Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Visited my folks and a few good friends over the holidays. Cherry was well taken care of in my absence.

I did leave her hooves a litttttle too long, trimming-wise, but it's okay. I'm amazed at the change in her feet. The white line at the toe is actually looking really good! The bad news is that the whole toe is stretched forward, as evidenced by the change in angle of the hoof as viewed from the side. At least healthy hoof is growing in! Next time I'm going to back up those front toes.

We've been dealing with this on the front hooves for awhile now. That's okay, she's pretty comfortable on her feet again. And there's some lovely concavity going on under there. Very thrilled about that.











Her hind hooves look pretty good though, no? Yes, that left hind is a bit swollen. It's stocked up, something we've been dealing with this winter. Her hind legs stock up unevenly, I think due to the fact that her arthritis seems to be worse in the left leg than in the right. It goes back to normal with exercise, but since the ground is frozen (read: giant frozen mud peaks that I can't even walk on normally), she isn't moving about as much. Hence the stocking up. *sigh* I can't wait to get old.

Dentist Time!

Cherry saw the equine dentist a couple weeks ago, something that should have happened over the summer. I need to be better about that.

Despite the fact that this was Cherry's second time with this particular dentist, it was the first time I'd met her. Last year I had to work and couldn't be there for the appointment. I got the invoice and dutifully sent a check, but didn't get a chance to speak to her. She came highly recommended, and is pretty much the only certified equine dentist in my area (and a vet to boot), so I didn't feel weird about not meeting her the first time.

Her set-up is amazing. She has this giant "dentistry trailer" that she hauls with her. Inside are stocks, equipment, head holder, and a mini office. All that's needed is a place to plug in the extension cord for the power tools. It's pretty freaking sweet, and she takes it far and wide to see clients.

The horse is led up the ramp (well covered in non-slip material) into the trailer and placed in the stocks. Horse is then sedated and the head is supported by this padded ring thing that's suspended from the ceiling. There's plenty of room for the dentist, her assistant, and the horse's owner inside the trailer. She even had a space heater going since it was below freezing outside.

Cherry of course gave absolutely no trouble. She had to think for a minute about getting in the trailer, take a good look and all that, but she loaded up no problem. The IV needle wasn't her favorite thing, but that was over pretty quickly. Thankfully Cherry is a very cheap drunk and it doesn't take much to send her off into la-la land. The flip side to that is she wakes up very quickly and sometimes before you want her to, but things went quickly and she only needed one shot.

The dentist checked Cherry's teeth, explained what she was doing (always love that!) and also told me about aging horse's teeth. When horses get old, the chewing surface begins to degrade and form a cup. The process is called "cupping". Highly technical, I know. When the teeth start cupping it means that there isn't much tooth left to erupt and that regular dentist visits are extra important to keep the teeth healthy for as long as possible. She even had skulls on hand to show what she was talking about, which was super nifty.

Apparently Cherry's teeth are *just* starting to cup on the first and second molars. She's still got plenty of chewing years left, so no need to worry about stocking up on mush ingredients yet. But she does need a yearly float, and it would not be a good idea to let her go more than a year. Point taken.

Cherry didn't need much work. Just some sharp points on her molars and a slight unevenness on the chewing surface. Her incisors were fine (they had needed work last year) and overall it was a pretty basic power float. The prognosis was that she was starting to show signs of age, but her teeth are still very healthy, and she shows every sign of being well taken care of. Awww, that warmed my heart. :)

The dentist and her assistant were thrilled at how well behaved Cherry was. That is one thing I've never had to worry about with Cherry. She is always incredibly well mannered with equine professionals. I don't have to worry about a vet or farrier refusing to work on her, which is really nice.

All in all, a successful dentist visit.

Snow Pony

Today was just so beautiful with the snow and the sun that I had to take some pictures! Cherry is all fuzzed up and perfectly happy out in the cold. See how fuzzy and cute she is! For a California Baby, she's doing pretty damn good in the frozen north.


















































Aw, she's such a cute old girl.


We went for a bareback ride in the snow, and Cherry indulged me in my picture-taking joy. Actually, it's pretty hard work tramping through snow, so she was probably glad of the rest.

