Great Day to Ride

Today was a hot day in Texas. It reached almost 80 degrees or maybe it was over 80...not really sure. Of course, tomorrow it will be 40, so I guess it's nice to have a pretty day now and then.

I rode in my friend's saddle today. She bought it for her horse before he died and it's been sitting in my house ever since. Wow, it was an awesome saddle. It needs to be rigged a little differently, but it was really balanced...it was also 30 pounds.

I rode Deli for a little while, but I could tell I wasn't doing her any good. She was kind of gimpy with me on her, but she looks great on the ground running away from me when she doesn't want to get caught, so it's hard to know what's going on with her. Can horses fake being lame? I have someone who is interested in her as a therapeutic riding horse and I may be ready to send her on. It's so hard because I have had her for 8 years and I will really miss her. However, she isn't a lot of fun to ride anymore, as she is pretty slow. Of course, that makes her really safe for kids for lessons and for my husband, which is a great thing. It's not like I can sell her. I just need to find her a good home where she can do light duty. I have had a couple people ask me about her and I just can't seem to make up my mind what to do. On one hand it would be nice to save a little money. On the other hand, I fantasize about her making a comeback. I don't get how she can look so good on the ground and feel so gimpy from the saddle. I wonder if I worked her more in hand, if she'd get stronger and more sound under saddle or if she'd just get worse. She really needs to be a broodmare somewhere, but today's horse market doesn't really afford many people who want broodmares. She's got great Shagya bloodlines. I wish I knew really why she was lame. I know the official diagnosis is ringbone, but it just seems like there is more going on that that.

Then I rode Liberty (after chasing him around for 20 minutes while he played his catching game) I put him in the round pen, where is will be my guest this week while we work on this catching thing. I am taking him to the Dr. Deb Bennett clinic in East Texas at the end of the week so I hope to learn some insight into his behavior and learn to work in better harmony with him. We did a lot of canter depart work, which we had never really done in an "arena" setting before. He wasn't really good on his leads, but he was good about listening, taking the half halt and taking a nice, quiet canter depart. I also rode him in the combo bit today and had little fighting. I had it on the second hole so more nose/curb action than bit, but he was good. It was a short, but productive workout. Just getting him to pay attention to me in the field was huge. Then I tried open the hot wire gate (it was off of course) which didn't go so well, but I did finally get him to stand still next to it. Good progress for the day. I'm sure he will get lots of exercise running around the round pen tonight.

Tomorrow, it will be cold.

A Wonderful Christmas

This has been a great holiday. We started our Christmas late this am. We had gone to church at midnight so we didn't get to bed till really late, hence no early morning for us. We looked in our stockings, which contained items my mom sent us (Santa Grandma) and my dad sent us a few things. I started playing with Maggie's flip video camera and recorded most of our present opening, however, when I unloaded the videos to the computer, I evidently forgot to save them properly, so all our tributes to Santa Grandma got lost. sigh. Peter did take a lot of photos, so I will have them later and I will video Maggie trying on all the cool clothes she was sent.

My best gift today was the video here of Peter riding with me and Maggie! We had such a great time. Then we ate Chinese food. Then we came home and Maggie played with her new Wii game, Wii cheer, and we watched her. I also got a Wii game called Wii Fitness Coach, that will make me a workout to do each day. Since I am trying so hard to get more movement into every day, it's one more part to my arsenal. Now we're watching White Christmas, which is something I have done almost every year since I was 12. While watching White Christmas I looked around on Itunes to see if I could buy the soundtrack to it because I love the songs so much, but it evidently was never released due to the contracts of the stars at the time. You can get a CD which has some of the original artists singing the songs from the movie, but it's not an actual soundtrack album. This was disappointing, but at least now I will quit looking for it.

I had it easy this year for shopping. We made the conscious decision earlier this fall not to buy (or receive) a bunch of presents, so our holiday has been a lot more mellow than usual. There has been no frantic shopping, which I have really enjoyed. I did decided to sew a few items for Peter and Maggie...mostly that didn't get finished but through the whole process I managed not to get worked up about it. As a result, Peter got his cool chef's hat, but not his pants, though they are in progress and the chances are pretty good he'll get them soon. Maggie was going to get a purse made out of brightly colored fat quarters, but that didn't happen either. And I was going to make Maggie a shirt, but no such luck. Lucky for me, I have a very understanding family, and for the most part, they would rather I not flip out trying to get so much stuff done.

