Lemon balm for my dogs

4 Finals down, 1 more to go!

The past week and a half has pretty much consisted of non-stop studying for me. But as of tomorrow, I will be completely done and headed back for Atlanta by Wednesday. 

-Some current events

Daisy turned 8 this week! She is now officially 8 years old, even though I have been telling people she is 8 for the past 3 months. She was reluctant, but eventually succumbed to wearing the obligatory birthday crown.

For those of you who don't know, I have also been keeping McKenzie and McCallie with me since Thanksgiving. Thats a lot of dogs, and triple the poop in the backyard. 

Since Daisy has been a college girl for quite 3 1/2 years and is soon to graduate, she has plenty of education. Kenzie and Callie on the otherhand, are quite behind, and needed a lot of cramming.      Am I creeping ya'll out?

Anyways, I finally have got them to learn the commands sit and down. Maybe they are not as learning challenged as we thought. 

Oh yeah, and guess what I am using to teach them? Sniffers 101 training bits. These treats are specifically for training and contain special ingredients said to calm and focus your dog during training. Not kidding. But I guess I did buy them. Gotta love advertising. 

Yep, you read that right. It contains Lemon balm, Chamomile, and Lavender. My dogs love them. Although I think they like it for the liver content. However, I was training them them from the start with their own dogfood, and that worked too. So why did I pay money for lemon balm treats? I don't know either. Like I said... Advertising.

The Amanda Show

Okay, this is all about me and Laura. At my house it would be called the Amanda entry, and at Laura's house it would be called the Laura entry. 

-Anyways, just saying-

Spent Saturday in Smyrna, GA to hang out with Laura's family. The occasion would be her Great-Grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. There was good food, long lost re-acquaintances,  and some 5-year old fun. Since the get-together was in the kid's room of her Grandmother's church, there were some hula-hoops laying out. Me and Laura proceeded to relearn the art of this nostalgic practice. It took a while, but after about 30 minutes, we finally about to get the hang of hula-hooping.

These photos are courtesy of Laura, but I had to put them up because they are so funny.
Just having fun editing~

Not for the faint of heart

DISCLAIMER: Okay, so I am going to be honest and tell you that you might not want to read this post if you have a weak stomach. It is filled with lots of taboo words, graphic descriptions, and awkward topics. I've heard this process is pretty gross to some people. But not to ME! So here goes.

Last Monday for my Reproductive Physiology class, we had lab at the Vet School Dairy Barn. Our instructions? Learn how to artificially inseminate a cow. Mind you, I have been waiting for this lab all semester long. That would be because my teacher told us that we were going to actually be able to palpate a cow. For those of you who have not seen the Dirty Jobs episode, I will explain all this process entails.  YAY for you!

The POINT of doing this is to take a three foot long catheter, filled with semen, and deposit it just beyond the cow's cervix. Not in the vagina and not all the way in the uterus. If you deposit it into the vagina, fertility rates are too low and chances she will get pregnant are decreased. If you deposit into the uterus, you probably will only inject it into one uterine horn. SO, in order to know what you are doing, you must first grab a shoulder length glove, pull it all the way on, grab a LOT of lubricant, and stick your hand ALL the way into the cow's rectum. You do this because the cow's reproductive organs are located directly under the rectum, therefore easily palpated. Then you work your hand all around until you feel a hard almost ball-like structure on the pelvic floor of the rectum; this is the cervix. You place one finger in front of it and one finger at the end of it. Then you take your catheter with the other hand, place it into the vagina and work it slowly up to your finger where the cervix starts, and push through until it reaches your other finger and then deposit the semen. All Done!

Problems? Lots of them.

First of all, to the novice A.I. person, meaning me, everything in the rectum feels the same! A bunch of mushy, gooey poo! When I told our instructor lady that I could not find it, she told me to take my hand out. Then she went in and found it, had me stick my hand in over hers, and HANDED me the cervix! Poor Cow! She had two hands in her at once. Granted the only reason this lady was able to do this was because she is tiny. I am talkin' 5 foot. Her TA actually built her a wooden stool that she stands on so she can reach the cow. This also means a tiny arm too.  Anyways, once I felt it for the first time, it wasn't too hard to find again.

