Category: Uncategorized

Sunday morning I hopped on the tractor to try to finish mowing the big pasture in preparation to move the horses out there this week. It’s been hard going to mow it between the raging storms every evening and the insane growth rate.

I was heading up the hill when I saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Wyatt coming up the hill. I stopped and turned the tractor off to see what he wanted and next thing I knew both dogs and Wyatt were all on the tractor with me.

Now I’m a tractor nazi. I hate Wyatt being on there with me and am very paranoid about the high level of risk involved with a tractor and the addition of a running bush hog being pulled behind. I kicked the dogs off as they know they aren’t allowed on it and generally aren’t supposed to be near it. They had followed Wyatt out from the house.

Both dogs jumped down and I was talking to Wyatt and turned the tractor back on to go up the hill before kicking him off too. Thankfully I didn’t turn the bush hog on. I’m counting all my lucky stars and thanking every possible higher being for that one. I pulled forward slowly and immediately felt a bump followed by hearing the gut wrenching sound of a dog screaming in pain.

I slammed on the brakes and looked around. Waggy Tails was trapped under the bush hog. I froze. I didn’t want to raise it with Wyatt around fearing the worst and wanting to spare him that sight. Instead I screamed for Dusty who was out mending fences. I wasn’t thinking and poor Dusty heard me and immediately thought it was Wyatt who was in trouble.

He made it to the tractor at a dead sprint and I told him “I just killed Waggy”. Wyatt was sobbing. I was sobbing. Dusty told me to take Wyatt to the house and as I was walking down the hill he raised the bush hog.

Much to everyone’s surprise Waggy came hobbling out without a scratch on her. She was holding her back left leg off the ground but otherwise was in perfect condition.

Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe it.

We rushed her off to Dusty’s clinic and got her filled with pain meds while he got the X-ray machine turned on and ready. The radiographs showed a broken femur and that was all. I feared she broke her pelvis but that was fine as was all the internal organs he could see. Her heart and lungs sounded fine and her abdomen palpated normal.

Again. Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Dusty texted the ortho specialist in town and set Waggy up for surgery this morning. She will be getting a plate and screws in her leg to hold the femur back together. Poor girl. She will be on cage rest for at least 6 weeks. I’m so glad that I have a husband who cares for the animals like he does and didn’t even hesitate to call the specialist to set up surgery.

I’m glad the bush hog wasn’t on.

I’m glad I hit her leg only and not her abdomen or chest.

I’m glad it wasn’t Einstein as he is so small it would have killed him.

I’m glad it wasn’t Wyatt.

I’m pissed that I didn’t realize she had laid down in the shade of the tire and assumed she had walked off.

I’m pissed I ran my dog over.

But she should be ok. It’s a clean break and not shattered. It could have been so much worse.

Keep her in your thoughts today guys, please.

Lame.

That about sums up Cruze’s life with me. Which sucks for both of us. I had plans for him when I brought him home which amounted to a lot more than one flat lesson in a torrential downpour and one cross country school.

But such is life.

I’ve decided to put him out to pasture, per se I mean he always is out anyway, and ignore his existence until September 5th when the farrier comes back and assesses if he can be safely shod with pads or not.

I’m not going to attempt another arena ride until that point. It just pisses us both off and we get nowhere. Part of his under saddle attitude is no doubt due to being painful though a lot of it is just him trying to see what he can get away with. The problem is that I don’t want to push him like I normally would because I know his feet hurt.

If it ever stops raining I’d love to start taking him out on the trail with his boots on trails I know have forgiving footing. If we are stuck to a walk, might as well return to my love of the trail and get him some exercise and a change of scenery from walking figures in the arena.

In the meantime though, why not spend money?

First, he is going on a course of gastroguard. I don’t like his rough, dull coat and he has plenty of reasons between the move, change in life style, and foot issues to have sprouted some stomach issues. If I’m not riding right now anyway, I figured it was a good time to treat him for potential ulcers. Good thing Hubby is a vet and gets a killer deal on this liquid gold.

Second, I splurged online a bit. He needed a new bit as the chunky French link snaffle was a tad too small and he hated it. He had been going in a d ring myler, so I decided to order one and see if it made a difference. Damn those bits are expensive though. I tried it on him once and it made an immediate difference. No more chewing the bit or trying to spit it out. I only walked but he didn’t try to rip the reins from my hands one time and was much, much steadier and happier. Nothing like a perpetually lame horse with champagne taste.

In the same order I threw in a jolly ball toy with a likit treat. My hope was that he would take to eating that instead of his wooden stall door. Anyone care to guess how that played out?

