Things Are Happening

I get out to the barn today and learn that "SURPRISE! The barn's been sold! We're moving!"


Surprise, indeed.

Through one person or another, I've known about the "pending" status on the property for quite some time. The first clue was a gaggle of unimpressed looking prospective buyers being led around by a nervous real estate agent. No dice, though.

What irks me the most is that the barn owners didn't say a damn thing until they pinned a note to the bulletin board saying that they've "accepted an offer" and that "not much should change". They've been carrying on like absolutely nothing is wrong and things are just hunky-dory, even acquiring another horse. Then, seemingly out of the blue, "We're off! Ta-ta, dah-ling! It's been real!"

Reading further, they also suppose that board won't change much. Hmmmm, that doesn't exactly bode well. I can't afford to pay a penny more than the current rate, which is rather steep for quality of the facilities in the first place.

All will be made clear at the meeting in May. I hope, though it kind of doesn't matter at this point. Unless the new owners are going to decrease board or turn the place into Horse Paradise, we're not going to be around for much longer.

Spring is Here!

.....kind of.


It was spring for one glorious day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the wind was a mere gentle breeze. *sigh*


Then it snowed again.


The important thing to take away from that is that the weather here has been less predictable than a than the whims of a particularly capricious adolescent girl. Actually I take that back. It's been very predictable. Cold, wet, occasionally freezing, and really fucking windy.

The kind of weather where you look out the window and think, "Hmm, looks like it sucks out there." Then you go outside, squint into the wind, shiver, and think, "Yup, certainly does suck out here!"

This is where the sane, non-horse owning person goes directly back into their warm and non-windy house. Or hops in their car to go to an equally warm and equally non-windy building.

The (arguably) insane horse owner not only goes out into the frozen gale, but stands there calling for Fluffy at the pasture gate while standing ankle deep in mud. Fluffy, of course, is snug in her shelter thinking, "No food? Fuck you, I'm staying in here."

Whee, horses are so awesome sometimes. And spring is just fan-fucking-tabulous out here.

Pony is Sound

I've been working two jobs these last couple weeks, which is both awesome (yay money!) and not so awesome (boo no time!). Plus, it's been cold, wet, muddy and miserable, meaning that my barn time has been limited. Whenever I've had the energy to ride, the wind is gusting and Cherry is sniffing the air like there just might be demons lurking over that next hill.

Today the weather was nice for a change, but I'm so dead tired from lack of sleep last night that I don't think I can handle it. Besides, I haven't been riding regularly, and we all know what happens when Cherry isn't ridden regularly... Wheee! It's time to RUN!!!! OMG what was that?! ZOMG scary!!! This is FUN!

Not what I want to deal with right now.

Since it was so nice out, I turned Cherry out in the outdoor turnout paddock where there's a thin crop of grass coming up. She snorted a bit, so I chased her around so she'd forget about the grass for a minute and move.

This turnout is on a fairly steep hill, and Cherry went trotting and cantering around with her tail flagged and her head up in perfect "excited Arabian" form. She even threw in a little bucking for good measure.

I love watching horses move out just for the fun of it. Today was doubly cool because she didn't take a single lame step the whole time, not one. In the indoor arena, she appears to be kinda on and off lame, and it really bugs me. Out in the dirt though, she's perfectly sound. Extended trot downhill, no problem!

The arena footing is pretty shitty, and there's several uneven and hard spots littered all over. Her hooves aren't quite tough enough to handle it yet, so her stride is thrown off and she's lame. It really screws with my head. I scrutinize her gait, watch her like a hawk, and drive myself demented wondering if it's the arthritis, the hoof, or something new.

It's not. She's fine, her hooves just aren't ready to handle the crap footing without protection yet.

I guess no more indoor arena turnout without boots. To save my sanity if nothing else.

Time for a Trim

Cherry is due for a trim! I'm getting pretty good at figuring out when she needs trimming now. Not that I was terrible at it before, but there are subtle signs that her feet are getting long.

First sign, she stands a little funny. Normally Cherry stands fairly square, but when her feet get long she stands cockeyed more often. It's not exaggerated, and you wouldn't notice if you weren't looking.

Second, she gets more tender in the indoor arena. Weird, I know. You'd think she'd be tender after a trim rather than before. But when the wall gets too long it aggravates the flares we're getting rid of, which makes her sole tender. Since the arena has not so awesome footing with several hard spots, the increased sole tenderness leads to off steps in the arena.

Third, her toes look looooong. Since we're bringing back the toe in an effort to curtail the stretching out of her front toes, when her feet get long her toes get reeeeally long.

I looked at her feet today, and I think with just a little bit off the heels and bars as well as backing up the toe, she'll be good to go.

Rampage

Today I just wanted to go for a nice walk in the snow, but Cherry wanted to rampage instead.


Some days you'd never know that she is fast approaching the age of 21.






I hadn't been out to the barn in a few days what with work and everything, so I went out this morning thinking I might go for a little ride and then perhaps trim Cherry's feet. Even though it's been melting for days, there's still a ton of snow on the ground from the latest storm (pics coming soon!). What isn't covered in snow is covered in mud.

I got Cherry out, let her roll in the arena since she hates rolling in mud (good pony!), and then did a little light free lunging. Perhaps not getting out for awhile had made her stiff, I thought. And I was right. She walked around okay, but at the trot was positively gimpy.

We did some more walk, whereupon I came to the conclusion that this was boring as hell and it'd be much nicer to walk around outside.

So I saddled her up and off we went.

The first couple trips around the field were sedate enough. She was loosening up nicely, so I though we'd try a little trot. Cherry thought that a little trot was too tepid, and it would be so much better to pretend to be a big dressage horse instead!