Problem number two? It was disgusting. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and interesting and I would definitely go do it again. And you would think that spending the past three summers dealing with dog poo would prepare me. NO. There is no comparing dog poop to cow poop. First of all, dog poo forms nice neat little "logs" it you will. Nice little small piles. I now appreciate that. And the smell is just slightly off-putting. Cow poop doesn't quite fit that description. They pretty much have constant diarrhea that just runs freely out and at random times without any notice. And have you ever heard how farms are a pollutant to the environment because of the production of methane? People, that is just a nice word for FARTING. And cows pass gas like no other. I would have my hand in the cow, and could feel donut holes of gas passing over my arm, which would then spew out in a loud crude noise straight in my face! Ugh. And the smell was sometimes so bad I would start gagging. This is a big deal considering I hardly notice the smell of dog poo anymore. Don't even get me started on their urine output. I think when you are inside of the cow the urine functions sort of shut down. But that doesn't mean the cow right next to you can't do it. When cows pee, they pee buckets of pee. BUCKETS. So if you are standing next to it, you are essentially hosing your jeans down with the splatter of urine. Lucky I was never in this situation, but one girl was working on a cow when this happened and she just had to suffer through it.

Problem number 3? When your arm is the cow's rectum, she thinks you are feces of course! What is the cause/effect? She starts trying to pass you out just like she does to feces. This means that at the start of your hand she starts constricting her muscles around you and continues to do this all the way down your arm. Ever had to endure a tight blood pressure cuff? That is essentially what she was doing- only on your entire arm, all at once, for a good minute or two. And while she is doing this you have to keep holding onto the cervix so you don't lose it; not that you could pull your arm out anyways, it is way to tight. My elbow joint was so sore the rest of the day from the constant tension I was putting my arm through. I just thought I was sticking my hand up there and I would be done. Now I understand what they mean when they say you can only palpate so many cows in one day; it is Exhausting!

I put off writing this entry because I didn't want to post it without the picture Dr. Coleman took of me. It simply wouldn't be as great. This is me up to my shoulder in cow rectum, and you can see the artificial insemination tube keeping the semen warm inside my pocket.

On an unrelated topic, you can sort of see our hott TA in the background of the picture above.

So, I had to take a picture to commemorate my choice to wear one of my favorite WHITE t-shirts to this lab. As you can witness below, it is in the bottom of the trash barrel right now. So much for wearing a plastic shoulder sleeve- that did not work. In fact, my hott TA, as mentioned above, was holding the cow's tail away from me, so I could work unobstructed. Then he proceeded to pull my plastic sleeve further up my shoulder. I thought he was just being nice and helping to prevent my shirt from getting anything on it. When I was done with that cow, I took off my sleeve and saw the poo stains all over my shoulder. So I guess he was trying to prevent anymore damage. Sad.

All things considered, I am glad I had this experience. It was a lot of fun, and not something a lot of people get to do. I am never short of stories as long as I am an Animal Science major.

So in conclusion: In the words of one of my friends in this class who is by no means a novice at this kind of stuff.

"You got cow s**t on your boots: you're country now, " yee-haw!

Children and Pets

So I was experimenting with the "children and pets" function on my camera the other day (low shutter speed to catch your subjects when they won't sit still). These are some of the pictures I came out with. I was bouncing the ball up in the air, trying to get a picture of her when she was as high up as possible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Pretty funny regardless.

This picture was taken right after she hit the ball off her nose while trying to catch it. Hence the ball went flying into the baker's rack and made a lot of noise.
Disclaimer: Yes I know that is a half-naked guy, thank-you Lindsey's wandering eyes for pointing it out. It is the dead guy from CSI miami! I swear!

Joe Random

So every week the Auburn Plainsmen Newspaper has a column entitled "Joe Random," where they interview a random person and ask them a bunch of random questions. I decided to answer all of the questions that were asked this week. Here goes.

First, I had to include the weekly "deer in the headlight" dork picture that is always handily included.

Amanda Ferguson

Senior, pre-vet

Age: 21

Availability: Single

Sign: Pieces

Greatest fear: Current one would be not getting into vet school

Random fact: I was up to my shoulder in cow rectum on Monday. Blog coming soon.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A veterinarian, duh. 

What are your feelings on the legitimacy of reality love shows?

Sorry, but you can't fall in love with the right person when you are currently also making out with 20 other people, who are trying to beat out their competition. They will do anything, so kind of hard to believe their "true" love.

Do you and your friends share the same political beliefs?

Pretty much. I try not to talk politics too much because I do NOT enjoy a good political argument. 

What are your favorite flavored Pringles?

The originals? I don't really know of any other flavor. Plus I have not had Pringles in a long time.

Which shoe do you put on first?

Mmmm.... I think my right. Actually I put on the first one I can find, and then go hunting for my other one wherever Daisy carried it (usually outside on the porch).

