Arya

A rather bleary-eyed Monday greeting to you all. I packed a lot of crap into my weekend and parts of last week, so let's get some updates on the books, because once again... warm weather has arrived and work has picked up so I have less time to blog than I would like. I value being able to log my life with horses, though, so here we go: 

Bailey has been out one or two times, but with tight time last week, I've been choosing to keep things consistent with Arya rather than work BB as hard. The ring is finally back in rideable shape, so I hope to jump her tonight after a few meh road sessions last week due to the ring being a quagmire. See quagmire (and hippo) below:

Can't look at Mom she's stressful

With my focus on her, Arya got caught and brought out to do groundwork more. She's still sticky in her shoulders, but we had some good sessions where she was very relaxed, and I sat on her and laid over her back 2 times during the week. We also did some bending of the head in the rope halter, but didn't move with me up. I ran to the tack store last week and sat in the new Bates Advanta (it's really cool) and bought her a fleece girth and some perfect prep. She also took the opportunity to wallow in the mud like a hippo, which, for the lack of media for all of the other exiting things we've been up to... enjoy:

Her last session of last week was a bit more of a cluster - she managed to step on her rope and scare herself a bit at the beginning, and then had to run around and be bolty, because #offended. She didn't really relax as much as she normally does, and I was not sure that I wanted J to come out with Arya in mind, because she clearly wasn't ready. She also kicked at me when I girthed her, though it seemed like an automatic reaction as she didn't react to any further girth messing with and seems to like the fleece girth more than my TSF girth.

And then J came out to visit on Saturday, and made me get on my gosh darn horse, already. 

She ground worked her while I put on my boots and chaps, and her groundwork insight was super helpful. When I showed up at the ring, Arya got tense. We're running with the theory that Arya gets overwhelmed with stimuli and that instead of giving in to my desire to love on her/fill her with cookies when she's good, I should really back her out to the distance of my choice and let her sit there and think about her life and her choices. She wanted to be with J more than she wants to be with me currently and kept trying to edge in to her, but I think it's a solid idea that I put into practice on Sunday again. So we did some ground work, and she was obedient, and I stuck her bridle over her halter and J lead and lunged us for a bit at the walk and trot while I barely held on to my reins and tried to stay relaxed. 

Our theory continued when I was up; too much stimuli, or too many questions she didn't know how to answer = tantrum. She swishes her tail at my leg, and doesn't like having her face touched, but she has to learn to deal with both. She gets flustered or mad because she trips (especially with her hind legs) and tries to launch into the canter or get silly, which hopefully will chill out over time. We kept it short and sweet, with walk and trot in both directions on the line, and a bit with me circling around J. I'd forgotten how big Arya walks; she moves like a lion with a big swing through her back and hind end. 

Everyone had naps yesterday except me, bah humbug

Sunday, I did the same thing over again. She had perfect prep on board (and I'm not sure if it was the PP or the warm day that was making her nap and caused her to be easy to walk up to and catch, for once) and we did some ground work, and then I bridled her and got on again. We didn't have a ground crew, so nothing was to be done besides ask the horse to walk off from the mounting block and off we went. We walked a lot; she likes to occasionally get tense and rush off because of  little silly things and she seems more comfortable with contact at the walk than anywhere else. At the trot we had a few issues- a few tantrums that resulted in me opening my rein to her hip and letting her spin a bit to put a lid on some leaping/accelerating ideas and some general fussiness. A few times she would go from pulling a bit on my inside rein, which was open and trying to encourage inside bend, to yanking on it like she's trying to head off into the rest of the ring, but I was able to bring her back to a safer pace and keep her on her circle without too much blood-pressure raising. I tried to keep the stressful trot to one small circle or so, and go back to walking where she can stretch and be more comfortable with her existence. 

So, yeah, I got back on her and haven't felt like I'm going to die, yet. I'd love it if she could be less offended by work in general, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. Arya gets tonight mostly off (except I want to use my new flexible curve on her to measure her weirdly shaped self) and I'll hopefully be back on her tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on schedule. I tried to even out several years worth of grown over gopher mounds in my current pasture and then seeded it to hopefully head off weeds, and now my back is a mess and I got my first sun burn of the year, so I figure... let's jump BB tonight and enjoy riding the forgiving creature in my herd vs the #mostoffended.

All of the updates

There hasn't been a lot to write about lately, but I think I finally have enough of a backlog of small news to be worth a whole post...

