Waitin’ For A Foal (apologies to Jimmie Rodgers)
Old momma circles in the stall,
She’s up and then she’s down;
She flips her nose up in the air,
She paws the bedded ground.
It’s the same the county over,
From Fellowship to Lowell….
Hangin’ round an anxious stall,
Just a-waitin’ for a foal.
The Longest Night
A good friend told me once that I was lucky….”you can write in your sleep,” she said. If that’s true, today should be the acid test. Siobhan and I have been up the last couple of nights waiting for our grouchy mare, Wanda, to foal. She’s up to 343 days now, a little over the eleven month minimum thoroughbred breeders like to see mares carry their babies. Most, but certainly not all, seem to foal within a ten-day window, 335-345 days, but we’ve had mares carry up to 365 days. Ask us sometime how much fun that is. It’s one thing to stay up all night when you’re 25, something entirely different when you’re 72. At 72, strange things occur in the night. You start seeing things that aren’t there. Shadows on the wall or on the ground from the stall’s heat lamp begin to look like new-born babies. How could you possibly have missed the foaling? At 72, you stumble into things in the dark a lot more.
I’ve never been one of these all-night people anyway. You remember when all the hippies used to go out and greet the sun to celebrate the vernal equinox? Well, this hippie was in bed. Something in my brain insists on advising me that it is absolutely essential to get to bed before daybreak, as if a monstrous sin has been committed if I opt otherwise. Oh, I liked going out at night. Hell, when you’re single, what else are you gonna do? But the bars have the good sense to close at 2 a.m. and everybody goes home or to jail, depending on their exit behavior. There’s always that wizard who thinks it’s a good idea to slap a mounted cop’s horse on the butt.
It’s a little easier to stay up all night if you ingest a little helper like, say, LSD, which makes the difference between day and night a little less distinguishable. I guess you can still tell which is which but you just don’t give a damn. Some people load up on coffee or Red Bull or that five-hour energy stuff and swear by one or another. I don’t know. I drove up to Monmouth Park in New Jersey once with my trainer Larry Pilotti, following Juggernaut’s horse transport. The coffee helped but it was still grueling. Sensible people take planes when traveling from Florida to New Jersey but Larry is afraid of planes, despite the convincing statistics that show almost nobody ever dies in plane crashes involving major airlines. Driving non-stop to New Jersey is one thing, but then you have to drive back. Larry, it turned out, prefers sleeping to driving so three-quarters of the piloting chores were on me. I drank coffee. I drank Red Bull. Guess what? After awhile, it’s like pissing in a wind tunnel. It doesn’t work. I started seeing Spanish galleons in the road and I’m pretty sure they weren’t really there. I had to stop and make Larry drive. He thought I should stay awake and talk to him. I did, too. Who else was around to warn him about those Spanish galleons in the road. Eventually, we made it back alive. I’m not doing it any more. Ever.
Those Merry Mares Of Mirth
Most of the time, foaling goes well. Truth be told, a large majority of mares would foal just fine all by themselves. Often enough to be disturbing, however, problems can arise which threaten the lives of mare and foal alike, and it is then that a quick intervention is required. If nobody is watching, nobody is intervening. Most foaling problems occur when the mare does not expel the baby in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes, the foal is extremely large. Sometimes, it is not positioned properly, with the feet emerging first just ahead of the nose. In the first case, lubricating the body of the baby helps, then manually pulling the legs until the body of the foal slips free. I like to pull when the mare is pushing but occasionally a mare will become exhausted and you’re going to have to get that baby out yourself. It helps to have a tandem of people because you can get exhausted, too. In the dilemma of a malpositioned foal, it is often necessary to push the baby back inside the mare and try to rotate the body. This is no picnic. Experienced foaling people help. So does a veterinarian who will show up in emergencies. Even with all these positive factors present, things sometimes go awry. Occasionally, a baby is just too big. The only way it is coming out is…gulp…in pieces. At least, the mare might be saved. This has never happened to me, great appreciation to whomever is in charge, but it has happened to many people I know and, as a veterinarian, Siobhan has experienced a few horror shows. At times like these, everybody on site swears they will begin looking for alternate occupations in the morning. In the thoroughbred business, the highs are very high and the lows are abysmally low.
