The Universe hits when you're down

Life isn't fair. I don't expect it to be. But at this point, I feel like the universe is holding a grudge.

Last night, 9:15 pm, I'm thinking about putting the dogs to bed and going up to sleep. Hubby had gone up early, because what's the point of sleeping on the couch, just go to bed. The neighbor's dog starts barking, and then I hear a noise. And something about it makes me go grab a flashlight and run outside, leaving the dogs to their own devices.

My instincts were right.

Arya's leg was pouring down blood, bright red arterial blood. I got her into the barn, and slapped a pressure bandage on her leg and winched it down with vet wrap. Her flysheet's shoulder was wet with blood. I had blood on my face, and on my hands, and it is so dark out.

I tote my flashlight out to the pasture, verify the other two mares are totally fine (they are) and investigate everything I can think of for signs that Arya cut herself on it.

And I didn't find a thing.

And then I got inside, got the dogs to bed, and then myself. I got up at 1 to make sure she hadn't bled to death (she hadn't) and was out there at 5 this morning. She wouldn't stand to leg me re-bandage the thing, and she had stall walked Bailey's stall (hers doesn't have mats yet) into a mess, and her leg had clearly broken open a few times through the night. I finally got a bandage on there - and laughably, I'm out of bandages, so I used one of the diapers I've been wetting and freezing to use as ice packs on Foxie's leg - and more pressure from the vet wrap bandage. And then, helplessly, I put her out.

I don't know if that was the right thing to do, but at least she won't be cranking around in a stall in tiny circles. Foxie was so sad to lose her new stall rest buddy. I went to look at her bandage - she kept a hock bandage on all night, I was so proud, and her bandages are soaked, and when I unwrap them, they're heavy and wet and filled with more lime green furizone even though I scrubbed her leg like a madwoman  and it's been a few days since the sweat wrap (and several bandage changes). I re-wrapped her, stuck a hock boot on that leg and went to go start my day, now an hour+ later than usual.

So today is already sucking hardcore.

Bright Spots

I'm not capable of a lot of competent thought at the moment, but I am going to try and put some sunshine on this blog, and talk about positive(!) things. AKA things that make me happy. Here are some thing-things:

Arya smiling (yawning) made me laugh

- Higher Standards leather soap and balm: I finally got around to using this stuff on more than a dog collar a few weeks ago, and the smell + the awesome conditioner (I cleaned tack outside, so the sun warmed the balm to perfection) and how clean, soft and nice all of my bridles look right now is a total positive. I plan to do saddles and girths sometime soon...

- I finally got off my ass and washed some blankets: I worked out a pretty good system by the end using our flatbed trailer, the hose, a long handled scrub brush and my usual Rambo brand soap. The brush especially upgraded the experience to "quite cathartic" because I scrubbed a lot of negative feelings (and dirt) off of those blankets. If the trailer had been slightly slanted, it would have been 100% perfect, but the blankets are clean and packed away, and I only have approximately 10 more to do (ok, I haven't counted).

Arya may or may not be growing. Or else she just stands like a weirdo.

- I don't think I ever talked about it before, but I finally got to use my De-Braider tool after Carriage House earlier this summer and it's THE BEST tool. Braids came out so quickly, it was wonderful. I also have used it to change out hay nets on the hay hoops and even slice open hay bales... and it is a wonderful, useful little thing. 10/10 would recommend.

Always an excuse to use this photo. <3 my BB

- Speaking of sharp things, also 10/10 would recommend this hook knife that I purchased off of someone's suggestion on Stephanie's blog (Hand Gallop). I haven't had to use it as a panic knife, but it is GREAT for opening hay bales, and is much safer in general than the knife I was using, and half the time leaving open for horses to randomly impale themselves on (though I was leaving it open and shoved into a bale... still. Dangerous).


And some other stuff:

- My barn looks super legit, lately:

Top: before
Bottom: After!

- I finally sat on Arya! For all of 3 seconds, but I sat on her. Bareback. In a halter. This was brought to fruition by another positive in my life:

- My friend J and her mare Ginny are now our boarders! She arrived on Saturday and we've already had some weird and fun adventures.

On Mondays we stand in lines (Ginny is the one in the fly sheet)

Shit Meets Fan

So over the weekend, as I was just starting to dig myself out of my mental rut, Foxie (my 21 year old first horse, for those of you who are newer to my blogging) apparently went through the fence.

The queen Fox

Foxie is a horse who tends to attract strife and bad luck; she has come back from two horrible, nearly life-ending injuries. The first, was a low DDF injury on her right front. She came back 110% from that, despite all of the vet's predictions, and we took up eventing. She was beasting around Training level XC a handful of years ago now and jumping better than she ever had, and then she shredded her right hind suspensory in 4 places (4 quarter sized tears). Her body basically freaked out and dropped all of the suspensories in all 4 legs, and for a while there, she was in so much pain that we heavily considered letting her go; the pain was too much to ask of her.

