The barn garden, the definition of "lush"

I've been meaning to write about the vegetable garden at the barn for a while now. About ten of us went in on seeds and plants, and now we have this amazingly lush garden that cost each of us $20 and a little bit of sweat equity. We planted together, people are assigned to harvest twice a week, and each of us has a weeding day assigned, and that's pretty much it. It's amazing what we've harvested already: summer squash, zucchini, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, radishes, green beans and yellow wax beans, eggplants, potatoes, endive ... I think that's it, so far! There are a ton of tomatoes still ripening; we've harvested a few, but there are a lot more on the plants and in fact they needed to be thinned out because they were so thick that it didn't seem the tomatoes were getting enough sun.

This is all very exciting, but I have to admit that for a couple weeks now I've felt a bit of veggie overload. Back in the spring (when I usually make rash decisions about gardening) I bought a farm share from an organic farm. I pick that up each Monday at work, and then get load #2 on Fridays from the barn. Early in the season, it seemed we ate kale and chard in every conceivable form; now, we're doing the same thing with zucchini and squash. It's absolutely great to have all this good fresh food, but it is a bit overwhelming. Katie had to harvest for me last week; I'm trying to stay out of the garden since the footing is so uneven, and after quality time bean harvesting she said she hoped she NEVER saw another green bean again!

The monster zucchini harvested last week; still on the counter for new visitors to the house to marvel over :)







Looking down the garden, greens up at the top, squash and zucchini way down at the bottom, herbs in the raised bed over to the right.

Horse Mom has a lameness issue

I haven't written about this because I kept hoping it would just go away :). Just over three weeks ago I was supposed to play in a weekend hockey tournament. In the first period of the first game, I took a fall; got tangled up with another player. When I fell my right leg swung out to the right and I felt a painful stretching feeling on the inside of my knee. I got up slowly, sort of testing it, and it could bear weight without any problem so I kept playing. Probably dumb of me. I iced it when I got home but nevertheless, the next day I was pretty sore. After a week of Motrin and icing it felt pretty good, but then I twisted it while picking vegetables in the barn garden. Grrr.

Since then it hasn't gotten better or worse. It gets really stiff when I stay in one position for too long, but I can basically get around. No way can I swing the leg up over a saddle. Pretty much anything that would cause a stretch to that inside portion of my knee hurts, so I avoid those movements. Given that I play hockey, ride horses, and work at a ski resort, I have heard LOTS of very interesting knee injury stories. I'm going to an orthopedist this week.

I'm pretty sick of the knee thing, needless to say. Missing hockey, missing my bike, missing riding. I've made it to the barn most every day and my activities consist of grooming the horses and mucking their stalls. I'm pretty leery of walking out and getting either one out of their fields, since I don't want to get bumped around and tweak the knee again. I did get Bestie one day since she, more so than Dude, is pretty respectful of your space and where you want her to go.

A fellow barn mate just started riding Bestie at the end of last week. Her own horse is having some navicular problems and just went home to hang out, and she was looking for a horse to ride until she comes up with a new plan. She's a good rider and a thoughtful one, so after mulling it over I asked her if she wanted to ride Bestie. She worked with Emma for the first session, since Emma has ridden Bestie and has some insight into what makes her tick. I did get a cell message after the first ride that they worked through some "issues." Yeah, I bet they did, since Bestie has had the easy life for a couple years now, and undoubtedly will want to test her.

Hoping to get a game plan at Thursday's doctor's appointment.

Good boy, Dude!

Two moments at the barn yesterday that could gone either way -- and luckily went the right way.

First, when Dude was on the cross ties in the aisle, a little kid came running up to him and shouted right in his face, "Hey, this is a big horse!" Dude didn't move, just sort of looked at him like, "Yeah, and what's your point?"

Second moment: I was in Dude's stall with him with the stall guard across the door, when all of a sudden the boy's large black dog came halfway into the stall. It certainly took me by surprise. Dude was eating his hay, swung his head around, checked out the dog, registered a momentary "huh-how-'bout-THAT" expression and went back to munching his hay.

WhatEVER. :)

Vaccination time coming

I was just starting to think about mid/late summer vaccinations when Julie at the barn mentioned that the other local vet practice had already been out to the barn to do their clients' horses. The Potomac and the flu/rhino vaccinations were given. I'm never very consistent about getting Dude and Bestie scheduled for these two (I feel like in past years they've been given them anytime between August and September), so it was good she reminded me. They'll get scheduled soon with the handful of other horses that use the same vets we do.

