Giggles, puddles, and mud bugs

Yesterday at MIL's we saddled up Sis and Black and let Chase and Shari, my niece (8), ride. I made sure both of them weren't going to get killed and then turned them loose. When these two get together their giggles are infectious. MIL and I sat on her back porch watching these two trot and giggle and then canter and giggle and all the while the horses were being good as gold. I swear they know when they have precious cargo on board.

My niece reminds me of myself when I was little. My parents were non-horse people and I would do anything my uncle told me to do just to get a chance to brush that old nasty mule. His name was Jack and it was quite fitting for an a.s.s. - I mean mule.

Shari will do anything in the barn just to be near the horses. My sister and her husband are non-horsey people so I love it when she gets a chance to ride. Usually we have to drag her off as she never gets tired. Yesterday her ride was cut short by the rain. We let them ride in the sprinkles for a bit but we were lucky to get them in the barn before it completely let loose.

When she came inside she was still all horse and drew this picture.



When I asked her if she had a good time she replied "yes, until the STUPID rain came down." lol

While Shari and Chase were riding Ty decided to go play in the water puddles. You can only be a kid onces so mom said "go for it buddy!". I thought DH was going to stroke when he saw Ty jumping up and down in the water puddles. He had water EVERYWHERE but he also had the biggest smile. Molly was enjoying running in the puddle with Ty too so both of them got baths before we went home. Molly was one tired pup after a fun day of play.



Abby is back home. We brought her back Sat. She seems to be happy to be back home. I have her out during the day and in at night. Talked to the vet a bit about her shoulder. I can x-ray to see if she does have a fracture but when I asked him what the treatment for that was he basically said "time off". Well I can do that w/o paying for x-rays.

My horses are a muddy mess! When I went out yesterday Cat decided to roll 3 times to make sure she was covered good for me.

Here she is sniffing a pile of pekin feathers. Lucy didn't want them in the pasture with her. Luckily the pekin made it to the other side of the fence with just a few missing feathers.





This is not Abby! Oh what a mess! Yes, I know her feet are long, she gets trimmed Monday.



If you look closely in this picture you can see where Cat has the "split" in her chest from her injury last summer. I call her three boobs. :D

Sunday Stroll

Sunday MIL came over and we went for a road ride. The temps were lovely but it was a windy so it was a bit colder then anticipated. I did a little bit of GW with Cat and then we headed out. Our first spook came less then 100 yards from the house. She was looking at some moving grass in the ditch when the neighbor’s horse came running up the pasture. It was a small spook but she wanted to break into a trot afterwards so we did lots of circles.

She was very good about the cars. We stopped for the first couple and then after that continued on. The road was a soggy, wet mess but she didn’t hesitate to go through the water puddles. After we crossed the highway we trotted and then did some ORS. She wasn’t anticipating them like normal so it was nice. Sis was unusually spooky. I’m not sure if it was the wind, the first outing or if she was just feeling her oats but I told MIL she wasn’t doing a good job being my calm leader.

Once we hit roller coaster hill the fun began. I love making the horses work up the long hills. I asked Cat to trot and she was thrilled to move out until the 2nd half of the hill, then I had to push her to keep her moving forward. The next hill we cantered up. Again, she was full speed ahead for a few strides and then I had to push her to keep moving.



MIL all bundled up



On the way back I asked MIL to take a picture of Cat and I. This is what she got. Lol



Notice Cat’s head? She keeps it pretty low naturally. I will need longer reins if she keeps it up.

MIL did manage to get one of the “whole picture”.



I look huge and Cat looks so small! She’s still my baby.

I giggled w/MIL because Sis spooked more on the ride then Cat did. The only thing that really got Cat was when a car passed and splashed water. She did one of those drop and stop spooks (the kind I like) and then was over it. The other things on the road that most horses would spook at actually grabbed at her curiosity. Hopefully curiosity doesn’t kill this Cat.

The Thrill of Drill

Saturday the drill team had practice and they were a rider short so I was asked to fill in. Since this was their first practice and they were just going to walk the pattern I decided to take Cat. Surely she’d be ready – right?

We got there early to check on Abby so we were one of the first ones in the arena. She had sticky feet compared to normal and I didn’t have my stick so I ignored it. As the horses started to funnel into the arena I could feel her tensing up a bit. I decided to go ahead and mount up. I rode w/just my halter/lead as I didn’t want to overwhelm her.

She wasn’t sure what to think and was getting pretty nervous (for Cat) so we did lots of circles. There was one horse that she did not care for at all and would pin her ears at. I didn’t correct it since it was her first time around other horses and she was already nervous.

Once the pattern was started she did better then I anticipated. I felt bad because I had to control her speed and we haven’t worked on that yet. She wanted to walk a lot faster then the other horses. I was happy with how she did in the group but not happy with how she did overall so once the team was done I got her back out. This time I went ahead and put her bridle on her.

As the horses left the arena she got nervous and started to fight me. She decided to rear (her way of protesting) so I quickly introduced Mr. Crop to her butt and did some yielding of the HQ. It didn’t take long for her to get the picture. I didn’t do any ORS since she anticipates them; instead, we went straight to the passenger lesson at the trot. She felt really good moving out.

Next it was the passenger lesson at the canter. She was moving out! She never moves out. It felt good and I felt comfortable on her. As she started to get tired she started ducking in but I maintained my seat and pushed her on. She was dog tired when we got done but I felt good about where we finished.

(ride 14)

Abby Update

Saturday we took Abby back to the vet for a recheck. Good news is he doesn’t think it is infected and he still feels it is healing well (even though he can still stick his entire pinky finger inside of her).



He was a bit concerned about her shoulder but said she couldn’t have picked a better place for an impact like that. He said w/deep muscle/bone bruising it can take up to 3 weeks to heal. She is on stall rest and bute and she does not like it!

She’s not eating her grain. I’m not sure if it is from the stress from being stalled, away from her buddies, in a new barn, having bute in her food or a mixture of all of the above. Mona only has a few boarders so Abby has the entire west side of the barn to herself.

Back to the vet

Abby will be returning to the vet again on Saturday. Sometime earlier this week she managed to pull her wound open and pop her staples. I'm not sure if she got to messing around or if the wound swelled. Then with the cold weather the exposed tissue froze. MIL called me last night to let me know that Abby wouldn't leave her stall & is limping again on her front left leg. MIL took out her drain tube last night and she said it wreaked of infection.

I told Chase it looked like it could be a long recovery and he might be riding Black this summer. He looked kind of down so I asked him what was wrong. He replied "I thought I could ride Lucy". I started laughing and told him fat chance! I'm hoping there is no major damage to her leg and that she just bumped it and is sore again. Will post more after her appt.

Catz outta the......................

Saturday MIL and I decided to go ride. We were going to ride on the road as the weather was decent but it started getting cooler so we decided to head over to Mona's. I was going to take both Lu and Cat but since we planned on going to the sale later that night, I decided I only had time to take one. So I picked Cat.

Lucy was kind of funny. She was looking at me like "hey, what's going on? why aren't you taking me?" while I loaded Cat in the trailer. Cat loaded like a charm and off we went.

When we arrived at Mona's, a boarder was using the arena so we put Cat and Sis in a stall and chatted with Mona for a bit. Once it was time, we cleaned up and saddled up. I realized that Cat hadn't had a saddle on her since June of last year (our road ride) and that I hadn't ridden her since our bb ride in October. I approached w/caution but she took it like she'd been saddled just the day prior. I only had one problem, the girth needed to be let out a notch!

I headed to the arena and did some desensitizing and LFR with her prior to getting on. She was doing some awesome rollbacks in her LFR Stage 2. I'd say they were almost as good as Lucy's. Once I felt she was going to be fine I decided to mount up. I had brought in my bridle but decided to just use my halter instead and do some one rein riding similar to the videos below.





After doing a handful of ORS at the walk/trot I decided to move onto the passenger lesson as she was starting to anticipate my stops. I did a few ORS at the canter to make sure she wasn't going to hump up. I felt comfortable she was going to be just fine so we continued to canter around. This is NOT her favorite exercise. She is very lazy and she doesn't like to maintain the canter so I had to squeeze, cluck and spank a few times. She did kick her back legs up once when I spanked her but nothing too big.

One thing I noticed about her is that she is very curious. Mona has several "spooky" objects in her arena and instead of spooking, Cat went to them to investigate. I think I'm going to like that! It feels so weird riding her. She is so much wider then Lucy and her strides are so different. MIL and I joked around as I told her I could not be a monogamous horse owner. I love the different qualities that both Lu and Cat have.

Abby Update

Abby went back to the vet yesterday for her recheck. Jason (the vet) was amazed at how well she looked (he looked a bit surprised) and was very pleased with her progress. She has quit limping on her left front leg and seems to be moving very well.

He is keeping the drain tube and staples in for now and I will be removing them next week after Wednesday. I didn't take any new pictures because it really doesn't "look" that different. It does however "feel" different. You can really feel the insides of her healing up. There is one pocket left to close but the rest feel like they've healed together very well.

Jason thinks she might have a small scar and possibly a lump from some scar tissue but I'm very optomistic that it is going to heal and not be noticable.

I decided to take her back to MIL's instead of taking her to Mona's. She seems to have healed this well being out with Black so I wanted her to be able to be out on pasture as well as be in a stall. I think the movement is good for them. She seemed very happy to be back "home" last night.

On a side note - I have been very impressed w/Jason and have not been overly impressed w/my current vet. My current vet is supposed to be one of the best in the state, however I feel his ego knows that and he tends to be a bit arrogant on my checkbook. I've decided to try this vet clinic out for all future needs. Hopefully we are just talking coggins, health certificates and a few shots and nothing else like what we have now. They do have an equine vet that I have worked with in the past (she left and just now came back since they changed ownership) and liked. I might though use Jason when I can. I not only liked his personality and his enthusiasm to do a great job, but he was also very easy on the eyes. :D