The wrath of Khan

I have three horses who are all lame on the left hind leg.

If ever there was a bitch slap from God, this would be it.

All I need now is to be smited.

Joy took a hunk of skin off her hind leg a couple days ago. It’s not serious, but I need to doctor it up and Joy thinks the goop (ointment) is Satan’s phlegm.

The other option for wound care is Vetericyn, but of course that’s a spray bottle. In Joy’s opinion, only spray bottles are more heinous than Satan’s phlegm.

Jessie (the old mare) has both rain rot and thrush. She may as well have posted a sign by the road with the words “Bad Owner Lives Here!”.

I went to Tractor Supply for medications. The only thing they have is a product called Fung-a-way. Rain rot isn’t a fungus, it’s a bacteria, but some reviews said it worked and there’s nothing else on the shelf.

I get to the counter to check out and the cashier asks me if my horse has rain rot.

I reply ‘yes, she does’.

The cashier gives me one of those patronizing looks and says “This won’t work”, while holding up the Fung-a-way. I wanted to scream “Of course it won’t! But you can’t stock shit a real horse person needs!”.

Instead, I said “Oh, I was afraid of that.”

She then let’s me know that “rain rot happens sometimes”. *roll eyes*  However, she has ‘The Cure’. All I need is to spray WD-40 on the scabs.

** insert skeptical look here **

We leave TSC without rain rot medication. I get home, we’ve got WD-40, I seriously consider it for 2 minutes….

I can’t. Anything that says “avoid prolonged contact with skin” probably shouldn’t be sprayed on a horse and left on. And it seems counter-intuitive to spray it on just to wash it off. If I’m going to have to bathe the horse after every application then I may as well get the iodine shampoo that’s made for rain rot!

Arrrgghhh!

….

My neighbor won’t ride with me anymore.

I’m not sure why.

It kind of hurts my feelings.

On the flip side… I get a bit frustrated reining Ava up, slowing her down, making her wait… constantly. Ava has a big walk. Always has. Our trail partners are slow walkers. If I let Ava walk at the pace she’s comfortable with then I leave my trail partners in the dust.

Hmmm… this could also be a euphemism for life. 

The old lady and Joy…

My husband is working on building me a riding arena.

It’s getting there!!

I’m missing the fun!!

I have three horses who are all lame on the left hind leg.

If ever there was a bitch slap from God, this would be it.

All I need now is to be smited.

Joy took a hunk of skin off her hind leg a couple days ago. It’s not serious, but I need to doctor it up and Joy thinks the goop (ointment) is Satan’s phlegm.

The other option for wound care is Vetericyn, but of course that’s a spray bottle. In Joy’s opinion, only spray bottles are more heinous than Satan’s phlegm.

Jessie (the old mare) has both rain rot and thrush. She may as well have posted a sign by the road with the words “Bad Owner Lives Here!”.

I went to Tractor Supply for medications. The only thing they have is a product called Fung-a-way. Rain rot isn’t a fungus, it’s a bacteria, but some reviews said it worked and there’s nothing else on the shelf.

I get to the counter to check out and the cashier asks me if my horse has rain rot.

I reply ‘yes, she does’.

The cashier gives me one of those patronizing looks and says “This won’t work”, while holding up the Fung-a-way. I wanted to scream “Of course it won’t! But you can’t stock shit a real horse person needs!”.

Instead, I said “Oh, I was afraid of that.”

She then let’s me know that “rain rot happens sometimes”. *roll eyes*  However, she has ‘The Cure’. All I need is to spray WD-40 on the scabs.

** insert skeptical look here **

We leave TSC without rain rot medication. I get home, we’ve got WD-40, I seriously consider it for 2 minutes….

I can’t. Anything that says “avoid prolonged contact with skin” probably shouldn’t be sprayed on a horse and left on. And it seems counter-intuitive to spray it on just to wash it off. If I’m going to have to bathe the horse after every application then I may as well get the iodine shampoo that’s made for rain rot!

Arrrgghhh!

….

My neighbor won’t ride with me anymore.

I’m not sure why.

It kind of hurts my feelings.

On the flip side… I get a bit frustrated reining Ava up, slowing her down, making her wait… constantly. Ava has a big walk. Always has. Our trail partners are slow walkers. If I let Ava walk at the pace she’s comfortable with then I leave my trail partners in the dust.

Hmmm… this could also be a euphemism for life. 

The old lady and Joy…

My husband is working on building me a riding arena.

It’s getting there!!

Joy as a Baby

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Desentization

I went over to my friends house the other night for a course on how to desensitize Joy to new/strange things. I didn’t take Joy since it was a work day, and Joy needs trailer practice still. They let me ride one of their horses.

What fun! We had umbrellas, bags on strings that were tossed around and pulled behind, foam sword fights, a wooden bridge, tarps, and barrels to swing up and over the horse.

I want Joy that good!

…..

Yesterday, my husband was knocking down the old chicken coop by the pasture. I rode Joy while he was making all kinds of loud banging noises. I expected her to be a bit freaked out by it, to be honest. Instead… she acted like nothing weird was going on at all. Totally calm and focused.

What a neat pony!

So far, fly spray and trailering are about the only things that totally unhinge the poor girl. Oh, and cars going by out front.

I went out to the pasture with a plastic bag the other day and Ava came running. She thinks all plastic bags hold apples. Ha. Joy was trepidatious about the bag, but was game enough to give it a good sniffing. I waved it around a bit, but nobody cared…. it seemed very anticlimactic.

….

