What's Up Wednesday

 

What a week! Phew. Last week the horses had their body worker out Wednesday, which I've probably already mentioned. Everyone was in pretty good shape. They had their usual areas that needed adjusting, but everyone adjusted really easily and all got good reports. She was especially complimentary of Pammon's condition so that was exciting!

Friday my vet was once again scheduled to come out for Eros' hocks and to check out Shiny's leg. I rode the other two horses first, and then was waiting for the vet. Around five I sent a text to get an eta. I wasn't sure if I should feed or not. No response. So I fed. I sent another at 5:30. At 6 I asked if I should assume he's not coming. Still no answer. At 7 he told me it went too long at the other barn and he wasn't going to make it. I was not happy. Not at all. I mean, we've been waiting since March essentially. Tuesday morning I called his office to get rescheduled and was told he couldn't come until July. JULY! I was like, nope, that won't work for me. So I fumed about it all day, mulling over which other vet I should switch to. I really REALLY didn't want to switch. My vet knows every inch of these horses. And Eros is a special case with his issues. But if I can't get them the care they need more or less when they need it, maybe it's time for a change. BUT! I got a text around 2:30 that same day that doc was getting done early and could swing by if I was able. I was all YES PLEASE COME!!!! So thankfully, I finally got Eros taken care of (we did hocks and SI this time, and some shockwave on his back). 

He watched Shiny go and palpated on the leg, and said he thinks she's in pretty good shape. He thinks the kicking out for the right lead canter is probably SI related. I still have alpha-2 in my freezer for her, so we're going to schedule an appointment in early July to do that for her and maybe her hocks again. The great thing about the Alpha-2 is that it's not like putting steroid in there and you can do it however often they need it. It's not limited like steroid injections, and it poses much less risk of infection. The down side is that it doesn't always last as long as the steroids. Anyway, I digress... Doc was really happy with how she's moving and said she looks the best he's seen her ever. So that was nice to hear! As for the leg, he thinks it's good to go. So she can start popping some little jumps. Yay! I'm not sure if I'll start now or wait until after her next appointment. Maybe just some teeny ones now. We'll see. 

We also chatted about Pammon. Doc said if he's feeling fit, we can start some cavalletti, but he also thinks doing some small cross rail bounces would be especially good for him. Exercises that require him to fire that hind end are what's going to get his back strong. So I'm excited to start that! I'm not starting just yet though. I've still been using a small amount of sedation, so I need to ween him off that. I don't want to jump with him impaired. Seems dangerous. He's settled in much better at this point, so I think he's about ready. Probably by next week he'll be clean and sober. 

I didn't have any Al questions this time, but I showed doc our video from our last lesson at the boarding barn, and he was just as excited as I was about it. THIS is why I want to keep my vet. He's been there since the Rio days (before even!) and he celebrates the victories with me. And he's been through all of the losses too. So much history. Hopefully moving forward we won't have such trouble scheduling. 

It was a pretty long day... I got on Al in the morning, but the neighbor started weed eating along the tree line and Al was having a hard time with that. After 20 minutes, I decided to hop off and wait until the neighbor finished and try again. Al was great the second time. Then I rode Eros, and when he was done I got the text that the vet could come. So I got on Pammon. Vet wasn't there yet, and it was 4:30 so I was like, you know, I better just ride Shiny just in case he cancels again. Which means, I also rode Eros and Shiny twice that day. I rode SEVEN times on Tuesday! I mean, three of them were short (Al's first ride, and the two for the vet) but still. That's a lot of saddle time in one day. I didn't get in from the barn until 9:30 last night. So nice having the barn right here at home on nights like that!

As for how working the horses went this past week... Al jumped a couple of times. I try to pop over some fences twice a week. He was his perfect self both days! The first day we got a lot of rain earlier so the one end was a little squishy. I kept the fences and just worked over the few at the dry end. The second day the footing was perfect and were able to do some courses. I even put some fences up around 2'9"-3". I don't plan to jump much bigger than 3' on my own. Going to work on scheduling some lesson soon and we can jump bigger when trainer is around. 

Anyway, Al is still great! He's been a little tricky to motivate on the flat. Similar to how he was over the winter. I do think he prefers a larger ring to get him moving forward. But we only have what we have, so we'll just have to figure it out!

