Hippo

Allie loves the water, as do most ponies.


She likes to eat the water grass and put her face half under the water to blow bubbles. She's weird.

In ths one, she clobbers herself in the face, like the clever dumbblood she is.

This is about as exciting as it gets! I'm just happy to be on her again.

Hacking Out

Just a quick little video of Allie and I hacking out the back. We agist on a cattle farm/cutting trainers and the view is just stunning.

Making a special guest appearance are the poor Cavallo boots which are taking a beating, going through muddly puddles and dams..

Christmas Wishes

Christmas Day for me included three separate household visits (with three separate Christmas meals!), lots of presents and yelling over the top of each other and rainy wet weather. But not before Allie got to go out and be a real horse again in a proper paddock, and before that I put my jods and riding boots on and rode my pony!

She was super well behaved considering she has been on box rest for two months. Mostly just plodded along on the buckle. But she was so footsore. Even on the grass. The poor thing has lost A LOT of sole thickness and frog. Her soles are just shit. Box rest just ruins hooves.

I put a pair of boots I had spare in the truck on her fronts and she was fine even on the sharp gravel.

I think I will use this as an opportunity to try out a few different booting/tipping/glue-on solutions. See what works. 

Normally she doesn't need any protection even fresh after a pretty short trim. She can just go straight in the gravel at any pace, turning, etc as her soles are normally super thick and calloused. But that has all been lost now. :(

Anyway, onwards and upwards from here!

Did you get up to anything horsey on Christmas Day?

Want Want Want

This post is going to sound like a big fat whinge.

ANYWAY

I want to live on acreage with my horses at home. I want to trim for a living, full time, with the facilities to take on rehab cases. I want to compete my horse and have great success with her while barefoot. I want my trimming business to grow and grow and grow. I want to go to Uni and do a bachelor of equine science and have a lab and research hooves and biomechanics and all that good stuff. I want to have a child or two and not have to give up horses or trimming while still being a great mum giving my kids all they need.

I want to loose 15 kilos and eat like a healthy person and be fit and strong so I can trim for years to come. I want to be a good partner for my husband and give him everything he needs too.

How the hell do I do all that with the one little life I've been given? I'm 30 in April and I want to be in that place in 5 years and it totally isn't going to happen and I feel like I have wasted my life so far, piss farting around spending money and not saving and not educating myself early enough. Why did we spend so much frigging money on our wedding? We spend almost $50,000. Far out. That's a house deposit!

Anyway anyway. I just wanted to get that out.

...

We interrupt your (ir)regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you this cool pencil case.

You're welcome.

Follow Up Vet Visit

Very quickly - turns out the cause of the stress fracture was suspensory ligament damage! The suspensory up high on that leg is a bit messy and quite a bit larger than the other side. Had them both scanned today along with another set of rads. It's all healing.

Two more weeks in confinement. I've moved her to 24/7 turnout in the tiny dirt yard, as she is sick of the box and it's been quite dry. Then... One month of walking hacks out. Then another scan.

That takes us to early February.

But at least I can sit on my horse on Christmas Day. :)

Chugging along

Not much has changed over the last week, except Prince is no longer coming to us, his owner doesn't want to sell him anymore.

I've been bedridden with severe muscular pain in my back. Today wasn't as bad once the painkillers kicked in so I decided to draw.

I haven't drawn in something like 10 years. Pretty pleased with this one.

Ticking Along

So we are more than half way through the 6 weeks of box rest.

Allie is only now starting to eat her feeds again. She is normally accompanied by a friend when she is in the box, so she is pretty happy with that.

I did a sneaky quick trot up yesterday. She looked almost 100% sound.

Linda pulled her mane for me the other day. That's about the most exciting thing that has happened.

All I want to do is get her back under saddle again. I miss riding her. I miss seeing her be happy in a paddock.

In other news, meet Prince, the project pony:

He's a bit under weight and hasn't been in work all year. He's a 9yo OTTB that can jump apparently. Nat and I are going to put 12 - 16 weeks into him and sell him on, mainly to get him in a good home rather than to make any money. Hoping to get him to a couple of dressage days and maybe a show jumping comp or two. He is going to move to Allie's agistment next week hopefully (if we can get our hands on him). So that's exciting! I hate the name Prince though. What should I change it to?