Apps

I've been using two apps for my horse stuff management so far, and I like both of them. I've been using HorseNotes for vet and farrier tracking, and like the aspect that lets me track the costs behind various things. I think it will really help me plan for future vet visits and budget. The application itself is a bit rough, but the online version is very usable. My one dislike, as the owner of several horses, is that I haven't figured out if I am able/how to make reports of multiple horse's vaccination records. In my frustration, I ended up creating a google sheet with similar information, and may end up abandoning HorseNotes for the most part. I like having everything in a nice app, but it may be easier for my sanity to only use Google Sheets, as I don't have to struggle with the reports then.

Bailey's Vaccination History from the app - I would suggest using the online version, but it's a good idea!

The second app I have been using is called Tally. Tally allows me to track and tally 3 items (free version) and view metrics on them, which is perfect so far for measuring hay and bedding usage. I am measuring in half bales and half bags of pellets, which is a bit annoying, but the best way to track my items. The app makes cute instrument noises when you tally something, which is amusing. It's easy to open the app and tap and while I still struggle sometimes to remember to do it, I could probably fix this with a phone reminder before bed each night.

I also still enjoy playing with Equilab, but have really inconsistent data, as some days it does not pick up the gaits at all, which denies me pretty modern art swirls. I do like being able to track my apps, and while I do miss "Track My Hack" from Woofwear, which provided less data but at least picked things up much more consistently, it's still fun to have the app when it works. I don't lose anything by turning it on, so I think I will continue to use it until something better comes along.

Arya

Arya's ground work continues to go well. I had a great session with her earlier this week and had her jumping over hay bales, which made me really happy. She is still very stuck on yeilding her shoulders and I'm struggling to find a way to explain it to her; my usual method of teaching a horse to step over works on her hind end, but I can sit and poke/tap/slowly escalate the cue on her shoulder and she just stands like a statue or backs up.

She has been less of a struggle to catch lately as well, but busted her record last night, so I had to remove all the other horses and was finally able to walk up and put her halter on with no fuss. I'm going to have to work on this every day, whether I like it or not, or I won't be able to put her out on pasture and be able to catch her. I also have spent a week being angsty about wanting to get her back under saddle and start enjoying her, and I'm hoping that with the snow finally melting I can start re-backing her safely. I have eyeballed some trainers to send her to, and have the blessing of husband to send her if I feel the need to, but I also am wondering if I just need to grow a pair and get back on the beast (perhaps with some Perfect Prep on board). Part of me thinks that I just need to get back on with someone to lead me around and stay out of her face, and try to make some tack changes to make her happier, and part of me thinks that I really need to find a way to be a more authoritative rider in general.

Other things to report with her are relatively uneventful - she's finishing her taper of Nexium this week, and I am still pretty happy with the results. She is always going to be a hot, excitable young horse, but I feel that she is easier to handle and her stall is still cleaner. Adding to her stall being cleaner, I think I am finally going to give in and move some things around in her stall this weekend. She likes to stand with her butt to the door of her stall, and I've noticed she's been eating less and less hay, so I've been hanging a hay net back where she stands... and voila, she eats more hay. This weekend I plan to move her hay hoop to the back of her stall so I don't have to deal with hay nets anymore and will move her buckets away from the door and her butt, so hopefully I have to deal with her pooping in her bucket less.

BB

Bailey and I have been slowly carving out rides on the road after trying to have a nice canter in the field last week and both of us taking a tumble in the snow due to some hidden ice that definitely wasn't there the last time we rode in the same spot. We had a great roading session a few days after the fall including some hand gallops and lots of trot work. Bailey actually feels pretty good - her buttons are all still there, and I don't think she's as out of shape as I like to pretend she is. We got hit with a blizzard last weekend, so I've been letting her sit again. This weekend we're being promised temps above 50, and I'm planning a ride this afternoon as the ring is partially melted out. Hopefully by the weekend I will have a (wet) ring back for full time riding! I'm hoping to do a light ride today to knock off the dust, and maybe do a few small jumps before the weekend is out.

Hopefully I'll have more writing-worthy items soon - I'm eager to get back on my girls and start getting back to it!

There's Probably an App for That

Hi Friends!

