What's Up Wednesday

 

Thanksgiving didn't really have an effect on my riding schedule this year. We had a small dinner, just my mom, brother, and me and we ate on the later side so I had plenty of time to ride on the holiday! 

Rita came too, dressed appropriately of course.

I opted to have a Sunday Funday kind of riding day in which we kept them all short and very low pressure. It was a holiday after all! Obviously I also dressed appropriately for the day:

The horses weren't sure if they were glad to see me or not.

Just kidding. They're always glad to see me because I am the keeper of the snacks. So it was pretty much business as usual at the new barn even though it was a holiday. It was a rainy day so turnout was a no go. But at this barn, if the horses can't go out, they get hand walked. Like for real, and they actually do it. So despite it being a holiday AND a rain day, all the horses got out. So nice! In the past, most barns I've been at are closed on holidays. Or, if they're open, there's limited staff, so just stalls cleaned and horses fed. And some of the places they don't even do stalls on the holidays, just feed and water. 

I'm trying to get back on our regular work schedule in which we do some jumpies on Wednesdays and Fridays. So far it's going okay, though the "jumps" have been quite tiny. We're pretty much permanently in the indoor now that it's ridiculously cold out. Just prior to the arrival of winter it rained for days on end. So indoors it is! I'm so grateful to have access to an indoor, but I will admit that this particular indoor has it's challenges. It's quite narrow so I am finding it very challenging to get the horses MOVING. They all want to pitter patter around with four beat canters and teeny tiny strides. 

Photo not from today. But does feature our quarter sheet. 

Today I made the mistake of trying to jump Shiny with the quarter sheet on. This shouldn't be a problem... But Shiny needs some encouragement from Mr. Tappy to get the proper canter. And with the quarter sheet on, she cannot feel him. I may or may not have mildly damaged my wrist trying to get her to notice Mr Tappy today. Finally I just took the quarter sheet off. Did we achieve the proper canter? We did not. She was definitely on the double add today. Some days are just like that. Judging by how Eros went today, I'm chalking it up to the weather. Or some kind of outside factor. More on E in a moment.

While Al is a million and one times less angsty in this indoor, he's still not thrilled to be working in it. Currently, our rides start out pretty nicely, but he kind of gets spookier and spookier as we go. My current experiment is to warm him up, then give him a break. Then do something a little harder for a very short time. Then another break. That seems to reset the angst. I dunno guys, this horse is ever changing in his needs. He's still on all the ulcer meds, so I doubt that's what we're dealing with. I think it might just be time to accept that my horse is a little bit of a head case. Which is fine. We'll figure it out. I was a psych major in college, so I should be able to eventually figure him out. Haha. Hopefully. 

For today's "jump" school I set two lines on the long sides and then just put a couple flower boxes, one on each diagonal to change direction over. I set the lines at three strides, figuring we'd trot in and canter out in four. At the previous barn, Al was only apprehensive about the one end of the ring, but here, we have doors with windows at BOTH ends. Lucky me. He's pretty confident jumping away from the doors, but not at all jumping towards them. So jumping into the line is okay, but he starts spinning his tires at the out. I made everything ultra tiny today so we could comfortably trot OR canter as needed to everything. It started out really rough. Not dangerous or scary, but definitely ugly. I just kept trotting him over stuff until he started to relax. Then we tried to canter some. Same thing. Keep at it until it's easier. Wash, rinse, repeat. With walk breaks as needed. We never got to the point that we were cantering courses today, but we got to where things were flowing somewhat smoothly and I'm calling that a win for the day. We're supposed to be getting hit with crazy high winds again the next few days, so we may not jump again this week. This indoor is a wood and it makes some crazy sounds in the wind. I like to limit the drama when I can if you know what I mean! We'll still work of course, but we're going to keep the danger factors as low as we can. This amateur prefers to choose her battles. 

I was excited for my trot in and canter out lines for Eros today! He was less excited. He switched to field turnout starting on Sunday. Well... he's in the process. He's not used to grass, so we're building him up out there, though it should all be killed off soon with the weather. Anyway, he seems very happy down in the field, but I think the extra calories have him a little spicy! Or he might possibly be a little ulcery. I'm not sure yet. Whatever it is, he's been feeling a certain sort of way lately. He's not being bad per se, but very distracted and mildly spooky. Today when I pointed him at jumps, he actually stopped. More than once. Not dirty at all, and only from the trot. Anything I cantered him at he jumped nicely. But it was very odd that he would stop at all. Especially multiple times. So I have some concerns... but I'm not spiraling yet. Because Shiny was a little weird today, and Al was, well Al, I figure there may just be some reason they were all a little out of sorts. We are getting a light storm tonight, and it's pretty cold. The ring could use a drag, and it's a little hard today. So it may just be uncomfortable for Eros in this state. He does have delicate legs. I'm not sure I warmed him up long enough. I was trying to just get right to it, but I think I should have done a little more flat work to get him looser and get his attention on me. 

