Mid-week critter: Hey, I was reading that!

Freya has discovered that if she sits on my book, I'm quite likely to pet her before extricating the book from underneath her.

She only does this to MY books, not my husband's. Hmmm...

Home again, but still a card-carrying member of the lame pony club

Saga came home from the vet last night. Apparently he was much recovered from when I brought him in, although still not 100%. Despite blocking him to the knee, we don't actually know what's causing the lameness. At this point, we're treating him conservatively, with stall rest and 1 gram of bute daily. He gets handwalked for a week, then a week of tack walking, and if all goes well then I can start bringing him back into work.

Since Taran is still occupying the stall, we converted the barn aisle into a (large) stall for Saga. One of the things I did when planning the barn was to plan to make it modular, so this isn't quite as awkward as it might sound. The biggest issue is that my panels aren't quite the right size for the aisle (they are an awkward 9'8 inches, and the aisle is closer to 12' wide), and I never put in the hinges on the walls to mount the panels on. Oh well, we made do with what we have on hand.

Not exactly the classiest setup ever, but it works.

Of course, almost any suboptimal situation can be remedied with large applications of hay and alfalfa. Nomnomnom.

Unfortunately, Saga's still lame. I think he's worse today than yesterday, but that could be because he spent last night on sand instead of on stall mats. We did about a 20 minute hand walk and he was definitely short on the left front. I gave him 2 grams of bute tonight (instead of just 1) so hopefully that, combined with the stall setup in the aisle, will get him back on track. If he doesn't improve over the next few days... that's a tough call. As I understand it, the higher up in the limb you go the harder it is to pinpoint the problem, so it's not clear how much use more blocking his entire leg would do us. I'm considering calling out a vet I've used before who does acupuncture and massage/chiro work to see what she thinks. Hopefully a miracle will occur and he'll heal with stall rest though... keep your fingers and toes crossed!

Saga joins the lame horse club

Last Wednesday, the night before I left town for an imprompt visit to my my parents, Saga came up lame. Of course. Naturally, the hubby was out of town too.

Since he was really quite lame at the walk, I hauled him to the vet that night. We blocked his foot and his pastern, but he didn't come up sound. So, we left him overnight for Dr. Joyce (the one who did the surgery for Taran) to re-evaluate in the morning, while I went off to visit the 'rents. The ended up blocking him up to and including his knee, and he still wasn't sound, so we decided to keep him on stall rest for the weekend and give him bute.

Today, I went out to visit him, and he was walking much better and looked better at the trot too. Dr. Joyce wants to do another evaluation tomorrow morning, but hopefully she'll send him home for continued stall rest and he'll be good as new in a couple of weeks.

We went for a bit of a walkabout. First, we went and ate the three green blades of grass that were available.

Next, we went to the arena for a roll in the sand.

And get in a good belly-rub.

Of course, we had to stop and smell the poop.

Also, I think Saga's starting to get a little poofy, despite it being 101.9 degrees today. Is anyone else seeing some winter poof starting on their horses?

Mid-week critter: Dog beds - apparently a difficult concept

Elias has a little trouble with the concept of how to properly use his dog bed.

Exhibit A: Dog actually in dog bed. Note that it's the wrong dog in the bed, but I'm using this for illustration purposes. No Great Pyrenees were harmed in the making of this photograph.

Exhibit B: Dog butt in dog bed. Remainder of dog seems to be running off.

Exhibit C: Dog next to dog bed. Fail.

Exhibit D: Half a dog is better than none?

Exhibit E: How can this even be comfortable!?!?

Exhibit F: Now more like a doggy speedbump, since he's right in the walkway. Notice the nose smooshed up against the door.

Exhibit G: The middle half of the dog.

Exhibit H: Sigh. Just, sigh...

Final Exhibit: I guess it makes a good pillow?

About like I expected

Last night for the first time in ages, I took Saga out for some actual dressage work in an actual dressage saddle. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us to get back into the swing of things.

I focused on keeping him slow at the trot by engaging my core, and for the most part it worked well. I just now have to learn how to breathe (and not pass out) while my core muscles are tight - but that's a minor detail. He worked really well off my leg in both directions, although there was some falling out on the left shoulder when we first started off. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone, but the more I stayed out of his face and steered with my legs, seat, and shoulders, the softer he was and the easier he was to move around under me. When he got behind the vertical, I'd give him a little nudge with both legs, but I need to learn to relax the core a smidge (not flopping) at the same time. More to work on for sure.

I noticed he was tipping his head quite dramatically to the right when we were going to the left. I think this is a relic from hunting the past two weekends, as my hubby tends to ride with one hand higher than the other. I didn't move my own hands when this happened, but kept a soft contact and asked for inside bend with the left leg. He worked through it and the episodes disappeared by the end of our ride. I also noticed that he's got a dry cough that seems to have appeared since hunting Saturday, and he was doing it again this morning while eating breakfast. I'm not sure what's causing it, but I'm keeping an eye on it and will take him in to the vet if needed.

Right-lead canter was sort of a train wreck. The first two times I asked, he ran at a trot for half a circle before I brought him back. We finally got a few semi-ok transitions, but he felt unbalanced under saddle. I have a hard time keeping my core tight and sitting up in canter transitions, so I don't think I helped him any at all. Of course, he then started anticipating the transitions, throwing his head up and tipping his nose right and "hopping" in the trot, so I changed directions and asked for left lead canter. That one definitely felt more together and balanced, and the transitions were better too. We went back to right lead and got two reasonably clean transitions in, and I called it a day on that. I'm wondering if I should get more canter in earlier in the session as part of warm-up and see if that helps him any.