He took one sniff, threw his nose in the air and immediately returned to the door. Sigh. I don’t know. I’m either going to just remove the stall door and replace with a stall guard or cover it in Tabasco sauce.

The other item in the box was a new girth. He takes a 48″ and hated Gem’s antichafe girth as much as she always did. It didn’t have elastic ends instead claiming the entire length had stretch and both horses really didn’t enjoy it that much. I want to stack the deck in our favor once we do return to riding, so I got him a nice fleece lined girth that he seemed to approve of by not trying to eat me as I slowly tightened it.

Of course the husband questioned why I spent money on tack items for a non rideable horse, but one can always dream of riding the horse you specifically bought and paid good money for to do just that.

The last item was Keratex to help harden the sole and hoof wall.

In reality, my “ignore him until September” is really “don’t get your hopes up to ride while continuing to pamper and coax his health along”. I have texted back and forth with Trainer about doing some ground lessons and learning how to ground drive him because why not? Might as well work on something and it may just help once we do get back under saddle. It can’t hurt.

So that is that. I refuse to get worried or upset until the farrier says he has enough hoof to shoe him. The big guy grows on me daily and has been fun to get to know better on the ground without the under saddle stress. The pace season will start at the end of the month and maybe we can spend the fall hitting those and enjoying the cooler weather together. We will see what time brings us.

Friday the farrier declared the abscess blown and Cruze good to go back under saddle. I watched him walk off sound and happy with full length strides and was satisfied with our plan moving forward.

Saturday morning I brought him in for breakfast and saw this

Guess some big orange butthead heard the news and needed to find some way to remain “retired”.

Good news is that it is superficial, there is no swelling or heat and he is sound on the leg. For the moment anyway.

Bad news is that it’s over a joint and healing that could either be easy or a royal pain due to the motion of the skin. For now I put him back out instead of in his stall mostly for my own sanity plus the above no heat, swelling or pain thing.

I’ll check on him regularly for the need to be stalled. In the meantime if anyone knows someone in the market for a sorta sound accident prone pain in the butt gelding please let me know.

I think I’m going to get into knitting.

Confession time: in the 9 years I’ve had Gem and Pete I have had to call the vet out twice. Once when she cut her hoof half off and again that same year when she had a colic scare. Both were due to the bad boarding situation she was in and we quickly left. Even with her hoof injury she never took a single lame step.

Lameness isn’t something I’m experienced with and when it comes down to it, I’m a newbie with problematic horses.

Cruze has continued to be off going right under saddle while being perfectly sound gallivanting in the pasture. I stopped riding him last week when it started getting worse instead of better and decided to just wait until the farrier came out to get his advice on the situation. I was finally able to secure a new farrier that came highly recommended by Trainer and whose work I have personally seen on an event horse and liked.

I always start a new farrier off with Gem. She not only has freakishly amazing feet, but is also an angel in the cross ties, half the time falling asleep. It’s a nice introduction to how I train my horses to behave for the farrier. She was her awesome self with no issues and no concerns. Then it was Pete. He is a bit harder since his feet like to crack and he is prone to white line. He was also a good boy, stood still, picked his feet up in advance of being asked and walked off better for it.

Then it was Cruze. He can be a total jerk with his legs often pulling them violently away from your hands. He no longer does this to me as I scolded him severely for it but he tests new people still. I quickly corrected that and apologized. Bad manners for the farrier is very embarrassing.

I filled him in on the last two months of hoof woes. The lost hind shoe exposing lamina resulting in being crippled and getting his first vet call. Then becoming sound only to repeat the process on the front which has not resolved any where near as quickly as the hinds. Plus the pesky right side lameness in the better looking hoof that is getting worse and not better.

Right away he diagnosed that issue. Cruze had freshly blown out an abscess on the lateral heel. Ugh. I admit to feeling like an ass. I had noticed the spot looked odd last week but thought it was his hoof boot rubbing which is why I ditched the boots. He continued to get progressively more lame and I didn’t even think to make sure that wasn’t an abscess brewing.

Thankfully it has blown and should grow out and he gave the green light to hop back on him thinking he should be as sound as his feet will let him be once again.

Of course I have family in this week so I won’t get to test that theory for a while.

Other than that the verdict on his feet is that they suck. In general. More specifically he has paper thin soles that remain “squishy” (his words) even after two months of pasture, being bare and hoof supplements topically and orally.

My question to him was: could they thicken with time and a better hoof growing down or is this genetically him?

His answer? They will certainly improve with all that but if I want to ride him on anything but mattresses and jump him, I should shoe him and forget about it.

