What's Up Wednesday

Sorry for all the late posts recently. It's best to ride earlier in the day at the boarding barn (less traffic) so instead of doing blog stuff first thing, I've been heading to the barn. Today I had an appointment in the morning that took FOREVER, so this is even later. Life happens. This has been a big week/weekend as you already know! So let's dive in!

Last Wednesday was Covid Booster day, for real this time. I was lucky to not have any real side effects other than a sore arm and maybe I was a little tired that evening? Hard to say, I'm tired most evenings! Thursday was Shiny's lesson. This week, we joined one of the mom lessons so we did some slightly bigger jumps than last week. Happy to report that after peaking and popping up over the first couple, she leveled right out and started taking me to the jumps like the Shiny I used to know. Good pony! Unfortunately, it seems I'm feeling a little nervous still, so we will continue with smaller fences until we're both feeling brave again. I have no timeline, and honestly don't care how high we jump. I just want it to be fun for both of us. 

Pammon had his walk on Thursday too. But I have decided to hold off for now on tack walks with him. He's perfectly fine, the only reason, honestly, is that it's a real pain in the ass to bring him for it. I have to time things just right so the ring isn't busy. I have to fight off his pasture mate when it's time to come in. And the mud out there is the sinking kind. Then once he's in, he spends much of his time screaming the call of his people. It's obnoxious. He'll be moving inside in about a week, so after speaking with his vet, we decided it's perfectly fine to hold off for now. 

Perfectly happy out with his friends!

Friday was vet day again! He doesn't usually come every week, but his list was long the week before and resulted in needing a second visit. Eros and Pammon were seen the week before, but this week was Shiny's turn. I've been feeling like maybe she was ready for some maintenance lately. She's been tripping more, and the hind end just hasn't felt as strong to me as it has in the past. It never hurts to have them looked at anyway! (Just your wallet... it always hurts your wallet.) Doc agreed with everything I had been feeling after watching her go and doing some flexions. We decided to do the prostride injections for her neck again since I really thought it helped last year. As for the hind end, her hocks are actually in good shape (as they should be for an 8 year old pony!) but her stifles showed some positiveness on the flexions. We decided to do steroid injections for those. I'm really reluctant to put steroids in the pony because she looks like a founder waiting to happen without adding additional stressors. But after talking about that with the vet, we both decided it would be the best way to go. So far so good! I actually feel a huge difference in her back end already. Her neck isn't quite there yet, but the prostride takes a little longer to kick in. Already the tripping is vastly improved though, so that's definitely a good thing! I really failed at taking photos again this week. Doped up Shiny is pretty adorable, and I'm sorry I didn't think to snap a photo to share. 

Saturday was the big day! Al's arrival! He was released from quarantine around 10 in the morning, but the shipper had a few stops to make before us. It worked out well though. I was able to ride Eros and give Shiny a good groom in the morning. Plus I had all of Al's things to get unpacked at the barn. I hung out for awhile after he arrived also to make sure he was settling in. Eating, drinking, POOPING! All the important things. 

Mmm, water!

Since weekends are pretty busy in the indoor this time of year, for Sunday we opted to just let Al have another day to get settled rather than trying to ride. The barn is closed on Mondays, so it seemed kind of silly to start and then have a day off again anyway. So that morning, I took him out for some grooming. I really want to get to know him, and I think spending time on the ground together is a big part of that. I mentioned yesterday we had to take a break when the mom and baby walked by, but otherwise, he enjoyed his grooming and seemed happy. He also had his first turnout which he thought was fun. Eros had a nice ride inside. It was actually a nice day and not too cold, so I took Shiny to the outdoor ring for her hand walk. She seemed to enjoy that. She just likes attention in general. As long as it doesn't come from a horse. The horror. I wonder if she's aware she IS indeed, a horse. And then, something unexpected happened! The barn owner has this one sales horse that I've been dying to sit on. He's not my type at all, but I've always wanted to see what he feels like. He's HUGE. Like over 18 hands huge, but a gentle giant. A bunch of the little kids have flatted him even. Total sweetheart. But as mentioned, you really don't get to sit on extra horses very often unless you come at 7 and work. And then get judged for how poorly you work... Not really incentive for me. But I DID judge the schooling show a couple weekends ago pro bono, so I earned a ride! And Sunday, I finally got to sit on the sweet, giant boy. I didn't get any photos of me on him unfortunately. But I did get some of me trying to groom him after which apparently was hilarious because everyone laughed as they walked by... ha! So here, me and the giant horse:

Maybe I needed help to do his head. Shut up. I'm short, okay? Lol. As for the ride itself? It was so fun! He takes awhile to warm up, so I struggled a little trying to get him put together at first. But once he was loose, I felt stupid for the struggle because it was so easy. He felt more or less like I imagined he would. So glad I got to sit on him!

Monday is normally a no barn day, but the barn owner said I could be there with the body worker which I appreciated. I wanted to make sure it was okay to work on Shiny since she had been injected, and was curious to see what she had to say about Al and Eros too. We opted to wait until next month for Pammon. Shiny was good to go for body work, and just had a few of her usual adjustments that she needed. Same with Eros. She thought he was in pretty good shape! So that was nice to hear. Al she said felt pretty "pretzely" as in tight and knotty, but to be expected after his plane ride and traveling. She said it was perfect timing to get him worked on right away after that. She will be back in a month before she goes south for the winter, so it will be interesting to see what she has to say after that appointment. He feels quite pliable and wiggly when I ride him, so whatever she did must have helped him!

The rest of Monday I spent doing boring house chores like laundry, and then also busted out the Cricut. I had to make Al his baby pad to match the other horses'. I had also ordered the horses new standing wraps and I needed to get them labeled before bringing them over to the barn. 

So many wraps... 

It took way longer than it should have. I had a batch of crappy iron on, so I wound up having to do a lot of labels to get enough usable ones. Annoying. They came out nicely in the end at least. 

I already talked about Tuesday's rides with Al on Truthful Tuesday. Eros and Shiny had fairly easy rides that day too, so not too much to report on there. Today I started with Al first. He felt a little spicy, but still did not put a foot out of place. He was a little snorty at the start, and a couple of times shook his head a little, but all his feet stayed on the ground appropriately, and even when he was a little looky at things, he never actually spooked. I got on him totally cold too. No lunging first, and he's on the turnout schedule for the afternoon so he hadn't even been out yet. Very proud. Hopefully this pattern continues! We have some work to do on our canter transitions. I'm certain the issue is likely me... Lol. Isn't it always? But that's fine. It's nice to have things to work on anyway! Probably next week we'll start to pop over some little jumps. Likely I'll let the trainer do that first. Just in case. That's why we pay them! 

Eros was a good boy today, but I've noticed that if they only have some of the indoor lights on, he gets real looky at the banners at the end of the ring. All the lights on? Doesn't care at all. Horses are weird. Shiny felt great today! She was a bit fussy about the connection, but I think that's related to her neck still feeling a little sore. But the hind end? It felt like a whole new pony! I'm excited to see how she feels jumping. 

That's about it from here. Things are all sorts of new and exciting, and I'm so excited about all of it! How was your week?