to go. Hayden's house is not connected to the utility grid, he generates his own electricity with a small hydroelectric generator, and without water coming down from the mountain, we would have no water and little electricity unless we depleted the batteries.
I wondered if my time to push off hadn't come as well, but Hayden told me that he thought that I should stay for the night, as there wasn't enough daylight left to fix the water, take me home and get back across the river before dark. I accepted because I really dreaded what I would see when I got home.
Everyone exited to their paths, and I laid on the leather couch alone in front of the glass-front wood stove, warming and watching the storm gather outside, grateful for a safe shelter. Hayden's home is built of massive post-and-beam construction, and only the heaviest gusts were noticeable inside. Weathering this kind of blow in the Housetruck would be anxiety by itself without what I was already going through.
Hayden came back from his water service trip looking like a drowned cat. He changed into dry clothes and headed out to feed the animals. He came back a wile later drenched again. I was beginning to feel a little guilty laying around in front of a warm fire while everyone else ran around outside getting soaked.
Evening, and Hayden wanted me to tell him again the entire story of Trace's recent illness, asking me more questions this time, and provoking me into as much detail as possible. He wrote all of it down in his files. Given the symptoms, timing and end results, he pretty much decided that it was a central nervous system failure, brought on either by pathogens or age-related organ failures. The risk for rabies exposure in horses in Oregon is nearly non-existent and the symptoms didn't match the patterns that would raise red flags. This was a relief to me, because he had been suggesting that if the profile fit rabies, I would have to drive Trace's severed head over to Oregon State University for testing in the morning.
With that out of the way, it was time to decide what I was going to do about Trace's body. I had already picked where I would have her buried, but needed to arrange the equipment and operator. I have a credit with one of the local excavators, and I called him well after dark. After explaining the situation, he agreed to send over his son, Jeff with the backhoe at 9 AM Friday morning. I had worked with Jeff at the radio station tower project, and got along with him well.
I then called Tim and asked if he could meet Jeff at the gate and direct him to the place I wanted Trace interred, a sunny spot in her corral where she liked to stand, a place where I can raise a simple memorial and plant some flowers, a place to visit when I feel the need to be close. Tim agreed and told me to not worry, he'd see that she was buried properly and respectfully. I began feeling a bit of relief. From very early in my relationship with Trace, I knew that I'd be responsible for her after death, and that I wanted something better than "disposal", which would be the end result if she had died when I lived in the city, where you could hardly bury anything as large as an equine. That I would not have to see her contorted and bloody in death was cold comfort, but I knew that I would have a haunting setback if I had to handle this part of the incident personally.
Some time around 8:30 or 9:00, we all decided that it was time to turn in. I was directed out to "The Bunkhouse", a small apartment built into one of the barns. It also served as the tack room for the riding equipment, and horsemanship ribbons from past shows line the walls. The interior is lined with rough-sawn planks, a simple kitchen is installed, and an attached bedroom features a large, old, and very comfortable bed piled deep with warm blankets and flannel sheets.
When I looked out the window, I saw a horse standing just outside. There are 31 horses on the ranch, and quite a few of them would overnight in the attached barn. In fact, I suppose the beginning my recovery was being conducted in Horse Heaven. Hayden had been a breeder from years back, and Dawn was an accomplished farrier, and still practiced the craft. Their home and this bunkhouse were filled with horse art, pictures, furniture, sculpture and artifacts. A framed photo of a horse hung over the bed.
I took off my sweats and got into bed, not really feeling sleepy, but having a fairly successful time with self control. Laying there, I could hear the horses in the adjoining barn, moving about and occasionally nichoring or snorting. Rain beat the roof and skylights, and the wind heaved the walls, although not alarmingly. Eventually, I drifted off to another cold-sweat sleep, but a comfortable one.
Sometime just before the first cock crowed, probably 4 AM or so, I awoke fairly fully, and realized that there was probably not another place I could be that would start my healing as much as being here had. Drifted off to sleep until first light.