We had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve with Shawn and Alexa at his house. He made a standing rib roast which was very good, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and I made 7 layer salad. Peter made Creme Brulee for dessert...all tasty stuff. Then we went to church, Shawn included, and Peter and I played music for the preludes section of the service, 30 minutes before the service began. Pastor Cathy evidently really enjoyed our music and has asked us to play something for Epiphany sunday in a couple weeks. So, we will have to get practicing.

Tomorrow, maggie and I are are going to see Marley and Me at the Movie Tavern and I will trim the horses's feet if it's not raining all day. I'm taking Fiera to my friend Teresa's house for a couple months to get her weaned and give her more room to run, and I need to do her feet before I leave her there. Liberty's feet area also pretty long, but I'm hoping after I ride him at Teresa's I can rasp them a little and not have to work at it so hard...also since it's supposed to rain, it will soften everyone up. I will need to buy a new knife and rasp soon. The rasp is getting old and the knife was never all that good. Then Sunday Maggie and I will head over to Teresa's to spend the night and ride. I have to work on Tuesday this week, but that's the only day. If the weather will hold, I hope to ride to the park at some point in the next week.

Weird Day/quick update

It's been an odd day of running and running and not accomplishing much. I took Maggie and Jena over to Alexa's this am to help her paint and they ended up staying there all day. Tomorrow I will head over with clothes and we'll all go to church.

I had planned to ride, but trimmed feet instead and reorganized my stuff for next weekend.

I helped Cat sell her trailer, for which I earned $100. I hated to take her money but she insisted and I know I can use it...it will help pay for the ride next weekend and I can send another $100 to Maggie's saddle. It looked really empty to have her trailer gone and the tack trailer is now really crowded. I have to get a shed of some kind.

Friday Dr. Lampe came and did all the yearly stuff. Fiera has her own coggins now. She was awful for him! Deli is on some stuff that is Legend and Adequan combined and I have to give her an IV shot for the next four weeks, but it might help her ringbone.

Last weekend we placed really well in a large class. i was shocked. I got fourth and he got fourth. I knew he had been a good boy, but I never dreamed. I would have done better I think but I cost us points with changing his bit. Maggie got third and Dixie placed second, so she was pleased too. We have lots to practice...

Deli is improved

Today Deli has improvement in one side of her face after the adjustment. She is now blinking her left eye in response to the stimulation of her whiskers. And, she was friendlier today. The chiro suggested that she may have had a colossal headache for a long time now. I stretched her a little, but she was very resistent. However, it is a start!

A new Chiropractor

today I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Ormstrum of Julibee Animal Chiropractic He is a vet and a chiropractor and has a huge inventory of tecniques. I called him b/c Freeley was lame in the STC a couple weeks ago and I have been feeling like it might be the end of the line for him. The chiro says he was out in the neck, poll and hind end, so I will have to wait and see how he looks and how our exercises develop to know what he is going to be able to do. I do have some people interested in either him, or possibly Deli and that would be ok...one less horse for me to take care of but he'd still be mine. Of course, if he's sound, I don't realy want to give him up, but with his history, I think he may be happier with an easier job.

I also found out that Deli had a huge problem in her poll that will probably require a couple more treatments to make right, but he says that everything that is wrong with her "might be" the result of her cranial nerves being frozen. He showed me a reflex point that would cause the lip to droop and cranial nerves to freeze her face. Once adjusted she was a lot better, but he says I have some rehab to do with her. It would be great if she can recover, but he says that depending on how long ago she did it, the nerves may never come back. He said she may have injured it pulling back or when she pulls back, it hurts causing her to pull back more. I'm supposed to give it a week and see how she looks and start doing exercises tomorrow. I'm hoping that she will be "fixed" and Maggie will have her horse back, but I'm afraid to hope.

Fiera's birth

I have always wanted to see one of my horses have her baby...and I still do. I missed Fiera's birth by just a half hour or so. We were heading to meet Cat for Maggie to go to Scarborough Faire. I asked her on the way by if she wanted to go by and see Deli before we met Cat. We opted not to, b/c she really wanted to go to the fair and if Deli was foaling we would be late to meet Cat...better not to know. WE got to the designated place to meet and discovered that Cat had texted me at 7:30, telling me that she wouldn't be there till 9am. We would have had time. After Maggie got hooked up with Cat, I went to feed and sure enough...there was the baby. Deli hadn't delivered the after birth, which tells me if we had gone by the hour before, we probably would have caught her delivering or about to deliver.

Peter took a ton of photos, which have already been posted, but I finally got to play with our new Olympus camera in the afternoon and this was one of the photos I liked the best. I will be posting more soon. Today I will take the camera with me as well to get some 5 day old photos.