We had a discussion about that and I got my little bit of trot.

That went so well I decided to try a little canter. But Cherry thought it would be SO MUCH MORE FUN to take off bucking instead.

Wheeee!!!!!! Let's gallop AS FAST AS WE CAN through the snow!!!!!!! And BUCK! Bucking is FUN!!!!!

No. Let's not do that.

I made her work instead. We worked on trot-canter transitions until she cantered smoothly with no grunting and hopping around. Then we worked on canter-trot transitions until we had a nice trot instead of a reallyreally slow canter or one step of trot and then immediately back to canter.

It was kinda fun, though. We did some lovely spiral circles and figure 8's, and there was a wonderful moment when Cherry finally gave up the desire to rampage and asked to stretch her neck down instead.

When we were done with our ride, Cherry was just dripping in sweat. It took over an hour to dry her off enough to put her back in her pasture. I didn't mind, though. I got to spend some quality time with her while I blow dried the moisture away and curry combed off the sweat.

As much fun as it might have been to let her careen around the field like a bat out of hell, I just couldn't let that happen. First off, she'd probably have tripped on a snow drift, fell on her face and killed us both. Second, I've learned my lesson about just letting her go. If I do it once, she'll want to do it ever. damn. time. Can't have that. She got to move out, but it had to be on my terms, not hers.



The funny/awesome thing was that I wasn't scared at all when Cherry decided to be 3 years old again. Sometimes that reduces me to a pile of "Maybe we'll just go back to the barn" jittery wreckage, but not today! I was a little annoyed, and my rational mind told me not to let her carry on with her shenanigans because falling on snow would be really cold and crappy. But I wasn't scared.

Also, I must be getting some muscle tone back because I didn't feel unbalanced at all. Not that this is any great accomplishment, Cherry bucks with her head way up in the air. No, the awesome thing was that I felt in complete control of my position and didn't freak out. Well done, me!


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Tack Swap!

I went to a tack swap a couple of hours north with a friend and her husband. It was amazing. There are no tack stores here, unless you count the crappy little section of the feed store. Great for hoof picks and halters, not so great for anything else.

The tack swap was at a ranch, a barn had been converted into a tack store. Glorious! Bridles and saddles and halters and bits and blankets and saddle pads and horse boots and so much more! Sorry, it's been awhile since I've been in a proper tack store.




I have to get all my tack online, which is annoying because I like to poke things before I buy them. There were a few items I'd been considering, but after feeling them and seeing them in person I know now that I definitely don't want them. One such item was a fleecy saddle pad that LOOKS wonderful, but it squishes down to nothing when you put the least pressure on it. No thank you to that!

I got some awesome finds. And for really cheap. The best thing about the tack swap was the prices. It was all consignment, so the things were used, but everything with the exception of a few saddles was dirt cheap.

I got a wool (wool blend, most likely) cooler with the words "2006 Desert High Point Champion" embroidered on it. We get to be champions now! I found a saddle blanket to use in the summer. It's a little smaller than my current one and much lighter weight. I think it's wool, or at least mostly wool, and if it doesn't work out it'll make a lovely home accent. My final find (well, first, actually) was a set of green cotton roping reins, which I wore around my neck while I poked every other item in the barn. They're super soft and the perfect length.





I was worried the the cooler would be enormous on Cherry, it's the kind that goes all the way up to the ears, but it fits quite well! Cherry was being a ding bat yesterday, so I turned her out to bounce around in the arena. Ding bat pony got all sweaty. Not to worry, we now have a cooler!

Hoof Trim

Today was Trim Day. I'd been putting it off for a few days (OMG, the effort!), but when I pulled Cherry out of her paddock today, I was like "those feet have got to go!" It's amazing how long hooves can look with just a little overgrowth.

Last trim was four weeks ago, so it seems like 3 to 3.5 weeks between trims in the winter is ideal. Every 2 weeks in summer, every 3-4 weeks in winter.

Considering how long her feet looked, I took a surprisingly small amount of hoof off. Mainly just rasped her heels down and re-newed the mustang roll. For the past few months I haven't had to take off any sole. I scratch at it a bit with the hoof knife, but mostly I leave it the hell alone.

One thing I did do today was bring back her toe. Cherry's feet have a propensity to elongate with the toe pulling the whole hoof capsule forward. So I busted out the nippers (so much easier to use in wet weather!) and backed up the toe almost to the white line. Since I'm a scaredy cat about taking off too much wall with the nippers, I finished it off with the rasp.

Cherry was being rather irritating during the trim. Normally she stands still and lets me fuss, but today she was shifting her weight around, tossing her head, and generally acting impatient. It's hard to nip off just the right amount of hoof wall when the horse is rocking around on you. As I was finishing up the front feet I was done with that behavior, so I whapped her on the chest with the rasp and told her to knock it off. She did and I trimmed her hind feet in peace.

I've had to get creative with the hind feet. Cherry can't hold them up for too long and she can't comfortably put them up on the hoof stand for the finishing touches. I gave up on using the stand awhile ago and just held the hoof up with one hand and rasped away quickly with the other. Not the ideal situation, rather awkward and my hand came perilously close to being trod on a few times. Today I decided just to finish them from the bottom. As I held her hoof on my leg (a la picking out feet), I ran the fine side of the rasp over the edge of the mustang roll to smooth it out. I had to bend over quite a bit to see how I was doing, making it even and all that, but it worked out a lot better than trying to hold her hoof under her belly (like it was on the stand). I think this is how we'll be doing the hind feet from now on.