A little after I got up and as I was standing, warming myself in front of the propane heater, I heard Hayden's laborer, a kindly Hispanic fellow, coming to feed the horses. The horses heard him as well, and started nichoring their approval. The chickens began making a fuss over the spilled grain
Hayden had warned me that he would need to be on the run fairly early the next morning. He and Dawn both had clients to see, and a man, frantic with emotion had called after dark, wanting his cat euthanized. Hayden assured him that he should be there as quickly as possible in the morning, but that passage across the river was impossible during the peak of the storm. He told the guy to give the cat an aspirin, that it would help.
Since I didn't want to delay the start of the day, I went to the house, but found no one rustling about there. I decided to go for a walk down the road along the estuary. The storm had lifted, and a few patches of blue sky showed between the clouds. I hadn't even gotten out of the yard before Hayden's German Shepard ran up and wanted to come along. I'm not a dog person, but I decided it wasn't worth the fuss to shoo her away. The storm had ravaged the trees, and there were many small branches on the ground. The dog, of course, wanted to chase sticks and kept dragging branches and dropping them at my feet, nearly tripping me. I finally picked one of the stouter-looking sticks, stripped it of it's foliage and threw it for the dog. This made it now a "special" stick, and she carried it and ignored all the others.
Went down a half mile or so and came to what appeared to be the next ranch over, so I decided to turn around and walk back. Returning to the house, Hayden was just packing his Doctor's kit and preparing for the day's activities. We went inside and ate a quick meal and drank a bit of coffee before all piling into the boat for the trip back across the river.
Haden was running a bit late for his appointment to see the cat, so rather than have him go 90 some-odd blocks out of his way to let me out, I agreed to just stay in the car while he and Dawn did their duty to relieve the cat's suffering. A few rays of morning sun peeked thought the clouds, and I felt sadness overtaking me, so I laid down in the back seat of the car, not wanting to make a scene in the client's driveway. The cat procedure didn't take very long, and we were soon on our way back towards the north end of town.
Hayden and Dawn dropped me off at the radio station, where I expected that I'd be able to talk someone into driving me home. I had no keys, no wallet, was still wearing the soiled sweats and rubber boots I had on when Hayden scooped me up. I looked like hell, in short. I figured that they'd want to get me out of there as soon as possible, which is a good way to provoke a ride. I got lots of pats on the back, hugs and sympathy, and Bob, the news guy drove me up the North Fork to home. I think he was partially motivated by the fact that I had the station's cell phone at home, and he needed it for a remote broadcast tonight.
The storm had beaten the trees along the river, but not as badly as I have seen in the past. The County had already cleared any fallen trees, and there were no landslides to see, a common problem along some parts of that road.
Closer to home, there were several large trees across the road, a section a little wider than a car cut through them, one of which is on my property. A couple of these had severed the power lines, which were laying slack on the ground.
No real damage to the house or yard. The wind picked up a couple of sheets of corrugated tin roofing I had left out and tossed one about 25 feet up a tree, twisting it around the trunk. I have no idea how I'll get that down.
Tim and Jeff had done a satisfactory job of burying Trace. She is interred close to where I described, and Tim raised a small marker to indicate the place among the excavation. They provided a layer of fresh soil where she had laid dying and thrashed ruts into the ground with her flailing hooves, covering the blood that was not washed away by the rains. I haven't had the heart to enter her corral and approach the grave yet, I'll have to wait a few days before I can do that.
Since the power was out, I got busy and got my backup systems online. The spring was still delivering water to the house, so I connected the big propane tank to fuel the instantaneous water heater and threw the proper circuit breakers and got the 24 volt photovoltaic system and inverter connected to the house breaker panel, I let the refrigerator run for a couple of hours to make sure that the freezer got pumped down good and cold. We had sun the whole time, so I didn't use any battery capacity doing that. I called Tim and thanked him for his help, and offered hot showers to him and Sharon.