Let’s get back to the foaling that goes well. How do you know when a mare will foal? Well, like with everything else, records help. After a couple of foals, mares will usually perform the same way from year to year. Their habits prior to foaling will be similar, the number of days they take to foal will be within a certain window. I had a mare named Nine Tailors, who always foaled between 335 and 339 days. She had 12 foals, all within the four-day period. Nothing like being obliging. On the other hand there was Stakes Producer, a mare who would do everything in her power to prevent you from being around when she foaled. She snickeringly pulled this off two years in a row before I got smart. One evening, when I knew she was stalling, I decided to feed a little later than usual. I put all the feed buckets in the trailer behind my tractor and started out to the paddocks off in the distance, the usual practice. The paddocks, surrounded by trees, were not visible from the barn where Stakes Producer stood cackling at my foolishness. I opened the gates of the horse pens and brought the first group in to eat. Then, I drove the tractor a little further off in the distance toward the next paddock, left it running, and slowly crept back to the barn where I caught the outraged Stakes Producer in the middle of foaling. If she could have sucked that baby back in, she would have but it was too late. Stakes Producer 2, Bill 1. After that year, she never tried to con me again. Maybe she realized she could never match wits with the genius of Bill. More likely, she just thought well, gee, nothing horrible had happened with the supervised foaling so what the hell.
Sometimes, surprising things happen during foaling season that have little to do with horses. I was up one night, playing it conservative with a mare unlikely to foal and dinnertime approached. I’d had a little too much of the chuckwagon down the street and its meager offerings so I called Siobhan, my vet at the time, and asked her what was for dinner. She asked me what I wanted and I told her I wasn’t fussy—anything would be better than the chuckwagon. I went over, had a very nice meal and that was the beginning of a story which has now stretched from 1986 to 2013, twenty-seven years of unwedded bliss and only a tiny bit of fussing. I don’t really remember what babies were born that year but that was, by far, my most successful foaling season.
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
That’s all well and good, you might say, but what’s going on with Siobhan and her exciting new business? Well, one thing that’s going on is Siobhan has discovered that a growing business must sometimes hire adjuncts known as “employees,” and this is not always the facile task it might appear to be. The first employee of Pathogenes, Inc. was Mary Radcliffe, an extremely personable woman who not only shouldered the load while we pranced off last summer to Glacier National Park but ALSO aided with the transportation and general hosting of last Summer’s guest enfant terrible, Kristina Maier. Mary might be here today if she didn’t have more physical predicaments than Job. Next to Mary, Humpty Dumpty was in good shape. Anyway, she’s off somewhere rehabilitating and popping pain pills, like many another old hippie.
After Mary, we got Ali and Mariah, neither of which had worked much before. Ali had a little college and a lot of spare time. She was very versatile and did a good job. Then one day we got a letter from Ali asserting that she could no longer “lend her name” to an enterprise in which horses may have to be put down, “even in the circumstance that these drug studies will eventually benefit the horse community.” If that ever happens, something Siobhan continues to battle against, it will be a long time down the road. We think Ali just wanted to go the beach. Mariah was a high-school kid from the work-release program in nearby Williston who fell victim to the new century’s most prevalent disease—futzing around on the computer while allegedly working. No more high-school kids for Siobhan.
You all know, of course, of the famous Can Lady, real name Debbie. Debbie is still here but she doesn’t like to work much, maybe a couple of days a week. Those cans won’t pick themselves up, you know. And then there’s Paula. We love Paula. In addition to working the most hours and doing the best job here, Paula makes scones. She makes them a lot. These scones even have fruit in them. Paula will never be fired if I have anything to say about it.
