What's Up Wednesday

Not a whole lot going on here this week really. But to balance out yesterday's Negative Nancy post, I thought maybe I'd talk about some things that have been really positive during Jampy's bout with laminitis.

 First, I'm super grateful that he wears clothes without issue. He has been wearing ice boots 24/7 since this all started, and that is made a lot easier by him being willing to leave them on. My junior hunter used to tear apart every piece of clothing you put on him. He was a total houdini at getting out of blankets and wraps.

I also want to acknowledge what a good patient he's been. He's been stuck in a stall with no turnout and only 2-3 minutes of hand walking per day. He can eat nothing but soaked hay and his salt block. (He's also allowed to eat peanuts, but he's decided they are gross.) And while he's sometimes a bit sassy or a little rude, he's really behaving well. I can put him on the crossties to groom, and he just stands there like a good boy. Some days our three minute walk is cut short by antics, but most days he keeps it together. He seems to even know that he can't drag me to the grass, because he's hardly even tried.

I have the less local vet scheduled for Tuesday to take x-rays. I'm crossing all the crossables that everything has stayed put and hopefully we can start making a plan to move toward normal life for him. I'm hoping he'll be allowed to at least go out in the tiny walkout on Rio's side of the barn soon. When I was building the barn, I wanted to have run outs for the horses. Unfortunately, due to the layout of my property and zoning regulations, I had to make them really small. The side Rio lives on has the smaller sized walkouts, but in trade, they are also covered. They're about 12x20 in size. The one on Jamp's side of the barn is larger at around 20x50. Rio is currently using the larger one for his turnouts while he rehabs that bowed tendon. But hopefully soon Jampy can hang out in the smaller one for at least a few hours a day.

Another bonus that I've never considered a bonus, is that my horses turnout in the ring since they both hate the back paddock. Jampy won't be able to have grass anymore, so fortunately, once he's cleared for exercise, he can go back to his normal turnout routine in my sand ring.

So this past week and weekend has been spent grooming the boys and trying to hand walk them between rain storms. Rio's gotten to graze a bunch too. He's like snow white out there, all the animals want to graze with him!

I decided Saturday that I needed to reintroduce exercise into my own life now that I'm not riding. But since it was pouring and my asthma has been terrible, I opted for a treadmill walk. I felt so much better afterwards! I need to make a real effort to take care of the old body. Easy to forget or just not want to when life's busy taking care of the ponies. The pugs joined me on my walk, but they were way lazier about it.

Sunday was supposed to be another nasty day, but we actually got to see the sun for about a half hour around 3PM. So I quickly grabbed the pups for a walk.

We wound up getting a little drizzled on, but it was nice to get out for a bit. It was really humid, though not super hot. But I think we're not used to it, and the pups were WIPED OUT after!

That's about all that's up over here this Wednesday! What's up with you? Do anything fun this weekend? Or exciting plans for next?

What's Up Wednesday

I'll try not to talk about poop too much today. I'm disappointed to report that Rio's poo is still rather runny, but it's at least not exploding out of him like the other day... That was horrifying. It's definitely still wintering out here in CT, but it's calmed itself down quite a bit. We've not only been above freezing for almost a week, we had a RAINSTORM yesterday! Rain! I love rain. At least when it could be snow and instead it's being rain. That's when I love it. So let's see... what happened in the last week?
Thursday evening I basically neglected my horses. I fed them after work and then I headed off to meet up with my book club. I was pretty excited as we were meeting at a restaurant right down the road from my house that I had yet to try.

 Turns out some family friends of one of the girls was seated by us, and as they were leaving, sent us two bottles of wine. Those are the kind of people I like to be friends with! Free wine for all! Woohoo!
Friday, to apologize for the Thursday neglect, the ponies had a nice grooming each and the puggers got some extra snuggles.
I was REALLY hoping to ride on Saturday but alas, the weather was being dumb. Originally the forecast was for 50's this weekend. And while we did very briefly see 50 on Saturday, it was only for about a half hour and not until later in the afternoon. Saturday was VERY windy too. Nonetheless, I was hopeful to get on. I kept walking the ring to test the footing. ALL DAY LONG. While the very top layer got soft, it was still very hard and frozen under that, which makes for terribly unsafe footing. Boo. So more groomies for the boys and that was that. Instead I had some fun with crafts in the house.
First I made some cuff bracelets that I've been meaning to put together for awhile. They all have matching horse head bracelets to wear in a stack. The horse heads I made last year though.

You may or may not remember that I mentioned Rio having lost a chunk of (non-pooped on) tail a few weeks ago. I really wanted to make a bracelet with it so figured I had the time so that was the next project. Because the tail chunk wasn't cut off neatly, I had to try and organize the strands before doing anything with it. This was kind of a PITA and I eventually got bored and super lazy about the whole thing and decided to just braid it. But I didn't JUST want braided Rio hair because there wasn't enough of it to be very thick. So I thought I could braid it with some leather cord I had. It kept just not looking right, until finally I tried adding hair to the cord sections as well, and then it finally looked ok.