I haven't frozen to death, despite more snow, and then more snow... and last night, a dusting of SNOW! My favorite </sarcasm>

 

Anyways, I have been trying to keep up with my barn chore tracking, plan ahead and figure out what vaccinations my horses need (because shout out to the vet who totally gave the horses double vaccinations from their spring shots this fall, what the HECK was I thinking?!) and plan for the farrier this week.

I am, however, really bad about paper. I like paper. But I forget it exists. So my hay tracking sheet already has some question mark ridden squares because I forgot I had a tracking sheet this weekend. And it just dawned on me that there has to be a better way to do this.

So, do any of you use apps to track horse related information? I think  it's time to get high tech!

I am considering going low end and just creating another google calendar to track horse stuff, but I have so many different calendars already that it's getting kind of bulky and annoying. What I really want to track is barn related items - use of hay and bedding, putting in feed - but I also really want to track vaccinations and follow up from the vet, since that is apparently a mess, as well.

Because taking pictures of vet bills is lame

I swear I used to be able to keep track of all this stuff, but apparently I don't have room for this in my brain anymore. Am I getting old?

Maybe I just need naps.

Winter, Over and Over and...

We keep peeking into spring and then descending back into winter here on the farm. Days in the 40's and 50's give me hope and motivation (and really, really shitty footing) and then it snows and I descent back into sitting on the couch staring out of the window.

I have been reading books, and watching videos, and have ranted and raved at my IRL friends about Arya and her training. First of all, a big fat public thank you to Carly for sending me a book (YAY BOOKS) that I have been reading my way through. I also have been heavily considering and think I am going to save up to do some round pen ground work with the husband of my former barn owner who has a really nice way with natural horsemanship type methods, and uses the methods on his wife's eventers, so he has experience with applying natural horsemanship/good horsemanship to sporthorse types. Soooo I shall say again, if you need any used tack off my list (or if you need something I may have) please hit me up!

Her training has still been inconsistent, in part because of my own inconsitencies. I have resolved to only work with her when I have the mental fortitude to be 100% fair and there for her. I can't phone it in with this horse - she needs consistency, and she needs to feel like I am being fair. I also need to be in it to win it, because I have to win if she challenges me. I've been trying to ground work her every few days, but the arena's state has made things difficult. We had a great session where she worked over a board on the ground and went from shutting down and running backwards to walking over it like it wasn't no thang, and also managed a feat (walking down the driveway and interracting with garbage cans) that Bailey could not even the previous day, so I was really pleased with her. Our last session, yesterday, was after too many days off due to weather and laziness on my part, and showed it. We were back at step one to catch her, step one for walking out of the paddock away from the herd, and she was unfocused, pushy and defaulted to her trying to not pay attention to me and just do what she thinks I want, which usually involves trying to run through my aids in the opposite direction than the one I am asking her for. I'll get her back out tonight, or maybe Wednesday, as I like to give her brain time to cool off, and try to keep things more scheduled.

Also, she is 5 today! Happy birthday, gigantasaurus baby horse!

Bailey has been working a few times a week, as well, and while our work is super boring flatwork (again, my arena sucks!) she does seem to have acclimated to working outside of the ring very quickly for her. The first day I asked her to walk down the driveway, she was a mess. Walking down the road was a challenge, but she chilled out and hacked around the paddock perimeter happily. The next ride we rode in what will soon be one of my back pastures, and she was very good. I am going to try to keep making lemonade on this one and do work outside of the ring until it's gotten past it's current very treacherous state - good for me, good for the pony and good for not dying because we're trying to work in a ring where you randomly punch through the ice to 3-4" below, and other times you're riding on ice with an inch of water on top and other times you're on snow with god knows what underneath. I've been experimenting with the Equilab app, as well, with mixed results. I like when I get the pretty rainbow circles, but so far haven't had a ton of consistent luck!

On the farm front, I have been selling some extra hay (yay, money!), though recently discovered that the water I realized was coming into my hay shed was much higher than I thought it was and has probably spoiled the bottom layer of the grass bales, which totally sucks. It don't feel like too much of a waste as I've made back a good amount of money selling the layers above the bottom, but my soul does wither at the idea of wasting hay, even if it's older grass hay.

