Cavaletti Day!

Today was a fun day. It feels sooooo good to be back in the saddle and "working" rather than just farting around. I mean... I love farting around too. We definitely do that enough. But I also like accomplishing things. :) 

Today was Cavaletti/grid day with Beth. She always has challenging stuff. Today wasn't too bad and it was a lot of fun. Danny was super too!!

We started with trot poles on the long sides and did those both directions. Then we progressed to trotting the long side and then cantering on the short side and coming back to a collected trot for the trot poles. It was a little tough but the horses got the hang of it quickly and did awesome. They got bouncy!

Then we upped the ante and added a canter pole on the short side. And for Danielle and Rusty, they had to alternate between counter canter and true canter. We laughed that Danny and Jackson were just trying to be overachievers because in the beginning we both kept getting the wrong leads. ha ha. 

But yep... Very helpful day. And let me just say... I LOVE MY EPIPHANY!! They should have named it Effortless, because... you're just there. And you don't have to try.. or struggle. It's just..... effortless!! YAY!!!! SO worth it. :) 

Fun day! We did a little short hack before and after too. Oh and... Danny was cracking me up. And annoying me. He was being a velociraptor today. He kept making snarky faces at the other horses when they passed and alligator biting the air randomly. And when we first started we all gathered round Beth and she was talking. She then walked a bit towards us and turned her back and Dan was totally making snarky faces at her behind her back. I said "oooooh... you better smack him"! and she turned around and he pricked his ears like "Hi!! Let's be friends"!. Hee hee.. Such a stinker!

More Hacking

So.... I didn't do my lesson today. Partly because I wasn't sure I was up for it and partly because I wasn't sure Dan would be sound after he tripped on the trailer yesterday. Plus I really need to start seeing the patients I cancelled on. Sigh... 

So... I got up early and went to Ashland to ride. It was soooo nice out. I mean, it got hot quick, but it started out sooooo nice and with a little bit of crispness in the air. AHHHHH... FALL!!!! It's coming!! It's coming!!!! 

We got to Ashland and I decided to just put on the jump saddle and hack because I wasn't feeling too up to working hard just yet. Plus I'm still a little hangry and I didn't want to argue. So we went for a fun fitness hack. We walked, we did hills, we trotted, and we did a long awesome fun canter. We're both out of shape. :) 

We headed back in and went up to the jump field because I wanted to do a teeny bit of trot and canter in the arena. I kind of wished I had put on my dressage saddle at the end of my ride. Oops. Oh well. But he was super. We trotted and did the leg yield zig zag and then we did the canter serpentines. And he was super so then we quit. Plus I had to go to work. :)

Good pony!

On the Mend!

So... SHHHHHHH.... I rode today. :) I know, I'm supposed to be resting, but I even had a client tell me to go ride... a short ride.. but it'll make me feel better. She was right. :)

I couldn't help it. It's been so long. And my new saddle. And I wanted to make sure that my energy would last before I spent it on clients. And I did see one client today. And have 3 scheduled for tomorrow. 

So.. I am feeling better. I'm convinced I have some nasty protozoa or parasite and it'll probably rear it's ugly head again in about 3 weeks, so.. yay, looking forward to that....  But I feel better. I'm not chained to the toilet anymore. My stomach has stopped cramping. My appetite is a smidge better but still not great. And my energy levels are better. At least the waves of better are longer. I slept 10 hours yesterday and woke up and was still pretty tired, but after I ate some applesauce and sat down for another 30 minutes I was able to go feed ponies and clean the barn. I came back inside and worked on the schedule for a little bit and then decided to go ride. 

I behaved. We did try out the new dressage saddle!! But I trail rode. I mostly walked. We trotted a tiny bit and did a little bit of cantering but really tiny bits. And then when we finished, I wanted to do a teensy bit of dressage in the field.. just because of the new saddle. And the weather was gorgeous.. hot but a nice cool breeze. So I told God I would just do one trot each way and a canter each way. And I did. I held my end of the bargain. We headed back in. But I needed that! So did Dan!