 Unfortunately, the clasp I choose, which looks ADORABLE as I'd hoped, is not a very functional one. It's magnetic, which usually is fine. The magnets on most of the clasps I've used are really strong and hold very well. But with the way this one is designed, it's just not working.

The bracelet has to stay flat where the clasp is or else it comes apart. And when you wear a soft bracelet like this one, it doesn't hold that flat shape unfortunately.

It's perfect if you DON'T MOVE!

Honestly though, I'm feeling a little superstitious about wearing a Rio bracelet anyway. I don't want to put any bad JUJU out there by wearing part of my horse that's still alive and well. Seems weird right? So maybe it's for the best that this was just a prototype. And that was the extent of my wild Saturday night!
Sunday I was more determined than ever to get on my ponies! I had learned from Saturday to wait until the afternoon to even consider such things. So instead I got started on the great closet purge of 2018. I only allotted myself a couple of hours, so I didn't get very far. But hey, it's a start! At 1 I headed out to feed lunch and work the ponies. The footing was still pretty bleh, but the one corner was soft enough to do a little walk trot on the lunge line to see how their brains were working.
I started with Jampy. He was actually a lot less nuts than I expected. He tried to get stupid once, but he is smart enough to realize the footing was not good enough for such nonsense and reeled it back in.

I didn't want him doing too much since he hasn't worked in a solid month, so I let him trot around a little each way, and then decided to climb aboard. I was hoping to do some trotting too, which we did, but very little. The footing was crap, and my neighbor had come home and was making all kinds of weird noise over there. Jampy was a good boy though!

I left my Voltaire in Florida and was curious to see if I would miss it. I haven't used my Hermes saddle since the Voltaire arrived! Fortunately, Hermie felt just as great as I remembered.
I pretty much had the same plan for Rio. He was feeling a bit sassy and gave me a bunch of happy head shakes on the lunge line. He's smart enough to respect the footing, but I think if it was better out he'd have been a bit of a bronco. Silly old man!

after the wild was out. AKA 2 minutes later.

Since it's Rio he got over the wilds pretty quickly. I climbed aboard but just walked him. Since he's less of a kook than his brother, I let him use the whole ring. I think he enjoyed the walk. I know I did. There's seriously nothing better to me than getting to sit on him. He's definitely my soul mate.

I was half thinking about taking the pugs for a walk since it's been FOREVER since they've gone on one. I don't take them on the road once winter hits because all that salt is terrible on their feet. I wound up not taking them because everything was a wet muddy mess and they're very low riders. I wasn't up for the bathe the doggies battle. Instead we played some fetch in the house and got some snuggles in too.

we're not very good at family selfies

We ARE good at naps.

The temps have been falling ever since Monday so by the time I get home from work, the ground is hard again. It's looking promising for some riding on Saturday though, so everyone keep your fingers crossed for us!
How was your week/weekend? Did you get to ride? Do any crafts? What's going on with you and your ponies?

What's Up Wednesday!

I suppose this is actually What's Up Thursday since it's after midnight. It was a long day! It's been kind of busy around here so I have lots to tell you. But I'll try and be brief cause it's past my bedtime.
Last Wednesday evening my family and I had dinner scheduled with our attorney's and bankers to celebrate the sale of our company back in June. So crazy after all these years to think we don't own it anymore. But it was a lovely dinner, and I ate enough for seven people. The rest of the week was the norm, work, brush horses, sleep, repeat.
Saturday I had another lesson. I rode Liam again which was nice. I felt more comfortable on him this time since I knew him a little bit. We started off with some flat work to get him moving off my leg and giving in both directions. Then we went right to jumping. We started this time cantering a cross rail that was set in the middle of the ring. We cantered it off a circle to the left, and it was a great exercise for me. I like to turn in early and make a nice short approach (less time to change my mind!) but this exercise made me use all my space since we were working with a such a small area. After that, we went right on to jumping courses. You guys! I jumped 3'3" and didn't panic or miss or anything! Miracle! On a horse I barely know! This is big for present day me. Maybe not for 16 year old me, but we haven't seen her in ages. I wish I had media to share. But I don't. I don't know anyone all that well there yet, so I don't want to be a narcissistic creeper and ask a stranger to film me.... But maybe one of these days! To hold you over, here's a photo of my trainer's baby horse who lives at my new lesson barn for now:

The headless mare is Candy, who you might remember from the one time I showed at WEF a few years back! She's a momma now. This baby is by Zirocco Blue. They call him Baby Blue, but I imagine that won't stick when he's older. I think he's going to gray out like parents.
By the time I got back home Saturday, it had gotten pretty chilly and damp out so I opted out of working the horses. Instead, they all got curries and carrots. They like that better anyway.