Eros only wound up jumping once this past week. Friday I didn't end up riding since we were waiting for the vet and then it was so late. Since I don't like to jump after a day off, he missed out on a second school. But honestly, that's fine since he was still awaiting his care. He was great the day we did jump though!

Shiny and Pammon both just kind of plugged along with the same old, same old. I'm excited to start doing more with both of them! 

In other news, my dad and stepmom are back from Florida! They stopped over this weekend with my birthday present. While it wasn't the Bemer blanket I was hoping for. (hahaha, I know, that would be an insane b-day gift. But a girl can hope!) it was almost just as awesome:

A vacuum! I'm so excited! Especially for days when Eros comes in looking like this:

He managed that with his fly sheet... So gross.

I spent Monday giving my saddles some much needed attention. They all needed oil pretty desperately, and I really have been terrible about cleaning them too. So bad. Here's how thirsty Pammon's saddle was:

Left is before, right is after oiling

And here are most of them looking happy:

And that's about it from here! Everyone is doing well! The doggos both have check ups this week, so that's a lot of veterinary stuff for one week... but hopefully we'll be done for awhile after this!

Did you all have a good week? Do anything fun and exciting?

What's Up Wednesday

 

Lots to talk about this week! Though not much media... sorry. Winter is tough for media. The vet was out Friday and he saw three of the four (because of course they all needed seeing). So let's chat about all the horses and I'll include their visits as we go through.

Note her swollen face... 

We will start with Shiny since she had the most dramatic week. Things have been okay with her, but not amazing. After she had gotten all of her injections several weeks back, she felt amazing. Right up until she didn't. So the vet saw her again, and we decided on a course of Equioxx and continued work. She improved to some extent, but that improvement kind of went stagnant. She just feels kind of stuck and canter transitions have gotten incredible difficult for her. We've seen this on and off throughout our time together, but I'd really like to figure it out and get it resolved. Of course, Shiny heard the vet was coming so she decided to make things more interesting. Thursday, she had a little incident. She was in her stall and kind of made a mare face at a horse walking past on his way to turnout. She picked the wrong horse to make faces at though, and he kicked out at her. We thought he may have actually gotten her as she wound up with a cut on her face and bloody nose. Upon careful review of the security camera (which happens to be placed in the perfect spot for a good view of this nonsense) we discovered that the horse was no where near her. What actually happened was that she swung her head up so quickly she actually hit it herself on the top of the door. Her nosebleed continued into the afternoon very lightly, but still bleeding nonetheless. I wasn't too freaked out about it as I've seen that happen before, but the barn manager was worried so she put a call in to the vet just for a quick opinion. He agreed with me, that it was nothing too concerning, but that she needed a few days off work so the bleeding wouldn't get worse (or start again once it stopped). This made our actual Friday appointment a little less productive since she couldn't be evaluated under saddle. But doc has seen her enough recently to get a handle on what I was experiencing. After some palpating and stretching, we decided to go ahead and try a little shockwave. She would get the rest of the weekend off anyway. (Saturday the barn closed due to a big snowstorm, and I figured I'd give her Sunday for the nose still.) I started her back to work Tuesday. She was pretty wild since she had nearly a full week off but I wasn't sure I saw much improvement. Riding her today confirmed it. So I don't think the shockwave was useful for her. I have her back on the vet list for his next visit. Sigh. Horses.

Pammon had the most interesting visit with the vet. He was due for a scan to see how the leg is healing, but doc also wanted to see him trot a little and do some flexions. It was mostly all great news. The leg is healing really well, and interestingly enough, now that he's done more healing, it is obvious that there a lot more bony involvement than we first thought. So all that time off was definitely good for him. Things are continuing to heal well, especially the bony part, so that's great news. He trotted sound both before and after his flexions. So all things are moving in a positive direction. BUT (there's always a but) doc made an interesting discovery while watching Pammon trot this visit. One that likely explains ALL of the problems we've been having from the soft tissue injuries to the back soreness, even that time he fell down with me a couple springs ago. It turns out, Pammon has no idea how to trot correctly. He doesn't engage his core at all when he's trotting. Like, not even a little. He has so much movement through his back, which I always thought was a good thing. But apparently, it is not. Doc said the movement I feel is excessive. Like he's just throwing himself forward, not actually engaging his muscles. Very interesting! Imagine being nearly 15 years old only to be told you don't know how to function properly? Long story somewhat shorter, we have to retrain his body. So while I had hoped we could start trotting soon, that's been put off for now. Instead, he needs to go in the Equicore bands three days a week for awhile still at the walk. We had our first session today. I made them pretty loose today to start, but despite that, I could feel him carrying himself differently immediately. So I'm hopeful they will really help him. It would be wonderful if we could get him working properly so maybe he will actually be a useful riding horse again. Fingers crossed!

