Axel 1 day 

Axel.....

I have seen him....this small miracle...he is so tiny..a beautiful baby boy. I sat next to the incubator and just ooogled him very closely. It was the second time in the same hospital...my brothers youngest is also born in week 24...
Sissy was doing better than expected and for that I am grateful. I brought some odd bits and ends like unscented facecream and handcream, magazines and two books. She will have to stay at the hospital all summer to be near Axel and I will try to make the trip as often as I can.
And jamie.....thank you for your prayers...they mean a lot to me since I know how much faith and trust you place in God.

Axel

At 08.30 this morning my sister gave birth to a baby boy named Axel. He was expected to greet the world at September 11 so at May 28 he came to us very early. Axel was in a great hurry and although his auntie told her sister to cross her legs goddammit he wanted out and that asap.
Axel wheighs 720 grammes ( 1.558 lbs)and are currently breathing on his own. He screamed when he came out and was "big" for a child born at week 24 so all we know at the moment is that he had a "good" start. My sister was already at the neo natal care unit at the hospital in Lund (probably one of Europes best if not the worlds) since tuesday night so everyone is in good hands. It will be one day at a time for us all this summer but I pray we have Axel home by September.

The names of horses

My mare has seriously not lifted her head once since yesterday. She ignores Bruno who faithfully walks beside her to seek contact. Poor Bruno got very upset last night when he was ledt outside while his three friends headed back inside for the night. A lot of whinnying back and forward was heard through the night. The mare has no name......well...her real name is Ulinia however in my native tongue it does not suit to call a horse by that name. In two months time no one has been able to come up with a decent name for her and she is called by various expressions such as "the fat lady" ( Mimmi&Co) or "the old girl" ( Michael) or me who just calls her The Mare as if she was horse unknown. One would think that after two months I could come up with a name...she is a beautiful dark bay, almost black in color with a beautiful head and huge friendly eyes and the sweetest disposition so I think she deserves more.
Anyone know of a good horse name?

Green grass of home

Me and Mimmi loaded up the surprised mare in the horsebox this morning. After much dilly dallying we finally let her out grazing on the lads place. Peters chestnut gelding got a surprise holiday as her company for starters and hopefully we will be able to borrow a filly to keep her company over the summer. The yard is getting full of stallions and geldings and I must confess to being a tad worried regarding me being able to stable her there over the winter. How much fun is 5 stallions , 4 geldings and one lonely mare?
ack....worries....
The little shoepisser sleeps in my bed hugging one of my Asics...must be a phase she is going through...the dog is obsessed by shoes......
Thats about it...I am unbeliavably blue today and feel like I am just sinking....the only thing that lifted me was that I heard from a friend I had not heard from in a while and that felt good.

a shoefull....

This morning I found a small dried up dogturd in my hallway...life with pups is like that and I just picked it up and threw it in the toilet while think "was she not a good girl who did not pee on the floor!!!!! ". There I went on about my morning...making a latte...having some yoghurt and cereal..feeding the cute little puppy and patting my cats before putting my clothes on and then looked down at my shoes. The left shoe was kind of full. Clara had pissed in my shoe.
Good dog who had not pissed on the floor ;)

Clara at 8 weeks 

Hail and rain!

Did I mention the weather has been weird here?? Today it was hailing........and the rain is pelting down having me worried about letting my mare out on grass tomorrow in case the bad weather continues and she will be cold at nights.....It is supposed to be summer....the lilacs are flowering....swallows feeding their young and the fields around my house is bright yellow from flowering rapeseed and the honeyscent hangs heavy in the air amidst wafts of cowsmell from the field by the creek. Cow that is,not cowdung, the smell of a warm cow makes me remember my childhood...ever stepped barefoot in a warm sunbaked cowdung? no? *grins*. If you never did you had no childhood.

Today I went to mumsies for dinner. My cousin from Denmark was there along with his girlfriend (tall dark and stunning). Cuzziebro himself was something completely different than last time I saw him. Having been quite a shy and chubby 16 year old he had turned into a sympathetic and goodlooking 22 year old! It was fun meeting them however I am uncertain as to wheter they will return since mums managed to put on her usual show. Clara saved the afternoon by jumping up on the coffeetable so coffee and Baileys flew all over the place. Unfortunately she also ate a catpoop and left the place pleased as punch. Clara eating catpoop means she will sleep in my bed and smell like a catbutt all evening....what a charmer....

The sky is still dark and it is windy outside...guess it will be no planting tomatoes tomorrow ;)
Oh yea..Michael Moore got a Gold Palm for Fahrenheit 9/11, it is the first time the Cannes prize has gone to a documentary since 1956 when Jaques Cousteau received it for " The Silent World". Wonder if Disney will allow distribution now or if they are afraid of loosing the Florida taxrebates ( must be nice living in FL knowing you subsidise one of the worlds biggest corporations.

Aftermath...

