Post Irene

Little did I know Sunday that as I went off to the movies to pass the time on an excessively rainy day, then swung into the barn to groom the ponies, Hurricane Irene was wreaking complete havoc on the southern and central portions of Vermont. Although our general area, and particularly a bit north of us, suffered flooding and property damage, the waters receded quickly and left nothing like the complete devastation down south. There are still towns that are completely cut off from services, and the scope of the damage is too much to comprehend. There are many local efforts to support those in need, as well as larger efforts from the Red Cross, the Vermont FoodBank and the United Way. Please consider supporting one of these organizations with a donation - it's going to be a long haul for many communities in Vermont.

Irene is coming to visit

News stories over the past several days have focused on Hurricane Irene and her path up the East Coast. Hmmn ... "her"? Is that right? Should it be "its"? I'm just not up on proper hurricane pronoun usage - it's not something we ponder too frequently in northern Vermont. The frenzy of reporting has been crazy; I swear that within the space of 3 minutes I saw two different graphics on the tv this morning - one showing in bright pink how the "extreme weather" would overtake our state, and another showing the weather line at central Vermont, well south of us. What to believe?

Today was beautiful with sun and warm temperatures and barely a breeze, making it hard to believe that high winds are coming our way. I put all my potted plants down on the ground, off the benches and what-not that they're on, and took a few hanging things off the exterior of the house. And the garage got cleaned out so that our cars could go in. That's about the extent of our preparations.

If anything worries me, it's the heavy rains that are forecast. Our barn leaks like a sieve in many spots, and I'm worried what torrential rains will do to the hay that is stored up in the loft. After the extremely wet spring, there was a stretch of great weather for haying, and as a result, there's a ton of hay up in the barn. Would be a shame to lose a lot of it to mildew, or worse, for it to get sodden and heavy and stress the barn. The first bands of rain are supposed to start later tonight, so at this point it's a waiting game to see what happens.

Given the weather reports, the horses are due to stay in Sunday and possibly Monday. If the weather hasn't turned ugly by tomorrow morning, I may head to the barn early and put them out for a bit or give them some grazing time.

Tack cleaning and riding this week

Over the last week I've spent some time cleaning both Bestie's and Dude's saddles. It's not something I'm very consistent about, for some reason. Just a time thing, I think. When I do clean them, I'm always so amazed and pleased at how great they look - I really should do it more often.

I cleaned Dude's saddle yesterday, thinking I would ride him today. The bad news is that as soon as I got on him and started down the path, I could hear a shoe/s clinking. I hopped off only to find that one shoe was pretty loose at the heel. Back we walked to the barn. Barn manager Caitlin took a look and thought that actually both front shoes are loose. His feet are a mess because the last farrier appointment was so overdue. I think it's going to take a couple cycles to get Dude's hooves back in shape. Even though the shoe issue came as no surprise, it was still disappointing not to be able to go out to the field with him. In a clean saddle :).

I ended up hopping on Bestie and riding her in the indoor, and she was good. We had a nice little session working on trotting and serpentining as follow-up to my lesson. It was necessarily short since the whole thing with Dude had taken up some time. I'm really trying to not tense up when she gets fast. I sit deep, try to keep my shoulders down, and breath calmly and it seems to help. Since the lesson we've had a couple rides where she's gotten fast, but then relaxed. It may sound like a small achievement, but it IS an achievement - this is the horse who can work herself up into a trotting frenzy of epic proportions.

We started talking at the barn today about the Equine Affaire in November. A group usually goes from the barn, but I haven't been in several years. I'm seriously thinking of going this year. When I've gone before there have always been wonderful clinicians, plus it's a great shopping opportunity and the horses do need new turnout sheets.

Lesson time - Bestie and I reinvigorate our relationship

So, this was a good week. Bestie and I took a lesson with our new barn manager, and while I won't say that the lesson went well (due to a certain mare's "my way or the highway" outlook on life) it was kind of fun and did give me some new things to think about and try. I've ridden her twice more since the lesson and we seem to be getting somewhere. Who would've thought that consistency would be a good thing? Ha.

Consistency is definitely my problem, mainly because pesky things like work and family and other interests and miscellaneous unexpected horse ailments have a way of interfering with what I want to do with my barn time. I remember this same pattern developed when I first took lessons with former barn manager Emma - I felt like I was really getting somewhere with Dude, then he had a little lameness issue, then I got busy at work ... blah blah blah.

But back to this week's lesson. We walked quite a while as Caitlin talked about what we could work on, then we trotted a slow jog, which was fine (with me), but then Caitlin asked me to speed her up a bit, and that's when Bestie was like, uh, excuse me, I don't believe I signed up for WORK. So we circled and circled and serpentined and serpentined while she snorted and huffed and trotted really fast and broke into the canter a couple times with me thinking calming thoughts and trying half halts and saying easy easy easy like a mantra. But she didn't pull anything really bad, which was good, and at the end she seemed like she had resigned herself to this new relationship with the treats and grooming lady. In the two sessions that have happened since the lesson, I've worked on getting her to respond more positively to my requests to trot and she has been pretty good. Today at one point she seemed to be working herself up, but I tried to stay quiet with my hands and sit deep in the saddle and she relaxed.