Word on the streets is that Potomac may be bad this year in our area, although our vets do not yet have any words of warning on their website, and they're usually good about that. I can never remember the specifics of the disease, and had only a vague sense that snails were somehow involved. I visited the website for the American Association of Equine Practitioners to grab the following info:

"Equine monocytic ehrlichiosis (Potomac Horse Fever) is caused by Neorickettsia risticii (formerly Ehrlichia risticii). Originally described in 1979 as a sporadic disease affecting horses residing in the eastern United States near the Potomac River, the disease has since been identified in various other geographic locations in the United States and Canada. The disease is seasonal, occurring between late spring and early fall in temperate areas, with most cases in July, August, and September at the onset of hot weather.

Clinical signs are variable but may include: fever, mild to severe diarrhea, laminitis, mild colic, and decreased abdominal sounds. Uncommonly, pregnant mares infected with N. risticii (usually in the middle trimester between 90 and 120 days) can abort due to fetal infection at 7 months of gestation.

If Potomac Horse Fever has been confirmed on a farm or in a particular geographic area, it is likely that additional cases will occur in future years. Foals appear to have a low risk of contracting the disease. Vaccination against this disease has been questioned because field evidence of benefit is lacking. Proposed explanations for this include lack of seroconversion and multiple field strains whereas only one strain is present in available vaccines.

Vaccine
The currently available commercial vaccines are killed, adjuvanted products. Two of these are also available combined with a rabies vaccine. None of the current vaccines carry a label claim for the prevention of abortion.

Vaccination Schedules
Due to the seasonal incidence of disease, vaccination should be timed to precede the anticipated peak challenge during the summer months or fall.

Adult horses, previously vaccinated: Manufacturers recommend revaccination at 6- to 12-month intervals. However, veterinarians may consider an interval of 3 to 4 months for horses in endemic areas because protection following vaccination can be incomplete and short-lived."

(There's a bit more info on the vaccination protocol on the AAEP site at http://www.aaep.org/potomac_fever.htm)

It certainly doesn't sound as though the vaccination is a sure bet in terms of prevention, which is unfortunate. But still, it will give me some peace of mind once they've received the vaccination.

Weather finally shifts to summer

After weeks of rain and cool weather, we plunged into summer last Friday. Typical Vermont weather change - the day before I wore a soft shell jacket in to work! Friday was actually quite beautiful with sunny skies and a good breeze. It's gotten progressively warmer since then.

The horses' fields are really drying out with this warm weather, which is good. Dude had lost a shoe about a week ago when the field he was in was pretty swampy. It was so wet back in the field that there was no way I would find the shoe, which I realized after about ten minutes of walking the field. It'll probably turn up in a frost heave this winter! We've been scrubbing his legs quite a bit since it seemed like the constant mud might contribute to scratches.

I rode Bestie on Friday and it was a nice ride. She didn't do her usual 360 turn as we headed out to the field after about fifteen minutes in the indoor. And she was totally over the pigeons roosting in the rafters, which had caused a major sideways leap about a week ago - yay for saddle horns to grab on to!

The past couple of days we have gone to the barn only to clean them up and hose them down because it has been so warm. Dude in particular gets really sweaty when the temps zoom. I decided to cut his evening grain by half over the next few days just to play it safe. The big barn fans are running and there are a couple of box fans hung down at our end of the barn, so the air is circulating and the barn stays fairly pleasant. I think Dude and Bestie sweat when they first get brought in as a result of the transition from outside to inside and the walk in. And Bestie unfortunately has the afternoon sun coming in her little window, although she doesn't get as sweaty as Dude.

Looks like the whole week will have temps in the upper 80s. I am certainly not complaining - it is great to feel the warmth and see the sun!

Busy week but time for a mini lesson on Bestie

Last week was a blur between work and my other activities. I've always kept a little calendar in the car to keep track of the horses' turnout, riding, and lunging, but with both kids home the car swapping is getting a little crazy and I haven't been too good about keeping up with the calendar. Consequently I'm sitting here trying to remember when I rode Bestie last week, other than my Wednesday lesson. Hmmn.

