Good Bestie, primo Western horse, makes an appearance

Yesterday I rode. I was going to lunge Bestie first, but got lazy and also realized that if I lunged her, my timing would be way off and I wouldn't be in the saddle when Katie was riding Dude, and I would miss heading off around the field with her, which I enjoy.

And what happened? Although I got on board with great trepidation, I had a great ride! It was so good that I am still smiling happily about it today! She was responsive, not in a snit about ANYTHING and we had a couple really good little Western jogs ... the whole enchilada: head down, relaxed, SLOW, super comfy!! I wanted to shriek to Katie, who was in the ring: "Do you see this?? DO YOU SEE THIS??!" But I figured that might stress Bestie out. Hee.

After a bit we headed out to go around the field and Bestie was still very much in a "Hey whatever" frame of mind. Not trying to rush along and get past Dude, just very content to walk along with the reins swinging.

Now, the million dollar question is, WHY? Why was she perfect yesterday? What stars aligned to lead to that? And the answer is: I DON'T KNOW. And that's why we'll probably keep on having our alternately crazy mare/good mare rides. I'll keep thinking about it and maybe some day I'll figure it out, but for the life of me, it just hasn't become apparent yet. But it is clearly worth continuing to put some thought into it, simply because I have caught these glimpses of what a pleasure riding her can be. Today she's out in the field, and I'm just going to bring her in and brush her and bask in the afterglow :).

Rain, rain, rain, and more rain

This is unbelievable: the forecasters are calling for one to three inches of rain between now (Wednesday) and Friday. What a wet soppy mess the fields are going to be. There are even flood warnings for certain rivers and creeks; luckily the barn is not located near any water. The horses did go out today as the rain didn't really hit in full force until the afternoon, but I bet they won't go out for the next couple of days. It's supposed to come down pretty hard at times. Yuck.

I've got to add Betadine scrub to my shopping list. We've been using it to periodically scrub out Dude's thrush-prone feet. They've been looking good (HATE to actually put that in writing and tempt fate!), but I think Katie will need to be extra attentive with this weather and with the horses likely to be in and standing around.

I did a really short ride on Bestie last night after lunging her. She was positively in slow-mo on the lunge line, since I brought her in and hooked her up before she got her afternoon snooze. She of course perked up under saddle, but didn't walk off when I was on the mounting block like she did last time. Progress?

A friend called last night to alert me that a stall is opening up at her barn. Unfortunately, one stall just won't work ... I've done the "horses in two different barns" routine and all it does is drive me crazy. Plus, there is no ring or indoor at her barn, they ride in a field. As much as I want a more low-key atmosphere, I don't think I'm ready for that, yet. It was nice that she thought of us though. She is going through a similar thing: daughter leaving for college in the fall, horse part of the family, mom doing the care. We commiserate. I think she's even more of a softie than I am :).

Crazy animal story for the day: a friend has this cat who is definitely large and in charge. She occasionally regales us all with stories of his latest escapades, which are always hysterically funny to those who don't live with him but not so to the very patient family who "owns" him. I'll just say that living room furniture and her husband's clothing have been involved. The latest ... he has taken to peeing on their Keurig coffee brewer. Wow, you have to give him credit for dramatic flair. After consultation with the vet, he is going on kitty Prozac.

Back in the saddle

Yesterday I got on Bestie for the first time since ... hmmmmnn, let me think ... February?? It's definitely possible, because they got moved March 1 and I didn't ride at all at that barn. Wow.

I had lunged her on Friday and she's been going out, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and just hop on. She was fine, not great, but fine. She walked off once after I got her positioned at the mounting block, so I just jumped down from the block, walked her around in a circle, got her positioned again, and the second time she was fine. It's kind of like she just wants to be a stinker and try a little something to see if she can dissuade me from whatever it is I want to do, but if I don't give in, she's like, "Oh, ok."

I rode around in the indoor for a bit just to sort of take her measure. Katie had ridden Dude out to the outdoor ring and Bestie was a bit focused on where he had gone, but again, once I made it clear that we were not yet going outside, she was ok.