Today we had a big scare with the fence this am. She got tangled in it and a nice man from the school next door saw that she was tangled and cut her out. I"m hoping this will scare her enough that she will stay out of the electric fence from now on. Part of it had come loose, and was shorted out by weeds. She is OK now, thank goodness.

Here is my favorite photo I took Sunday.

I am home sick today...hence, I finally had time to write in my blog.

A beautiful day, the holidays and blog settings

I'm sitting here at home, after a busy day of music therapy and a little bit of trail riding. Peter won't be home for another 20 minutes or so, and I hate to lay down and try to go to bed before he comes home from orchestra b/c I get woken up, so I'm trying to entertain myself while waiting for him.

Here are some pictures Maggie drew and I scanned.






I love that people read my blog. It is cool to think that other people out there think like me or enjoy reading what we're doing here. I find it so much easier to journal in the blog than just for myself. Sure, it's for myself, but since I have friends who I know read it to keep up it's nice to have this venue. I later take my blog posts and mail them as letters to friends who don't have computers...saves me writing more than one letter.

I love reading other blogs and I will occasionally comment, but not often. I know that there are people who read, but don't write in and that's fine. I don't care one way or the other. However, I really hate it when people write in the comments, but won't/don't leave their name. Sometimes I know who they are b/c they tell me. Sometimes I just can kind of figure it out. But, when someone doesn't leave a name and they make comments that are kind of mean or off color, then I think that feels creepy. To keep this from happening anymore, I have set it up that people have to be registered users of blogger to leave a comment. This means that they just have to set up an account. It doesn't mean that they have to have a blog, but then they can't leave anymore anonymous comments...at least I think that's what it means. That's what it's supposed to mean. Don't let it scare you off; sign up for a blogger account and we'll have no trouble at all. Or if I'm one of your facebook friends, the notes are imported there and you can comment there.

Today was a bit windy and just a tad cold, but I managed to squeeze in a trail ride on our new trails. They officially open on Saturday, but since they aren't really well beaten down yet, the Corp is letting us ride this this week to get them a little more tread in before the general public shows up on Saturday to start riding. I took Liberty out on his second trail ride and he's just doing great. He was wary of wildlife in the beginning but he settled right down for me. He is climbing hills and crossing water much better, but we're still having issues walking down hills. Every time we start to go down a hill and I ask him to walk, he snatches the reins from me and shakes his head and trots down the hill. As soon as I realized this was an every hill occurrence I tried to put him back on my page, but we didn't have much luck. He got better after I relaxed and didn't ask him to really walk slow down the hills, so I think that part of it is that he doesn't have the balance to really go down the hill properly. However, the head shaking is just plain naughty. On the flat I created a few opportunities for him to be naughty so I could circle him and make him give to me, but that's hard to do on a trail, downhill between two trees. Our worst and best moment today on the trail was when he totally took my reins and ran into the water. He loved it. I thought he was going to lay down in the cold lake, but I got him back out in time. Nice that the water isn't a problem for him.

I've been collecting advice on how to work on this problem and so far I have 2 pieces. One piece from my friend Susan Bodenmiller, is to work on backing on the flat and then to work him in small circles when he misbehaves. Backing will work on strengthening the muscles for the hill work and then I can correct him when he's naughty. Amy Martin also told me to change my reins back to my eventing reins with stoppers so that when/if he yanks on me I can stop him from getting away from me. It was scary when he had the reins around his ears heading straight for the water.

I can't complain about him at all though. He stops, he goes, he turns. He is such a good boy. Unfortunately, the saddle I've been using is about to become too narrow for him...sigh.

I had good news from Nicole today. She used Deli for her lessons tonight and she was sounder than she's looked in a long time. I guess getting those shoes off really was better for her. I'm glad that Liberty has never had shoes! It will be something if they are all sound and ready to ride this time next year. Yikes!

After riding I had massages to give and music therapy also. I missed one appointment b/c I got away from the barn late and then got stuck in traffic and my day just snowballed. I got held up at the office and found myself having to call my parent and apologize for my absence, but we did find a day to make it up. I learning that with all the running around, seeing everyone every week is next to impossible.

I guess that's all for now. Heading to bed.

I'm sick for real--Wednesday update

After fighting it all week believing from moment to moment I was feeling better, I decided to go to the doctor. By the time I went in I was sure that I was just making it up and I didn't actually need to go. But, the doctor said I had a fever, my asthma was off the charts and I should be there, so I guess it's good I went. He gave me four prescriptions, a shot of steroids, a breathing treatment and the admonishment to come back in 10-12 days to make sure my ear infection (I haven't had an ear infection since I was a kid) was under control.