Is there a small part of me that's worried about all kinds of things (is his eye getting worse, does he have epm, did he get too much grass and he's about to founder)? Of course not, why do you ask?? Ha... Okay yeah, maybe there's some light spiraling going on. But there's not much to do but wait and see right? So that's the plan. We'll see what we have tomorrow. As for the founder concerns, he's not standing like a founder horse, and he's not anymore unsound than normal. So I'm pretty sure that's just my crazy brain finding things to worry about. But like... it is a concern. You never know. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. Sorry. I'll calm down now. 

Anyway... we'll see what the rest of the week brings with the weather. I have a feeling we'll just be doing a lot of flatwork the next few days. But that's okay. Clearly we have plenty to work on! Monday they're getting body work which I think is much needed. It's probably their last appointment until spring which is a bummer for them but good for my wallet. Ha! Our chiro heads south for winter and we miss her very much. But we're glad to have her out before she goes! 

That's about it from here. I'm working on some arts and crafts so we can get our holiday cards done. Running a little late on that... Lol.  If you're not on the list and would like one please send me your address! 

What's Up Wednesday

 

It's funny how busy the summer can be for an unemployed horse farm owner. You would think it should be all slow days, but they're all pretty full. And I'm not complaining! Summer is my favorite, and I've really enjoyed seeing friends here and there too. Fortunately, despite being busy we've gotten plenty of riding in. 

So I was planning to jump Al on Friday but he went and hurt himself in the morning. It was perplexing initially, very swollen and I had a hard time finding any kind of wound. (He's the type to absurdly swell from the tiniest knick.) I did eventually see the booboo which you can see pretty plainly in this photo with the flash on.

But this was it:

It's barely an abrasion. But with that much swelling? My working hypothesis is that Shiny probably kicked him through the fence. It's the same height as the mark she made on the fence post another time. And we all know that Al doesn't read social cues. Based on how the leg behaved through the weekend I think the hypothesis holds up. But because of how ugly it was I decided not to push him too hard this weekend. We flatted very lightly Friday because I wanted to make sure he was sound on it (he was). Saturday we actually got rained out which I think was probably a positive in getting this leg to calm down. 

We spent the day pulling manes instead.

Then Sunday we did a short flat ride again. I also washed it everyday, iced it, and wrapped it through the weekend. 

Was the hock ice boot necessary? Hard to say. 
More is better though right?

It's completely back to normal this week, so whatever it was, it looked worse than it really was. THANK GOODNESS. We finally got a jump school in today, and he was AMAZING. Like was looking for the next jump rather than out at the trees, moved right off my leg when I remembered to use it... The whole thing. He was great. I'm so proud of him! 

I'm starting to get itchy to jump a little bigger. This horse, when he's sane, makes me feel like I could jump the moon. He's so special. Just depends on the day which kind of special he is... Currently we're working with the good kind though!

Shiny's kid is back for the summer so she came to ride her on Friday and they did great. It was raining a little, but they just kept on doing their thing. Jumped around and everything! Kiddo's mom isn't back yet which is a bummer for me, but still nice to see kiddo! 

Saturday we were rained out (as previously mentioned) but she got her mane done instead. I need at least another session to get it to where it should be, but it's a good start at least. She hates having it pulled, but she's getting better about it. 

Sunday was funday so we rode bareback. She's the most fun bareback, even when she decides towards the end that she wants to trot 100 mph. I'm not sure why, but when Shiny gets tired she likes to go faster. Which is what I spend most of the ride trying to achieve generally.... Very confusing. When you're bareback, it's just ridiculous. But also really funny. One of these days I'm going to get trotted right off. 

We jumped around today, but again, I'm struggling to get the gears engaged. I think we need to work a little harder on our flatwork in between jump schools. She jumped around, but she was a little on the forehand, and just not very adjustable. Which makes it very difficult to find the fences. It was pretty hot today and VERY humid though. So I imagine that also played a part in her lack of spunk. It's supposed to be less humid through the weekend so we'll see if I get to have more pony when we jump again later in the week. Fingers crossed. 

They're all due for body work too. They should get done the end of next week though, so we'll see if that helps too. Regardless, I don't think anything is really wrong other than we need to work a little harder. 

I often forget how short I am until I see photos of 
me standing next to one of the full sized horses.

Eros is feeling pretty good this week! I've been setting his saddle just a hair further back and his balance feels completely better. Turns out, I think I've been putting it too far forward on him. Those enormous withers are tricky sometimes... But he's starting to engage that hind end better. I'm excited with this new development! I need to check in with doc, but I think we're about ready to start hopping over some tiny things and cantering some rails on the ground. Which is very exciting! I miss jumping this good boy. 

Eros also had his mane pulled Saturday. Like Shiny, he needs at least one more session, but he also hates it, so we just do a little at a time. Still looks significantly better than it did before! 

We repeated last week's rehab schedule this week since we've been a little inconsistent with holidays and weather. But he's feeling pretty fit so I'm not too worried about the inconsistency. 

That's about it on the horse front this week. Rita's been pretty bored because the heat and humidity make it too hot for our regular street walks. She doesn't seem too worked up over it though.

We've had a lot of wildlife around the farm lately, so I'll leave you with photos of all of them:

This bunny likes to hang out for my last ride of the day

Dragon Fly hitchhiking on my shoe

Wounded Butterfly

Frog!