The Littlest Things

...can make the biggest difference. I'm really sad tonight, I got some bad news I was hoping would turn out differently.

Rocky's sister Philly has ring bone in her right hind foot.  She's three years old and my Dad just bought her from the same breeder/trainer that I got Rocky from.  Apparently last winter Philly kicked out in the round pen, hitting her foot on the steel bar and injuring her pastern. Since then she has gained extraneous bone growth around her pastern and going over her fetlock.

The vet says it is only a matter of time until she gets arthritis, and will need to have her pain managed on a regular basis for the rest of her life.

My Mom has made the decision to send Philly back to the breeder/trainer, as supporting a horse who will never be able to be worked hard or who will eventually live in pain is not part of the plan. It's too much money for a damaged horse who is so young.

I'm sad because a three year old filly with so much potential will never be able to be used for more than light riding, and there are not a lot of homes for horses like that.

I'm sad because at some point, she will get arthritis and experience some level of pain on a daily basis.

I'm sad that someday, she will likely have to be put down because the pain will become unmanageable, and she will not be comfortable as even a pasture pet.

I'm sad because I have been so excited to work with her, to spend time with her and get to know Rocky's sister.  Now she is leaving for an uncertain fate.

I understand the decision to sell her back to her breeder and on a purely practical level agree with it.  I just can't get her soft eyes out of my head.

Also, This:

This song plays in my head all the time, especially, "This girl's in every song I sing, she's in every song I write."

And this feels like summer:

I want to roll my windows down and cruise, too.  Soon!

I'm Dreaming of some White Fences

Good day to all of you, and a wonderful day it is looking out my window! The sun is shining, the gobs of snow are melting, and all seems to be heading into a *real* spring. Fingers crossed, our last snow storm was last night!

This winter (and "spring") has made me yearn, both for warmer days and an indoor riding arena.  During my ride on Sunday, we were working on turning on the hindquarters while his fore feet were in a square of poles on the ground, and it started to sleet nasty wintry mix.  As I huddled in the barn glaring at the sky, I wished for an indoor arena where our work would have remained uninterrupted by inconveniences like the weather. 

If you are a horse person, at some point I can pretty much guarantee you have daydreamed about your perfect horse property.  At this point it's pretty obvious mine includes an indoor arena, but there is oh so much more I would snatch up if I could. So let's dream a bit together, shall we?

First, I want a barn with stall doors that slide like butter on a hot pan.  The flooring would be these amazing recycled rubber bricks, you can hose it off, sweep it, and it looks fabulous. Plus, it's just the right blend of firm and gentle support to stand on.  My tack room would be lightly heated and completely enclosed so no floating dust gets in.  I'd have a lounge room overlooking the indoor, with plush couches, a refrigerator, microwave, and an old fashioned Coke machine.  Then there would be a bathroom large enough to change in, with real running water and everything! (Right now our barn has a porta-potty. It works, but it does leave something to be desired.) 

I would have a wash stall with a drain in the middle and overhanging hose on a spring so when you let go, it bounces gently in place in the air without having to drag a dirty hose around on the ground.  Sounds lovely, right?

Okay, so, the barn would have a covered aisle leading to the arena, which would be both air conditioned and heated. The indoor would have mirrors along one side and seating on the other, with two large doors leading out each end. It would also have a built in hydration system to keep the dust down. 

Then I would have at least three large (5 plus acre) pastures and one sacrificial pasture for spring.  Then there would be the outdoor arena and 50 foot round pen.  Of course, the property would have mature oaks and maples throughout, as well as some pines and poplar trees.  Grass would be thick and green, with no need to supplement hay through the summer.  Each pasture would have a shelter with two open ends and a roof.  

What do you think, am I missing anything? Apart from the house (Southern style with wraparound covered porch, hardwood floors and a glossy open kitchen with granite counters and a center island....). 

A girl can always dream, right? What would your place look like?

All the Stuff

Hello!

I have a confession to make: I have been avoiding blogging lately because I resent the next Equestrian Challenge questions. I don't really want to answer them, so I will do it quick, like ripping a band-aid off.  Then we can move on to other things.

My favorite color of horse: I don't have one.  Um, friendly? A friendly colored horse?