To Blanket or Not To Blanket

I choose NOT to blanket, even though it's a grand total of 8 degrees here today. Going outside is like stepping into a Winter Apocalypse. There are not enough layers in the world to keep you warm. Well, maybe there are, but I do not possess them.

So if I'm all bundled up like a retarded penguin, why is my horse naked? For starters, she has a lovely fur coat, while I have to protect my naked flesh with as much wool, down, and Carhartt as I can.

Whenever it gets really cold or nasty, I always worry about how Cherry is doing and if she's warm enough. And when I go to check on her, she's puffed up like a dandelion and looking at me like, "WTF if your problem?" as my teeth chatter and hands shake. A couple days ago she had icicles in her tail and looked like she was soaking wet. Upon closer inspection, I realized that only the top layer of hair was wet and the under layers were perfectly dry. I scraped the icicles off of her, stuffed her full of hay pellets, and put her back in her snowy paddock.

The first winter up here in the frozen north, she did need a blanket (two, in fact). Being the California baby that she is, she grew a California winter coat, which was only distinguishable from the summer coat by the slightly longer fetlock hair. The first time it snowed, I found her huddled in her shelter and shivering, looking like the equine equivalent of the Little Match Girl. She looked at me like, "What is this horrible place that you've brought me to and when can we leave?" Now she's like, "It's not that cold, you big weenie!"

In fact, the only times she does get a blanket are the fall and spring. It likes to rain here during those seasons, which also coincides with either growing in or shedding out the winter coat. When she's fully haired up, Cherry's fine. If she's not, she gets cold. Thus the blanket.

My blanketing strategy is pretty simple. Blanket as needed. That's it.

I feel sorry for the horses outside now in thin, lightweight blankets. Um, when you smash their hair down with a blanket you have to compensate for that with enough blanket to keep them warm! You try sitting outside all night in a windbreaker when it's below zero! Not too warm now, is it?

Winter is Here!

It's official. I woke up yesterday to find a blanket of snow upon the ground. It was absolutely lovely. The loveliness was enhanced by the fact that it wasn't cold enough to stick to the road, meaning my road (read: giant fucking hill) was clear. Hooray! I still have my highly worn all-season tires on, so this was indeed cause for joy. It all melted by the afternoon, but the morning sure was pretty.

On Monday night we had a massive storm. Thunder and lightning, rain and hail, and 49 mph winds with 67 mph wind gusts. It was almost straight out of a movie. It wasn't so bad at my place, I'm sheltered by the giant fucking hill that I live on, but at the barn apparently it was awful. They put Cherry and her pasture mate in stalls that night since their shelter got ripped apart by the wind and as such they refused to stand in it. Instead they stood out in the driving rain and hail, shivering their butts off. So they got stalls and lots of hay for the night.

The storm did a fair bit of damage around here. The next town over was without power for a few days, and a steel shed my boss has got its doors wrenched off and crumpled up in the yard. On campus the roof of the Beef Center was ripped off. Thankfully the roofs at the barn remained on!

Poor Cherry, she was wound up so tight on Tuesday. She made the very annoying decision of calling to (and answering) the new buddy she'd made the night before. It was still pretty windy and gross outside, and as soon as I got on her, it started hailing. Of course! So now I'm on a super stressed, super nervous horse in a metal-roofed indoor arena while hail comes pelting down. I couldn't even hear my own voice. I thought about getting off, but I decided to stay on and make her move around a bit to try and loosen up. If I turned her out, she'd just gallop around and work herself into a lather. And then be freezing and require blow drying. No thank you to that.

We did a lot of walk, a little trot, and lots of circles. Every little noise made her jump, but fiiiiinally at the end she relaxed. I got a little bit of work out of her once she focused and then we were done. I'm proud of myself too for sticking it out and staying on her, even though she was really high strung and jumpy. Hey, if I can ride her through that, I can ride her through anything.

Winter is Coming

And it looks like it might be another bad one. As long as it isn't as hellish as our first winter here, things will be all good. That winter the university was had a Snow Day, which it NEVER EVER does. That's how bad it was. We'll see.

The point is, I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself and Cherry this winter. Last winter we kept riding, since for the most part it was just muddy and cold, not too much snow or ice. This winter may be different, but I do want to keep her in some sort of work.