One thing I wish I had done was actually record how many bales I used this year; obviously I went through a span where I only had two horses and the donkey, not three, but all I feel like I know at this point is that I use, approximately 2 bales outside daily and .5-1 for inside hay. As I planned, the horses came inside at the beginning of October and will hopefully go out full time in May, meaning that I will have needed 212 days of full time paddock hay (and may need a bit more to get me through until the pastures are in and fenced. If I use 212 days for math's sake, that means I should have bought 636 bales of hay, assuming I used 1 bale inside each day, which is definitely not always the case. I bought approximately 800 (though some of the hay was used before October 1st, so perhaps I can say 775) and just sold 190 bales, and still have what is probably 150 (or more) bales left. Clearly, my hay math sucks.

I'm going to record what I use until the horses go outside; I really need to be more actively organized so I can plan better for next year, especially if we're baling our own hay. I'd like to make sure I have a surplus again, but I'm not sure 190 bales (plus those that were wasted) was the kind of "surplus" I had in mind. I also hit a Purina sale at the feed store, and bought more feed than I probably should have. However, I will be able to easily figure out how many bags I go through until it's used up and I won't have to do emergency runs to the feed store any time soon.

Hopefully, having removed some of the errand-y, stressful parts of farm life for a little while, I can get back to focusing on what to do with my manure, mapping out new pastures and estimating materials for them, and, of course, enjoying my girls.

Friday Ask

Hey friends,

I am feeling the need to pick up some books to help guide me and hopefully light the training fire in me again. In particular, I need a good book on ground work - I do want to take Arya to work with a trainer when I can, but for now, I don't really want her to just hang out and become more and more feral.

So, do you have any favorite training related books?

Also, if you've been eyeballing anything on my sales list, please make me an offer! I'm motivated to de-clutter my life - and to build up my funds so I can find myself some boots or half chaps that don't make me hate my life :)


Happy Friday!

Aimless Updates

Hey guys,

I'm being a terrible blogger again. There's not much to say, at this point, because I haven't ridden in a week (this needs to change) and honestly... once again the fire has gone out. I don't have any competitions on my radar and we got more snow earlier this week so I haven't been hugely motivated to ride. Here are some updates, though, to prove that I'm still alive:

ARYA:

Arya started the Nexium "experiment" last Friday and while she's not in work currently, I have noticed some positive changes. The most noticeable change has been her stall; she's much tidier of late because she seems to be stall walking less. She is, weirdly enough, leaving more hay behind in her net, but I have also moved to feeding higher quality hay outside (and moving to sell some of my lower quality "outside" hay) so she may just be eating more outside. She is finishing her dinner better and has been walking up to me outside a lot more when she was previously giving me the cold shoulder. I haven't gone out to catch her this week due to an outrageous work schedule, but I plan to start bringing her out and get back to work soon. I did get blankets off everyone and groomed them, and while she wasn't perfectly well behaved, she seemed less anxious about me messing with her. Some of her "negative" behavior is OTTB baby - she's just not used to being groomed loose in her stall, and she's still got some ground manners to learn - but I feel like the Nexium has helped take an anxious edge off of her and I'm looking forward to starting to work with her again.

BB:

Bailey has been slowly coming back to work. Her last ride was *super* exciting because some idiot kid came skijoring past my house behind a car going about 40 miles an hour, SCREAMING at the driver to stop. She worked herself up into a good sweat being excited and spooky, but did good hard work for her rather flabby out of shape self, and went back to work well after losing her mind a bit over the exciting interruption.

BIZZY:

A while ago now, I popped up a post and then quickly took it down, intending to put videos in it that actually worked. However, because my life is a dumpster fire, I never got it put back up.

The big, annoying, anxiety causing gist of the post was that Bizzy seemed to be refusing to sleep. I have many videos of her snoozing, appearing to fall in to a deeper sleep and her head and body slumping, and then her front legs buckle and she nearly goes down. This can happen several times in the span of a nap, too.

I've been solutioning the issue, trying to not change too many things at once. I deeply bedded her stall, and tried a week of bute. I did get her to lay down that week, but was worried about extended time on bute and her front left fetlock picked up it's trademark "owie" which she seems to acquire tripping or doing her nearly falling routine. It's hard to know how she gets it when she spends a large portion of her day out of my sight, either in the areas of the paddock I can't see, or I'm not home at all and am unable to keep an eye on her. The next thing I tried was upping her MSM from 10,000 mg to 30,000 mg. There's a thehorse.com study that talks about MSM at that level, and so far, the higher dose of MSM plus putting a Back On Track sheet seems to really be helping.