Eros had a fun week! I figured I should get him good and lame for the vet appointment. So I finally let him have the free lunge that he's been begging for. He's been really shy about horses passing him, and has just felt kind of electric for awhile now. So I finally allowed him to have a romp in the indoor by himself. He was very grateful and had tons of fun. Of course he was kind of unsound when I got on him later in the day... Part of me questioned if I'd done the right thing letting him play, but honestly, his mental health is just as important as his physical. And that playtime had really made him happy. He has been completely relaxed and quiet ever since. Anyway, after I rode that day, I put the magnets on his front ankles and then put the back on track quick wraps over them. Put his BOT sheet with neck cover on him too, and left him like that for a few hours while I finished riding the others. When I took him out the following day for our lesson, he felt pretty great! Not perfect. Winter Eros is never perfect. But much better than he's felt in awhile. (Figures, since the vet was coming...) Since he felt great, and I still wanted to make sure he wasn't too sound for the vet, I went ahead with my lesson on him. He was fantastic, actually staying pretty quiet and only half heartedly dragging me to anything. I again wrapped him up in all the therapies after our ride and left him that way for awhile. Can't hurt anyway! He was his usual "winter Eros" sound for the vet which is what I wanted him to see. He said we could inject the coffin joint again, but after we talked for a bit we decided to hold off on that until closer to spring. You can't do that joint over and over and over forever so I'd rather spread them out as much as possible if we can, as long as he's comfortable. Doc thought that would be just fine. We also decided to try him on some meloxicam in the meantime. I'm not super sure that's making a big difference for him, but he did feel pretty good today. So maybe it is? I'll keep him on it a bit longer and see what we think. 

Thankfully, this guy didn't need to visit the vet this time! (Good boy Al!) We've been having so much fun together! With our new bit, things are going much better with our flat work. I still lose the contact here and there, but I'm able to get it back pretty quickly. He's still ridiculous about the far end of the ring (monsters live there, clearly) but as long as I'm strong in my convictions that he must use the whole ring, he usually obliges. And some mornings I get lucky and they're rigging a horse at that end, so we can have a lovely spook free ride. No shame in that game friends! Ha! I had a lesson with a couple of fellow ammys on Friday. It was a good group for me. One lady has a new (super cool) mare that she's just trying to figure out right now and the other has just started riding again after having a baby. What's fun, is we're all pretty capable riders so the flatwork is advanced and fun, as are the courses, but we're all in a kind of starting over phase, so the jumps don't get too big yet. I think we jumped around 2'6"-2'9". I'm looking forward to trying Al over some bigger fences, but right now, I want to make sure all the aids work and we're both confident before we try that. Anyway, what's exactly what we got from this lesson. I made some mistakes, and Al made some too, but overall, it went really well! He never gets upset even when things go a little bad. He doesn't get offended if I find the deepest chocolately chip nor when I think the flyer is GREAT idea! He's just like, sure, let's go! He's just the most honesty dude around. I stupid excited for this journey with him. 

In doggo news, the kids are getting along much better. I even caught them spooning during our snow day:

The house training is still pretty bumpy, but the weather hasn't really been the best for working on that. Saturday we got dumped on with over a foot of snow. It's also been really cold for the last many weeks, pretty much never getting above 25 and usually staying much below. The last couple of days we've had a reprieve (actually got over 40 today!) before the next round of precipitation heads this way Friday. I'm doing my best to fully enjoy the warmer days before they're gone!

How P is getting through winter.