GREAT NEWS

Gracie had another scan on her SDFT injury - the vet has pronounced her fully healed! He said it looks great! There will always be a small lump in the area but the scan showed a fully healed tendon.

Nat is very happy, as am I. :D

Rads

Here's the rads where you can see the fracture.

It's the split down the centre of the bone there, not the splint bone which you see at the back.

She's not eating now of course. Doesn't want her feed, paces constantly. She has a buddy in with her but she still won't settle in the stall.

I'm probably going to have to dope her up in rakelin to make life easier for her. Poor popo.

Diagnosis

Allie saw the vet today. After nerve blocks up to the hock and a bunch of radiographs the vet found something that made my stomach drop.

Allie has a stress fracture to the left hind cannon bone that is articulating with the tarsus (the hock).

Oh jeez.

We don't know how, probably just from stuffing around in the paddock like a mad thing. She is on 6 weeks stall rest (UGH) and will get another set of rads to see how it's healing at the other end of 6 weeks.

Because it's articular we are concerned that there may be complications depending on how it heals in the hock joint.

So, basically, my horse has a broken leg. I'M ALLOWED TO BE MELODRAMATIC. Shut up :(

:(((((((((

Allie Update

I spoke to the therapist and he said to ride Allie Monday and Tuesday to see if she would work out of it at all - below is a link to video (posting from phone so can't embed I'm sorry) to show how she went at the end of the two days of walk/trot work.

http://youtu.be/YOT6pVlbWlY

So - I think she is certainly not sound - but she is far less lame than last week.

I'm waiting to hear back from the therapist to see what is next.

Bush Fires

I live in Australia - Western Sydney to be precise.

Our winters are mild and our summers are hot, dry and windy.

It isn't even summer yet, and we have already lost over 200 homes to bush fires in NSW, the state I live in. While my home and my horse are not in immediate danger right now from fires, the whole of Sydney is covered in an eerie smoke haze.

I can smell smoke while sitting inside at my desk at work. I can smell smoke in my hair and on my clothes.

We had an amazing HUGE cloud of smoke billowing out over Sydney last Thursday, it reached over 100km (62 miles) away and dominated the skyline for hours and hours and into the night. The photos below were taken from over 60km away from the fire front.

This is Australia. This is summer. They call us the sunburnt country and it is for a very logical reason.

Trying to load a horse onto a float to escape from this is almost impossible. Natalie recently had a fire less than a km away from Gracie and luckily the wind was blowing it away from them because it took Nat and her boyfriend over 3 hours to get Gracie on the float with helicopters dropping water nearly over the top of them and flames reaching high into the sky, fire trucks and police screaming around the streets and thick black smoke around them. And Gracie is normally a self loader!

Above photo taken during the fires last Thursday across the valley from Springwood.

These are the risks we take to live in this lucky, wealthy, free and awesome country.

Hind End Lameness

My horse is still broken. :(((((

http://youtu.be/0uoDE9XtvwE

She has had two acupuncture treatments. Next step Vetsville I think. Ugh.

Basics

Last night, I went out to the horse and got her out, brought her up to the (deserted) barn, and groomed her. I haven't just hung out with her and groomed her in forever.

It was so lovely. She loves being groomed, and pointed out all her itchy spots to me. She especially loves having her mane combed out and I even combed out her tail (which I never do). While I was brushing her tail I felt like a 12 year old little girl brushing the tail of her first pony again, in the quiet of the barn, just my horse and me. It was lovely.

She was very light off my aids, she moved over from a light finger and an intention from me.

I finished up with a massage (of sorts). I ran my hands over her whole body with long, firm strokes.  She would turn her head and nuzzle me when she wanted me to stop and concentrate on an area and it was so cute to see her look at a muscle or an area when I finished with it like "oh, gosh that feels good now!". I will have to get a video of it.

She has shed out her (clipped) winter coat and has a glorious shine at the moment. I love how dark she is this time of year, before the sun bleaches her coat out.

Maybe, her being sore, me being sick is just a sign that I need to step back and just be with my horse again. I miss her like crazy and I LOVED just spending time with her last night.

Hopefully she gets better soon and we can start doing fun stuff together (like jumping!) but for the moment I think I can appreciate her for the miracle she is.

