Introducing Banana's Mini Me

Last week, a pony mare for sale passed through my facebook feed. I was not looking. But, her cute face stopped my scrolling. She was only 30 minutes away, and was on my way to where I was going later. I stopped. And met a mare who was wary at first, but in a few minutes was nuzzling my cheek. Her owner had a very high opinion of her horse keeping skills, to me they were sub-par, as evidenced by her feet. I said if she hadn't sold by the end of the weekend I'd be back to ride her.

I sent her pictures to my horsie friends. Everyone remarked how much she looks like Naners. And she does. A smaller version.

Our weather this past weekend was crap. It rained and rained and rained. Which, is actually awesome because it's dry here, but not helpful when one is going to try out a horse. I went on Sunday, two friends (one my current trainer) met me down there. We sunk halfway up our feet in mud. Riding the mare was not going to happen. But, when they met her, saw her move, looked at how well built she was, we decided we could not leave this pony's future to fate. There was just something about her we were all drawn to. Long story short, Tuesday I picked her up.

The above picture looks like the meeting was friendly. And for the most part it was. She was in heat so she and Ollie were instantly infatuated with each other. However, then Naners took a turn towards her alpha mare self:

No one has been maimed, though as Naners' leg wound had some pus today it may have set her leg healing back. Things have calmed down since Tuesday. But oh is pony attached to her new friends. If I take Naners out for her hand graze pony just carries on and on and on. It's getting quite annoying. I hope as she settles she's not quite so needy. She had no idea what a feed pan was, and the handful of ration balancer in it was extremely suspect. Tonight she ate it right down.

I'm slowly working through to see how her ground manners are. Fine with grooming, a little hesitant about a few feet. They are in great need of help. She's worried about a spray bottle, but was totally okay with me spraying her with water out of the hose. The vet will be here on Saturday to do her teeth and shots, farrier early next week. Then one of these days I'll get on her. I'm hoping I can convince someone else to do it first, because while she's supposedly a good girl, she's very green. And I hate unplanned meetings with the ground.

Banana's leg today

The vet and I are pleased. That's four days.

Future Employment?

I'm pretty sure Ollie has a future as a waiter.

Unexpected

This was a shocking thing to wake up to: snow. I was extra glad I'd put a blanket on Naners last night

See? It does occasionally happen.

I took it off maybe when it was cooler than I would have liked, but I much preferred the thought of her rolling in the snow instead of the inevitable mud

I also took this fabulous picture of her, worthy of the photography skills of my father

I can count the number of times I've seen her rear on one hand, so I didn't have the camera positioned for this antic. My dad, on the other hand, cuts off heads even when the subject more than fits in the frame.

And just like that, a screeching halt

Yesterday, I loaded Naners on the trailer and off we went for our lesson. She was quieter than usual, no banging at every stop sign and light (she doesn't kick, she just moves around and since the trailer is steel it makes a lot of noise.) We've been trailering a lot lately, so she's probably just gotten more tolerant of the situation (it happens. She's always bad for a bit, then gets better) We got to the trainers and I unloaded her and she stepped off so quietly, when she usually leaps. Unfortunately, she stepped off so quietly she didn't quite leave enough room for her hind legs to come down and she scraped them against the little bits of metal that hold the corners of the bottoms of the double doors. What originally looked like a surface scrape was not:

That's what it looked like after the vet had snipped off a flap of skin. There was also a pretty deep puncture that extends about an inch down from the hole, discovered when she was flushing it with saline and the skin was extending outward as the saline went in. I'm really, really glad I called the vet.

Naners is now laid up for goodness knows how long. Depends on how things go of course. Going to the rally is out, so we won't be able to qualify for PC Champs. I get to practice my fine wound wrapping skills again. I still have supplies from last summer.

Obviously, I don't wrap when we travel. She wears bell boots when I can get them on her safely (as soon as she realizes she has to get on the trailer she starts carrying on.) I've been thinking of ways to make the back of the trailer safer, there isn't a way to pad the things in a way that the doors will still be able to close. A neighbor/friend thinks we could at least take the corners off the holder thingies, which would make it quite a bit better. I shall post before and after pics when we do it, as my trailer is not the only one out there with doors like this.

I swear officer! It was like that when I got here

This is what I found yesterday when I opened the trailer when Naners and I got home from our lesson:

It looks like something terrible happened in there, maybe a murder, at least a stabbing. I was a bit frantic, checking Naners all over. All I found was dried blood around her left nostril and two tiny, wet drips. Guesses are she hit her nose, they bleed a lot, and because it is a stock trailer, so there's wind, it blew all over the place. I just can't get over all the blood. It did, fortunately, clean up fairly easily (much easier than the just oiled gravel that's all over the outside of the trailer. I tried, it's still there. I need more water than I'm willing to sacrifice from our cistern.)

Naners is fine. Today we went for a walk down the road and all was well.

It's been a fun couple weeks... not!

When last I posted I thought Naners and I were really going to slide off the eventing train and become a western dressage pair. Fortunately, I borrowed a neighbors wintec pro dressage saddle and neither of us had problems with it. Yay!

But, after I had this figured out Naners wasn't right... her back was okay, something else was going on. With it being the time of year it is, and as I was transitioning her back to grass, I felt for digital pulses, something I can never, ever feel... but there they were, bounding away. Long story short: Naners cannot be out on grass unless our temps are over 40 at night, spring or fall, (40 degrees being the magic temperature that grass can use the sugars produced during the day to grow) or she'll end up with full blown laminitis. I caught it really early, so she's okay. I just need to buy a heck of a lot more hay this year. It never ceases to amaze me how good a diagnostic tool my seat is. Every time things have not felt right to me, regardless of horse, things have turned out to not be right, even if it is so subtle it takes the vet awhile to determine the problem.

With the Wintec working it's very clear that my beloved Black Country Tex Eventer is not working for us. I can't bear to sell it yet, so it'll be collecting dust for awhile. We did a Ride a Test clinic on Sunday and our trainer agrees that the Wintec works just fine for us. Alas, I don't have dressage saddle riding muscles yet, so I'm a freaking mess in it.

We also got our fabulous bonnet from Heartland Horsewear. I love it.

Down the rabbit hole?

Argh. Since I've been able to ride again Naners has regularly had a sore back. First, I noticed she was sore after I rode her. Then I started checking her back several times a day. Generally, she's sore in the morning and not sore in the afternoon. So, one of those afternoons I put my saddle on, and she was sore after a 20 minute ride. I've been testing several variables. Today we tried a western saddle: no soreness. So, we may be looking at doing western dressage. Downside: Naners' natural gaits are much faster than a western horse should be going. Plus: blingy show shirts!

Adventures in grazing

Ummm.... Ollie, that's not how you're supposed to wear it

Ollie says, "It's so windy you can see my forehead!"

It's been quite breezy here the last few days, as it frequently is this time of year. One of these days the wind will turn to dust storms, which I seriously dislike. Dirt behind your eyeballs is never comfortable.