Ok.

Unfortunately he still doesn’t have enough hoof to shoe, so the plan is another 6 weeks bare, use keratex three times a week, and then shoe with leather pads for a cycle. Hopefully we can ditch the pads after the initial go and remain in shoes. He said I could go bare behind but I’d have to be very careful on the footing and if I’m planning on eventing I’d be best off just shoeing them too.

So that is that. He needs to grow enough hoof to not end up in a cycle of pulled shoes and lost hoof wall, but this guy’s opinion is that I should just shoe him all around as he was sound shod before. As long as this guy is as good as his reputation makes him out to be, he should be able to trim/shoe him in a balanced manner to counteract his tendency to want to be high right and low left and get him moving better so we can go back to having fun and growing as a team.

We will see what six more weeks brings us. In the meantime I’m going to hop on him hopefully sometime soon and see how he feels now that the abscess is blown. Hopefully he will be sound and ready to roll at least for flatwork lessons and ground poles.

DThings are….okay.

A lot of his ground behaviors have improved tremendously since I got firm with him over his biting and I have not had to repeat the correction since. Things he now does nicely like a well behaved boy:

• Stands quietly and without moving in the cross ties
• Picks up all 4 hooves without whipping his head around to bite me or ripping the leg out of my hand
• Stands to be bridled without running away
• Allows the bridle to be buckled without trying to eat the straps or my leg
• Goes into the arena without stopping twenty times along the way to stare off in the distance for other horses
• Enter the arena without screaming at all. Not one single time.

All those are major steps in a very short period of time and the big orange man gets tons of praise and pats each time he does so. It’s been refreshing to not battle those any more.

Under saddle things are still hit and miss. The ride immediately after the one when he ugly bucked me off was lovely. He was clam, cool headed and went to work. I stopped after only walking for about 20 minutes to reward his change in attitude.

Then three days passed before I could ride him again. That ride was eh. He did all the above nice behaviors but then under saddle he kept snaking his head back and forth and threatening to be very bad indeed. I was able to shut it down and work through it and after 10 minutes he settled. The rest of the 40 minute walk/trot ride was nice. He rooted down a lot and wasn’t fully paying attention to me but I worked him through Exercise 1 of the Jumping book and added some trot poles to perk him up and keep it interesting and he did ok.

He is still a little off trotting right. He isn’t head bobbing any longer but does short stride so I am keeping the trot sets short and working mostly on having a non explosive transition.

Last night I decided to try lunging him first. I admit I despise lunging before riding. Deep in my bones despise. I’d rather not ride than have to lunge before I can get on my horse. But I figured I’d give it a whirl and see if it made a difference.

I don’t think it really did much for him. He wasn’t an idiot on the line. In fact he listened extremely well to my body language and voice commands and was in general very gentleman like. I don’t know if he was just in a good mood or what but he did just fine.

What it was good for was my eyes on him to see how he was moving and what he looks like. In the first trot transition, he tucked his chin, snaked his head side to side and leaped into the trot. Now riding this is what slightly terrifies me and makes me very tense as it feels like he is either going to bolt or rear or a combination of both. Watching it from the ground it looked more like he was just flailing into the trot instead of truly being awful. The second time I asked he went into it just fine like a normal horse.

When I got on him he tried to tell me he was done and couldn’t possibly work after 5 minutes on the lunge. He eventually caved and realized we were still working and while he tried to be a butt head the first transition and then again during the trot when he was bored, I was much calmer about it and ignored him instead of getting worked up.

That really helped and he soon settled and got down to working. His rooting against my hand never showed up and I’m not sure if that was due to stretching his back super low on the lunge or because I wasn’t getting tense. Probably both. I made sure to really praise him and give him scratches with every transition to the trot that he performed calmly and in balance and just ignore those that had some flailing involved.

Honestly if he hadn’t had such a nice PPE and hadn’t been sound before his feet went to crap I’d be super worried I bought a lame horse. As it is his movement improves daily and I have a few weeks of shod delight to compare to.

I did order a new bit for him as he was going in a myler d ring snaffle and the seller said that was his favorite of all she had tried with him. I’ve been having him go in a regular French link snaffle. I don’t put a lot of faith into a bit change making a lot of difference but I want to take all the factors out of play that I can.

Speaking of that I’m also starting him on two weeks of ulcer meds. Between the move to green pastures, the crippled feet and bute use he has a laundry list of risk factors going against him. Might as well treat and see if it makes a difference. He eats well and isn’t girthy but you never know.

