Just another night at the barn

Not much excitement tonight at the barn. I debated riding Bestie, then decided against it since my legs were a little tired from cross country skiing and playing hockey last night. I gave her a good brushing and that was it. Whenever she's on the cross ties she keeps one eye on Dude, who has been known to give the cross ties a yank when the urge strikes. Tonight he was sleepy after a big day out in the snow.

It's been fairly warm, in the low to mid 30s, so I've been putting Dude and Bestie in their fleece sheets at night and then at turn-out time in the morning Larry or Reggie throw their turnout sheets on over the fleece. Love the fleece sheets, but every night after I groom the horses, I groom the sheets! They pick up everything! But they do wash up really well.

Bestie's sheet prior to brushing it off - I'm surprised there were any shavings in her stall!

Dude and I have a little ride

I didn't have to work this weekend, which was nice since it added a lot of hours to the weekend. I decided to ride Dude. Katie has been very busy and is working this weekend, and the poor guy has been looking kind of down in the dumps watching me tack up Bestie. I had brought his bright turquoise saddle pad because the other one we had at the barn got eaten by mice. Burned me up - it was a gorgeous cream, black and gold Mayatex and the rodents chewed a big hole in it. Once I got him saddled up the girls at the barn made a fuss over him in his pretty saddle pad and you could tell he thought he was hot stuff.

We were out in the arena about 25 minutes. It was pushing 40 degrees today, so fairly warm, and it just felt nice to ride and not be super bundled up. He was pretty peppy, and we did a nice big trot. His saddle is so much less cushy than Bestie's; my rear end was killing me toward the end. We had the arena to ourselves until the end when one other horse and rider came in, and it was a lot of fun to bop around.

A couple days ago Katie discovered a little spot just below Dude's left hip that barn manager Caitlin diagnosed as rain rot. The spot is about the size in diameter of a pencil eraser and slightly raised. I scrubbed it with Betadine (then scrubbed the scrubber) and treated the spot with some ointment - Farnham Tri Care - that we have on hand. Have gotten recommendations to use MTG or icthammol from others, but will stick with what we've got for now. The scrubbing didn't seem to bother him. It's the first time we've ever dealt with rain rot, so we'll see how it goes...

Hello blog! I've missed you!

I certainly wouldn't have guessed that the last time I posted was in mid-December. But, really, no surprise; that's about when the ski season began and therefore, when work got very, very busy. Over the last couple months I've found that when I come home at night, the last thing I want to do is get on a computer. I started the blog to have something fun to write that wasn't connected with work, but work is tiring me out too much to have the energy left at night to write. I'm wondering if anyone else who has a day job involving words has the same problem.

The other unfortunate side effect of being busy at work is having less time at the barn. And winter in Vermont means that everyone migrates to the indoor arena, so it is tough to find time to ride that coincides with when I have an open hour or two and a whole lot of other people are not in the indoor. Pre-holidays I was doing pretty well with lessons, and trainer Caitlin was riding Bestie about once a week, which was working well. Post-holidays I've hardly ridden at all and haven't had the $$ to pay anyone else to ride.

I've pretty much resigned myself to grabbing the horsey time when I can. Last Saturday I rode Dude. I hadn't ridden him in ages, and had forgotten how much direction he needs, as compared to Ms. Sensitive. My legs were t-i-r-e-d after 25 minutes on him. I had ridden Bestie a few days before. There was a jumping lesson going on, and she gets very, um, aware, of all that activity, so we basically just walked the whole time. I lunged her today and she had a few moments of snorting and bucking. The fields have been icy so the horses are really just going out and standing around, and she clearly wanted to seize the opportunity for a good buck-and-run (which was fine after the one other horse and rider left the arena).

Dude and Bestie are both shedding and have been for at least a couple weeks. It seems to be happening quite early this year. I'm hoping it doesn't mean we'll have an early spring. We haven't had much of a winter yet, and I'd be fine with some good snows over the next couple months. I've got new cross country skis that I'm excited to use.

Dude celebrated his 19th birthday in late January. He's been part of the family since he was 8. Where does the time go?!

Brief (30 minutes) mystery ailment hits Dude

Last Thursday I decided to run by the barn post-work and pre-yoga class because I knew the horses had been in due to muddy fields and I wanted to walk Bestie. Normally Katie does the barn on Thursdays to allow me to go directly to yoga. She arrives later in the evening, so it was lucky that I went.

When I got there, I opened Dude's door to give him a treat and noticed that he was sweaty. Really sweaty. Sweat rings around his ears, sweat on the neck, sweat soaking his rib cage. I pulled him out of the stall and hollered for the barn manager. He wasn't upset, just sweaty. And his neck muscles were twitching, with his esophagus looking like it was rhythmically contracting. I ran my fingers down his neck but didn't feel anything. The whole thing was Very Odd, to say the least. We took off his turnout and threw on an Irish knit. Caitlin went out to the the indoor with me and walked him around. He seemed perky and pretty unconcerned; basically fine other than the muscle twitching and sweating. He had pooped quite a bit in his stall, so that was good. Caitlin took his temperature a couple times, and he didn't have a fever; also good.