The two newest employees are a brother and sister act, Christopher and Rachel, both students at Central Florida (used to be Community) College. Rachel has a part-time at Winn-Dixie, Christopher never worked before. They were both home-schooled. If you are home-schooled, you are only as smart as your teacher, which may account for why Christopher doesn’t seem to spell so good. Both of them are off to a slow start. Rachel made an error the other day and was punished by Siobhan, who told her she would have to make cookies. Rachel made peanut butters. Yum. Personally, Bill is hoping for a few more mistakes. Christopher made mistakes, too. He was all prepared to make cookies of his own, which would certainly be okay by me, but Siobhan told him (Christopher hates English and Grammar and especially poetry) he would have to write a poem. He begged for options but, as we know, Siobhan is a stern taskmaster. Christopher came in the next day and said it took him FOUR HOURS to write his poem. In four hours, Ogden Nash could write seven HUNDRED poems, but nonetheless. After four hours, the following is what Christopher wrote:
I made a simple mistake.
How I wish I could have just made a cake
But that is not what I am to make.
It is something I cannot fake
And I would rather be bitten by a snake.
Rhyming is obviously important to Christopher, as it is to Siobhan, who doesn’t like poems which do not oblige. Considering the time involved here, it’s probably a good thing she didn’t require an essay. I’m not too sure about Christopher’s future here, but I know where he stands in literary circles and I am hoping for a cake next time, assuming there will be a next time. Anyway, I can hardly wait to see who comes in the door next. Maybe it will be someone like Iretavious, who could perform NO task, no matter how small. Or perhaps another Don, the 77-year old fellow Siobhan recruited while he was in line at the A.T.&T. office, waiting for phone help. He must have been properly served because a large part of his time here was spent standing on the Pathogenes porch, corresponding with his wife across town. Ah well. Somewhere out there is a golden jewel of an employee, intelligent, with computer savvy and a background in science. And a sense of humor. You’ll never make it here without a sense of humor. We’re also looking for our own poet laureate. Even with a little practice, it’s sadly obvious Christopher is never going to fill the bill.
That’s all, folks….
Old momma circles in the stall,
She’s up and then she’s down;
She flips her nose up in the air,
She paws the bedded ground.
It’s the same the county over,
From Fellowship to Lowell….
Hangin’ round an anxious stall,
Just a-waitin’ for a foal.
The Longest Night
A good friend told me once that I was lucky….”you can write in your sleep,” she said. If that’s true, today should be the acid test. Siobhan and I have been up the last couple of nights waiting for our grouchy mare, Wanda, to foal. She’s up to 343 days now, a little over the eleven month minimum thoroughbred breeders like to see mares carry their babies. Most, but certainly not all, seem to foal within a ten-day window, 335-345 days, but we’ve had mares carry up to 365 days. Ask us sometime how much fun that is. It’s one thing to stay up all night when you’re 25, something entirely different when you’re 72. At 72, strange things occur in the night. You start seeing things that aren’t there. Shadows on the wall or on the ground from the stall’s heat lamp begin to look like new-born babies. How could you possibly have missed the foaling? At 72, you stumble into things in the dark a lot more.
I’ve never been one of these all-night people anyway. You remember when all the hippies used to go out and greet the sun to celebrate the vernal equinox? Well, this hippie was in bed. Something in my brain insists on advising me that it is absolutely essential to get to bed before daybreak, as if a monstrous sin has been committed if I opt otherwise. Oh, I liked going out at night. Hell, when you’re single, what else are you gonna do? But the bars have the good sense to close at 2 a.m. and everybody goes home or to jail, depending on their exit behavior. There’s always that wizard who thinks it’s a good idea to slap a mounted cop’s horse on the butt.