Once he is 100% sound I also plan to have the massage therapist and chiro out to work out any issues that walking oddly created. Basically I’m trying to set him up for success physically so that he doesn’t have any excuses.

I really really want a lesson on him but I am waiting a bit more until he is sound going right. He is so close but not fully there yet and there is no reason to rush this at all. He is young and we have a long future together to get over sticks and gallop down the lane. My closer goal is to be able to take him to the hunter paces in his boots once they begin next month but we will see how he is moving at that time.

Right now I’m just trying to work slowly with him to build an understanding and figure out what he needs to be successful. I want this partnership to work and I am willing to put the time in.

As I led Gem out after dinner the other night it dawned on me that a lot of readers do not know her very well. Most of you joined my story towards the end of our time together and that isn’t very fair to my bestest mare.  She is now fully retired, living large and happy outside eating grass and not being asked to jump over anything or perform another 20 m circle in her life.

It was my last year of medical school and I had time on my hands. Having spent my youth with horses and now finding myself as an adult with spare time and change, I was finally getting that itch back in my soul. An internet search (this was pre Facebook so it was websites or bust) led me to an 11 year old 15h bay Arab mare – $800. No picture, no other write up. I have no idea why I went to look at her, but when I saw the scraggly, pot bellied, hair less mare standing in a paddock of knee deep mud I knew she had to come home with me. I didn’t even ride her. I handed my check over to the 16 year old boy who was selling her so he could buy a truck and went home to find a barn and arrange transportation.

Gem proved both difficult and above my pay grade from the start. She would stand perfectly still while I begged, pleaded, kicked, used a crop and uttered many a swear word to try to get her to walk on. Eventually, out of the blue, she would bolt madly forward and careen around the indoor arena at mach speed. That is if I could even catch or bridle her in the first place. She had a nasty habit of walking annoyingly away from me just out of reach in the pasture and then bolting backwards as soon as I tried to get a bridle on her in the barn aisle. For months I had to bridle her crammed and cornered in her stall.

Eventually I figured out I was out of my league and moved her to a “training” facility at $1000 a month to include 5 professional rides and 1 lesson a week. I’m not sure that the trainer ever got beyond lunging her and certainly never sat on her though I know a few unlucky kids took lessons on her. By the time I moved to WI, three months and a lot of money later, I was told Gem would never be able to canter outside of a circle, would never go down a trail and don’t even think about jumping. Ok…so maybe the last proved true though she has proven she can jump when she decides to.

I was determined that my little bay mare could be a normal horse and the next year was spent renting a house at a boarding facility which gave me plenty of access to the mare. I was patient and worked slowly from the ground up to build her trust in me. By the end of that next winter she was cantering like a champ and come spring of 2011 we were hitting the trails with her BFF Pete. Unfortunately, we were evicted from that rental when the landlord was foreclosed on for gambling our rent money away instead of paying the mortgage and I moved Gem to a new boarding facility. This place proved magical for us as it had an indoor, outdoor dressage ring, outdoor jump arena, trails and a cross country course giving us a lot of opportunities for exposure.

Gem and I got exposure to a lot of different things and I even jumped her for the first time. That year was the first time I hooked the trailer up and drove it by myself. Gem gave me wings in a lot of different ways.

While in WI, Gem and I completed our first 25 mile limited distance ride placing 8th followed by our second placing second to last. That first 25 mile ride was the first time I rode without Dusty and thankfully I was taken in by a group of women. With two miles left I let them go ahead figuring Gem would be tired and rode the last miles completely alone for the first time ever. Before heading south, Gem tackled her first ride and tie with Dusty and me, placing first.

When we made it to SC, I was determined to focus on endurance and so I hit the trails all alone. My plan was to go out 30 minutes and turn around. I didn’t care how far we made it or how fast we went. After an hour of ride time, we arrived back at the trailer having covered 0.75 miles. It wasn’t looking good for an endurance career. A month later she stranded me at the trail head for two hours refusing to get on the trailer.

Fast forward and Gem did improve on the trail alone. We have logged thousands of miles together on the trail, covering triple that travelling in the trailer solo, over mountain, sand and flat terrain in TN, SC, NC and GA. We completed our first 50 mile ride, followed by a second and had plans to move up in 2015 until she cut half her foot off needing emergency surgery and 30 days in a fiberglass cast. Honestly, I thought our riding time together was ended that summer.

