Bacchus loses his manhood; I try not to lose my mind.

It was a big day here at Honeysuckle for our little rescued donkey, Bacchus. He was gelded. This simple operation entitles him to a better life, not lived in sexual angst, and able to cavort with his best friend, our mare, Sue. When his recovery is complete (about a week or so), he will be free to spend the summer out in our beautiful pasture with her. But it was my first gelding and Anthony's first large animal vet visit. And we had to assist. 

Bacchus gets a little relaxer drug.

Aaaand he's down.

Post-surgery. Poor lil guy.

So what ticks me off beyond anything these days? TICKS. Being from the NW, I've never dealt with the utter nightmare of tropical insects. Ticks, you may or may not know, are arachnids with a beetle-like shell that is virtually impenetrable. They have extremely powerful jaws that they use to clamp onto the unsuspecting victim's skin and slowly burrow their heads into said skin where they (like a vampire) suck the blood right outta ya. They will feed for a couple days then drop off the host. They also carry diseases. I've just picked one out of my precious two-year old Stella's hair - with tweezers as it was embedded in her scalp. Oh yeah, they're awful.

But you know what? It's in the 80's this week. And the trees look like this:

Anthony says if you want to enjoy tropical-like living conditions, you gotta take the good with the bad. He's right.