It’s a little easier to stay up all night if you ingest a little helper like, say, LSD, which makes the difference between day and night a little less distinguishable. I guess you can still tell which is which but you just don’t give a damn. Some people load up on coffee or Red Bull or that five-hour energy stuff and swear by one or another. I don’t know. I drove up to Monmouth Park in New Jersey once with my trainer Larry Pilotti, following Juggernaut’s horse transport. The coffee helped but it was still grueling. Sensible people take planes when traveling from Florida to New Jersey but Larry is afraid of planes, despite the convincing statistics that show almost nobody ever dies in plane crashes involving major airlines. Driving non-stop to New Jersey is one thing, but then you have to drive back. Larry, it turned out, prefers sleeping to driving so three-quarters of the piloting chores were on me. I drank coffee. I drank Red Bull. Guess what? After awhile, it’s like pissing in a wind tunnel. It doesn’t work. I started seeing Spanish galleons in the road and I’m pretty sure they weren’t really there. I had to stop and make Larry drive. He thought I should stay awake and talk to him. I did, too. Who else was around to warn him about those Spanish galleons in the road. Eventually, we made it back alive. I’m not doing it any more. Ever.
Those Merry Mares Of Mirth
Most of the time, foaling goes well. Truth be told, a large majority of mares would foal just fine all by themselves. Often enough to be disturbing, however, problems can arise which threaten the lives of mare and foal alike, and it is then that a quick intervention is required. If nobody is watching, nobody is intervening. Most foaling problems occur when the mare does not expel the baby in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes, the foal is extremely large. Sometimes, it is not positioned properly, with the feet emerging first just ahead of the nose. In the first case, lubricating the body of the baby helps, then manually pulling the legs until the body of the foal slips free. I like to pull when the mare is pushing but occasionally a mare will become exhausted and you’re going to have to get that baby out yourself. It helps to have a tandem of people because you can get exhausted, too. In the dilemma of a malpositioned foal, it is often necessary to push the baby back inside the mare and try to rotate the body. This is no picnic. Experienced foaling people help. So does a veterinarian who will show up in emergencies. Even with all these positive factors present, things sometimes go awry. Occasionally, a baby is just too big. The only way it is coming out is…gulp…in pieces. At least, the mare might be saved. This has never happened to me, great appreciation to whomever is in charge, but it has happened to many people I know and, as a veterinarian, Siobhan has experienced a few horror shows. At times like these, everybody on site swears they will begin looking for alternate occupations in the morning. In the thoroughbred business, the highs are very high and the lows are abysmally low.
Let’s get back to the foaling that goes well. How do you know when a mare will foal? Well, like with everything else, records help. After a couple of foals, mares will usually perform the same way from year to year. Their habits prior to foaling will be similar, the number of days they take to foal will be within a certain window. I had a mare named Nine Tailors, who always foaled between 335 and 339 days. She had 12 foals, all within the four-day period. Nothing like being obliging. On the other hand there was Stakes Producer, a mare who would do everything in her power to prevent you from being around when she foaled. She snickeringly pulled this off two years in a row before I got smart. One evening, when I knew she was stalling, I decided to feed a little later than usual. I put all the feed buckets in the trailer behind my tractor and started out to the paddocks off in the distance, the usual practice. The paddocks, surrounded by trees, were not visible from the barn where Stakes Producer stood cackling at my foolishness. I opened the gates of the horse pens and brought the first group in to eat. Then, I drove the tractor a little further off in the distance toward the next paddock, left it running, and slowly crept back to the barn where I caught the outraged Stakes Producer in the middle of foaling. If she could have sucked that baby back in, she would have but it was too late. Stakes Producer 2, Bill 1. After that year, she never tried to con me again. Maybe she realized she could never match wits with the genius of Bill. More likely, she just thought well, gee, nothing horrible had happened with the supervised foaling so what the hell.
Sometimes, surprising things happen during foaling season that have little to do with horses. I was up one night, playing it conservative with a mare unlikely to foal and dinnertime approached. I’d had a little too much of the chuckwagon down the street and its meager offerings so I called Siobhan, my vet at the time, and asked her what was for dinner. She asked me what I wanted and I told her I wasn’t fussy—anything would be better than the chuckwagon. I went over, had a very nice meal and that was the beginning of a story which has now stretched from 1986 to 2013, twenty-seven years of unwedded bliss and only a tiny bit of fussing. I don’t really remember what babies were born that year but that was, by far, my most successful foaling season.