I decided I would just hose him off at home as it would be easier with the cross-ties and the sprayer and then he could wear his boots home. So I did. But... for whatever stupid reason... when I unloaded him at home.. he slid off the ramp the last step. I don't even know what he did but he almost went to his knees and when it was all said and done he was standing with his right hind up in the air. WHAT?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I was afraid... so very afraid. He stood like that for about 2 minutes. TWO LONG WHOLE MINUTES!! Seriously Dan... did you break it?? What the heck?? So... he put it down.... but didn't put weight on it. Tried to hop a step or two and finally put it down but was pretty gimpy. Sigh... So we sat there for a minute, me just about in tears. I finally took the lead rope off to see what he would do. He finally walked back to the barn and was using it but definitely short strided. Okay... breathing....  And then I panicked again! What if he had tore that muscle again?? It's kind of what it looked like. Sigh.... So I hosed him off. I couldn't find any lumps or hot spots. I let him loose again and he went to his stall. So.. I put them in for the day... and went in to cry. 

I ate a little something, changed, and then had to go work on one horse. I checked him again and he was standing with his weight on that leg. Then he shifted to the other leg. Then he scratched his butt against the wall, rocking back and forth between both legs....  So... maybe he's fine? I couldn't find anything with the magic sticks other than one spot on his lateral hock but it wasn't persistent. I left him in and figured I'd check again. When I came back, about 3 hours later... he was standing fine. No heat. Only one weird lump medial thigh just above the hock but he wasn't tender and it looked like a bug bite reaction more than anything. So.... who knows?!? I turned him out and he wandered around but not enough to really tell if he was sound or not. He also rolled and seemed fine. He didn't bolt off or anything so... ???

PRAYING HARD that he just stepped on his sore spot on his coronary band and stung himself hard. I figured I'd try for another quick ride in the morning before I try to go see 3 horses and feel him out. Sigh.... so yay that I feel better... hopefully now we can keep Dan together too!

Call the Wahhhhhhhmmmmbulance

So..... I have cute videos of Dan to post... of him trying to entertain himself while I'm indisposed....

He cracks me up. And the inchworm makes me laugh too. Such a happy little inchworm. ;) 

And while I'm doing that... I'm going to whine. So... just let me have my pity party and my whine fest and get it out of my system. I KNOW life is good... I have soooo many things to be grateful for... but for freaks' sake... diarrhea for 8 days now really blows... :( 

I'm just so tired of being stuck. I can't really ride.... I can't really work. I can only accomplish so much because of the waves of weakness and frequent potty runs. And I know I've jokingly thought it would be nice to get in a car crash so I'm forced to rest, but.... really... I ain't got time for that!!! I'm already booked a month ahead.... so now, I'm stressing about fitting everyone in even more.... how am I going to fit in the people that I've cancelled on??? You know how.. by sacrificing my weekends and days off, that's how. Which means.. I've lost riding days because of my butt and now am losing riding days to make up work. That's stupid. That sucks. Normal people with normal jobs get sick days and still get weekends. Right?! I mean.... it just sucks. 

And yes... I'm grateful that I only missed one little show, which got cancelled cause of the rain anyways. And I'm grateful that I'm not puking on top of having diarrhea too.. but my new saddle comes tomorrow!!!! Ugh.... I have plans... I have things to do. This sucks. :( 

Okay... I'm done... I hope. And I would say I'm getting better, but I've had 5 diarrheas since midnight. It is 10 am. That's once every 2 hours. That sucks... 

10,000 reasons why not to, and 1 super awesome reason to

Bless him. The kid is a good kid. I've always said that. He's sassy and athletic but he's got a good heart. And I did appreciate the recent shenanigans. 

But... so... since I'm pretty convinced no one reads these but me... 
This is going to get gross and poopy.... TMI type of post.. so feel free to scroll the pictures and move on if you are a random person who does in fact read these...