I am wobbling around my place on weak legs feeling very much like I look.i.e NOT very good at the moment....It has been stormy around these parts the latest couple of days and not only the weather. I have been sick as a dog as they say...( I feel sorry for dogs)....Yesterday I got violently ill when driving home and barely made it home with the emphasis on barely...I will spare you any details but I actually was so violently ill that I fainted. This scared me bad enough to call mum and hear if she could come and look after Clara (puppy) but when catching her on the mobile she turned out to be sitting on a fancy restaurant with a new date *sigh*, this made me return to reality and I went back to huddle in bed with darling Clara. In two days I went out of bed only to feed her and let her out on the patio. Funny thing was that the weather was really weird during this time with the worst hurricanes passing by. I hope I can get myself out to the stables tomorrow to check if the mare is still there or if I need to put out an alert on the local radio saying I am looking for a 16 hand dark bay mare who disappeared with the last storm. ack....
Well....It is almost 1 am and I am actually sitting up for the first time in more than 48 hours so I will make a cup up tea and then hit the fleasack again.

Coca Cola backwards..

Alocacoc, thats his name, Mimmis determined little thorougbred, who reached a third tonight in his first race for the season YAY!!! As Mimmi once said - no one would ever guess that such a goldnugget is walking around in a field out in Heinge....kind of true really. I reside beyond the main road as they say, quite happily I might add.
Sometimes I miss Canton Cafe in Kingsland or waking up to the sound of cikadas and looking out the window to see the blue hills north of Auckland. Actually I miss AKL full stop. Everything. Howver moments like watching Mimmis face when unloading her horse from the trailer and telling me her baby did it again and that she is 6000 richer feels pretty darn good too.
:)

Bonfire and lightning...

I live in what is commonly referred to as lightning alley..and today all hell broke loose...after a "hot" morning ( people in Texas will smirk here) mother nature offered a spectacular scenery with black sky and a white wall of lightning striking everywhere around the county. I managed to get the horses in the stables at the very last minute..for some reason all creatures seem fascinated by lightning ..the horses stood in the middle of the field and just watched.....refusing to let me come near them for nearly 20 minutes until Don sensed my despair and finally came galloping towards me. Don the big sop....of course the other three followed just in case I would accidentally feed Don their oats as well.
Talking about creatures and lightning.....I have two cats that usually sit perched on the windowsill and stare at the lightning refusing to come inside until it is all over......one would think it was the opposite, that lightning would scare them stiff. Puppy did not react to lightning at all...this was her first big one and all she did was sleep through it in my car....her coat is all yellow stained from the dandelion flowers and I am too tired to give her a bath so I guess I will be washing sheets tomorrow.
Yetsreday I mentione the miserable old heap of branches that we failed to set alight....well...today mw and Peter under much cursing applied every known arson trick and voila!! it did burn........after...... two hours hard work....luck had the rain arrive just in time to put the fire out before I went home and dug up my tiny garden.
Peter have wild plans of putting up a fence around the lower field in so I can let my mare graze over the summer at their place.
The yellow Puppy just fell asleep in my bed and I think I will join her.
Tired.... and my parachute ankle hurts :(

Summer at last....

That dog has been digging in the garden again........

Summer arrived today.....Woke up at 10 am due to having made the hour long drive into town at 2 am to pick up a very merry mikester who had graced a wedding reception with his presence. I arrived back home at 4.30 am after having made sure the merry one actually managed to open the door and dissapear inside. I am sure he slept in the kitchen with the dogs. He sure looked like it when I saw him this evening.
Now..if I wake up at 10 am I am overwhelmed by guilt. If I wake up at 10 am and it is a whopping 22C and blazing sun I panic. Thats when I throw myself in the car with poor puppy in tow and do a rather good impersonation of Häkkinen all the way thinking of my beautiful dark bay mare standing alone in a dark stable when all the other horses are outside in the sunshine due to her lazybum negligent mummy only to arrive and find that the apple of my eye are happily chewing outside. Mimmi the angel having noticed the absence of the blue Renault has of course let her out hours ago. At 10 am Mimmi superwoman has also exercised her two racehorses, built a stonewall along the driveway and are about to leave the premises on the motorbike to go watch her brother in a speedway race. I muck out the stable and sneak back home feeling suitably inadequate. Coffee with my 82 year old neighbour Ethel manages to perk me up enough to drive out to the lads farm to investigate just how hungover they are, or rather Mike since Peter was working last night. Turns out the lads are about to set fire to a giant heap of branches that were pulled together last week for the annual bonfire. Needless to say we failed miserably to set it alight last week but thats all part of the deal. After 25 minutes of various arsonist tricks we stand back to watch it blaze away....only to feel the first raindrops of a two hour downpour falling which effectively puts an end to THAT fire....walking back to the farm we notice the dogs having dug up half the orchard hunting for moles. Evidence of grey fluff suggest a rather abrubt ending to the diggingparty for some old mole or another and Peter mutters that it might be easier to cut the grass next time. I doubt it.
The dogs are still digging.