My most embarrassing moment: I am assuming they mean "with a horse" because these are supposed to be "equestrian" questions, but for the life of me I can't think of an embarrassing moment I've had with a horse. Generally I do those on my own, but horses make everything better. The moment that comes to mind is when I was wearing flip flops, sitting on a tack trunk next to my horse.  It was summer and I was waiting for something, so I had taken my boots off while I waited.  Honey ended up accidentally stomping on my bare pinkie toe while she was stomping flies.  She had edged closer to me to be friendly, and apparently got a bit too close.  My toe was fine, it hurt and bruised up but it wasn't broken.  A bit embarrassing because I knew you shouldn't wear flip flops around horses but I did it anyway.

Whew! Now that those are over, what else has been going on with me?  I got my haircut (finally!) and my eyebrows waxed, and I feel so much better about the general appearance of my head.  I also bought some hair dye in lovely copper red that I will apply on Wednesday.

Why wait until Wednesday? I'm glad you asked! I have an informational job interview on Tuesday morning that I am absolutely psyched for, and I don't want to risk the hair color turning out badly right before the interview.  For now, that is all I will say about it, I don't want to jinx anything!

Back to horse world, Rocky gave me a giant spring vet bill with all of his shots and getting his teeth floated, but he is healthy! His sister, Philly, may not be quite so healthy though. It was discovered that she has a raised ridge around her left hind foot that looks suspiciously like ringbone. The vet took x-rays of it and we should hopefully find out today what the prognosis looks like. Here's hoping it is something easily taken care of and not a life long issue- especially considering that she is only a 3 year old.

It's Supposed to be Spring...

Here in the Midwestern United States, talking about the weather is everyone's go-to conversation starter.  The weather changes frequently and can be drastic.  For example, when I got to work today at noon, it was sunny and 38 degrees (which is a heckuva lot warmer than it has been).  Snow was melting, the sun felt warm on your face, and there was a blushing hope of the coming spring.  Now it's 5 o'clock and snow is pouring out of the sky, it feels like winter will never end and we will all just live in The Day After Tomorrow land.

I am so tired of shoveling, it's not even funny. It's the middle of April, which is supposed to be muddy and rainy, and instead we are getting huge dumps of snow. We got several inches of snow last Thursday through Friday, which accumulated in giant drifts because of the 40 mph wind.  Pleasant, right?  Saturday through about 5 pm today, it was sunny and warming up outside.  Now we are expected to get another 6 inches or so of snow tonight, with some rainy crap mixed in that will make roads very hazardous to travel.

Basically, this spring has not cooperated AT ALL.  I wish there was someone who could be fired for mixing up the season change so badly, but there isn't. That I know of- you find someone, let me know!

All of this has made it pretty much impossible to work with Rocky. In less than a month we are supposed to do our first ACTHA ride, but I haven't been able to work with him very much at all.  Things were starting to melt, so there was mud or ice floes everywhere.  Now it's been snowing again like crazy, so it makes driving dangerous or the trails generally impassable.

I did get some good work done on opening and closing the arena gate last time I was able get up to the barn.  After a few practices we were able to do it, not super gracefully but without smashing my knee and keeping my hand on the gate.  The trick I learned was to slow Rocky down and give him a pause between each new movement. His tendency was that once the gate was open, we go through it and away! Moving slowly around it and then stopping so I could shut it was not in his game plan.  Once we mastered taking it step by step, he was able to wrap his head around my request rather than rushing through everything.

Once I got frustrated because he seemed so impatient, so I loped him around the driest part of the arena for a minute.  When we returned to the gate we were both thinking more calmly and were able to get the job done. Still, I feel like we are not going to be well prepared for the ride in May. I'm wondering if they will end up needing to cancel it due to the weather, but I suspect they will do it anyway.

Can someone bring me back to this kind of weather? I miss the green!

Two for One!

The next Equestrian Challenge Question seems a bit silly, so I'll briefly answer it and then move on to the next question.  To start us off, how do my friends and family feel about my horse habit?  I think those of you who regularly read my blog could answer that for me, but here's your answer anyway: they are supportive. My husband occasionally wishes it cost a bit less (and let's be fair, so do I!) but everyone is in favor of me having a horse.

Let's move on.

The next question is for me to find a horse online that I would want to buy. Well, it took me about half an hour but I found one I would snatch up if I could! http://www.dreamhorse.com/show_horse.php?form_horse_id=1812277  He's a five year old Quarter horse gelding, buckskin, with trail riding and cutting experience.