It doesn't look like she lays down every night, but warmer weather and the BoT sheet seem to really encourage her to lay down. She happily lays down and rolls outside, so I'm not sure why she hesitates to lay down and sleep. It's definitely getting better so fingers crossed I'm on the right track! I can tell her body has taken a beating at some point - she had a pretty lengthy career as a race horse, made some babies, and has been juggled around a fair amount. I am pretty sure she hasn't had decent nutrition - her hooves are a mess, and she's got a very dandruffy coat - and I am pretty sure she wasn't handled nicely at some point, because she's very spooky about having her head petted (though she doesn't flee). She does seem to really benefit from the Back on Track sheet so I am going to try to keep using it as much as I can to help her.

DONKEY:

Kahlua is also not benefiting from my lack of motivation - she is broke to lead (minus donkey moments of refusing to move) and only tried to kick the farrier a little bit - but my plans ot get her loading haven't yet come to fruition. I'd like to utilize a low cost vaccinations clinic coming up in about a month and a half, so loading lessons need to start back up again for all of the beasts, including her.

A Week's Recap

Sorry this has taken some time to write; I keep waiting for the chiropractor's notes and I still haven't gotten them.

 Arya went to the chiropractor on Monday - weighing in at an impressive 1200 lbs and change when she got to the University clinic - and got her lower back and poll, in particular, worked on heavily. She was a nervous and anxious girl (though some of the adjustments definitely felt good enough to stop her from wanting to walk or look or be #anxietymare) and the doctor told me she'd bet money Arya has ulcers. She also showed me some interesting items from an angle I don't normally get to see; from on top of her adjusting blocks, the doctor took some photos with her iPad and showed me how uneven Arya's haunches (her butt cheeks, really) are from the top. I've always thought her tail placement was... odd.. and that she had a weird shaped back end, but generally don't complain because clearly there is a lot of power there. However, from the muscle differences (which are huge) the Chiropractor is guessing that no one really rehabbed her after her surgery (I am, frankly, not totally surprised about this) and building up her muscles and evening her out is going to be an important next step in going forward. She also, very delicately, pointed out that Arya doesn't yet trust me and that a trusting relationship would go a long way to help me keep her calmer and more controllable, and move past the hurdles of our escalating issues because we'd be working on a basis of trust.

Weird butt.

And while I have always been trying to take it slow and be patient with Arya, the last couple months haven't left me with a lot of spare time for long, chill grooming sessions, nor has the weather really encouraged anything other than hurrying to do chores and get back inside before my face freezes off. Nature hasn't been kind to Arya and I's relationship, and that is an uncomfortable truth that I have to deal with. So starting on Monday when I got home, all plans have been put on hold, indefinitely. I plan to bring Arya back to "work" this weekend with some lunging and have been trying, all week, to slowly start putting credits in the trust bank. With Arya's feral nature right now, this means I've been working on approaching her and doing something brief and positive, like rubbing her ouchy/itchy spots, petting her, telling her she's a good girl, a quick treat... and then I leave her alone. I haven't been catching her, and we haven't gone back to work yet.

Both Arya and Bailey, because Bailey is a total follower, have gotten it into their heads that running away from me is a super fun game, so I need to nip this issue in the bud. I need to be able to walk up and catch them, whether or not they think they're going to be worked or not.

Besides spending lots of time out there, do any of you have any methods that have worked well for the hard to catch horse? I know I need to not chase... it's my weakness but I hate it when they run from me, because they think it's quite fun and it irritates me.

On the ulcers front, I am running with this post from Cob Jockey and am starting Arya on Nexium tonight. I am going with the dirt cheap route, using Costco's generic, which cost me 14$ for 21 days worth of pills. I also am heavily looking at changing Arya's feed (and probably everyone, because why not) from regular "blue bag" Ultium to the "purple bag" Ultium Gastric Care. I haven't used it before, and I'm not 100% sure I believe the mumbo-jumbo but it's a 0$ change (the bags cost the same, or slightly less than my blue bag), and that's the kind of money I have to spend right now.

Other than that, I did get a ride in on Bailey - over the weekend, and Wednesday. Talking with S, who owns Bailey's mom, the whole "being a bear to get back to work" runs in the family, so I tried to not be so gloomy about it, and shocker, being less gloomy made riding more pleasant. We're just doing basic W/T/C right now, but I am thinking I may drag out some jumps because even I am getting bored with that.

So yeah, we're existing over here.