Birthday portrait from earlier this year

But the minute you say that, she comes back. It's been her way.

So she went through the fence. She also seems to have flipped - or sat down? - with the end result of mashing her whole back end into a traumatized, swollen mess.

Her tail bone is broken (muscles are still in tact, so she can swish... but it bends up. NOT NORMAL).
She fractured a splint bone (not a big deal)
She appears to have damaged the large artery running down the front of her already-damaged "suspensory" leg, with the result that the leg, which was already going to swell, is swelling in new and excitingly gross ways.
Her right leg is swollen from fetlock to butt cheek; I've nicnamed it the Dinosaur leg, because it's so swollen it appears to belong to an elephant, or a dinosaur, not a horse. The hock area is particularly traumatized and is so hot that she is regularly sweating through whatever bandage I put on her.

Her left leg is swelling, too. And the tendons that sit over the point of her hock are sliding to the side under the strain of her resting the more painful leg.
Her legs shake a lot of the time from the strain of supporting her body; she laid down before the vet came to take x-rays and fell trying to get up. My heart stopped in that moment.

Her body is horribly, horribly traumatized by whatever happened to her.

Now that we're managing her pain in a more effective way, she is no longer pawing and pawing and pawing in pain, nearly catatonic to everything else around her; she engages with me, and she's even gotten her personality back a little bit. She's still not eating or drinking well; she's been eating hay and grazing with the most enthusiasm, but she hardly touches her grain (and the stomach supplements and anti-inflammatories I'm trying to get into her). I tube her pain meds into her - she has never been willing to eat powdered bute, and she's not eating enough grain for me to chance putting the liquid banamine the vet gave me on grain.

She's still dehydrated, though she's drinking better. She's probably losing weight, though it's hard to tell when she's so sucked in on herself to begin with.

But at the same time, she's still here. She's still fighting.

She whinnies for her sisters, and though she is still limping horribly, she's moving a lot better. She's willing to move herself, especially when "cruising" around in the tall grass and clover I haven't had time to mow, grazing. She walked herself over to the gate to touch noses with Arya, and she tried to bite her. Her eyes are brighter, she looks up at me with her royal way when I come into the barn, saying "U SERVE ME NAO". So things are already improving from the horrible state they were...

But this sucks, guys.

In a Rut II

I keep wanting to write, but I feel like I have nothing to really say, at this point.

From the farm perspective, things are getting done. Lots of things, like the hay barn extension and the stalls. There is still plenty to do, but I'm not loving that all of these accomplishments are being lost on me. From the personal perspective, I think I'm exhausted. It probably doesn't help that I sleep in 4 hour blocks with a puppy potty break at 1 in the morning every single day. And it doesn't help that my husband is both intensely unhappy and intensely bad at handling emotions. He's a hot head, and says things he doesn't mean, but they weigh heavily on my heart as of late.

But this blog isn't to talk about personal things, though emotions contort and color my perspective constantly... this blog is to talk about horses.

Foxie continues to be gentle and continues to seem just a little more elderly than I want to let her be. She is physically comfortable, it seems, but clings to her sisters and (I suspect) is allowing herself to be bullied off of the hay - or just isn't taking initiative like she used to. She is a little slim, for my taste, and I'm anxious to get her fed back up so I can feel better about her going into the winter.

Bailey has been good, for all that she is embarrassingly out of shape again. It's so strange to realize that 4 years ago today, I was riding her at the boarding barn for the first time. Our first ride since I tried her at the trainer's. We've been working on dressage; flying changes still elude her almost completely, but her canter is improving, and we're working our way back to being in shape. I noticed some joint clicking before I turned them out for the last few weeks, and its kind of making me realize... she's 8. The "baby" isn't a baby anymore, and she can do so much... I just need to find the time to devote to her to bring her along. It's hard to motivate myself when I know competition season is mostly over, and that we're going to struggle to ride this winter without an indoor. But we will keep whittling away - if anything, I want to get her out for one more thing, be it XC schooling, or something else, before the snow flies.

Arya has been doing ground work, pure and simple. We had some problems, and my more experienced friend (and soon to be boarder - yay I'll have someone to video and take pics again!) J opened up some new perspectives for me last weekend. Since then, Arya and I have been communicating much better. She still challenges me, but she toes the line more quickly and doesn't seem to not know what I am asking. Our sessions have gotten shorter, because we don't have to fight as much, so I've also been putting her on a real lunge line and letting her canter and trot. I throw her over a pole every once in a while, and I'm hoping that I'm making her tired. We also spend time at the mounting block (it's a stool, but same difference) standing and walking around it. I've also been laying over her back trying to teach her she can stand at a mounting block, feel weight, and stand.