Gem proved me wrong yet again and bounced back that fall without missing a beat. She went on to complete a difficult 100 mile ride at Biltmore in the spring of 2016 and the long course Ride and Tie East Coast Championship in the fall of 2016. After that ride, I decided to hang up our long distance gear. Gem was in top form, both physically and mentally (she dumped me twice during the R&T championships in pure Gem evilness), but she was nearing 20 and had proven herself enough. I felt like we had nothing left to conquer, having crossed all my goals off the list, and Wyatt was growing more demanding of my time.

The winter of 2017, I purchased new gear and introduced my endurance machine to eventing. She immediately gave me the middle finger and told me where I could stick this new plan. Even with her outright displeasure with this change, she took me to our first CT June 2017 where we placed 4th of 9 and got over the 18″ stadium course without a rail or time fault. She also hauled my butt around a schooling jumper show at 2′ with out killing me or knocking a rail. All told, Gemmie and I went xc schooling five times as well.

Gem and I struggled with the new discipline until this past spring when I finally started listening to what she was trying to tell me. She was unhappy. Sure she has always been a pistol full of opinions, but this was different and it was time to let her rest.

At 20, she is happy, healthy and sassy. She has remained sound for the entire time I have had her, even through her injury and surgery she never took a single bad step. She had one minor colic scare a few years ago, but that is it. She was barefoot for every training and competition mile except the 100. Physically Gem is a beast that I will likely never get the honor of managing again.

Mentally, Gem is still sharp and quick and ready to put me in my place. Over all the years and miles we had reached a solid understanding: I chose the trail and the speed, she chose her footing and how to maintain that in whatever gait was best for the terrain. I didn’t micromanage her and she didn’t try to run off or poke along. It worked great until we changed to working in the arena where I began learning to micromanage her body moving shoulders this way and haunches that. In her mind, I broke our contract. It is a bit of a shame that she is retired so sound and healthy. In another life, she could easily still be working for another 10 years at this rate, but my favorite black tipped ears are starting to get grey around the edges and she more than deserves to spend the next decade being boss mare in the field and looking down on anyone who dares enter her personal space.

The last nine years have been very special in so many ways. Graduating, residency, becoming a mother, starting my own practice, buying our farm. Through it all, by bestest mare has been there to keep me humble, remind me that there are more important things in life than work, give me wings to chase down dreams and be a rock when I melt down. Nothing went according to plan with her and yet every goal was reached, every dream came true. I owe a lot to that little bay mare and I hope to see her pushing boundaries in my pasture for many, many years to come.

 

 

I did it. I fell off Cruze last night. And it pissed me the hell off. I haven’t departed from my horse since fall of 2016. I never expected to come off Cruze or at least not while walking.

I suppose I could hide this story and carry on like all is rainbows and sunshine, but that wouldn’t be very real and what is the point of having a blog if I’m just going to lie?

So what happened? I’ve been bringing him back into working three days a week and his last ride was Saturday which went pretty well. I rode him out in the big pasture at the walk mostly but did a few trot sets up the big hill in the back. He asked to canter a couple of times and I got nervous and tense. Don’t worry, I admonished myself telling myself that Cruze is not Gem and I need to “give him permission to do what I am asking” as Trainer puts it.

Last night I was determined to loosen up, trust and let go. If I asked to trot and he cantered instead, my plan was to relax, realize he isn’t going anywhere and ask him to come back to the trot, praise him and carry on.

Ha! Hahahahahahha.

He started off cranky. He wasn’t in pain as I had watched him canter up to the gate no issues for dinner. He just had no interest in working and instead wanted to yell for his friends back in the barn. That is getting old fast. I mounted in the arena and we headed out to the pasture just like on Saturday.

And just like on Saturday he started off sticky, yelling and getting pissy. Unlike on Saturday he also started coiling his body and snaking his head from side to side while squealing not for his friends but at me in warning. My heart rate shot through the roof but I was determined to stay relaxed and move him forward.

I managed one lap around the perimeter without him doing anything terrifying and decided to work in the one corner that was flatter than the rest mostly to break up the monotony of doing the larger laps. I got started on a serpentine concentrating hard on using my outside aids to turn and keeping my lines straight. We were walking. He knew what I wanted. I was riding just about as perfectly as I can manage at the moment. And he had zero interest in that plan. He began to slow and while I should have kicked him forward back in front of my leg, instead he slowed even more, reared up, landed, bucked and gave me enough time to think quite clearly “this is going to suck” as I launched over his head and landed in a heap in the grass. He stood still and looked at me.

 

I got up and had a full on tear filled melt down as he stood still and watched me. All I wanted was to purchase a horse that did the basics and was able to be ridden both in and out of the arena without doing stupid stuff like this.