He looks solidly built, pretty, athletic, and smart. He seems reasonably priced at $12,500.  After half an hour of looking at swan necked Quarter horses, horses who have clearly been run through the show mill so they lope like crabs, and Friesians who looked trained to grow hair, this guy seems awfully nice.

He's not everyone's ideal horse, but when looking at the $50,000 dressage horses or the $25,000 jumpers, I didn't really feel a "spark."  I feel like they'd be wasted with me, rather than with someone who participates in those disciplines and would drool over a horse with that type of training and ability.  Don't get me wrong, I'd gawk at them for a bit, but then I would want to put them out in a pasture with other horses or hop on them for a trail ride. Sure, some of those professionally trained pleasure horses might enjoy a spin out on the trail, but most would probably turn inside out and high tail it back to the barn.

So there he is, a horse I'd like to own given the opportunity.  I feel like I'd be able to use his abilities fairly, and I went with a "fancy" color just because I had to go for the gold somewhere!

My Back Hurts (and other various maladies)

Alright Folks, today we are getting back into our Equestrian Challenge Questions! Today's topic: Injuries Sustained From a Horse.  Starting us off, I have been hurt several times in the course of my equestrian life but only twice in a lasting way.  I've had my pinkie toe stomped on two different occasions, neither one breaking anything but causing some lovely bruising.

Recently, I banged my knee while working on opening and shutting a gate from horseback. I've done it before and received some bruising that I generally ignore.  This last time, though, I was in the car on my way home and lifted up the knee of my sweat pants. (Yes, I wore sweat pants riding. They're comfortable and warm, okay?) When I moved the fabric, part of it stuck to my knee before slowly peeling off.  When I got home, I discovered this:

I took this photo the day after I hurt my knee, when the cut had scabbed up a bit. Pretty bruises, huh?  Not a lasting injury but it's the only one I have photographic evidence of- which makes me wish AGAIN that I had kept the x-rays.

X-rays, you say? I took a tumble off my first horse, Honey, when I was around 16 years old.  We were cantering down a road, and by road I mean we were galloping down a racetrack, getting ready to pass another horse in the backstretch (in my head, at least) when Honey got other ideas. She decided that it was time to practice her reining skills, and did a lovely sliding stop.  She slid for about 6 feet (you could see the drag marks in the soft gravel on the side of the road), and that was without any reining training whatsoever! Or without being polite enough to cue me in to her plans.

I flew off over her right shoulder, performed a somersault, and landed on my back in front of her.  The air disappeared from my lungs and it took me what felt like forever to be able to move.  I slowly turned myself over, gasping for breath while trying to get back to my feet. Honey watched me for a minute, then took herself the last block or so home.

My back hurt. I was stubborn enough to get back on her once I had cried and limped my way home, to finish going home the right way instead of with a crash.  The next day I went in to get my lower back x-rayed to make sure I hadn't broken anything.  The x-ray was really neat looking, there was a sudden curve in my spine at my lower back because I couldn't lay flat on the table- it hurt too badly. I was lucky and hadn't broken or sprained anything, but the doctor outlined with his finger tips on my back the basketball sized bruise that was coming in.

To this day there are times when it hurts to lay down flat, but I can breathe through it and eventually am able to settle into it. Doing exercises that involve laying on the floor and putting weight on my back, like scissor kicks, are too uncomfortable for me to do.

Sometimes I get a twinge that goes from my right hip through my lower back, but I'm pretty sure a fall off Rocky helped with that one. I think I posted about this one earlier, so I'll do a quick synopsis rather than getting into the nitty gritty of things.  He got scared on a trail ride, spun and bolted with me. I lost my right stirrup during his spin, and ended up sliding off him while he ran "for his life." I skidded across the grass, getting grass burns on my face and arm but, more painfully, I landed and slid on my right hip.

Directly after the accident it wasn't so bad, it was stiff and hurt but not that terribly.  The worst part was for a solid four days after I fell, I had a really hard time lifting my right leg.  Which sucked because my bedroom and the bathroom were upstairs, making me look like an old lady whenever I went up to bed or had to use the toilet.

That about sums up my riding injuries. So far I have been lucky and nothing has been broken, knock on wood.  How about for you?