After about ten minutes we went outside. I intended to go into the same ring that Dude and Katie were in, but Bestie was having none of it and this time I didn't win. Every time I would approach the gate she would spin one way or the other in order not to enter the ring. After about four times I just rode around the perimeter and then came back to meet Katie and Dude and we went around the edge to the parking lot and back to the barn.

All in all, everything was ok, she was just a little edgy and that's just her usual Mare in Charge attitude. We need to get back into a routine, and it's my own fault for not being consistent with the riding. I just HATE being in the indoor for any length of time.

Bugs are coming out. We brought their fly masks to the barn but need to get more insect spray. Have a part of a bottle left from last summer that they're sharing for now. Will have to go to the horsie store and get fly spray, and I believe we're almost out of treats, too. And who knows what other goodies might be spotted?!

Miscellaneous stuff from the week

The high point of this week was that the horses started going out! On Tuesday they started easing back into turnout, with those that have been handgrazed getting 1.5 hours and slowly building over the course of the week. I think tomorrow they may be up to "full time," about 4 hours.

Now that Dude and Bestie are both going out in the afternoon, when we arrive at 4 pm-ish they are both kind of dozy. Today when I got there they were both napping, but perked up when they saw me. Once they're up to "full time," they'll be out from around 11/11:30 until about 3:30/3:45. This had been hard for me in particular to adjust to, given the fact that they had both become accustomed to all-day turnout at the former place. Ah well.

I stuck with my resolution to work Bestie and lunged her every other day this week. I'm hoping to get on for a ride tomorrow. She's been pretty good and responsive on the line, even cantering both ways, which I didn't have much success with before. Not sure what changed, but it's great!

Bad week at the barn with three falls off horses. Two with no ill effects, one with a broken leg. Yikes. The last was a huge surprise ... I would never have thought that particular mare would toss her rider. Sympathy and good wishes go out to her for a recovery. Lots of emotions after something like that happens.

I've been holding the Himalayan salt lick that I got at Everything Equine for Bestie to lick for a few minutes. I don't think I'm going to put it in her stall because it seems like she'd lick it endlessly. There are some comments on the web about horses doing just that ... which doesn't seem good for them. Also some comments from a vet on how these things are pretty useless; that the minerals they contain aren't really that needed by the horse and that a plain old salt/mineral block is preferable.

There's really not a lot of good information about the Himalayan blocks on the web, mostly marketing hype. Maybe another fad of the moment. But Bestie does like it,no doubt about it, and the funny thing is, Dude wouldn't touch it. I held it up to him and he sniffed it and then turned his head away. I wonder what's with that? It's kind of interesting because we try to monitor his potassium intake due to the HPYY background, although we don't go crazy about it. Before we had him tested he always had a salt/mineral block in his stall, but he hardly ever licked it. In fact, we never saw him licking it and we never had to replace it. I heard an herbalist talking once about horses eating what they need from a pasture, like one day they'd eat plantain and one day they wouldn't, depending on what nutrients they needed. Maybe Dude was monitoring his own potassium intake?

Colder temperatures plus no turn out equals ...

horses that make threatening "I'm bustin' out" moves at their stall guards and prance all the way out to hand graze.

Katie and I got to the barn today around 3:30. I opened Dude and Bestie's doors and put their stall guards up then went into the bathroom to change. I could hear Bestie making obnoxious squealing noises at her neighbor, but otherwise all seemed well.

I mucked her stall, then Katie mucked Dude's. While she was mucking, I guess Dude decided that this whole process was taking long enough, thank you very much, because from my vantage point in the aisle, I would periodically see his head and chest press against the stall guard as Katie bellowed, "GET BACK!" Once we clipped their leads on the halters, Dude started doing his oh-so-funny prancy trot through the indoor. It's his 1100 pound Quarter Horse version of a dressage trot, hee. Then he spun around her as we exited the indoor and did a little rear and buck. She got him turned around and headed in the right direction. It took both horses a while to settle down to eating grass. There was a lot of grab a bite, walk three steps, grab a bite, walk three steps.

This whole week that they've been confined indoors, they've been really good when I've led them out to hand graze. We could only think to chalk it up to the 40 degree weather; it seemed that with the much cooler temperatures they were feeling their oats. Or, actually their pellets and senior feed. Not quite as poetic :).