I was pissed at him and I was pissed at myself. Here I purchased this horse who honestly is just about the opposite of everything the seller told me (he doesn’t crib, he could care less about other horses, he just goes along quietly with whatever you ask) and now I’m on the ground when all I wanted was to fucking walk in a pasture he knows well and maybe I should just sell him once his feet are good enough to slap shoes on and….

A deep breath later I moved him over to the downhill side, tightened my girth a notch and put my foot in the stirrup. I hadn’t yelled at him, smacked him or made note of the behavior in any negative way.

Then, as I went to mount, he swung that obnoxious head of his around and tried to bite me. I lost it and smacked that big spotted muzzle hard. No biting. Ever. Personality is one thing. Being an asshole is another all together and it has been near on two months of me politely correcting his biting habit with no progress. He looked like he got the idea after that (I was wrong about that by the way).

I got on and was pissed. I forced myself to remain relaxed and allow him to do what I asked but when I asked I meant it and he had to do it now. Not when he decided to. NOW.

You see, while I have many flaws when it comes to riding, being passive is the worst. It is odd because I am a very assertive person until it comes to horses and then I’m a meek mealworm that lightly suggests things and worries I’ll break the horse and they will hate me forever if I get firm. Ridiculous really and it drives Trainer batty.

When I got back on I meant business and he knew it right away. When I asked for walk, if he trotted he got sat on his butt and made to walk. When I asked to trot, the same thing happened. We managed to finish the serpentine but he was still being sticky and trying to coil up so I marched his butt to the arena where we proceeded to work at the trot in all directions and shapes for a straight 30 minutes until he stopped rooting, breaking to the walk or canter and ignoring my leg.

After that we went back to the pasture for a lap around at the walk wherein I did not allow him to break to the trot under any circumstances. Once that was accomplished we were done. The ride ended up being twice as long and a lot more work than I planned, but he needed the attitude adjustment.

He was sweaty and quiet and stood like and angel to be stripped of his tack. Until I went to take his boot off and he whipped his mouth around to bite my butt. He was pretty shocked when this didn’t reward him with a light tap and a “no bite” from me as it did the other 100 times he has done that and instead his face smacked into the heel of my boot as I brought my foot up when he whipped his head around. Guess who didn’t try that again?

Horses are horses and not every ride is going to be great. I’m a bit miffed that it was this bad and that the horse who was sold as completely beginner safe, no bad habits, easy going etc… has a nasty rear and buck when he decides he doesn’t agree with the work plan. That will get him sold on fast if it isn’t nipped in the bud quickly as I won’t tolerate that. Some bad habits I will but not that.

But… I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and a very long lead rope to hang himself with. I’ve had him for 7 weeks of which 4 he has sat due to being crippled. Of the other 3 I have taken one lesson on the flat and gone xc schooling once. The other times are me riding alone. Only last week did he return to a three day a week work load and this was the second time working in the pasture. I was trying very hard to focus on straight lines and properly asking for bend and I was doing my best to be free with my seat and reins to not restrict him from doing what I asked but I was still being gentle, passive and mealy.

Once I got back on and became firm, direct and took no prisoners in doing what I was telling him to do while still being free with my seat and praising him when he did it right, he went on to do the thing with a lot less attitude. Not perfect but the sass was tucked back away and while I was still pissed in general the ride returned to baseline enjoyable.

We will see. I still like him and I want it to work out. One bad ride doesn’t ruin an entire relationship but it does raise some flags and is something to watch. Unfortunately I can’t ride again until Friday (Wyatt has a swim lesson tonight, I have a lesson on Wonder Pony Wednesday and a work dinner meeting Thursday) so we will see what happens then. A major criteria for me was a horse who could handle chunks of time off without becoming unrideable but…yeah…we will see how it goes.

Boards, horse shopping and then Sir Gimpy all combined to put goal writing on the back burner for the last quarter.

Unfortunately life has also lost balance for me and when that happens I tend to go into survival mode, put my head down, and just get through it except…well this time there isn’t really an “it” to get through. Its just life stuff that has no end in sight. Work, being a mom, working around the farm…its called living and being an adult yet somehow the last few months have been unnecessarily stressful and really no fun whatsoever.

Having goals for not only my riding, but my life in general has really helped in the past to bring my life back into a better balance. I don’t hate my life. The busy, sometimes hectic life of running a business, being a surgeon, raising the kiddo and living on my dream farm while still trying to sneak in riding is doable as long as I don’t let any one of those things over shadow the others for too long of a time. Letting goals slip by, or just plain not having any, allows the lines to get fuzzy and I end up feeling overwhelmed and not satisfied. So…long story short…it is high time to get some goals written down for the third quarter.