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
That’s all well and good, you might say, but what’s going on with Siobhan and her exciting new business? Well, one thing that’s going on is Siobhan has discovered that a growing business must sometimes hire adjuncts known as “employees,” and this is not always the facile task it might appear to be. The first employee of Pathogenes, Inc. was Mary Radcliffe, an extremely personable woman who not only shouldered the load while we pranced off last summer to Glacier National Park but ALSO aided with the transportation and general hosting of last Summer’s guest enfant terrible, Kristina Maier. Mary might be here today if she didn’t have more physical predicaments than Job. Next to Mary, Humpty Dumpty was in good shape. Anyway, she’s off somewhere rehabilitating and popping pain pills, like many another old hippie.
After Mary, we got Ali and Mariah, neither of which had worked much before. Ali had a little college and a lot of spare time. She was very versatile and did a good job. Then one day we got a letter from Ali asserting that she could no longer “lend her name” to an enterprise in which horses may have to be put down, “even in the circumstance that these drug studies will eventually benefit the horse community.” If that ever happens, something Siobhan continues to battle against, it will be a long time down the road. We think Ali just wanted to go the beach. Mariah was a high-school kid from the work-release program in nearby Williston who fell victim to the new century’s most prevalent disease—futzing around on the computer while allegedly working. No more high-school kids for Siobhan.
You all know, of course, of the famous Can Lady, real name Debbie. Debbie is still here but she doesn’t like to work much, maybe a couple of days a week. Those cans won’t pick themselves up, you know. And then there’s Paula. We love Paula. In addition to working the most hours and doing the best job here, Paula makes scones. She makes them a lot. These scones even have fruit in them. Paula will never be fired if I have anything to say about it.
The two newest employees are a brother and sister act, Christopher and Rachel, both students at Central Florida (used to be Community) College. Rachel has a part-time at Winn-Dixie, Christopher never worked before. They were both home-schooled. If you are home-schooled, you are only as smart as your teacher, which may account for why Christopher doesn’t seem to spell so good. Both of them are off to a slow start. Rachel made an error the other day and was punished by Siobhan, who told her she would have to make cookies. Rachel made peanut butters. Yum. Personally, Bill is hoping for a few more mistakes. Christopher made mistakes, too. He was all prepared to make cookies of his own, which would certainly be okay by me, but Siobhan told him (Christopher hates English and Grammar and especially poetry) he would have to write a poem. He begged for options but, as we know, Siobhan is a stern taskmaster. Christopher came in the next day and said it took him FOUR HOURS to write his poem. In four hours, Ogden Nash could write seven HUNDRED poems, but nonetheless. After four hours, the following is what Christopher wrote:
I made a simple mistake.
How I wish I could have just made a cake
But that is not what I am to make.
It is something I cannot fake
And I would rather be bitten by a snake.
Rhyming is obviously important to Christopher, as it is to Siobhan, who doesn’t like poems which do not oblige. Considering the time involved here, it’s probably a good thing she didn’t require an essay. I’m not too sure about Christopher’s future here, but I know where he stands in literary circles and I am hoping for a cake next time, assuming there will be a next time. Anyway, I can hardly wait to see who comes in the door next. Maybe it will be someone like Iretavious, who could perform NO task, no matter how small. Or perhaps another Don, the 77-year old fellow Siobhan recruited while he was in line at the A.T.&T. office, waiting for phone help. He must have been properly served because a large part of his time here was spent standing on the Pathogenes porch, corresponding with his wife across town. Ah well. Somewhere out there is a golden jewel of an employee, intelligent, with computer savvy and a background in science. And a sense of humor. You’ll never make it here without a sense of humor. We’re also looking for our own poet laureate. Even with a little practice, it’s sadly obvious Christopher is never going to fill the bill.
That’s all, folks….