Poor Allie

Allie had a acupuncture/chiro appointment today. He thinks she is sore over the back from work which in transferring into her hips. :(

No work for her for a whole week, then he is back again to give her another treatment and see where she is at next Thursday.

Also, I think she got bit by a spider.

It's a huge lump with a long squiggly lump and smaller lumps dispersered through out. It's not sore and she doesn't react to palpation at all. It's been there for 4 or so days now. It's not going away any time soon!

God I hope she comes good again soon.

Whah!

I'm here to whinge. Please feel free to skip this one.

I have been sick. Not morbidly sick, mostly head colds and tonsillitis and sinusitis and it never ends. Every time I get back to about 80% I get hit with another one! It's been about 8 weeks now that I've been sick.

I nearly fainted so I went and had a blood test. Apparently nothing is wrong with me except I have low iron. So I'm on iron tablets which seem to be upsetting my digestive system.

The weirdest thing is that it's only my left sinus and my left tonsil that are having the issues. I've caught a head cold from my husband and I'm skiving off work this morning to go see a different doctor. I need to go see an ENT specialist.

The relevance to this blog is the fact that I miss riding! I've not ridden much at all over the last few months because I've been trying to get better. I have been paying Linda to keep Allie in a little bit of work and that has helped. Allie is going to Sam the eventing trainer on Saturday for two weeks - he is starting her over fences for me. I'm going to miss her!! But we think she will LOVE jumping and it will really help her with her flat work. Very excited to get her out to jump club etc. this summer (if I can ever get better!).

*edit - She's frigging lame. Hip hiking lame. Don't know yet what it is, looks like stifle to me. So no jump training until we sort this shit out :(

I've lost a bunch of trimming clients too, because I had to have two weeks off and then I was away for two weeks over the last two months for college. I have lost my trimming fitness. I used to be able to do 8 horses a day, but struggle to do 6 now.

Also, my beautiful ute was written off. :( I was driving home from interstate (passed my final exams for my equine Podiotherapy course! Yay!) and I was so tired at around midnight that I pulled over for a nap in an emergency stopping lane thingy. Luckily I was smart and slept with my seat belt on because a truck rim came off a speeding truck and hit the back of my ute!!

It bent my chassis and wrote off the car!! The truck did not stop. :( arsehole. I was terrified! I had no idea what had happened and it took me a good half hour to get the guts to get out of the car and have a look at the damage. I thought someone wanted to abduct me. :(

Anyway, now I'm truck hunting again. Ugh.

So that's what has been happening lately.

Allie Does Good

Linda has been riding Allie and OMG she is a different horse! We had been struggling with everything, she was chucking hissy fits and I felt like I was ruining my horse.

Linda just knows what she is doing, hey. She really really does!

I'm not going to bore you with the details but I am super excited to get back on that horse.

Gracie Gets a Holiday

So Gracie made a mess of her superficial digital flexor tendon on her left hind. Vet said box rest six weeks, hand walking, etc etc etc blah blah. It will be horrible mentally for her. She HATES being in a box.

Nat is taking her home to be able to care for her properly. Probably 6 months recovery time if she doesn't overdo things. :(

Gracie Grown Up

Gracie at 2 years old and again at 7 years old. <3

So, people ride their horses, right?

Because we don't.

Gracie has been kicking out at other horses and has cut herself and wacked her tendon too. Grrr.

They're both not in work. Neither of them are lame per se, but they are both recovering from injuries. Ugh.

Saturday, Allie's bandage comes off dammit and I'm riding her. Hopefully it's cold so I have an excuse to use my new pressie to myself.

Pretty, huh?

At least it's winter so we aren't missing much.

Life

What is life like for me at the moment?

Tl:dr version - I'm WAY too busy. So much so I have ended up with tonsillitis.

Well, we are trialling an early shift at work at the moment - 7am to 3.30pm. There are three of us in my department and we all take turns for a week - so every third week I get to have way more horsey/husband time.

My trimming business is going awesome. I trim about 50 horses a month, on top of my full time job. Normally 10 on a Saturday, then a few others once or twice after work during the week and I also trim on the first Sunday of the month too.

Linda has been riding Allie for me once a week putting some dressage schooling into her, plus a bit of tough love. She is a lot calmer at the tie up now, doesn't shuffle around and scream out for Gracie anymore. She is like a different horse. I don't know what I would do without Linda right now, because I certainly don't have much time for my poor horse anymore.