I haven't swung a leg over her yet, though we've been slowly marching towards that goal. First, we lunged in a surcingle with clanging stirrups attached, and yesterday, she wore tack. I probably need to next make it a habit to wear full tack and be lunged/worked with. And then I need to get on her again.

In A Rut

Since Arya's issues, now two weeks ago, I've been in a bit of a rut. The first week, we were busy busy busy all week and it took me until the weekend to really realize I hadn't ridden, and Arya hadn't been ground worked nearly as much as I had hoped.

Part of the reason I have no time to work my horses.

I changed that on Saturday; I dragged the ring and hopped on Bailey for a jump school. While it wasn't bad... things weren't together like they were the week before. In part, I am sure, because we're both out of shape, but it just seemed like a thousand things weren't right. She wasn't being good in the waterford. My stirrups were too long, and then my half chaps were just totally failing me, as my leathers felt like they were gnawing on my calves. I found one of my velcro back blocks in the sand when I was dragging, and I struggled my whole ride, knocking both of them loose again (though still hanging on by a few bits of velcro). Bailey herself was good; she knocked a rail or two, but I also had put full boots on her instead of leaving her bare, which always makes her less careful. She was hard to rate, and a bit rushy; the waterford worked well before, but it just wasn't working for us that day. I'm tempted to continue to experiment with bits; I don't have an elevator and I can't decide if one would be too much leverage for her, but the waterford also doesn't seem to be the right fit, either.

It would help, I'm sure, if she had more muscle. We did some dressage on Tuesday, and again struggled with a good connection and her being really through, so it's probably largely fitness that is our problem. I just need to ride more, and I'm lacking a lot of motivation even though I have no real reason to be.

The horses like to pretend they are as tired as I am...

On the Arya front, we've only been doing ground work. She's gotten a lot better, though until our last session she really was either choosing to run through the woah cue, or really not understanding it. And when I escalate, her usual reaction is to run, so it's really positive that she is starting to change the habits of old. She had some pre-existing rubs on her chin before we began groundwork, but they're badly placed and are right where the chin of the halter is contacting when I pop on her when she's lunging, or when she tries to lean and run away from me (which happens a lot, up until the last session) so she breaks them open each time we do work, so I've only been trying to work her every other day to give her a break and time to heal.

I admit; I don't feel mentally strong enough lately to try getting on her, so I've been putting off long lining and bringing her back under saddle. My personal life, along with not sleeping through the night due to a puppy going out at 1:15 every morning is leaving me drained, and I feel so disconnected from this horse. I don't know why she reared, really, and while I can conject all I want, the unpredictability of that makes me nervous. Ground work certainly isn't BAD for her, but I am disappointed that I'm not feeling driven to get on her.

What do you do to get out of a rut?

Dripping Sweat

So after a day of reading natural horsemanship articles on the internet, casually shopping for 15' leads and natural horsemanship beating sticks and getting some great perspective from you wonderful people and my horsey IRL friends, I went home quite ready to tame the bay beast yesterday.

When I got out of the house to finally do the deed, it was around 7 and the wind had died down, leaving a lot of hot, sticky humidity with nothing to break it. Arya came power walking over in the paddock, expecting dinner. I caught her with a rope halter, pulled off her mask and fly sheet (though I left her boots on, no idea why) and grabbed my whip and some gloves. I dressed for battle (or at least enough).

And I got a battle.

Arya knows a little bit of ground work from our earlier sessions, though I never actually pushed her all that hard with it before now. We stuck with the following exercises:

1. Woah / Change of direction: Arya is super smart, and did a lot of the classic TB "I know what you're going to ask so I'm just going to do it" which is going to be a habit that we will slowly break. She doesn't want to interpret me popping on her halter as a "woah" cue, so that also needs some polishing. She picked up changing direction quickly, and goes left really well, but right was a struggle.

2. Backing: Arya doesn't like to back up, and she didn't pick up on my cues well, though I was experimenting with different ways to cue her to back so my methods did evolve over our session. I need to pick one and teach it, probably.

3. Stepping under: we did a minimum of this, as Arya is still very left handed and is still mastering the basics of staying the hell out of my bubble, thankyouverymuch. To the left she will bend much better, and I could tell that she was really struggling to travel with her head bent in going right, which meant that the whole exercise was a struggle for her that direction.

