Peace.... breathe in..... breathe out....

So.. I'm freaking out a bit. I've had another stretch of cluster migraines. One of my best friends was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm struggling with moving... giving up the house... not finding an ideal place to move to.... the stress of picking the next forever place. Add in work stress... knowing my friends are also struggling and not doing well. And then to top it off... Dan. Not knowing if he'll be able to go back to work... I'm struggling... 

BUT.... This made it better. I have an amazing husband who is doing his best to help me through this and is being amazing. I have great friends, who despite their struggles, are there for me. I have a wonderful family. I have a great job that I love with great clients. And most importantly, I have an Awesome God on my side. So.. I breathed... I praised.. and I enjoyed the moment with Dan on our lovely hack today. The weather was perfect! And God even sent me some love. See the heart in the sky :) 

Snorty Ride

Today was an awesome day weather wise! It was nice and crisp and cool. A little blustery! Dan was super! He kept his cool and didn't put a foot wrong, but... you'd never know it by his snorts. He snorted the whole ride. He was cracking me up. :) We even came upon a deer munching away on a vine and he and her just said Hi and carried on. :)

See the deer!

Well Fudge

Dan is still lame. And it's worse now. I'm not sure if it's worse because he's not as fit/muscle strong... it got worse... we corrected some of the other lameness's so the main lameness is more obvious... So now he is dancing/hopping behind to pick up canter and throwing head up in air to do it. He is still reactive to flexion of the right front fetlock, but he doesn't trot out lame after the flexion. And he was also reactive when we picked up the right front to evaluate the base of neck. When I ride, and we slow motion videoed him... he added a stride, but behind only, to the jump when tracking right. It looks like he also tapped off the right hind, not pushing off, and put most of the weight on the left hind. Tracking left it's not so obvious. He's reaching up nicely with the right hind though.  After he did that, he then proceeded to jump normally 4 more times, even with the jumps raised. So... we figured he was just excited and happy to be jumping. 

So today... we go back to lasering the stifle, and the both hind high suspensories and equiox and light trails at the walk. Then we'll reassess. The right front lameness appears to be in the swing phase, not the landing phase. Which does make us suspicious of the neck... when he brings that leg forward, it compresses the neck. Plus he's much more lame and MUCH more behind my leg the more compressed I ride him/the tighter the frame. So, maybe it is his neck??? And other compensatory issues. 

So anyways... today we went for our quick 30 min alloted hack. It was a gorgeous day with gorgeous weather. We had a great ride. He was super and stayed on the buckle most of the ride. And we finished up at the small dam by the trailer parking. We scared the heron and he flew up and flew across our path to the other side. It was awesome!! Dan didn't even flinch. 
 

Vacation's over

For me anyways. We had a lovely few days at the beach with my family. It was good timing... no horse stuff to get home for.. and just early enough in the house sale that it's not too stressful to leave. So yeah. But... unfortunately, since Dan is still lame and since the house needs to be packed, we came home a little early.

And since we came home early... I went to say hi to the ponies. Maybe they were expecting dinner, but ... maybe they missed me! Dan was at the gate. So.. we went for a quick ride. We had fun. We just went for a long hack and planned to just walk and trot a little. We went to the back hay field and started in the path of the "fire swamp" and suddenly Dan froze. There was a balloon in the field and he could just barely see it. He stared and stared and then bolted! I managed to get him stopped but he was freakin' out, so... we turned around and approached it from the open field to make it a bit more approachable. Dan still said no, but at least he kept his cool and managed to walk past it instead of galloping away. So then we did a little trotting in the field and then headed to the arena to feel him out. I was pretty sure I could feel the lameness in the field though.

And yep.. it's still there. Although I swear today it feels worse on the right. ??? So.. who knows? We did do a little bit of trotting in the arena... and then cantered both ways. Then we did our lateral walk work and he was soooo good. I couldn't help it. We half passed a couple of steps at the trot and it was quite lovely. We only went right.

Anyways.. it was a great ride and a great day. Hot, but not too terrible and a decent breeze. It's just very sad to not be able to do more than just hack. But we still enjoyed the hack. :)

Bug Out Ride

Today was a hot steamy day.  I woke up at 4:45 with a migraine... woke up at 6:45 thinking it was 8:45... then went back to bed til 8:45 and still felt hung over from my migraine meds. But... stuff had to get done. I did my paperwork and then went to go ride. I did not want to go to Ashland because they were having a show. And... I'm sorry... it just hurts my heart. I don't want to keep seeing people do what I want to do. I don't want it rubbed in my face that I've failed... I don't want to have to chit chat and make nice small talk with people when my heart is hurting so much. So... we bugged out! We decided to go ride at the horse park. And my oh my.... talk about bugs. It was SOOOOO buggy! Like.. not enjoyable it was so buggy. 

We started out at the rings and went to the water complex. Dan was still scared and wouldn't go through the bridge. I didn't push it because who knows? Maybe he's right and it's not secure. Plus it was too hot and I just didn't care. What's it matter? So we went around it and then headed towards the woods. I didn't go in the back woods because it's so eroded there and the footing is so uneven. So we stuck to the top part. Which was really buggy. We did a little bit of trotting when the footing allowed to get away from the bugs. And then a tiny bit of canter too. Then we were heading towards the trailers when Dan picked up a clump of weeds. He couldn't chew through it immediately so he had a blast with it for a bit before it finally flung off. Hee hee... Thanks for making me laugh buddy!

Danny goes bananas    Oh Danimal... You are hilarious!



So then we hit the semi flat area and there was a big deer there! She bounded off and I did a few trot circles. He actaully felt sounder going left... sounder today in general but also sounder going left than right. But it was really hard to tell. It felt like he was throwing that right shoulder way out too. So... maybe he's just compensating better today. 

And then it was too buggy and too hot to do much else so we headed back. I had things to do anyways.