We might be doing a lot of ground driving, since that doesn't involve enough work to actually sweat. The important thing, I believe, is to keep her moving. She doesn't do too much of that in her frozen paddock, understandably, so it's going to be up to me.

Arthritis doesn't take kindly to standing still or cold weather. She'll stay on the joint supplement through winter, but I may try to cut her back in the spring. It would be nice to only feed it half the year. Stuff's expensive.

One thing I am definitely going to devote myself to this winter is researching hoof care. Hopefully hoof growth will slow down and I won't have to keep trimming every other week. So I'm going to use the time to read up on technique and methods. What I do now is so unbelievably basic. Good thing Cherry doesn't have anything majorly wrong with her feet, just bad flares. I want to learn more "advanced" stuff, maybe something different to improve my trimming so that when everything thaws and hoof growth picks back up, I'll have a better approach.

Now For Something Different

Well, not that different. I've posted my musings before on the subject. And the subject is... tattoos!

Yes, again. I can't help it, I love them.

Though now I've decided what I want. There's two in the works, though one will probably (hopefully!) wait for some time. The one I that I want to wait for will be a memorial tattoo for Cherry when she dies. That is not something that I want to happen in the near future, thus I'm hoping to delay that tattoo for several years.

The one I want to get first is something else. I'm not 100% sure of the design yet, but I know where I want it. On my left forearm, halfway down, and on the underside. Not quite the back, but the side that is the least exposed.

Why there? For one thing, I want to see it. I can't see my other tattoos, and that bothers me. So I'm going to get one that I can see. But I don't want it to be immediately obvious and "lookit meeee!" either. So it's going to be small and on the "white underbelly" of my forearm. I'm also hoping to get it in gray ink instead of black, which won't contrast as much with my white skin. I thought about a white tattoo, but most of the ones I've seen look kind of gross. The white doesn't stay white. So gray it is. Gray will also be easier to cover with make-up than black, should I care to hide it for any reason (elderly relatives spring to mind).

The design I'm still toying with, though. That's okay, I've got plenty of time to think about it. No sense in rushing into tattoos, especially arm tattoos. If I do end up getting sick of my other ones, that's fine, I can't see 'em anyway! :)

The one design I keep coming back to for some inexplicable reason is an anchor. While amusing myself by looking at tattoo pics online, I came across a few of Kate Moss and her tiny anchor tattoo on her arm. At first I thought it was an arrow, but it's an anchor. I don't why, but I really liked it. So I drew one in Sharpie on my arm. And I liked it even more. Weird.

At first I was like, uh, it's kind of nautical and "sailor-y". Which of course does NOT apply to me in any way. The closest I've been to sailing is floating up the Delta on my friend's father's yacht when I was about 8. Then I started Googling "anchor tattoo" and found that they're very, very popular among people who are not in the Navy. Encouraging.

Kind of like the ubiquitous butterfly tattoo, but cooler. And not quite so "OMG, another one? You are, like, so original! *eyeroll*" More like, "Cool, an anchor! I like those." Not that social stigma or lack thereof really influences my preferences (I even like butterfly tattoos), but I'm not eager to leap into anything that's going to lead to endless eyerolls and mockery. It's not about fitting in or standing out, but I don't really want something that's been completely done to death.

I tried a horseshoe, and even an abstract circle design (that I ended up hating), but I liked the anchor the best. After 2 hours with the stupid circles (they sounded like a great idea in my head, all symbolic and stuff), I was like, "Damn, I can't wait to wash this shit off. Maybe I'll put my anchor back on." Wait, back up a minute. My anchor? It sounds an awful lot like I've made up my mind without me. Hmmmmm.

It kind of makes sense for me too, in a symbolic way. I've always been a very grounded person, firmly rooted in life and reality. A little too much so for my flightier friends, but whatever. I was also thinking that it would be a good, totally not obvious tribute to Cherry, who has indeed been quite an anchor in my life. But it doesn't have to be just her, it could be anyone and anything. I like that idea. And it's small enough to cover with another tattoo later if it gets ugly.

So my plan is to wear the anchor in Sharpie for the next couple months, definitely through the holidays, and see how I feel about it then. If I still like it, on it goes. In gray! If I don't, no harm no foul, I'll keep looking.