Arya's default seems to be forward, which is positive; she's smart, and she seems to want to do the right thing 80% of the time, but has a strong stubborn streak. If I got lazy with my cues, or if she didn't think my body was in the right place, she'd try to run through my whip/cue/aid and keep going in the "easy" direction. She doesn't like when I get after her, and her default is to get mad and run and brace in reaction. Especially in her woah/turns, we had a big problem with her invading my space. I think this is 80% physical and 20% dominance issue (she's a very 80/20 girl). Part of it was that she just can't turn and go right without dropping her shoulder and diving into my space; she would earn a poke in the shoulder with my whip for that, which would usually send her forward in a flustered/worried way. I can see we have a lot of work to do in both strengthening her body, but also in her own mental comfort zone working in hand.

It was hot, and she was a stubborn girl; she challenges me when I let my guard down, or if I'm not foot perfect in my cues and I need to make sure I'm looking at myself before seeing her as being rebellious or bitchy. We both worked until we were dripping with sweat, but she recovered well after a bath and some time in front of her fan with some hay before I fed her dinner. It wasn't easy, and at times I didn't feel very safe, but I am eager to pull her out again soon to see how much of yesterday soaked in!

No longer the favorite child

So after being all starry eyed and in love with Arya, reality hit over the weekend.

While a handful of (wonderful, hard working) men worked away on extending the hay storage section of the barn, I had a wonderful ride on Bailey. I set up a bounce-to-two-stride-oxer grid and slapped a waterford on her to combat the diving front end issue from our last jump school and off we went. She was lovely; she warmed up quietly, jumped around on an angle to "warm up" and no matter if I got her in long or short, she made it work. Like a total gem.

LOVE HER.

I'm not sure when the #feralredhorse became so wonderful and consistent, but even when I don't get on her for a week lately she's just been a total star. Good BB!

However... Arya was fine to tack up. She was a bit on edge but with lots of construction going on out of sight, I was patient and understanding with her. She accepted fly spray in exchange for cookies. She was her normal self.

And then I got after her for walking on top of me, and then not standing when asked. I plopped the mounting block down next to her, hiked up my girth and got on. She went to walk away from the block, like she does every ride. And like every ride, I got after her to make her stand like a civilized horse.

And then she started backing up, reared, and almost flipped over on top of me. I bailed myself off that shitshow and somehow managed to hang on to the reins and land mostly upright so I could continue to hold on to her. Doing this, I discovered yesterday (and even more today) I managed to anger half of the muscles in my upper body. I got mad. Arya lunged for a good amount of time and then I tried getting back on her. She walked fine. She trotted fine for 2 seconds, and then went to go speeding off and I half halted her... and she started to fuck around again. I don't have a good word or words for that feeling when a horse starts to sit down and get light in front and you can just TELL that it's going to go down, but I was like F THIS SHIT and tried to emergency dismount off of her before she started doing the backing-and-rearing-and-probably-flipping thing. So I half fell half threw myself off the horse again, and this time she got away from me and went Arabian-impression-ing her way back to the barn to her friends.

So I once again, retrieve and lunge my horse. This time I worked her hard on the ground work. We lunged and sent around the mounting block, and I carefully slid up on her back (laying on the saddle, sliding off) like I have to rebreak this animal several times, and finally got on her again. And we walked, and halted, and walked and halted a few times... and then I got off.

And honestly, I don't know where to go from here. How does one deal with a horse who only wants to bolt or rear?! I'm kind of thinking that we ground work hard and long line her at least a couple of days in a row, and then work up to lots of lunging with saddle again, and then working on mounting and not trying to kill me.

What would you do?

Edit: I should clarify that she didn't actually go over. I think she was close. The guys working on the barn had music on and apparently didn't see or hear anything going on. And she didn't go up again once I got back on her, which upon re-reading doesn't seem clear. It was one rear, and one instance of me getting scared and bailing (which resulted in her getting loose from me and running home). 

Bridle Crazy: Help me style the new kid!

Between the handful of wonderful (Eponia) bridle reviews I've been seeing and everyone on my facebook getting something new - County saddles, fancy bridles, etc.... I want to spend money.

I know, I just stocked up on blankets, and I know I hardly ride lately. But BRIDLES, guys. Bridles are both functional and pretty, and Arya doesn't really have one of her own that doesn't make her look dowdy and boring.

I'd like to blatantly use any readers I have, though, because I can't decide what will look good on the new princess. Here she is modelling what I have put her in so far:

The Fake Micklem:

The Figure-8:

And the french noseband

(ok, this isn't my actual bridle, but mine is so similar. It's thin/no frills black with extremely subtle brown padding and it doesn't do a damn thing for her, promise.)

Honestly? I don't think I've found her look yet. Bailey looks magnificent in her weird anatomical bridles, and Foxie rocked the figure 8 like a boss. Arya doesn't have an inelegant head, in my opinion... but it's not quite what I've worked with before. So far she doesn't seem to have preferences at all; she needs a flash/figure-8/etc because she gapes. She is the most horse sized horse I own, so a lot of what I have doesn't fit her to begin with.

How would you dress this profile?