Ava finally has 24/7 access to pasture and she chooses to stand in her stall all day. She has fly spray on, a fly mask, there’s hay outside, there’s even some shade. Joy gets sick of the stall and will desert Ava to go hang in the pasture with Jessie (who hates all stalls).

….

I was supposed to ride Joy today, but it’s been raining off and on non-stop today. And not a nice rain either. This is the hard, slap you upside the head and call you a little girl, type rain.

…..
From the other day:

I got baby pictures of Joy from the previous owners today. I’ll post them later. It says she was born in ’08, so that makes her 7 this June. A year older than I thought…

Joy – Training Update

The weather has not been cooperating. Yesterday it was 87 degrees with high humidity, today it’s 48 and and windy. Brrr….

I still haven’t been consistently riding Joy. She doesn’t seem to mind. Haha. On the plus side, she’s always good under saddle whether it’s been a week or two weeks in between rides. She has yet to really do anything naughty while I’m riding.

**knock on wood**

I do lunge her first before riding….

I haven’t pushed her for anything very hard yet. My main goal at this point is to get her to move off light leg aids quickly. She gets a bit bulky about forward at times. 

Secondary goal is to get the idea across about reaching for the bit. She gets the basics of steering and stopping, but she doesn’t believe me that contact is something she should go looking for.

She’s getting better about the idea of leg yields. I’ve been asking her from the ground to move over when I touch her side (both walk and halt). I started incorporating that idea while on her. The first few times I asked caused some confusion, but she figured it out quickly.

I’d also like to get some more shoulder control while on her. I played around with starting to teach her turn on the haunch, but I confused her so I dropped it. A little too advanced idea just yet… she does move off my thigh fairly well for knowing so little.

She is one bent up, crooked little girl though. Her hind always travels left of her body. Mainly because her front feet are in the way. I’m contemplating how to straighten her out, but I’m kind of stumped on how to get the front feet to pick up sooner. I’m thinking a combo of farrier work, along with transitions, bending lines, and some brief leg yields through corners. She needs a better farrier. I think I have a lead on a good one who might be able to fit me in. I hope.

My last thing… I am so thrilled with this pony. She’s just a pleasure to handle. She doesn’t bite, doesn’t kick, she’s friendly, and loves all horses. It’s such a difference from Ava. Not that Ava’s not a good horse, but she always has to have the last word about everything. This pony isn’t like that. She might get confused, or scared, but overall she’s happy to oblige.

Word of the Week is Logy

I decided I needed a new goal for keeping me on track with blogging, so I decided to do a”Word of the Week” weekly blog post. I’m going to try a Picture of the week post also.

Word of the Week is Logy:

Lacking physical or mental energy or vitality; sluggish; dull; lethargic.

May showers = Dreary, rainy days.  It makes me feel logy.

When I first brought Ava home, I was smugly confident that I could retrain her to not kick the walls at feed times.

I can confidently say that it’s been a complete failure. She always has to get one good, solid kick against the wall before she’ll stand patiently for her food. Every feed time. Never fails.

Some days I threaten her with the lunge whip when she’s kicking. She’s figured out that all I can do is wave it around ineffectually a few feet away (stupid stall doors don’t open easily).

Drives me nuts. I refuse to feed her until she’s politely standing in the stall, but no matter what I do, there’s always that one solid kick before she’ll concede to being docile.

*****

Hubby fixed the stall doors today!  Yippee!!  They now slide open and closed easily. I can’t express to you how utterly frustrating those sticky doors were. It was the worst when trying to dump water buckets. It’s bad enough that I’m sloshing water all over me, but then I couldn’t even budge the door to get out without setting down the bucket and nearly giving myself a hernia trying to slide the darn door open. Now they Slliiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddeeee. Very nice!!

*****

 This morning was beautiful. It looked a bit surreal with the sunlight shinning through the haze.

I like the mornings. I like that calm before the work day.

The old mare was cute today. She normally wants nothing to do with humans, but she thought she’d check me over for treats before wandering off.

So much green! A month ago this was all brown.

 

 

These two are now thick as thieves.  They spend every second of every day glued to each other. They often remind me of teenage girls.

 

It has been raining for several days now. I’m sick of it.

 

 

Oh, Screw it! X, Y, Z

** written last week **

I missed the last three posts for the month. I’ll tell ya, patch week at work is enough to frazzle the best of men at times.

It’s been beautiful weather the last three days (today should be as well). I haven’t worked Joy at all. I feel guilty. I do spend time with her every day, but not on the things I probably should be doing with her (trailering riding, etc.).

My wonderful Hubby bought a used auger (post hole digger) for a steal. We replaced the posts securing the paddock gate Friday. AND we now have a gate latch on it (instead of the decaying piece of rope). It’s awesome. All you have to do is swing it shut and it automatically latches. One finger to flip the latch to open the gate.

The previous posts holding up the gate were no longer in the ground. One was actually an inch off the ground (fence boards were holding it up).

I spent three hours yesterday cleaning the water tank that came with the place. The junk had actually calcified on the walls and bottom, and then was covered in more slim. Previous owners had put gold fish in the tank in a desperate attempt to avoid ever having to clean it. Haha

Clean water, sans gold fish.

** Current **
Whenever it’s feed time, I find Ava intently staring at the house.

I swear she can tell time.

I get up in the morning, look out the window, and there’s Ava eyeballing me from that spot in the paddock. Any other time and she’s at the far end of the pasture.

Yesterday at dinner time Joy was cracking me up. You have to watch the video with sound on.
http://youtu.be/PUR9U9VyCeE