 I have not been feeling well for 5 days now. It started last Friday when I went to bed. I had like 8 bouts of explosive diarrhea overnight. I wasn't actually sure I was going to be able to show at Silverthorn. Luckily, the pepto and not eating anything did the trick. However, it has persisted and I have had at least 15 visits to the toilet each day with liquidy explosive diarrhea. I haven't been able to eat anything because my guts are in knots and when I do eat, it "releases the hounds" and I have to run to the toilet. So... that was part of the reason I was so cranky during my Tuesday lesson. In fact, Tuesday night... I had to run from the barn to the toilet and really.. didn't make it. (Mostly because Mike had left the lid to the toilet down.... I came SUPER close... but still... crapped my pants. :( ) So.. I decided enough was enough and I started some metronidazole. Wednesday was a long day. I had 7 to 10 horses to do at one farm and then another 2 at another farm. It was a new farm and I had no idea if they had a bathroom. But I didn't want to cancel, so... I went. I took two imodium and it worked. I was safe. However, I felt nauseous and weak and not normal the whole day. At one point I almost fell off my step stool. I managed to get those 7 horses done (thank goodness they were fantastic patients and she had me in the barn in the shade with two fans). I ended up cancelling my last two patients and figured I'd do them tomorrow, when I was fresh. I came home and tried to eat something. Nope. All I had gotten down was a banana and an applesauce and a tea. I think I ate a little bit of taco's that night (cause.. you know... I actually was really really hungry... it just was going straight through me). But yep.. it came out the other end quick. So... Thursday I woke up.. cancelled my jump lesson with Beth and thought I might be able to rally and at least do a trail ride. Nope.. I felt awful. Like... weak. I had to rest multiple times while trying to feed the horses. Spent most of the morning on the couch. I finally got Mike to take me to the walk in clinic before lunch. They started me on cipro and we came home. I took another nap, cancelled my patient that I had attempted to postpone to today, and then went out and got my pills, more gatorade, bread for toast, and some probiotics. 

So then on Friday... I had to cancel my patients again for the day. (I let them know yesterday). Luckily they are awesome people and forgave me. So I fed ponies and then slept some more and tried to eat some blander foods. I actually managed to not have explosive diarrhea too bad so I finally decided I needed to go ride. Danny was SOOOOOOO bored and getting frisky and I didn't want to die if I waited too long to ride. And I know.. I should have seen patients instead but... dangit... I missed riding yesterday... and at least I could go do a short walk about and if I had to use the toilet I could jump off and poop in the woods. Plus I figured one 2 hour endeavor beat driving for 30 or more minutes and seeing people and having it be awkward if I suddenly had to run to their restroom. But yeah..  I still feel a little bad. 

So basically there are like 10,000 reasons why I shouldn't have ridden... The explosive diarrhea... the fact that I should have been working... the fact that it was showing pop up storms and there were dark threatening clouds over towards Ashland despite it being sunny at the house.... then the fact that it sprinkled when I was about to leave, so I took a 20 minute wait and still went... the fact that I had to gas up the truck first... the fact that my horse had been bouncy and not ridden in a while and I was super weak... 

But... I really just had to. So I got gas in the truck first (with Dan) because I figured if I couldn't make it through that, we'd just come home and at least he had a field trip to help occupy his brain. But... no poop stops, so.. we headed to Ashland.... and the dark giant cloud that looked like maybe it would stay just out of our way. I put the jump bridle on him with the neck strap and asked him to just please please please be a good boy. I told him he could pretty much do whatever he wanted as long as he didn't dump me. 

 Our ride started hot and dry... and ended soaking wet!

Of course when we got there he was all keyed up over something.. a deer... or maybe he saw the show canopy that they had put up for Sunday. He was on high alert and every bit of 17 hands. Then a car rolled up to help set up the show arena's or something. So I got on and as we walked through the wooded path to go to the trails, the car starts to follow us. Seriously?! I turned him around to see and she apologized. I let her pass us and Dan was a good boy. No freak outs. So then the dark cloud looks darker and closer but... whatever, I was already on. We walked down to the small pond and as we went to cross the dam we saw the heron. It didn't fly away... noooo.. .it did this creepy slinky scary walk into the words. Poor Dan. His heart was pounding. But he stood his ground and then we walked past the path it took and carried on. Good boy again! So then we walked around and did a tiny bit of trotting. Then I realized maybe that wasn't such a good idea but I wanted to let him move his feet a hair. So then we hear this noise... and yep.. it's the wall of rain heading our way. Sigh... Of course we are in the back hay fields. So we did a little canter through the rain to get home quicker. Then we tried walking through the woods... nope, not any drier. So then we cantered back up through the cross country fields and untacked quick in the POURING rain... I was soaked... he was soaked.. My tack was soaked... And came home.

But seriously.. what a GOOD horse!!! I'm so proud of him. And I love him.

And then I went in and tried to eat some toast and had more diarrhea. Sigh.. but at least I didn't have to get off while on the trails. I felt a little better too so maybe, just maybe I could see some of my patients tomorrow. 