It's interesting. Definitely not dull. I think a lot about her psychology and my own. My problem is that after about 20 minutes I tend to get bored in the indoor - and so does she. Whether she's feeding off me or that's just her timer going off, I don't know. But I've written before about the difficulties of getting her down the path, and we haven't attempted it alone again. We went one time with another rider, and Bestie sort of halfheartedly attempted to turn back to the barn, but when I encouraged her to go forward, she did. I'm trying to get a really great positive vibe going in the indoor before we do the path thing again. Unfortunately, I need to skip a lesson this week because I'll be out of town. Consistency is hard. Sigh.

What happens when a certain mare gets 3 weeks off?

Due to a combination of things - me in hockey camp and then a tournament that tied me up 8 days, extremely hot weather, and an MIA farrier - nothing much has been happening with Dude and Bestie for about 3 weeks. Last Thursday, I decided to put a saddle on her and do a quick ride in the indoor, not wanting to take her out and down the path because it is a bit rocky in little stretches and her feet are a mess. She was fine in the indoor, except for trying to veer through the open door of the arena on the first couple of passes. I really couldn't blame her because it was a little stuffy in there and much nicer outside. I rode for maybe 20 minutes, then decided to go down the path at least a bit since she really seemed to want to be outside.

We got down the path about halfway down the line of paddocks and she suddenly did a whirl to go back to the barn. I got her turned around and we tried again. Same thing, a bit farther down the path. We turned around once more, and same thing. I'm thinking, "What the heck is up with you? YOU'RE the one who wanted to come out here!" On the fourth attempt she started getting all huffy and prancy and I decided not to push it. I did bring her back in the indoor and we rode for a few minutes more.

Yesterday I tried again. I wanted to stay in the indoor again, just to keep her feet off the rocks. She tried a couple times to veer out the door, but settled down pretty well. Then a lesson started and I didn't feel like being in there anymore, so we went outside. Bestie was all perky, ears up, gazing around as we walked down the path, then at about the same spot, she whirled around to head back to the barn. I bet I tried four times to get her back down the path, and we'd get about half way, and she'd spin. So I rode her back to the beginning of the path, got off, handwalked her down to the point that I had intended to ride her to, and then walked her back, occasionally asking her to halt or halt and back. I thought maybe doing that would keep her focused on me and listening to me, and not on the pleasant little walk in the sunshine we were taking.

I'd love to be in her head and know what she's thinking. But I'm pretty sure it's something along the lines of, "What?? After three weeks off I thought I was on permanent vacation!" The plan is to ride again tomorrow, perhaps beginning with a relaxing little lunge to take the edge off, and try to be more consistent with saddle time. Fingers crossed that their hooves get done this week.

A beautiful by-product of a stormy day

A quick trip to the barn this afternoon just to clean Dude and Bestie up. It had been raining off and on all day, so I knew they'd be muddy. As I was leaving the barn to head home, a beautiful rainbow across the way caught my eye. At first it was really low against the trees and just barely over the sugarhouse ...




Then it seemed to disappear for a bit, but reappeared over the hill ...

Hooves and their issues

It's been a tough spring for the horses' feet. After the snow melted, there was a stretch of time in April when the horses went out onto the muddy pastures. Then the weather pattern shifted into endless rain in May that turned the fields to swamps and came down heavy enough to merit the horses being in for days at a time. While in, they alternated between standing on dirty shavings and standing on clean shavings. Sort of a wet/dry cycle for their feet. And once the rain stopped, they started going back out again, but the fields were still pretty wet.

As a result, Bestie's normally beautiful feet seem to have gotten kind of soft and prone to having chunks along the edge getting pried upward by rocks, and eventually chipping off. That's what happened to the spot in the photo above; it was a like a piece about an inch and a half long bent upwards, then eventually broke off. Her feet are about the ugliest I've ever seen them around the edges. Luckily she still has good frogs. I'm thinking about putting shoes on her front feet for the summer, both to protect the edges and because the rocks on the paths to the paddocks are hard on her soles, as are any rocks that are on the road when we ride.

Dude's feet aren't too bad around the edges, but his frogs are close to nonexistent, especially in the back, where he doesn't have shoes on. It's like they've gotten spongey from the wet ground and have just peeled away. Pretty yucky. I'm not sure what else to do other than try to keep them cleaned out and keep his stall as clean as possible.

Fingers crossed that we return to a dryer weather pattern that helps the ponies get their good feet back soon.