Have you every been cow-tipping?

Nope. Doesn't sound very entertaining to me. More like putting yourself in unnecessary danger.

If you had to choose never to wash your bed sheets or bath towels ever again which would it be and why?

Ugh. Definitely my bed sheets. I don't think I could live with dirty towels, but I could probably live with dirty bed sheets, as long as I could wash the pillow cases!

Will the world end in fire or ice?

Well apparently fire, according to global warming advocates. Or would that mean ice? I don't know.

Have you ever snuck out of your house?

No, as long as you were a good child, my parents let us go where we wanted and their was no need to sneak out. Although once my parents go to sleep, you could bang some drums over their head and they probably wouldn't wake up. So I probably would have gotten away with it had I tried, but I doubt I would have had the guts.

Do you know how to drive a stick shift?

Sorta kinda. I tried on my Aunt's car and was able to drive around the neighborhood, but definitely didn't have enough experience to make it on the "real" roads.

Would you be president if you could?

No way, I couldn't handle the rejection! Too many places to go, not my thing. I need my couch potato time.

What is your alarm clock set for?

6:15 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for my 8:00 class, and 7:15 for my 9:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My alarm gets turned off on the weekends.

When was the last time you slept on the floor?

Mmm...? A long time. Maybe in high school when we had sleepovers.

Have you ever bid for something on eBay?

No, I always wanted to but just never did.

If you had to dig a hole to China, where would you start?

Not from here, thats for sure.

Ag Roundup

Agriculture: the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products.
Roundup: a systematic gathering together of people or things

Together, you get the AG ROUNDUP! A mandatory event for us Ag Ambassadors, and where I spent my Saturday morning from 6:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

When I got there this morning, it was freezing cold and dew was all over the ground. This meant soaked-through wallabies, wet socks, and 6 inches of water soaked up my pants. It didn't help that it rained the night before and the grass was recently layed. I spent most of the time trying to balance my weight out to prevent sinkage. But... lots of good food, and fun goodies to take home. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

This would be me learning how to rope. I made it by the third time and got the sticker that the little kids get. Yes! No bulls can escape me! Okay, so they didn't move... I still think I could qualify in a contest though.
Okay so here's a real little heifer. I should have tried to rope her. I think she only agreed to take the picture because she was interested in my peanuts.
If only the picture could have been taken 1 second before, you would have seen a foot-long tongue (no joke) licking the side of my face (hence the grossed-out look). Her tongue was 10 times as rough as a cat's tongue, meaning a very painful show of affection and not one I would want again.

Here is a picture of me with the goat. She kept trying to head butt me! I think I annoyed her. It looks like everything is cool and I am petting her in this picture, but in reality, I am egging her on and she is about to stampede me. Not kidding
Had to get the annual sheep picture.
Here was part of the kid's corner that included balloons, face painting, and Simba the Lion King with a banana peel on his head? Not sure about that one.
Had to get a picture with Bessie, the Mobile Dairy Classroom Cow. She was a lot more tolerant than the other animals. She provides hourly demonstrations on how to milk a cow mechanically. 

There were several auctions going on also. I was working the silent one, when I came across this lovely item that someone won with a bid of $80. -- A lamb pelt. Yeah, sure, bypass all the other polo shirts from Anders book store and tool sets, and blow your money on this lovely number below. Here I am modeling it and showing off its beautiful pattern.
And I had to get a picture with the "Aubie" of the College of Ag, that would be the chicken of the Poultry Science department. When I saw him, I ran up to get a picture and he never said a word to me. Needless to say, later on in the day I was talking to my friend Clint and he told me he was in the picture of me and the chicken. I kept thinking he meant he jumped in the background at the last minute. No, he was the chicken. Creeper
Me and Loren repping the Zeta's of the ambassadors.
So one of the food stands was making corn dogs. These weren't your normal ones, they were actually a sausage covered in pancake batter. They were amazing, although way too rich tasting to eat as an actual meal. For some reason, they thought it would be fitting to make an AU sign out of painted REAL corndogs. Hmm...

There's a First Time for Everything

There is something to be said for settling into bed at 10 o'clock at night to study, and then waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning realizing you fell asleep and did absolutely nothing. Tried to pretend I was tired for about 30 more minutes before I gave up and decided to do something productive. No... not studying, blogging of course! Long overdue apparently.

So, Lots of firsts this weekend.