She was pretty good on lesson day. Basically she tries to go outside after a couple of loops around the indoor, but she didn't fight me when I kept her inside. I rode her around at the walk for several loops while Emma and I talked about her behavior over the past couple of weeks. We discussed what I could do to calm myself down when she misbehaves (deep slow breathing, putting balanced weight in my core, thinking positively and not fearfully) and then moved on to what I could try with her when she gets all worked up. Emma thought it would be useful to train her to respond to a command to drop her head, to train her so thoroughly that it would be second nature to her when I gave the command. The thought was that it would be hard for her to act up with her head dropped, and apparently it's calming both to have it in that position and to respond to a familiar request.

So I got off and Emma got on to teach it to her. The first couple times circling around, Bestie kept fixing her eyes on me, a bit wild-eyed, like she wasn't sure about this situation. I'm the only one that has been on her in a long time. Emma must have stayed on her for almost half an hour, gently pulling on the left rein, and immediately releasing when Bestie dropped her head even a tiny bit. By the end of the session, she was dropping her nose to about 6-7 inches off the ground. It was interesting to watch her process the training. She definitely thinks about everything, and initially would often do the drop but then jerk her nose out a bit, like, "Ok, I did what you wanted. But I'm only doing it because I want to, NOT because YOU want me to." She just had to add that little extra nose punch of attitude. She's definitely smart, which is, as Emma says, "a blessing and a curse."

So now I need to get on her and keep doing it, and work on the right side, being careful to release as soon as she dips her head. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to ride. I didn't get to spend much time at the barn today, just enough time to groom them both and clean up their stalls. Dude had four bald strips on his rear end right by his tail where the hair had been scraped clean off by one of his pasture mates. He's been looking pretty good for a week or so, and I thought they had all settled down. Time to get the A&D ointment out again.

Return of Psycho Mare

"Last published on May 19." Yeesh, I always feel like a loser when I see a spread like that between posts :). What's transpired since May 19? Both daughters arrived home from college, and that means that Dude is very pleased to have his girl back. The day before she arrived home, I told him, "Dude, you are gonna be one happy guy tomorrow." And he was. It's been nice having her company at the barn, although we've only managed to do one ride together. Which brings me to this post's title...

I'm trying to spend more time on Bestie now that Katie's home to ride Dude. So one beautiful Friday night I got on her to ride out to the outdoor ring. I rode her around in the indoor for 10 minutes or so, and she was positively sluggish. She'd been outside all day in the sun. We walked around and warmed up, did a couple lovely little jogs around the indoor and then headed out. About half way to the outdoor ring, we met up with barn manager Emma, who was walking back to the barn, and I pulled Bestie up to chat with Emma about something. Bestie was fine for a minute, then got really irritated and starting bouncing about, clearly ready to get going. We continued on down the path. Once we got to the outdoor, we rode around at a trot and the walk, circling around the jumps and just working on keeping her slow and bending. She just kept getting more and more irritated, progressively faster and clearly not listening to me.

This situation just wasn't going anywhere positive, so I jumped off her so that I could pick her poop out of the ring. She calmed down as we walked back and forth, back and forth, with a couple forkfuls of manure to the wheelbarrow. Then I brought her back to the step stool to get back on her to ride her back to the barn. She would not hold still for me to get on, just kept circling around. We were the only ones out there, so we weren't in anyone's way. I just kept walking her back to the step stool and positioning her, then she'd move off before I even got to the top of the stool.

Finally I was able to get on her, and then she headed like a bullet to the open gate. There's a dressage ring set up within the ring, and I was afraid she was either going to run right through the poles, or jump them. I got her pulled up and she stepped over the poles, then she shot through the gate and started bouncing around on the path, sidestepping one way, then the other and tossing her head around. She was pretty worked up. I was afraid she was going to rear. I was trying to stay really calm and not pull on her mouth too much, because she hates that, but I wanted to keep enough pressure on to keep her from running off. Finally there was a pause in the action and I jumped off. Fun.

I walked her back to the barn. By the time we got about half way back she had settled down. I don't know what set off the temper tantrum, it really came out of the blue. We've ridden out there before all by ourselves and she's been fine. And I've been either riding or lunging her regularly.

I got back on her the next day but only rode in the indoor, and she was good. The following day I rode out to the outdoor, and she tried to spin around and go back to the barn a couple times, but I was able to get her back on the path without much of a fight. I'm having a lesson on her Wednesday, which will be good. You can't fight with her and win, so I'm hoping Emma will come up with some good tools to focus and calm Bestie when she has a "moment." I'm also hoping this is a temperamental phase that will pass as suddenly as it arrived.