When we brought him back in I put him on the cross ties to watch him and right about then Katie arrived. His neck muscles were still twitching a bit, but the sweat had dried. He hung out placidly on the cross ties, and over the next few minutes, the muscle twitching stopped. Katie walked him and groomed him. I had called the vet and they had said to hold off feed for the night, which we did. When the other horses got fed their evening hay, Dude put his angry face on, and we figured he was back to normal. Barn owner Larry's diagnosis was a mild choke, just enough of a choke to get Dude riled and sweaty, but not enough to have the whole disgusting-stuff-coming-out-the-nose phase. My frantic Googling of varied combinations of "equine muscle tremors sweating" turned up all kinds of scary but unlikely possibilities, so we're going with a mild choke as the best guess. We wet his hay the next day, and he's been _ _ _ _ since. (Not putting the actual word in print for fear of jinxing his return to normalcy.)

Confinement stinks...

... but so does standing outdoors in mud. The horses have been in since Saturday due to the conditions in the fields. It's been a very warm November, and I'm hoping December will usher in some seasonable temperatures. We had a little stretch of cold a couple weeks ago, but over the last week we've seen temperatures in the 50s and even in the 60s - crazy warm for Vermont. It hasn't rained that much, but it has rained a bit, and I think that combined with the little freeze-thaw cycle was enough to do in the fields.

Dude and Bestie have been remarkably low-key during the confinement. Dude in particular usually gets quite angry when confined to his stall, but he hasn't been bad at all. Perhaps because everyone else- meaning his buddies - is hanging out too. Tonight there was no one in the indoor so I let him loose, and he did a buck that was pretty impressive for a horse who normally gets his back end about a foot off the ground. It was quite the wild bronco, back twisting, disgusting-noises-from-the posterior kind of buck. Then he ran about 3 steps, stopped, and looked at me like, "Whew, got THAT out of my system."

After I brought him in I put Bestie on the lunge line. I tried to get her to romp, but all she would do was a pathetic shuffle-trot, so I just had her walk for about 10 minutes. I was definitely expecting them to want to run off some energy. You just never know.

A visit to the Equine Affaire

This weekend I enjoyed a wonderful couple of days at the Equine Affaire in Massachusetts. It worked out perfectly because I had to be in Boston for a work-related function Thursday night, and once that was over I jumped on the Massachusetts turnpike to head to Springfield. A bunch of people from our barn were driving down on Friday, so I was able to meet up with them.

When the girls were still showing I think we visited the Equine Affaire at least 3 years in a row. These trips were always great fun with really informative clinics and tons of shopping. This trip was no different; in fact, it was hard to cram everything into the day and a half of time I had there. I really enjoyed presentations on riding skills by Hollie McNeil of Riding Right Farm in New York and veterinarian Chris Bessent on acupuncture; each of their sessions provided lots of food for thought.

The seminars are just so energizing. I get caught up in all the busyness at home, and taking the time to attend the Equine Affaire and listen to so many informative speakers helps me step out of the "rush to the barn, have a ride or half hour lesson" tunnel vision and think about the bigger goal of improving my riding and establishing a partnership with my horse. What a wonderful luxury, to only think about horse-related things during this day and a half!

Over the weekend I ran into some faces from the past; friends from previous barns that I'd lost touch with but so enjoyed catching up with at the EA. And Friday night, our group from my current barn went out to dinner and had a wonderful meal and great time laughing and talking. So nice to spend some time with these great people outside of the usual quick few minutes chatting in the aisle at the barn.

And the shopping ... I bought a new saddle pad - a lovely Professional's Choice pad in the right size and thickness for Ms. Bestie; I rode tonight, and I may be crazy, but the whole feel of being in the saddle was different :). I also got Ariat paddock boots - I'd been wearing Maddie's old boots and the zippers have started to pop open (after 7 years of heavy wearing - not bad). And odds-n-ends like Lexol leather cleaning wipes, Sore No More salve, Cowboy Magic leave-in conditioner, a Himalayan salt block. The EA is truly one-stop shopping for every possible need related to horses. Oh, and I got lovely Sanita clogs, at $50 a real steal.

Bestie modeling her new pad ... she was a bit impatient with the photo-taking session and is rather pointedly looking at her stall door, having just come off a ride and eager to get into her stall for dinner.

Ugh, November

I suppose that technically our November hasn't been too bad. It started off kind of ugly, with snow Halloween weekend, then some up and down temperatures and some rain. But we're currently enjoying a series of sunny days with fairly warm days. If you don't have horses, it's awesome. But with horses, the problem is that the early wetness made the fields muddy, and it's not warm enough to really dry them out.

Dude's field seems to have dried a bit in the last couple days, since he's not coming in with mud up to his pasterns anymore. But Bestie, who is definitely more of a swamp monster anyway, is still coming in with mud plastered up to her hocks. Yesterday it was warm enough that I took her out and hosed her legs and scrubbed them with Betadine. I feel like every fall I deal with scratches, particularly with Dude. Can't actually remember Bestie ever having them. But the scratches are such a pain to deal with I'm being extra vigilant and trying to keep their legs clean. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, though. Rain in the forecast for Thursday means the mud will appear again in the fields. Ugh, November. Waiting impatiently for snow cover!