For myself, I ride every Saturday after I finish my trims for the day. I also try to ride on Sundays - especially the Sundays when Andrew is off racing his car (I love seeing this in our shared calendar because it means he is out doing something he loves and I get an extra horsey day!).

Nat and I share feed up at night - we take turns as to who goes out to feed during the week. I miss the horses so much when I don't see them. But it's nice sharing the load.

Our float is fixed and we have used it a couple of times to go to the vet for clipping and to go to the indoor once. Need to sort that out and get out there more!

Before Allie hurt herself we were working on inside leg to outside rein. I'm really struggling with it. I wish wish wish she hadn't hurt herself because I really wanted to get back on and work on it again! I guess I will just have to wait.

My Podiotherapy course is going well. I have so much homework and a massive 5000 word easy that I'm not even half way through yet that is due this month. I struggle finding time to get it done, I can't do it when Andrew is home as he doesn't give me peace and tries to talk to me all the time and the tv distracts me. And the cats distract me too - they're so cuddly! I try taking the laptop to work to write on my hour lunch break but I barely get anything done there either. Ugh. I need to get it done.

So that's it!! How do you make time for all you need to do? I need tips!!!

Ugh

So we were just getting Allie back in work when Linda (who is riding her for me once or twice a week) took her out yesterday, and Allie decided that it would be just awesome to flail her legs around and do this on the arena.

Awesome huh?

As far as injuries go it is a nice clean stitch job (vet call on a Saturday, thank heavens for insurance), no need for penicillin or bute, just keep it bandaged. She now gets two weeks off!

Horses!

Allie and I

I was snuggling with Allie last night in her stable.

Ever wondered what I sound like? Well, here's a video with me talking.

Slowly Bowling Along

We have been able to ride a little bit of late. It has been very wet however so we need to just grab a ride when we can.

Most of our rides have been on the weekend. Allie needs to have her oats cut! She has discovered that bucking, leaping and plunging can be fun. Ugh.

They are both getting clipped this coming Friday. I can't wait - my horse looks like a yak.

The owner of the property is expanding their paddock for us so they are in a (very grassy) yard for a week. They're loving it, however Gracie isn't handling having Allie on the other side of a door while they eat. -.-

Stranded

So my husband ran our float into a gate when we were moving. It's been parked in our driveway at the new granny flat since then, unable to be used.

He not only bent a rim and ripped off half my fender but he bent the axle too. >:@

It went in for repair today. Repairs are going to cost $1200. Will this teach him to take more care with things? Unlikely.

So much to do...

I have so much to do before I get Allie back in work.

#1 is to finish a course of antibiotics for a mystery only-one-nostril greeny-yellow snotty nostril. Vet said could be sinus infection, could be tooth infection. Ugh. So that needs to go away.

#2 is to get her teeth done. She's a little over due. See #1 for why I'm feeling guilty.

#3 is to get her clipped. She is as hairy as last year and sweats up a storm so that just can not work.

#4 is fix our float! My husband ripped off the fender and bent the rim driving it out of a gate while we were using it to love our stuff. :((((

#5 is to get the new agistment owner to get the flood lights working so we can start using them.

I thought I would be back in the saddle by now. :(

So much to do...

I have so much to do before I get Allie back in work.

#1 is to finish a course of antibiotics for a mystery only-one-nostril greeny-yellow snotty nostril. Vet said could be sinus infection, could be tooth infection. Ugh. So that needs to go away.

#2 is to get her teeth done. She's a little over due. See #1 for why I'm feeling guilty.

#3 is to get her clipped. She is as hairy as last year and sweats up a storm so that just can not work.

#4 is fix our float! My husband ripped off the fender and bent the rim driving it out of a gate while we were using it to love our stuff. :((((

#5 is to get the new agistment owner to get the flood lights working so we can start using them.

I thought I would be back in the saddle by now. :(

Quick Snaps

One of Allie looking like a fluffy quarter horse (getting her clipped ASAP!) and one of Gracie begging for food around the corner.

They're happy now at the new place. Happy and getting fat for winter. :)

Sad Face

The ponies are now on agistment and my husband and I are in my mother's granny flat.

:(