Built a fire to warm the Housetruck, took a shower myself and changed into some clean sweats. Brushed my teeth for the first time in I don't know how long. The electric power was restored right about dark.
I catch myself instinctively looking over to the barn and corral every time I exit the Housetruck or walk out of the carport. I caught myself almost clucking my tongue, calling out to Trace without thinking. It's going to take a while to break those habits.
In the next few weeks, during nicer weather, I'll clean up the grave excavation and decide what I want to do for a memorial there. I'll take down all the crappy old fence and pull up the rotten fence post that comprised Trace's corral. The dilapidated barn/shelter will be knocked down. Assuming I ever did get another horse, I'd want much better fencing and shelter. Right now, I don't feel that I'll ever want to form an attachment to any other living creature. So much has been taken from me over the last four years. Now I've lost that last thing that I cared about. I feel that it's not possible to get much lower on the emotional scale.
Hayden just called, he wanted to check to see how I was doing. I gave him the short report, as well as can be expected for my first night home alone. I thanked him again for his kindness, and related a bit of what I've written here about being at his ranch. He and Dawn are going to Mexico next week, I wish them a safe and pleasurable journey. I asked when he gets back, and when I'm feeling ready, if I could come to the ranch sometime and pet one of his horses, one that doesn't mind being close to strangers. It will be hard, but I want to experience their energy, touch that warm skin and bury my nose in a mane.
I'll keep distracted until then, I still have a radio station transmitter site to finish building.
We had a similar terrible time last Christmas 2007. We had two months of watching our 14 year old cat wasting away with bowel cancer. In November that year the vet thought it was just a stomach bug and she did respond to medication at first but by New Year it wasn't working and she started losing weight again.
With steroids and such we kept her going until early Feb but the day came when we took her to the vet for another check-up and she was just a bag of bones and confused and the light had gone from her eyes.
The vet told us that people hope that their pet will just quietly fade away one night (we'd had a couple of tearful nights like that already) but that they usually don't and that it was probably time to make a decision...
So, rather than put her through any more we elected to have her put to sleep before the worst of it. She died in our hands.
We've got two new cats now but we never forget our departed Tama-chan (a Japanese name).
I know you will survive and things will get better.
We had a lot of wind again last night and the marker that Tim had stuck in the ground over Trace's grave blew down. I didn't want to lose the place, so I had to go into the pasture to place a flat rock on the spot. I felt like I was trespassing. As a result, I didn't quite manage to go 24 hours without bawling my eyes out, but it's a new record of dryness for me.
I had thought I'd give this topic a rest, people must be getting tired of hearing me bang on about it. I've been talking to people, asking if they think I'm overreacting. Asking them if I am having so much grief what it must be like for someone who loses a spouse or a child? The answer I get from them all is that there is no difference.
Hayden just called again, this time to offer me a nice cat someone is trying to find a home for. I like cats OK, but I don't want one. I'm thinking of a small water feature as a memorial on Trace's grave, a small fountain or a birdbath, something that attracts life. Having a predator as a pet just doesn't appeal to me.
Looking over to the barn is still hard. I try to force myself to look elsewhere when I am outside, at the ground, mostly. That's not a lot better because there are a lot of backhoe tracks around where the big lugged tires pressed into the soft grass. Catching a glimpse of the barn or pasture from the windows of the Housetruck is much harder to control, it's so instinctive to look for her there.
A lose is a lose buddy it just doesn’t mater. Walk through it, it’s part of the process. The water garden or bird bath or both sounds like a great thing to do. That way there will always be life around traces spirit.
The monument sounds very nice, I think Trace would approve.
Don't worry about "giving it a rest" here. We're not just distant 'skoolies', we're friends. Sometimes it just helps to tell your friends to help you keep your perspective.
I was sad when I read the news about Trace. I know you have lost a very close friend. There a lot of people supporting you and we care about you, so lean on us when you need to.