Selfies with Jampy

Sunday it was actually pretty nice out, so I decided to do something with my herd. Rio had a lunge and looked pretty great. I swear, I could watch him for hours and never get bored. I hate that he's not a kid anymore. I took some video of him but no photos. Instead, here's his face begging for treats:

Jampy had a rather wild lunge and then I climbed aboard. We didn't get much done because the neighbor was outside being noisy. Jamp's gotten pretty good at dealing with that, but not really after the whole winter off. Fair enough buddy. We did try out his new noise cancelling bonnet, which turned out to be a great decision on my part. 

I tried to take Romey out for some groundwork, but he was a wild animal, so I noped out of it. Not worth the battle when I know snow is coming and we won't be consistent moving forward. I did make him do some exercises in listening to momma in the barn though. He was actually quite good. 

That's about it for horse related excitement this week, but hey, that's pretty good for January!

In other news, I've been getting crafty! You already saw some of my spur straps I made. I'm happy to report that I used a pair and they haven't broken yet! So that's good news. I've also made a bunch of bracelets. Or assembled them... Whatever. I've done a whole bunch of these horse head clasp ones and also these double wraps:

I love that I had enough leather to do a wrap and a horse head, for a gorgeous matching stack! I've done a few different colors and may or may not have ordered more supplies. 

I also found some straps on etsy to switch up the photo charms I have. I did one for Rio, one for Jamp, one for my old boy Bud, and I couldn't forget the pugs!

These are fun, and it's really easy to switch out the charms, so one bracelet can be done up all different ways.

I might have exponentially increased the size of my bracelet collection.... 

That's about it from Winthrop Corner. I will leave you with some adorable Pug photos.

What's Up Wednesday

Wednesday again already? Time is flying. The weather has been a little cuckoo crazy around here. It was warm, in the 60's for a few days, and I really was quite spoiled! Then Monday it snowed 4 inches.

Fortunately it melted by the afternoon. Oh New England.... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Despite the warm weather last week, riding was a little hit or miss. I had made plans with some friends for dinner on Friday and I didn't want to break them. So the boys had Friday off. Then Saturday.... well you read about Saturday on my Truthful Tuesday post... I didn't have time to ride because I needed to be decked out in a fancy dress and a mask for my friend Vanessa's 30th birthday party. It was a murder mystery masquerade party! SO FUN!!!! Here are some photos:

We were assigned characters ahead of time, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time! What a creative idea! My character was Freddie Fuschia a horse jockey who's owners force her to make her horse Dark Sail really aggressive to win races. I was not the murderer. But one of my horse's owners was the victim!

Sunday my barn helper was back, so I enjoyed a MUCH needed lazy morning. I got up around 8:30, straightened the house up some and then headed out for breakfast. It was lovely. After that I came home to see what I was going to do with the equine. It was really cold out. And windy. Yuck. I decided to ride Jamp, lunge Rio, and just groom Romey. I figured with the snow coming I wouldn't be able to ride Monday, and I'm trying to wait until I can get consistent rides in with him. Joke was on me though since the snow melted and I was able to ride Monday... Sort of.
Monday was ridiculously cold. And the wind! Ugh the wind... Those of you who follow along, know that Jamp sees dead horses. And when it's windy, they come out like a zombie apocalypse. So I tacked him up, planning to just ride him that evening and give the others the night off. Jampy made it VERY evident that we needed to spend some time on the lunge line before riding.

Oddly enough, he wasn't all that wild lunging. He was however, petrified of everything and anything. I decided to just work him on the lunge and skip riding. I was frozen from head to toe, and still needed to get to the grocery store for the week.
Last night wasn't much better! It was a little warmer but still very windy. I managed to ride Jamp, but we just used half the ring, avoiding his danger zone at the other end. I like to choose my battles! He worked ok... He did everything I asked of him, but his attention was never on me really. Rio had a lunge last night and then some extra snuggles.

Romey just had a good grooming. It's supposed to warm up today so I'm hoping I can get him going tonight.

He's been having some allergy issues. My vet recommended the Allergy and Skin Supplement from Platinum Performance. It's due to arrive today, and I'm really hoping it helps him. He has little hives all over, and I've been reluctant to pump him full of dex. I will if this doesn't work though I guess.

Yesterday was a fun mail day. I had found a coupon code online to get a 16x20 canvas print shipped for $29.00 and it arrived yesterday. I wish I had cropped it a little differently, but I like it overall.

Please excuse my hideous window treatments... they came with the house almost 10 years ago, and clearly I haven't gotten around to changing them.

The pugs have been full of snuggles lately. I'm hoping we'll have time for a nice walk this weekend and also that the weather permits such an activity!

That's about all that's been going on over here! What's up with you this Wednesday? How's the weather where you are?