Got my first smartphone. HTC Touch Pro. I am obsessed with it. Of course I should be considering I have hardly even had internet before. Now I have something that comes in handy whenever I am bored.

Some pictures I took from my phone,

The next picture is courtesy of dad and his new camera.

Next first?  I voted for the first time. Got a little excited as I finally left the polling place and took a couple of pictures.  Notice my first voting sticker ever. It is stuck to my computer right now making it look a little classier. I don't think I will every throw it away! All things considering, voting went well. I was a little nervous when I heard about how the early voting lines were hours long, but it only took me an hour and a half. Just long enough to miss most of my lunch break though.

As for facebook statuses Tuesday night, I had to take some screenshots. Since most of my friends are republicans, and pretty upset that McCain lost, this made for some pretty funny statuses. Check it out.

Not saying I agree with all these comments, it is just funny how devastated people can feel over a presidency and think their life is going to be "hell" on earth. Its not like we don't live in a democracy people... 

Click on the picture if you can't read it.

P.S. mom, I blocked out the bad words for you.

Also, I came across an article that at least supported Bush and understood that he is not at fault for every problem our country is in right now. Not that he never did anything wrong, just that the presidency is not as cut and dry as everyone wants to make it seem. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html

Sorry for a political post, tried to make it as painless as possible.

My very long Saturday Night

So, Saturday Night Erin came down from Emory to hang out with me and Carlyn for Carlyn's 21st birthday. Around 12:30 we left Carlyn's apartment and walked over to Insomnia (a food place open until 3:00 a.m). Before we left I realized I couldn't find my phone so I checked my car and found it in there. Since I wasn't taking my purse to the restaurant, I just left my phone in the car. Bad Idea. Why? You'll see.  We spent an hour or so at Insomnia, and we were annoyed by an obnoxious group of guys who kept taking our pictures while we were eating. ??? Then they proceeded to to take a picture of us while they were waiting in line. At that point, I spoke up and said "Excuse me? What do ya'll think you are doing?" They replied, "We are taking pictures of our reflections in the window!" So I then immediately proceeded to tell them "In that case, maybe ya'll should try the window right over there, where we will NOT be in the picture..." Then they just laughing and muttering to themselves blah blah blah. So as we were leaving, we pulled out our cameras and took a few pictures of them, they loved it. Figures... Somewhere, me, Erin, and  Carlyn are on some rando guy's facebooks, stuffing our faces with food. Lovely.

We walked back to Carlyn's place and hung out and watched our old Senior videos, and had a blast looking at the horrible pictures of ourselves. Then around 3:00 I decided to leave and as I was walking out, I happened to look over the balcony and see that my car was no longer where I parked it! I ran back and asked Carlyn if they tow from her apartment. She said the only time they ever did it was on gamedays, and she had never seen them do it any other time. To top it off, Erin's car had not been towed. So then I started to get worried that maybe my car had gotten stolen, because this apartment complex was a little sketchy. And my car has gotten broken into twice before. So we all jumped in Carlyn's car to go make sure that my little innocent wrangler was sitting in one of the tow truck storage lots. A.K.A. tonka truck prison. So we are driving down and we pass the first place and we don't see my car. Then with a sudden flash glance backwards I could have sworn I saw it. So I get Carlyn to turn back around and actually drive into the parking lot so we could check and make sure. Well, Carlyn is not paying too much attention and is looking for my car, and we ran over a curb. Actually "ran over" is not a satisfactory phrase to describe the impact that we make with this curb. We had actually hit a "foot high off the ground" curb that had bricks on the other side of it. I guesstimate I experienced an impact force of around 3G's. Okay, exaggerating a little, but you get the point. After the shock of hitting it, she keeps driving and all is well. I determined that I imagined my car, probably out of sheer desperation for the hope it was not stolen, and we get back on the road to head to the next parking lot right up the road. 

Da-dunk, Da-dunk, Da-dunk. ---That is my description of the very obvious flat tire she had. She starts to slow down, and I think really quickly and tell her to pull in the Hyundai dealership parking lot where it is lit up so bright, you would think it was daytime. This would be because everywhere around this dealership was PITCH-BLACK, and right before her tire went flat I saw some men walking near the street (its 3 in the morning) , so I figured it best to not park in the road. 

We get out of her car, and sure enough, her tire has a chunk of rubber separated from it.

Of course Carlyn starts to freak out because it is now 3:30 in the morning and we are stranded in the middle of a Hyundai parking lot, and there is not a human soul in sight. "DO NOT FEAR," I proclaim, "for I know how to change this tire." 