I'm hoping to get Carol Patty back out for a few lessons over the next few weeks - I really got a lot out of our last ride with her, and now that it's cooled off I'm excited to get back into it. I'd like to have the goal of a schooling dressage show by the end of the year, but frankly foxhunting's more fun, so I may just concentrate on keeping the horses fit for that. Choices, choices!

'Cause I'm cheap

We all spend a lot of money on our horses. The best hay and feed, supplements, custom-fit saddles, vet, chiro, acupuncture... the list goes on. So I tend to cut a few corners where I can, 'cause at the end of the day, I'm actually kinda cheap.

I keep fly masks on all the boys every day during the day, and normally each horse uses one fly mask per season. This year with the heat, fly season has extended long past its usual time, and the fly masks are all looking a little worse for the wear. Mine usually tear along the seam on the cheek, and this year is no exception:

Torn right at the corner.

In order to squeeze them through another couple of weeks ('cause let's face it, new fly masks for 4 horses is $100), I did a little ghetto repair job on them. If you have a sewing machine and know how to use it (or can fumble your way through using it), then you can also do a quick fix and limp your fly mask along for a little while longer.

First off, you need a piece of fairly sturdy fabric or webbing that's double the length of the tear plus about three inches. I had some extra upholstery-grade linen bias tape laying around from another project that was just right. It's about an inch wide. You'll also want a heavy-duty needle in your machine as you will be going through several layers of thick fabric.

Next, you want to run a zigzag stitch down the frayed side of the fabric on the fly mask. This is to help prevent it from fraying further. Also, don't cut the bits that are still holding the pieces together, as any cut edges will only fray faster.

Using your zigzag stitch, sew the support fabric to the back (inside) of the fly mask on the side that's most intact.

Here's what it looks like when the first side is done. I'm about to start sewing the second side, the side that's badly frayed. This is a bit more tricky, so take your time and be careful not to catch any of the frayed threads on the fly mask.

Here's what it looks like with both sides done. Notice that I've sewing far to the right of where the mesh fabric has frayed - that will help keep it from fraying more. Also notice that I've gone over it twice with the zigzag stitch - that will also help keep it secure.

Here's what it looks like from the inside. Not terribly neat, but functional enough.

Now, fold your support fabric over the edge of the mask, and line it up. All those messy ends are now covered, and you didn't have to cut them!

Sew both sides down with the zigzag stitch, and fold the end under so that you don't have any raw edges (if you're using webbing, you can burn the edge and just sew it, no need to fold it under). You may need to go slower because you're sewing through additional fabric and your machine may have a hard time with it.

And here's what it looks like all sewn down. Just nip off any stray ends of thread, and you're set to go!

Another day hunting

This morning, the hubby, Fuzzypony, Foxfire, and I went foxhunting. It was Foxfire's first time out and I'm pretty sure he had a blast!

Foxfire (on his horse Ziggy) and Fuzzypony on Moose (a borrowed horse). We're waiting to get going...

Everyone's all queued up and waiting for the hounds to catch a scent, except that they never really did. It's so dry that apparently the animal tracks are nearly "unsniffable". We didn't see any animals at all, but we still had a great time!

The four of us started off first flight, since the person leading second flight this week tends to lead fairly slow rides. Reddums and Saga were MUCH more manageable this time around - Red's frustrated rooting tendencies were all but gone, and I think he was very happy to have breaks in between the gallops. There were 9 people all told in first (not holding lines or with the hounds), and Reddums and I tended to stay toward the back of the pack, but he can sure keep up with the big boys when he wants to! The hubby had a much better ride on Saga as well, and the two of them are really starting to get along.

I discovered that when you go first flight, there are significantly fewer photo ops!

I often can't see what I'm photographing due to glare on my iPhone screen, so sometimes I end up with pictures of the oddest things. Here's a nice shot of Red's neck, lol!

The most exciting moment of the day (for me anyway) was when Saga's brand-new Easyboot Gloves self-destructed on a gallop. Saga was perhaps three lengths in front of us when I saw the pads go flying through the air, and then a boot when whinging past my head. It was sort of like being behind an 18 wheeler whose tires are destructing - I wasn't quite sure when the next piece of rubber was going to fly by! Of course we were galloping hell-for-leather at the time with no chance to slow down and deal with malfunctioning equipment, but as soon as we slowed up, I hopped off Red, pulled his boots off (one of them had come loose, but he's wearing Easyboot Epics and not Gloves), and checked Saga over for damage. Saga was fine, although the only thing left of his boots were the gaiters! We left Red's boots under a shrub and continued on (we did go back to get the boots later, and actually managed to find all the pieces of Saga's boots as well). Both horses did great without boots, so I think it the future we won't use them when hunting. All the hunt fixtures are quite sandy, whereas at home it's much rockier, so I think we will keep the boots for home use.

Last week Saga went out in his original Easyboots and came back with both of them firmly attached to his feet. I think the difference was that this week we did a lot more fast work and the Gloves are just not up for that. If we choose to hunt on rockier fixtures, I will definitely need to think about glue-ons again.

Because it wouldn't be foxhunting unless we passed the flasks around!

The most direct route to the hunt fixture from our house is through Bastrop, the area that had the huge (35,000) acre wildfire two weeks ago. Last weekend the roads were closed so we had to go around, but this weekend we drove through. The destruction was heartbreaking. Houses were burned to the ground, with only the chimney left. Others were still standing, but the ground and trees all around were scorched, sometimes literally up to the front door. The entire area smelled of smoke, and the landscape was surreal. Hats off to the firefighters and other personnel who risked their lives to stop this fire, and my heart goes out to all those people who lost everything. Central Texas is really banding together to provide help for those folks - we are truly a great community.

Unfortunately we won't be able to hunt again for the next two weeks, but I'm trying to convince the hubby to go the weekend after that... ;)