Pia had her annual check up on Monday. I kind of dread these as she gets older... She's been having some troubles lately. She walks with a limp, and there have been a few times where she just starts crying. I run to her every time to see what's wrong, but nothing palpates sore anywhere at all. And after I give her a snack, it's like it never happened. So we had some things to talk about with the vet obviously. She found that P has some pretty good arthritis in her elbows, but overall she was in pretty good shape. We did senior bloodwork which showed some elevated liver levels and her urine test showed some calcium crystals. So we're treating her with an antibiotic for now and we'll see if those two issues improve. We're going back in two weeks for a recheck and they'll x-ray her bladder then too to make sure she doesn't have a stone. She also went on some Gabbapentin (sp?) for her arthritis, and that made a HUGE difference for her. She's only been on it a couple days, and she's already getting around much better. So things are going pretty okay for her! At 15, we celebrate all her good days!

As for me, I took full advantage of my snow day on Saturday. It was nice that the barn actually closed so I didn't feel obligated or guilty about having to get out there. Instead, I let the snow fall outside and spent the day baking things and playing with art apps on my ipad. 

Said baking. Brownies (pre-baked in the photo) and Chex Mix

Said art. I keep seeing people selling custom horse faces 
that are super easy to do. Maybe I should try and sell something like these?
Gotta fund the Eskadron purchase I'm dying to make afterall... 

What's new with you guys? Have you been riding? Funding the vet's retirement? Do any baking? 
 

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?

What's Up Wednesday

So I already filled you all in on Romey's vet visit on Friday. So we'll start what's up with Wednesday with Jamp's appointment. We already knew what was bothering the Jampasaur so we didn't have to spend too much time re-flexing things. Basically, Jamp is getting older and what I'm feeling, for the most part is just wear and tear.

We did his hocks and we'll see how he feels in a couple weeks. Doc is going to come back out and possibly do his SI at that point. Doc seems to think that Jamp is not in terrible shape and could certainly fit in one more show season! So we'll see how he's feeling after his next appointment and then maybe we'll try and get back in the ring. I'm not holding my breath though, because yesterday I noticed this:

Can you see it? His nose is twisting off to the right (his right, your left). It may not seem like much, but this was the first thing that happened to Rio before his big EPM episode. So I sent this photo to doc. He said to keep an eye on it for a day or two, and if it's not resolved we will treat him. Seriously, what is with these horses?!

Rio had a quick visit with the vet too because I've noticed he's had more muscle atrophy. We think it's probably from the epm mixed with his getting older. Just to be safe we did some blood work including a test for Cushings. Fortunately, I found out today his blood work looks great and he does NOT have cushings. Thatta boy Rio!

Since Jamp and Romey had all that work done on Friday, they had the weekend (and Monday and Tuesday) off. You know what that meant?! All Rio, all the time! Ok not entirely. Jamp and Romey got plenty of attention, hand walking, and grooming also. But all my saddle time was with Rio. We did a quick flat in the ring both days and then wandered around the yard eating grass and walking some hills. Because hills should help some with his muscle deterioration. Maybe.

He loves our fake trail rides!

Sunday everyone got trimmed and had their manes fixed. And more grass of course.

All that primping and not working was clearly exhausting though:

Technically Romey and Jamp were supposed to start back under saddle for a light ride on Tuesday, but I had tickets to a Yankee game, and doc said it was ok to give them an extra day off. It's always fun to head to the stadium, and as usual I ate my way through the game. We had great seats!

Before the game started, they had a moment of silence for the Manchester, England attack. Following that, they played Britain's national anthem prior to our own. It was pretty moving and I thought it was really a nice thing to do.

Unfortunately, my boys in pinstripes blew the lead they held the entire game and wound up losing. But hey, can't win them all! I still won, cause my belly was full of delicious crap.
In other news, my awesome purple boots came today! But... They're not the color I thought they would be and I messed up measuring the height so they're a little short. I emailed the store I bought them through to see about the color so I didn't ride in them yet. Despite them not being perfect, they are undeniably still awesome. And it's ok if they're a bit short, it's not like I could ever show in them... Wanna see??? Ok, I'll give a spoiler, but you'll see them better tomorrow on Thursday's Threads.

Other than the height, they fit perfectly, so I'm not totally fired from measuring for boots... If I ever get another pair, I'll just take these measurements and add some height. Hopefully my gray boots are better. I checked those measurements tonight against these, and they were taller, so I think they'll be alright. They should be here soon too!

And that's what's up this Wednesday! What's up with you? I shall leave you with this photo of two Pug loaves: