Gorgeous ride at Beaver Meadows

There's a group of ladies that goes trail riding most Fridays. I've been trying to get out with them for months and months. Finally, last friday I could go. But, my horse is hurt, so I had to borrow one.

The day was perfect and the wildflowers were awesome.

Me and my mount, Chingy

Picnic

Lots of fallen trees, probably from the crazy winds and rain last fall.

Elk or deer

Wild violets

Glacier Lily

Larkspur and dandelions

I'm a horrible horse mommy

Well, I've had an interesting time as of late. I was sicker than I've ever been in my life. I was teaching horse parts at Pony Club, handed a sticker to a kid and said, "And now I'm going to go puke in this bush."

I didn't make it to the bush.

The forty minute drive home was hell. I had to pull over multiple times. And, every time I vomited it was putting pressure on a nerve so I had shooting pains down my legs and up my back.

So, there I was, on all fours in the gravel on the side of the road. It was horrible. I got home and alternated between almost crying because my back hurt and almost passing out while my intestines tried to exit my body through my stomach. After 45 minutes of that, texting with a friend who's a doctor, I decided I couldn't take it anymore and had hubby drive me to the ER. I'm so glad I did that. Some fluids, anti-nausea meds and pain killers for the back made life much better. I felt crappy for the next couple of days, going out to the barn just enough to feed everyone, but didn't puke again after the ER.

I was puking Thursday night. Sunday evening this is what I found on Banana's leg:

That's just above the back of the left fore fetlock. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Fortunately, J the vet was on call, so she finished her dinner and came up. It looks particularly gruesome there as it was covered in wound crud. J thinks it was about 48 hours old there. Too late to stitch it, and it probably needed to be.

Naners had to be locked up. She was not thrilled about that, though Ollie is quite happy to have her with him all the time.

Bandage change on Tuesday had pus. So, she was started on antibiotics.

This is the wound on Thurs:

Not healed as much as we would like it to be. But then, there was today's (Sat)

Now we're looking better. There's crud on it because it was dust storming and that stuff stuck between when I got the bandage off and picked up the camera (it was very windy.) I'm liking that it's not so raw looking. Pic sent to the vet, but she seems to be incommunicado (a good thing).

I can't believe I missed that wound for multiple days, but as you could tell above, I was sicker than I think I've ever been in my life. She hasn't been off at all. I have no idea how she did it, there are uncountable ways and the wound doesn't indicate any one over the others, though it definitely isn't a wire wound (too deep)

Crash Test Doggies

One of the most wrong things I've seen so far is people transporting their miniature horses in SUVs and minivans. As cute as transporting a mini in a minivan might be every time people posted pictures of this I cringed. Come on people, physics!

Yesterday I found the Center for Pet Safety and their videos testing dog restraint devices with a doggie crash test dummy. The videos are a bit disturbing, but if a 55 lb dog can break the back of your seat, imagine what a 300 lb mini could do. I posted it to the mini group, expecting a shit storm to come of it. Shockingly, no shit storm. I suspect because, well, you really can't defend transporting your mini that way when you see those videos. Unfortunately, I'm now going to be worried about transporting the dogs around in my Outback.

Center for Pet Safety

Look! It's dad

Assuming the other adult is indeed Split Ear, this must be dad:

Handsome fella.

More Fox Photos (because you know you want to see them)

 

This morning there were four wee ones and Split Ear.

Are you feeling neglected?

Its been a busy couple of weeks. Let's go back in time:

A couple of weeks ago was a local show and OOTT was in town as well. Flat lesson Friday, show Saturday, jumping lesson Sunday. Good thing my horse is ridiculously fit.

The show was good. We jumped all the things! I did Pile of Poles and X-Rails at an absolutely glacial trot pace. Sure, I was in theory showing, but I could have given a crap about the judge's assessment. The whole time all I thought about was, "Look up, sit up, look up, sit up." So, when Naners was thinking about not jumping a scary jump with flowers I looked up and kicked on. And, she went over it. We placed decently: 2nd of two in Pile of Poles Hunter, 1st of one in Pile of Poles Eq, 5th of 7 in WTC Hunter Under Saddle, 3rd of five in WTC Eq on the flat, 4th of 5 in Cross Rails Hunter, 1st of four in Cross Rails Eq. As you can probably tell, we did much better in Eq than Hunters, so I guess my Eq isn't as bad as I thought it had become. The cool thing is I won every color ribbon but green. As the Keeper of the Ribbons I have to decide if I want the dark ones or the light ones:

(God I love ordering ribbons. It's one of my favorite perks of my volunteer job. And no one else wants to do it anyway. And since we're almost out of blue ribbons again I get to order more!)

With a looming due date as soon as the show was over I was in essay writing mode. This time I got to talk about some type of equine training device or technique. I went with head restraint devices and techniques. Long story short? It's a short cut, horses find bit pressure aversive, and they don't actually learn from them anyway (there has to be a release of pressure (reward) when the horse is doing it right. Most of them don't allow a release of pressure.) When I was about 48 hours out from due time I was really slogging, but for some reason I turned on itunes and my inappropriate songs playlist. Inappropriate for who you ask? Probably just small children and religious people. They were not in my going to an event playlist for awhile as a tween girl was with us, but now that she's in High School I figure she's hearing worse. Anyway...


Pam's Inappropriate Songs Playlist

The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang
I Touch Myself by the Divinyls
The Clap and Inside of You by Infant Sorrow
I Think I Farted by Taryn Southern
Big Bottom by Spinal Tap

If you want to really laugh, go watch the Taryn Southern Video. No, wait, I'll embed it.

I also highly recommend her song Where Is My Goat? as well.

Another fun thing from my paper was discovering that Horse and Rider magazine is full of advice that has nothing to do with equine learning theory. The more I learn about learning theory the more I think every horse person I know should take a class in it. Oh are so many people getting it so wrong. Because seriously, "pull up on your horse's mouth to bring up the shoulders to get him on the bit." So contrary to everything dressage teaches, though I'm also learning dressage doesn't have it quite right either. Equitation Science is pretty cool though. There may very well be a day that cameras will be scoring dressage tests. Imagine it: a camera that will be able to say, "oh hey, that horse is so many degrees behind the vertical, so it should get this score because of that." Anyway, more on Equitation Science at the ISES website

On top of all this, we got a new puppy. When she was surrendered the owners said she was a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix. there is no GSD in this dog. However, we think it's very likely she could be a Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever mix. She's almost 8 months old and was surrendered because she was "chewing on things." An activity that puppies like to do and if you don't give them appropriate chewing articles they'll find things. She's totally getting that toys and chewy bones are for chewing, shoes are not. She's mostly a pretty good girl and has been a nice addition to the family.

 

Foxies are back!

Either that is Split Ear, or it's another fox with a ripped right ear. And there are kits!

So far I've just seen two

Not so great pics from Watermelon

watermelon part 2

I believe I mentioned yesterday that OOTT has me figured out? This morning she gave me the option to not go out at my time and just go straight to schooling. Upon thought, it made more sense to just school, knowing there was no way I was going to come out of it badly, when things might go badly otherwise.

Schooling was good. We had two refusals, both jumps we've been over before, because I freaking looked at them. That is the problem. I look. If I stop looking down she'll go over the darn jump. You would think it would be an easy thing to fix, alas, as all of you that ride know, it's not so easy sometimes. We schooled the water and I did it a bunch more times than I needed to, but it was so fun and Naners was being fabulous and we finished off cantering through it.

All in all, a good weekend. Disappointed I finished with a letter, not a number, but Naners was so fabulous other than that. She's also almost shed out and as you can see from the following pictures, she's really freaking shiny. She's got good shiny genetics, but this is what you get when you've taken a master's level nutrition course :D

I think she looks like an akhal teke here (and no, her ribs aren't really that visible. Something about the pose)

Watermelon... another letter finish

Getting OOTT (out of town trainer) to help me this weekend was probably the smartest decision I've made in a long while. One of the reasons I'd been hesitant is she can be extremely demanding and I just can't take that sometimes. Fortunately, turns out she is one of those people that can change her coaching technique depending on who she's coaching. So, for me it's a lot of, "take a breath, pat your horse, take a breath, slow down half a mile an hour, take a breath..." you get the picture. I was pleasantly surprised that she had me figured out and treated me just how I needed to be. As a result Naners and I were able to get straightened out before our stadium schooling round on Friday and it was an absolutely lovely round. We were slowish, I'd half halt ten strides out, again at fourish and then she was quiet enough I could let her do her job. OOTT has us figured out.

We had a nice dressage session Friday afternoon where we got us put back together and it translated into a lovely dressage test Sat afternoon. It was calm. No rockets. Not our best test at a 38.2, which put us in 2nd, but I was very pleased.

By the time stadium came around it was Hot out. 85. It snowed at our house just a week ago. Fortunately, jackets were waived. Not a ton of warming up, because we didn't need to. She jumped everything in warm-up like she had the day before. We get into the arena and she jumped big over fence #1, fence #2 went nice, fence #3... stop. It was a scary bumblebee lattice. Stop. Stop. We're out. They let us try it again, no go, so we trotted an x-rail on our way out. Then of course I cried a bit. OOTT asked me what I did wrong and I knew I was totally looking down. She reminded me it wasn't the end of the world and I went to ask about going out on XC and they said yes, though the TD was a bit concerned, but I'm not. Arenas aren't something we're in a lot. An XC course is just a fast trail ride and we've schooled most of the jumps, even if they have moved them around. If it does not go well OOTT is going to school us before we head back home.