Crankypants

Sigh... both of us. I think Danny was cranky because I was cranky. And I feel awful because at one point in time, I took it out on him. We were having a decent lesson and he was being pretty good. We were working on getting him to lift his ncek, withers and poll and lift into the bridle rather than me cranking his head down. And at one point, I spanked him with my crop. I don't remember if it's because he pinned his ears at another horse or if he wouldn't get off my leg or if he wouldn't go forward. But he kicked out. So I popped him again. And he kicked out again and then we went into a bucking, kicking, smacking spree. He threw in some good bucks! It lasted probably all of 10 seconds, but... yeeehaw!! And then we were fine. I was just so mad at him for over-reacting to my whip aid. It wasn't like I was harsh with it. And then I was embarassed in front of everyone. Sigh.. 

And now... I can't even remember the other important points of the lesson. But the gist of it was lifting his ribcage and getting him to "hang" in the bridle. We got some nice work though. And he's definitely a bit friskier the last few rides. Not sure if it's FINALLY the cooler weather overnight. And it's only overnight, because it's still hotter than heck during the day. But it is lovely to feel that slight brisk cool breeze in the mornings now.

I hope he still loves me. 

Cheat Ride

I deserve it.... Yes, I have a few people on the wait list... but tough! I deserve it! I still worked 10 hours today but since my first appointment (1.5 hrs away) changed from 3 horses to 1 horse, I decided to go ride. :) 


We went for a nice long conditioning hack and had fun. It was hot and humid, but not tooooo miserable. :) 

Show Day

So.... today was a super fabulous day!! Danny and I went to the Silverthorn schooling show. It was supposed to be last weekend but got rained out, so they moved it to today. And today was SUPER!! It was really quite nice. For August anyways... we had a nice breeze and the humidity wasn't too bad. So... it got hot but really wasn't too bad until about 2 pm. 

Dan and I got there and I unloaded him and brought him a bucket of water. Which he immediately flipped and dumped. Sigh... Stinker!

We did a Novice CT today and 1-2 dressage. We started with our novice dressage test. Which felt SUPER!! He felt so nice and soft and supple. :) And... it must have been nice because as we were leaving the judge leaned out of her truck and jokingly asked if I was aiming for high point for the whole entire show?? :) Hee hee.. We scored a 21.4!!! Almost all 8's, one 9, one 7.5, two 7's and one 6.5 (on the halt where his right hind went rogue!). Yahoo Danny!! Turns out we were high score (or low score I guess...) of the show.  And bonus because Mike came to watch. I felt bad as I didn't get to hang out with him too much as I was on Dan most of the time. But it was nice to have him there.

 
So then we changed saddles to go jump. I had more time than I thought, but... I didn't know that. I decided to leave the nathe bridle on because then I didn't have to change the number or his bridle and that helped me get ready quicker. I swapped saddles and headed down to the jump ring. He warmed up super for a handful of fences and then we waited a bit. Then I picked him back up again and we headed over some fences again. We took a big flyer to one but.. nothing super extreme. But then he lost his marbles!! I mean.. he went bonkers. He was bucking, rearing, spinning and bolting. I mean... head down between his toes bucking! And I had the nathe in his mouth!! I thought a few times I was going to come off. I almost went back and swapped out the bridle but it was almost my turn. I figured he was just amped up and if I could get him going on course, he would behave. I was right! :) Once he got to go and could keep going... he settled. But he tried to buck once and got a bit quick once. We ended up taking a rail on the second fence. Oh man!!! That's our first rail in competition I think. Dangit. Oh well. After that he was pretty good. We had one flyer and then I buried him at the next fence. But he got us out of it and the majority of our fences were lovely!  :) I was kind of proud. Especially because those fences looked huge! And the terrain was tough as it was a bit of a slight hill so it sort of sucked you down into the fences. So... we ended up with only the one rail and luckily... we still won!! Caroline has unicorn mug prizes... so I really wanted to win! :) YAY!    

After our jump round he was literally dripping sweat and foamy, so I had to hose him off. Then I pretty much had to tack him back up for our 1-2 test, so... I tacked him up wet. He settled and was fine but we both were a bit tired at this point. I think my ride times were 12:37, 1:19, and 2;17, so... I was pretty much on him for 3 hours. So our test was a little bit bracier and not as soft. Plus it was also a harder test, so.. you know. But still, it was quite nice. We ended up with a 70.15!!! Whoo hooo!!! 

So yep.. quite the nice day. :)