Only Maisie Could Out-Maisie Maisie

"Yeah, well you should see the other guy!"

I posted a picture this morning of all the sheep out grazing with the horses in the foreground.  A lovely, peaceful farm sunrise scene.  I captioned it "The peaceable kingdom."  And then added the laughing emoji. I was a little surprised no one asked me about that.

It's been a few "days".  Maybe the heat is getting to us all.  I've had dogs chasing chickens and dogs chasing cats (well, one dog), cats chasing (and torturing) mice and moles, chickens chasing chickens, flies biting horses, sheep fighting over choice sleeping spots in front of the fans...and somebody boxed one of Maisie's ears.

It was probably the golden boy.

"She had it coming."

I doubt that, really.  She's half your size, big guy.  I doubt she was going to fight you for your food (she would totally fight him for food (insert eye roll emoji)).  Nice hair by the way, Big J. Do you feel better after fighting that disrespectful bale of straw (insert another eye roll)?

I'm not sure if her ear got a direct hit or she banged it on the gate as she was trying to extract herself from where she likes to poke her head through trying to push her way into the old guys feeding pen or if something completely different happened.  

I'm just guessing, knowing who was involved...  Jared has zero patience for...pretty much anything involving minions and she's been extra cautious blatantly afraid of him ever since.  It's good to be king (another eye roll).

When these things happen, the ear droops down (maybe the cartilage that holds it up breaks?) and fills with fluid and fat blood clots.  Sometimes they go down (somewhat) on their own.  Her's was a one of the worst "fat ears" I've seen.  I was crushed.  Those cute perky pink ears.

Her ear got so filled that I ended up having the vet out to drain and stitch it flat so it wouldn't be able to refill.  That won't fix it.  It will never be good as new, but at least it won't be so bothersome to her, flopping around like a balloon.  You might think this is the end of the story...but it never is with Maisie.

To have this procedure done Maisie had to be sedated and then her ear numbed.  Everything went fine and while she wasn't completely knocked out, she was pretty drunk for a bit.  When we thought we had her propped up and well secured we went to look at something with another sheep.  

We glanced back and Maisie had tried to get herself up, had fallen over and rolled completely on her back, legs flailing in the air (insert the oh $#!% emoji).  Remember we never turn Maisie upside down because of the hay string eating incident from her youth.  Luckily she was far enough away from the short inside water tank that she didn't fall in and drown.  It's a miracle really...if you think about it... (insert the face palm emoji).

We'd been told by Ohio State (nine years ago) that the knotted up hay string she'd gobbled down would probably just float around in her rumen and stay there as long as she didn't get twisted around and it might never cause her any trouble...and it hasn't.  

We are almost 36 hours into the 48 hours close watch on her and so far she seems fine.  I won't rest easy until...well, probably long past the close watch I've had on her for the last almost ten years.