February, 2010

February 23rd, 12:42am: Another long day but at least not as cold. We’ve found a yogurt that Windchill likes – strawberry. He needs to eat yogurt for the enzymes for his stomach. I’m not telling him the vet ordered that, if he thinks it’s good for him he may stop eating it. I was looking at the pictures from two weekends ago and this morning, his coat is already improving enough you can see it in pictures. I tried to get a bunch of photos of the lift this evening as well as some videos. I’ll try to post them in the morning for you to see – it sort of rounds out the pictures below giving you a view of a day in the life of Windchill. I also took some videos of before, during and after the lift to give you an idea of what it entails and how many are needed to accomplish it. Thank God for Cindy Aho and the Aho Family Farm for the use of that sling and winch! I don’t know how we would do this without that equipment and it’s done wonders for his spirit. Hope they don’t mind me saying that. At some point I will try to post a page of thanks, in some ways I’ve tried to include that as I tell you about various days events. My fear in doing a thank you page is that I’m a guy and I will inevitably forget to thank a bunch of people which in no way should minimize their contribution to Windchill’s care. Hopefully the fact that I’ve gotten better at making pots of coffee will compensate for any oversights. Tomorrow AM we’re hoisting the little guy back on his feet early. We want to give him as much time as he wants on his feet, so if we get him up earlier he can rest late morning, be up again in the afternoon if he’s up to it and/or be back up again in the evening. We’ll see how it goes. The one thing we hear time and again after people see him – and you really have to see him to understand just what he has to overcome as he is still basically bones with hair over them to put it bluntly – is what an amazing will to live he has. It just shines through in his quiet determination. The lift went well, the same core group has been helping and Windchill knows when we bring the sling in its time to be back where he should be for at least a little while (back on his feet). He waits patiently for his part in this – when he’s off the ground his job is to get his feet under him. He does that as soon as possible from the point when the sling gets him off the ground. Well Windchill’s resting up for tomorrow and the morning’s going to come too fast. See you tomorrow (see – it’s still ‘today’ in my world as I haven’t gone to sleep yet…).

Windchill lays and thinks

Windchill spent a lot of time listening – and thinking. We would wonder what was running through his mind as he lay there with a fully functioning brain and intellect and a body that couldn’t respond to its commands.

When I would sit out there and lay his head in my lap during my shifts with him I read him business magazines. Windchill was well-versed in how to start or run a business after a couple of days. I found I needed that as a way to distract myself from the intensely bitter cold, even the blankets we had for us out there didn’t keep the insidious cold from entering our bodies down into our bones. Plus I think Windchill liked being read to – he liked being talked to but being a guy, there’s only so long I can carry on a conversation – hence Windchill’s education by Entrepreneur and Businessweek!

Windchill sleeps in

Blankets were rotated each day, and Windchill himself was turned over every couple of hours and the straw was cleaned, hay was freshened, he was held up usually by pushing your knees under his shoulder and neck so that he could drink and munch on the special mix that was recommended by the experts we were working with at the time.

February 22nd, 10:05am: Sorry, our internet was down this morning. I fell asleep last night typing the update below and can’t remember what I was trying to say so sorry if it was incoherent babbling. KARE-11 out of the Twin Cities is coming this morning to meet the little guy, I’m hoping he does more of the talking. Because we haven’t been paying any attention inside the house – we ran out of fuel oil. BBBRRRR. I’m going outside to warm up (it’s warmed up out there to 0F). Hope the oil company
comes this AM! Here’s the latest news in the Duluth News-Tribune:

Article in DNT on February 22nd (link no longer works)

Unfortunately I’ve used up all the bandwidth and memory space on the server I host my website. I’m working with a friend to see if her company will at least host the videos for us to open up some additional space. The hosting company said they won’t shut the site down for all the bandwidth, they’ll work with us to make it affordable which was a big relief.

Windchill wakes up with his red blanket

The towel or blanket under Windchill’s head was intended to try and protect his eyes from the hay as he moved his head around. When he was really tired it would work, when he was restless – not so much…

February 21st, 10:30pm: Well so much for the webcam this evening, huh? Sorry, the cold makes it really tough. Windchill (I can’t help it, I like this spelling) was lifted up a little after 6pm this evening. Unlike last night, which took two attempts to get him standing, tonight’s lift only took one attempt. He stood and quietly munched hay. He’s a lot more alert tonight, a lot more sociable, and seems very happy and busy, chewing on boards in his stall and walking slowly around his stall. He has real hope now, and his spirits seem pretty high. The Duluth News-Tribune was out to interview him today, Will and Amanda. Case helped Amanda with her camera. I hope the news-trib will take payments on the equipment…kidding, Case can pay them with the halter he keeps trying to pull off Wind Chill. He has a long road ahead rebuilding loss muscles and we have to continue monitoring him for frostbite symptoms and internal organ functions. Only time will tell if his growth will be stunted by everything that’s happened. But he faces each day at a time. Guess we could learn from him, huh? I refuse to accept that he won’t make it. Fortunately, so does he.

Windchill munches as friends sit and talk nearby - Kathi, David and Lori

Just curious. I know I’m reading each one for the first time since they were originally posted. I have them printed out somewhere but I’ve never gone back to read them. I don’t know how some of the newer Windchill friends can sit and read the story in one sitting, it’s honestly too draining for me to do so I’m reading it in chunks as I post it.

February 21st, 5:01pm: We received some good news. Since the media will be talking about it shortly I thought I would let you know that the owner did sign Wind Chill over to us, he is now officially a part of the animal family here. People have been asking the current status of charges against the various individuals involved – we have been entirely focused on Wind Chill’s survival and after the initial reports, this has been in the hands of the Douglas County Sheriff Department and the District Attorney’s Office. I don’t know what will happen but we know from having worked with the Sheriff’s Department through this, they have been not only professional but have tremendously warm hearts, constantly checking on Wind Chill. It’s bittersweet how Wind Chill came into our lives so the news that he had been signed over to us was both good – and sad. Sad because of how it came to be. Sad that he started as somebody’s dream, but that it almost ended in his own nightmare. I’ve had plenty of time to get angry during the long hours, I think Kathi probably has as well. We try not to get angry about those things when near him, but if your thoughts and prayers are keeping him alive then it seems to me negative thoughts are going to have the opposite effect I think. But as angry as I know a lot of people are, I guess I think we should all stop and realize that Wind Chill is here because his owner did finally call this farm that cold day. I won’t debate that it could’ve and should’ve been earlier. I guess I won’t even get into what should’ve occurred when he went down and continuing backwards before he ever hit that point. His owner made the right call that night and now here he is. And this week, yesterday, I believe she made the right ‘call’ again for him. I guess I think that act deserves a prayer on her behalf. I will, and I hope you will too.

February 21st, 11:25am: Wind Chill received a really nice offer from an artist (Deborah Sprague) who painted a picture of he and Walker and is auctioning it off to raise money for his care:

Windchill & Walker by Deborah Sprague

Thanks to “Deb and the boys!”

As I go through my old posts I see the longer things went the more I was prone to making more and more spelling and other mistakes. At one point I fell asleep writing a post and a Windchill follower wrote to ask what the rest of the post was – and that was at like 2am. I woke up to that email, looked at the screen and honestly couldn’t remember. I had learned early on that as I posted to keep saving as I wrote so the post wouldn’t get lost due to my forgetting or equipment/internet failure, so I would save directly to the server and there were so many people watching the blog posts day and night that they were literally reading my posts as I was writing some of them and emails would start coming in before I had finished the post!