I also am to take tomorrow off. I have been avoiding taking off tomorrow b/c it's my Springtown music therapy day. I needed to buy grain and I needed to work tomorrow. This mean that I have to make up the day in a few weeks, which I hate doing! I keep thinking I can have a real schedule and see everyone on time and it's just not happening. GRRRR. I sent Springtown my doctors note. I'm blogging about it. Hopefully, they'll KNOW I'm not a faker. I even downloaded music and made some cd's today, anticipating not being able to sing tomorrow, but I guess I'll have that for next time.

And there are still rumors circulating that Deli is still lame. I'm home sick, so I can't prove it one way or another, and Cat says she looks fine. It's so stressing me out. I don't know if I am in denial, if there's nothing wrong with her, but Nicole is seeing things, or if she's always looked this way. I just don't know. She's fat with the baby, so her rear end looks weaker than usual. I suppose it could be changing her overall balance. I just know that a month ago Deli was Nicole's favorite school horse and now she's not and there is not reason for her not to be ridden. I used her 10 days ago and she looked great. She's still a little gimpy on her front right, but tons better after the shoes. I even called my vet in a state of paranoia, who reassured me of what we found that day. She said that since she's been laid off for the last month she's likely to not be as strong as she was when she was ridden every day. So, the only way to get her over the weakness is to ride her and make her strong again.

Tomorrow I will sleep in and do as little as possible. I have watched all the TV I want to watch. I want to read my book Blessed are the Broodmares, but I can't find it. I have stuck it some place and can't find it. How annoying!

Maggie is spending the night at Cat's (I think) but may be coming home. I can't call b/c both their phones have dead batteries, so I just have to wait for someone to tell me they are somewhere. Maggie was jumping Joe in her new saddle. She told Cat it felt weird and she isn't sure she likes it...oh well.

Barn day Sunday

Today Maggie worked the barn with Jena and Jennifer...it went OK, though there was some disagreement between the girls over who was working harder. Jena and Maggie had no fights and I was so proud of them. However, it felt like I kept losing Jennifer. Finally at the end of the day I told her I wasn't very happy with her. I hate correcting someone else's kid, but I know if my kid had been slinking off, I'd have been pissed. I don't think I was hard on her, but maybe I was. It's hard to say with kids. I'm proud of myself though, I didn't lose my temper or anything. I'm also really proud of Maggie and Jena. They worked really hard all day and they were nice to each other all day.

On the subject of LIberty: I’m iffy on the horse, only b/c Deli has been lame, but I’m doing some corrective stuff with her. Maggie doesn’t want to give her up, but wants a horse to ride. He’s green, but I really like him. I just know that since I board (especially since I board) I don’t need 3 horses, a pony and a foal this time next year. Of course, I’d love to have them all, but I don’t know what I'll do. Maggie says that she doesn’t care about competing if she can’t compete on Deli…I can honestly say I don’t feel that way. I think it would be way better to donate Deli to a therapeutic riding center if I can’t get her ringbone under control (our latest dx) where she can do what she is good at (taking care of kids) and we can do what we enjoy. Ultimately, I don’t know how much of a choice Maggie will get. I mean, I hate to be mean to the kid, but she doesn’t really get the economics of keeping horses in the city and being able to accommodate them. I wish I could find someone who wanted to lease a nice broodmare. I hate that she’s had this trouble. I hate the thought of ditching her. I also hate the thought of keeping a lame pet for another 10-15 years. Sigh…

Crowley schools called me back and they want to keep talking to me about the work there. That would be outstanding if I can get that all worked out. It will be hard work, but it will mean that we could darn near get out of of debt in the next 9 months. That would be fantastic...and allow me to keep all the horses, maybe, if I wanted to. Maggie says she doesn't like me working that hard, but I think that it's good for all of us. Mostly, what it could do for us is give us the freedom to move somewhere we really like if our neighborhood is rezoned as entertainment district and we're bought out.

Everyone around me has been sick and so far I have managed to stay healthy. Tonight I have a croaky voice and my asthma is bothering me. I hope it is just allergies.

We had barn excitement today...a new boarder went down to the yet unopened trails and rode them. They gate people let her in. So far, we've been told they're not open. One person I know thinks that the person in charge is just telling everyone we can't ride them yet b/c she likes having them all to herself. I just know that we're supposedly so close to having them open, I don't want anything to mess it up. Evidently, the person riding and then person in charge got into an argument about it. I just want them to be open!

We used Deli for a lesson today and she looked tons better...hopefully she is on the mend.