What's Up Wednesday

 

The weather has been a real downer here lately between bitter cold and then a snowstorm. Fortunately, it only messed with some of my riding plans. Friday was the coldest day with highs in the single digits. I don't ride when it's that cold, but I did go out to took everyone for a short hand walk. 

Shiny got off the easiest this past week. It was ridiculously windy Thursday night by the time I got to her. I got her all tacked up and planned to ride anyway (we are indoors after all!) but she kind of lost her shit when I walked her into the ring. I can't blame her. Something banged really loudly against the wall (no idea what) and then all kinds of things (sand? rocks from the driveway? I dunno) were blowing against the walls. I stripped her tack and let her have a free lunge instead. I actually have been wanting to do that because we're still struggling with canter work and I wanted to see if she would canter on her own. She did indeed! She was all kinds of wild. So good to know she is capable of a nice canter even if she doesn't want to do be doing it under saddle right now.

We got some info back from her bloodwork this week too. Her insulin levels were good which is wonderful news. My vet said it is possible she is still experiencing some insulin resistance, but at that moment when the blood was taken she was not. The best way to know for sure is to do a fasting glucose test, but we're going to hold off until she's lost some weight and see if we think it's necessary. She did have a low thyroid and did test as obese... So we have some work to do there. We started her on Thyro-L for the thyroid problem, and likely once that kicks in, it will help with the weight problem. Poor girl. Takes after her mother! (I also have a low thyroid condition. Lol.) Her attitude under saddle is still a problem, she does NOT want to work. But we're just plugging along trying to do as much as we can each day. Doc did say she needs to work more, but it's really difficult when she's so obstinate! Last night though, the snow was crashing off the roof, so that was useful in getting her going! Although bolting and leaping isn't quite the work I'm after... Take what I can get! Ha!

Eros has gotten off a little easy too. He worked all last week, but Tuesday morning the barn hadn't been plowed out yet for my morning ride, so I opted not to go. I didn't want to park out on the road while the plows were still working on them. I could see that going poorly for Jorge (my truck). I let Eros have a lunge in the rig instead since I knew I couldn't ride all three after work. We've been doing the rig a couple times a week to see if we can get his back end stronger. He likes to use me to lean on and cheat. In the rig there's no one to hold him up. It seems to be helping, he already feels more sound. I mean, coupled with the injections too. Likely that's the biggest piece of the puzzle, but whatever helps is good to me! I'll drop him back to once a week next month, and then hopefully we can do without it. 

The real star this past week has been Pammon. He's starting to remind me of the horse I bought which is such a relief! After Eros came up lame a few weeks ago, I've been doing Pammon in the ass kicker flat lesson on Tuesday nights. Tuesday mornings he's allowed a free lunge to get any galloping out that he needs. (And he needs. Homeboy gets EXCITED after his Monday off!) Then we work super hard in our lesson. And then the rest of the week he's a perfect gentleman. Willing to work, but not hot, and not nearly as spooky as he has been. It's wonderful! The big news though? In our lesson last night we popped over a few teeny tiny crossrails. I mean teeny. The center was maybe 6 inches high. But I'm still counting them as our first jumps back! I haven't jumped him since October 2019, so it's been a long time coming. There were two x's in a line which was a forward five if they had been real jumps. We did the line in a 6, 7, and 8. He really was wonderful. I'm cautiously getting excited for our future. A little. Carefully. 

In other news, I've been eating too many sweets between girl scout cookies and brownies that I baked Monday night. 

these are so good. 

And I started a new needlepoint belt! This one I will definitely have made into a belt when I'm finished:

I maybe should have done a lighter brown for the horse and ribbon, but in real life it's more visible than it's showing in the photos. I'm not sad about it.

Not too much else going on around here right now. But that's a-okay with me! I shall leave you with this adorable photo of Artie playing with a stuffy toy.