What's Up Wednesday

 

Phew. Today was a busy one. When my dad and stepmom are around in the summer we do family dinners on Wednesdays on the boat. It's lovely! But today, they invited a bunch of their friends to join us to go watch the swallows murmuration. Lol. Yeah I googled that term. At dusk what appears to be thousands of swallows return back to this one particular area by the river. I didn't think it would be that exciting, but it actually is. And evidently I've reached the age where bird watching becomes entertaining. Anyway, the birds fly into formations and then all funnel down to their nests. It looks like a tornado! Pretty cool! Anyway, my reason for telling you about this is that I had to be all done with horses by 3 so I could shower and be at the boat by 4:30. This was challenging as it's a jump day. Tomorrow is supposed to be bad weather so we may get rained out and I didn't want to risk missing jumpy day! So we hustled and got it all done! But now it's after 11:00 pm and I'm first writing this post. 

The horses had a lot going on last week. Our body worker came Thursday and we were very happy to see her! 

If you remember, Shiny had a moment a few weeks back in which her summer kid and she parted ways. After shiny tossed the kiddo, she took off to the end of the ring, but then got her leg caught in the reins. She panicked and flipped herself over. I knew she was feeling the effects of that and the body worker confirmed my thoughts there. She was VERY sore in her withers and a little more crooked than normal. The adjustment did her good though and she's feeling better. We're still having some canter transition struggles, but they're improving each day this week. 

Interestingly, Eros was a little out of whack in his ribs. If you remember I had added some shims to my saddle pad and the body worker thinks he didn't approve of them. So I had her check the saddle, and then had her check Pammon's saddle on him. Eros' saddle has me sitting in a hole a bit, hence my wanting the shims. Pammon's is a little better balanced on Eros now. (Wasn't the case back when I got it, but I think E has changed some recently.) So I'm switching him into that one for the month and we'll see how he does when we have our next appointment. So far I'm really liking the switch. Hopefully Eros is too.  (That one IS my favorite saddle.) He's definitely feeling better after the adjustment and he's been more willing to come up through his back which we have been struggling with. 

Al wasn't too bad for the body worker, so that was nice. At least one of them wasn't a disaster! He had some crookedness around the sore foot, but nothing too crazy. Hey, one out of three is better than none out of three. I'll take what I can get. 

Since they got worked on Thursday we didn't jump Friday. I had planned to on Saturday for Eros and Shiny. Eros popped over a few fences but I dunno. We weren't really feeling it. The magic canter was elusive. Nothing was bad, but we quit early while we were ahead. Some days are just blah. 

Shiny told me in no uncertain terms that she was not jumping that day. I think she was feeling sore from her body work still. So I listened to her, and we just did some really solid flatwork instead. It was exactly what she needed. Some days don't go to plan, and that's okay. 

But in exciting news the farrier came Saturday for Al! (He didn't have time for the other two, but he came back for them on Sunday.) Where we had trouble before with the cracked foot was that despite the foot being floated, it had kind of just sunk itself back down, so the float wasn't really doing it's job. This time, instead of just floating the foot, our farrier added leather pads, and cut away the area where the foot is floated giving him more space in there. That seems to be doing the trick and Al is MUCH more comfortable. Also because his hind feet are trimmed again too. He really hates getting long behind and I can feel a huge difference back there when he gets trimmed. My little delicate princess. 

Now that his feet are happy again, I let Al pop over a few jumps today! I feel like it's been FOREVER since we've jumped, but really, it was just a few weeks. Even still, I didn't put anything up higher than 2'6" and we only jumped a handful of fences. I was feeling a little anxious because that's just who I am as a rider. But I needn't have worried. Al bopped around like no time had been lost. He didn't even peak at our scary jumps. Granted, he's done plenty of dismantling of them in turnout so he's quite well acquainted with them. But even so, I was proud of him for being so brave. Can't wait to get back to work with him!

Eros and Shiny were both pretty long in the foot also, so I was really happy when they got done Sunday. 

Since it was Sunday we didn't do much on the new feet (Sunday is funday not work day). But they both felt a million times better on Tuesday. Shiny was still testing the waters a bit today (Wednesday) but we worked through it and finally got to jumping around the course. I kept the jumps small. Mostly to give myself confidence, but for her too since she was feeling very backed off when we started. I think sometimes after she's been feeling sore, she expects things to hurt. And it takes a little convincing for her to realize it's okay again. After cantering a few jumps, she finally clicked in to her proper pony canter and she jumped around really nicely. I didn't raise the jumps, and just let her finish on a good note over the smaller ones.

Eros made me laugh today. He started out incredibly lazy. Like he did four strides in the three stride line. If you know Eros at all, that's very much not like him. But I kept on kicking and after a few more jumps he opened his step back up and was truly lovely to the fences. Then we walked for a couple minutes and apparently that's when my quarter ran out. I picked up canter, planning to just lope around one more course. Which... we mostly did, but torpedo Eros made a brief appearance mid course. But he let me get him back and organized and we had a lovely last jump so I let him be done with that. But boy, was it a tale of three horses in today's ride! That's why I love him though. Keeps me guessing! And he never says no. Just gets a lil unruly. Regardless, we still got some cute snaps.

That's what the horses and I have been up to. In other news, P went back for a recheck and is still slightly anemic. Her ultrasound didn't show anything, so we're still not sure what the cause is. We're trying a round of panacur to see if maybe she picked up a parasite somehow. She's acting herself still, so whatever it is, she seems comfortable enough. So we'll just keep on keeping on for now. At 16, things are going to be happening. It's just nature. The weather has been gorgeous though, so we've all been spending lots of time outside.

Also, I actually made good when I told my bananas they wouldn't get thrown in the trash this time and made some banana bread (in a muffin tin because I have no self control). 

And that's really it from here this week! How are things with you guys? How are the ponies?