winter sucks

it makes for alot of extra work too....actually... sick pigs make for even more extra work.

we left ellie in again today, and she destroyed the barn. she broke into the stalls and dumped every single water container that she could reach and sloshed around the ones that were hung too high. she broke the latch on the metal gate and threw the sheeps water around too. it is hard enough keeping the buckets full when it is freezing and the barn nice and dry and warm...but then try to confine a busy bored baby pig who needs extra rest and everything just got alot harder..... bad pig.

it astounds me that with all the work and the stuff i have to get thru each day, how often people try to load me up with even more. this is the danger of animal rescue...you become the solution for every and any problem that involves anything alive.

people ask me to babysit or board their pets, to let them out to pee, i get strays brought here all the time cuz everyone thinks it is not a big deal for carol to do this little thing...it is what i do. well... not really.

i provide sanctuary and hospice care to senior and sick animals, and their admissions here are pre-planned according to my workload schedule, not someone elses...i don't have a boarding facility, or a pet sitting service or a 24 hour a day/city funded shelter full of a bunch of cages in which to stick a stray cat or a dog on vacation. i am pretty sure no one would try to leave a lost 2 yr old child at an old folks home just because it was convenient.

and i will tell you that this winter is teaching me how to say no. i used to feel like such an uncaring shit head if i said that ugly word "no"...but i am learning not to feel like that anymore...all i have to do is look at my life and then someone else's to figure out pretty quick who's plate is not quite so full.

i really want winter to end, i want things to get easier and i want the daylight to stay longer and i want the water to stay water instead of rock solid ice. i want my hands not to be frozen and the animals to spend more peeing time outside and until that all happens, i wouldn't expect too much more from me than just to take care of the animals here, in this freaking cold weather, where everything is really hard cuz winter does truly suck.