Please oh please can we go out??

I had to do a few errands prior to visiting the barn today, and in my travels I drove by three other barns. Horses out at each one. At one, the horses were in a field so beautiful and lush I almost wanted to stop the car and take a picture of them.

All the horses at our barn are still in. The good news is that the fields have been cut in half with temporary fencing, which is always a sign that the first day of turnout is approaching. Bestie got rooked a bit today because right after I got her out to hand graze her, thunder starting rumbling. It makes me pretty nervous to stand on the wide open lawn listening to the thunder, so I only tolerated it for about ten minutes before dragging her in. She was NOT happy. Katie had already been there, so Dude was all taken care of. I lunged Bestie and she was pretty good. I thought she might really go nuts on the line as a way of expressing her displeasure with the short hand graze, but she only had a few little bucks. I've got to get back into a regular routine with her now that they're settled.

Sighhhhhhh

I have been doing so much writing at work over the last week that I feel like my head is going to explode! Or maybe I should say "implode." Anyway, that's why I haven't posted.

So Dude and Bestie got moved on Saturday. Went back to our previous barn, which I guess in the overall count of things would be barn #3. It's good in that it's a known quantity: familiar friendly faces, predictable schedule for the horses, nice facility. It's temporarily bad in that they're not getting turned out as we wait for the grass to grow. The saying "watching grass grow" has taken on new meaning! And it's bad in that I moved from there to save money, and am now back to being pretty well maxxed out on board costs.

So what happened with the barn we had just moved to? In March, a scant TWO MONTHS AGO? A barn at which the horses were pretty darn happy?

Well, after a month, the owner decided she didn't want to have a boarding barn anymore. She pretty much gave us two options: form a co-op or hire someone to do our work. And it seemed like she also expected us to resolve the situation one way or another in very short order.

That was asking the impossible, as we had hay and shavings to gather, our schedules and finances to review, not to mention the ins and outs of being responsible for some sort of self-directed care or hiring someone else. The latter was ruled out pretty quickly for financial reasons. We gave our best shot at attempting to set up a co-op. Lots of research was done, hay and shavings providers were identified, but it became clear pretty quickly that it would never work. Despite giving us a verbal go-ahead to set up another arrangement, roadblocks kept being thrown in front of us by the barn owner. Amongst the three of us who were boarding, the underlying sentiment was that we could drive ourselves crazy trying to make it work, yet there would always be SOMETHING. It was a no-win situation.

We scrambled trying to find other arrangements by May 1 and luckily all ended up in happy situations.

I'm just not sure what I learned from this whole incident. On the plus side, my horses were very happy, VERY happy, at that barn. Dude got a run-in stall his last two weeks there, and as I've written in previous posts, he loved going in and out, in and out. Bestie had the run-in during the day for one week, and also was happy. I got to know my two fellow boarders better than I did during our time together at barn #3; definitely a plus. I knew that I could trust them to check on my horses when I wasn't there and to throw a late night flake if anyone looked hungry. We looked out for one another. Other people crossed my path; I will always be grateful to the renters in the house (who left the weekend before we did) for their steadiness and reliability with morning feedings. I'm grateful for the opportunity to run around with both Dude and Bestie in the indoor and have fun. I'm grateful for being able to stand at the door of the barn and call to them and watch them trot toward me. And I did save some money for a couple months!

On the negative side, I almost feel like the old saying "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is" applies to this situation, but that seems like such a pessimistic downer approach to life that I just can't fully subscribe to it. It was a leap of faith that didn't work. It reminded me that people do make commitments that they don't fully think through, and don't take into consideration the effect of their decision on others. And that false assurances and apparent dishonesty can really complicate things.

So that's the last few weeks. Until the fields open up, I'm handgrazing Dude and Bestie. I felt terrible the first day when they seemed very perplexed and distraught by their move back. After all, the situation at the old barn was pretty changeable, so they've been asked to adapt to a lot over the last two months. New barn, cows, no turnout, some turnout, all day turnout, horses coming, horses going. On Sunday they seemed more settled. But I have to admit that I feel sad when I arrive and they're behind bars and can't have their heads hanging over their stall doors. I'll end this post where I began, with a sighhhhhhhhh.