Horses
~ Gem and Pete: Keep them healthy, happy and feeling good. Both are now officially retired (I need to do a retirement post for Gem) and their only job in life is to eat the grass so I don’t have to mow as much.

~Cruze: Ugh, my big orange man needs some work.
– Stay the course with his hooves. I find myself a little itchy to throw some glue on shoes on and get to really ride, but I know in the long run that isn’t what is best for him.
– Ride 3 days a week. Consistency is the key to all things, so I need to work hard at getting him out. I rode in the big pasture this past weekend and it went pretty ok. I’d like to continue working him on the soft, plush grass for most of the rides but still use the arena for more concentrated work. Maybe a 2 out:1 arena ratio.
– Buy him a new bit and girth. Gem always hated the girth I used with her jump saddle and it appears that Cruze does too. He takes a 48″ and I personally hate fleece so I need to do a little experimenting. As for bits, he needs a 5 1/4″ bit as the 5″ he is going in seems a tad small. I have zero clue what to put him in, but thankfully Trainer has a ton of options I can try out.
– Buy him some stall toys. His wood chewing is driving me crazy. He used to play with his water bucket, but I got tired of the sloshing mess, so he lost water bucket privileges. You;d think being outside all but 30 minutes a day would stave off any excess energy or boredom, but nope. I think hanging some stall toys up might save my wood door and his teeth.
-Work on his herd bound issues. This one caught me a bit off guard. Gem is so above everyone else that she could care less where any other horse is at any time. Cruze though screams and screams for his friends who never answer his call. He is a ton better in the arena generally only letting out a very quiet squeal at the beginning. When I took him out in the pasture he was a hot mess for the first 10 minutes. This was the case when we went xc schooling as well and I think it will just take time and a lot of miles getting out there to rid him of it.
– Go to a hunter pace.  The pace season begins at the end of August and it is my most favorite thing ever. Since we aren’t jumping at the moment, I’d like to set my sights on the paces for the fall and winter instead. As long as he is reasonably sound and comfortable by then, that is.

Farm
There is so much to do, but my head has slowly come around to the fact that farm work is never finished and I need to give myself a little break here. We have lived here for 6 months now and I absolutely adore it. It was pretty run down when we got it, so there is a lot of stuff to do.

~ Finish the wash rack. This is nearly completed and would have been had Dusty not broken his hand in early May which killed off all of May and June for heavy farm work. The siding needs put back on, fittings for the hose added and then cross ties and it should be fully functional.
~Move the tack room.  Right now I am using the original tack room which is large, centrally located and without a door or ceiling which means everything is coated in a rather thick layer of dirt. Ugh. I hates it. The office is towards the front of the barn where my cross ties are currently located and has not only a lovely door, but also a ceiling. It is filthy and full of old junk the last owners left behind but lacks holes in the floor so that is a win. I want to move my current tack room to the office which should take a solid weekend of cleaning and moving things but will be better in the end.
~Get an estimate for tree removal. That big magnolia tree has to go along with four beautiful crepe myrtle trees that are right on top of the darn house. Not sure we have the money to actually get rid of them this quarter, but I’d like to at least get someone out so I know what I am budgeting for.

Family
This is a big time for the family. Wyatt starts KINDERGARTEN. How on earth did that happen?! How do I have an almost 6 year old???

~ Make one last day trip. Summer has flown by as it always does which isn’t helped by the fact that school starts in August down here. We made it to the beach in June and I had hoped to do a day trip once a month, but with family visiting the end of this month it doesn’t seem likely to happen in July. That leaves one weekend open in August and it will either be back to the beach or up to TN to Dollywood.
~Navigate my way through starting school. I have zero idea what all sending him to school entails. I registered him and signed him up for the after school program (yay to saving over $100 a week in day care costs!!) but beyond that I a clueless.
~Continue to cook.  I was doing so well at cooking an actual real dinner most nights before summer started and I got hot. I don’t like cooking in the summer and my appetite takes a nose dive anyway. It is expensive to eat out and eating chicken nuggets for dinner isn’t very healthy, so I need to get back on track with the cooking thing.

Me
Last on the list, but I have learned that if I don’t pay any attention to myself nobody else will and then everything suffers for it.