"My dad taught me, and I helped him when we work on my car," I explain.

So, after I convince them that all will be alright and changing a tire is not a big deal, we pull out her spare tire and the little, teensy, eensy jack included in the kit. Hmm... I don't believe I have had practice in operating a miniscule jack before. But I figure it can't be that hard, if it works anything like a normal one, we could figure it out. 

Actually, no, we could not figure it out. No matter how many different ways we tried to get the darn thing to work, there was obviously something we were missing. What is the point of a college education, if you can't even operate a simple piece of machinery? (that is intended for everyone to use?) Now what? Well, luckily Carlyn has triple A, so she calls the number. The computer automated voicemail doesn't recognize her number. Now what? Call the police? Carlyn tries Triple A again, and this time is goes through. The kind operator tells her that "help will arrive anytime from now, until 40 minutes from now." So when should we expect the guy to arrive? Everybody repeat after me, 40 minutes from now. 

So Carlyn, Erin, and I sit down on the apshalt, in 40 degree weather, at 3:45 in the morning, and wait for our savior. Okay... then we realized we were idiots and sat down in the CAR, where it is more like 70 degrees, at approximately 3:50 in the morning. When the tow guy pulls in the parking lot, he gets right to work and and gets out all of his equipment (including a large, functional jack) that he will need. After about 5 minutes, he looks up at us and says, "do you have the key to unlock the tires?" WHAT!? Whoever heard of such a thing? Not me. The look on Carlyn's face says it all, No we do not have the key. Just to make sure, we spend the next 15 minutes searching her car for the "key" that none of us have any idea what it looks like. He tells us that he will go through his tools and see if he has anything that will work, but most likely he will not have anything. At this point, I tell Carlyn that she needs to start calling some friends, since we will most likely need a ride. She tries calling around 7 people, and none of them answer! "Well, let me try calling some of my friends" I say. Wait.... I DON'T HAVE MY PHONE. And realizing that you cannot get your phone and it is either stolen with your car or locked up is a very helpless feeling. Can we not catch a break? So we stand around having no idea what to do, and then the guy says that unfortunately, he is not going to be able to get the tire off. Then Carlyn's phone rings, and one of her fraternity friends answers that phone. "Can you come pick me up?" she says,     ...gibberish...      "Are you drunk?" 

Well, there went that prospect.

I ask the guy what he thinks we should do, and I tell him that nobody can pick us up. He says that although he is not legally allowed to tow her car (because he is not in the right area???) he would gladly make room in his truck and take us home. So just as we are about to do that, Carlyn remembers one of her neighbors that she has not yet called. This girl answers the phone and reluctantly agrees to come pick us up (it is now 4:15 in the morning). So the tow guy says he can't hang around any longer, and he leaves. We wait for our ride to pick us up, as Carlyn drives her car to the service entrance of Hyundai (hah), having no idea what she is going to do in relation to her "key problem." We get picked up, (by our ride, not by johns) and head to the next tow lot. There is my sad little car, all locked up. If it weren't for the security cameras, I think I would have jumped the gate, barbed wire and all, and gotten my phone. Guess how much the sign tells me is will cost to spring my jeep?

~$100~

Great, just great.

We call the number listed, and ask him when they are open. "24/7," he says, "but you can't come pick it up until 8 in the morning." ... ooookay... What he probably meant is -- we are open all night to tow people and make money, but you have to wait till the next day to pick up your car. Needless to say, the next morning, after we had pre-planned a time for Erin to pick me up from my apartment (as I do not have my phone for any communication, remember) we go pick up my car, and I fork over the $100 bucks.   Then we go to Waffle house to eat away our sorrows in chocolate chip pancakes and hashbrowns of course.

As I told Carlyn, one day we will look back at this night and laugh,

But not today people, not today.

Moral of the story? Some days just suck.

Keep in minds these pictures are from earlier in the night, when we still had a sense of humor.

Pictures in Auburn

Here are some long overdue pictures from last weekend. Magen and I ran all over Auburn taking as many pictures as we could. Lots of fun. I let Daisy loose on Samford Lawn, and made her sit still for a bunch of other pictures. She was not happy. She also stepped on the AU seal. So now in order for her to not fail her finals, she is going to have to wash her paws in the fountain in front of the president's mansion 3 times on a full moon night! I think I might just let her fail.


Daisy looks so obedient and patient in the above picture doesn't she? Actually, in the middle of taking it, she proceeded to leap off the other side and chase after a squirrel. She is slightly ADD I think.