~Ride 3 days a week. Sanity is key to not losing my crap on everyone.
~Lesson 2 times a month.  Lessons are my life blood. I’d lesson three times a week if I could afford it, but I can’t. Twice a month is a good balance for time and money and I still feel like I learn and improve each time.
~ No sugar.  I gave up sugar (not in an insane “I now make m own sugar free kethcup sort of way”) back in February and that lasted through my vacation in early May when I threw it out the window and then never returned to it. During those months I felt great. No highs and lows in my energy levels, no cravings and as a side I lost 5 pounds. I need to return to this.
~ Give myself a break  I’m type A. Not hard to believe having gone through medical school, surgical residency and starting my own practice. Its a good thing and has helped me through life, but it is also overwhelming and I find myself being very harsh on myself when everything doesn’t get done all the time. I’m doing the best I can and I need to learn how to let things go as “good enough” for the moment.

Lots of good things to work on this quarter and hopefully by writing them down I can find some focus, better balance and go back to enjoying this one time ride we call life.

So…during my horse search the Hubs made the comment that a lot of the horses we looked at or found online would not survive a zombie apocalypse. Now to be fair the maintenance they required was to keep them in top performance shape and the injections, special shoes etc…would cease once they retired. But not all horses fell into that category. Thin coats making winter hard, horses with feet so awful they wouldn’t be able to roam for food, allergies, heaves etc etc.

It got me thinking. How would mine stand up?

Gemmie

Within a month she’d be the Queen. Ha! Seriously though, she’d do just fine. She might even prefer a world with no humans. Getting into the details though. Every farrier who has ever seen her is amazed at her perfect feet. She self trims better than any farrier work I’ve come across and can easily handle the most severe terrain without an issue. She has never had an abscess and has never taken an off step.

Her coat is also pretty darn perfect. Thick and yak like in the winter and slick in the summer. Even in this near 100F summer she barely sweats but not in a scary way. She was bred for the desert.

She is aloof and independent enough to not require humans on the regular and smart enough to stay far away from any hunting zombie pack. Plus, she stays fat on air so calories wouldn’t be an issue. If the world fell apart tomorrow, I could rest easy knowing my best mare would be just fine.

Pete

The old man would do ok with some tweaking. His feet are not near as good as Gem’s but I believe they’d stand up to the roaming life just fine. He may get some bruising or cracks from time to time but he is extremely stoic and would walk through it.

Like Gem, he gets and stays fat on air so the no grain, hunt for grass and edible leaves lifestyle would be just fine for him. The roaming miles would do his old joints some good too. Thankfully he is sound as can be and doesn’t require any supplements.

I caught Pete and Cruze playing the other day after dinner. I didn’t grab my phone until after the running around and rearing hi jinks were done and they were down to lazy bitey face. Pete instigates it more than Cruze, but Cruze is always up for play time. 

 

As for those vicious zombies, Pete is scared of me in a raincoat after almost 9 years with us so I’d bet he’d stay far far away.

His issue would be the heat. His nose cracks and bleeds in the sun if he doesn’t have desitin slathered but that’s limited to the summer and while uncomfortable isn’t life threatening. His biggest issue would be water. He melts in the summer and drinks 1/3rd of the massive water tub each day. He’d either need to wander up north or park by a large lake or river. Water sources attract predators though and while he is big and bold he is also old.

I’d say as long as he had a constant water source and shade or would wander up north into the mountains more that he would probably survive just fine for a good long while.

Cruze

First, I finally found a spelling I like. Not important here but thought I’d mention it.

Cruze is an interesting one and I’d give him maybe a month. Why? He is such a big baby. He is addicted to human attention so I’d worry he’d see the zombies and run over looking for a good scratch only to get eaten.

Sorry big guy, but it’s true.

Outside of that, I’m not so sure he has the self preservation instincts to survive the human free world. His feet should grow out well enough to support him. Heck this weekend we switched them to the fields across the driveway because I got tired of mowing all that grass without them ever touching it. He galloped like mad and jumped the big ditch in the woods without issue. His feet are fine. Not perfect, but fine enough and will only continue to improve from here.

I haven’t had him in the winter but he seems to be ok right now. No massive bug reactions though he came in with hives all down his left hip a few weeks ago. They were gone by morning so he must have rolled in either a thistle or maybe even on a fire ant hill. I would not put that past him.

He is holding his own on a high quality ration balancer and the grass buffet though he isn’t getting fat like the other two. I’d worry he’d need more roughage to keep weight on than the other two. We will see how he manages in the cold both coat quality and weight wise.

Mentally though. I just don’t see him lasting beyond a month. He’d be the one I’d worry about the most surving on his own. I just don’t see it happening.

So what about you all? Would your horse(s) survive a zombie apocalypse? Why or why not?