New Beginnings

Rock bottom will teach you lessons that mountain tops never will.
[Word  Porn]

Two days ago, I sat quietly in the barn, late at night, sobbing silently into the neck of my oldest, most cherished friend Emmy.

It had been a week from hell. Between lame horses, a non-stop crabbing, crying baby, and feeling like a single mother in the face of my husband working long, late hours, I'd had enough.

Yep, you read that right. I said "baby."
______________________________

Three years ago I sat down and wrote my last post regarding my barefoot journey with both Cool and Johnny. Since then, both horses have come back to fairly successful soundness. Its been a never ending journey with its fair share of ups and downs. Some days are better than others for Cool, but somehow, I do still manage to ride a little.

Two years ago Johnny moved 1.5 miles down the road to my neighbors house. She's loved and trail ridden him ever since then, but just last week, her world came crashing down a little, and there is now a very distinct possibility that Johnny will be coming back to our farm in the next several months. When/if he does, it will be for good this time. I'm never letting him leave again <3 p="">
Two years ago, my husband and I also found out that we were expecting our first child. Killian was born in June 2017 and just celebrated his first birthday a few months ago.
_______________________________

Anyway, there I was, crying into the neck of thirty-one year old Emmy just like I had done so many times before in our relationship. Cool was in the stall next to her, he stuck his head over the divider wall and lipped at my hair, breathing warm muffled breaths into my ear. It was like being surrounded by the arms of my best friends. And in that moment, I suddenly thought about Johnny and I suddenly thought about this blog.

After a while, I wiped the tears away, fed my horses cookies and went back into the house. Killian was sleeping peacefully in his crib and I crept into his room, sat down in the arm chair in the corner and pulled out my phone. I found this blog on the internet and started at the beginning.

It took me two days to read the blog from start to finish. Part of me can't believe that its been almost TEN years since I first put finger tips to computer keys and began documenting my horse journey. I sat up late into the night and read about Johnny, about my college days, my horse shows and IHSA, I laughed. I cried. I cringed a couple times at my own childish stupidity.

But it was exactly what I needed. A trip down memory lane...a reconnection to my past...I'm not exactly sure, but it healed my heart in a way that I can't quiet explain.

Tonight, I put my baby to bed, went out into the barn and hugged and kissed both of my horses. This past year has been all about getting back to the simplicity of what brought me to this point in my life to begin with: my love of horses, but what I really needed, I think, was a swift kick in the pants. I needed my own words to steer me out of the darkness and back into the light.

Sometimes, life gets us down. And that's okay. The most important thing is getting back up. So here I am, picking myself back up off the ground, and looking to the sky. And part of that, is getting back to writing again. So I'm cracking my fingers, shaking off the dust, and getting back at it.

As always,

Peace.Love.Ponies.

Looking Back: A Year in Photographs

Can you believe it? Its actually been almost exactly a year since my last post...what a crazy, unthinkable, awful thing for me to have walked away from this blog for such a long time.

I was thinking about this blog today while cleaning my horses stalls, which is what made me come back to it to begin with. Scrolling through my hundreds of old posts, I realized something; there is history here. Not just mine, but the history of my horses, my life, my thoughts and my adventures. Its a timeline that I truly cherish.

Looking back through the hundreds of posts and photographs made me a little sad. Its like looking back through vacation pictures and wishing that you had spent more time appreciating the beach that you were sitting on, and yet all the while knowing that those moments are long gone and all that you have left of them are the memories, words and photographs that you used to document that time. I miss having no responsibilities really, living the "college" life that we all thought was so hard, until we hit the "real" world that actually was! The past year has been a whirl-wind, with my wedding and a few horse shows...trying to adjust to a new type of life being an adult and a wife!

There is far too much to document in words, therefore, sit back and enjoy as I sum up my year in photographs. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Peace.Love.Ponies.

New Goals

As always, the start of a new week brings about a new slew of goals that I attempt to weave into my life and accomplish daily. There are only a few weeks left until the next horse show for Cool, and since the last show he's only been ridden 3 times. Oi vey!

This morning dawned early when the alarm went of at 4:30am. Time enough for me to get up, pack lunches for the bf and myself and send him off to work before defrosting some pork for dinner while getting myself dressed and ready for the day. The dogs need to be taken out, dinner needed to get put into the crock pot to slowly simmer and cook all day. By 5:30 I was in the car and headed to the barn to see Emmy and Cool, turn them out and clean their stalls quickly before work at 7:30. They had a quick turnout in the snowy outdoor ring while I picked stalls and then came back inside just in time for breakfast. Emmy's right hind leg was swollen last night (and still was this morning) and she has taken a huge chunk off of her hoof....I have no idea what that silly mare did this time, but I've been keeping it bandaged. The farrier will be here next Monday to cut the chunk of foot off and re-shoe her and Cool.

Work was from 7:30 to 3:30 and was fairly uneventful. Afterwards I stopped back at the barn on my way home and tacked up Cool for a quick ride. Chels was there riding her warmblood and, after lamenting about our lack of time spent in the saddle recently and our quickly dissipating riding skills, we set out a single pole in the arena and just practiced cantering over it and seeing our distances. I have a hard time finding a distance on Cool...I just can't quite find the right canter step yet for him. Chels had some trouble too...we are both so out of practice! Thursday we are going to meet up to ride again after work and practice some more.

Cool's right front ankle has been puffy lately as well. I had the vet out recently to look at his face (he fractured it...go figure.) and mentioned it to her and had her look at it. She said that the tendons all feel good and she thinks that its the joint capsule itself. She told me to keep riding him as long as he's sound, but I think that I might get some Surpass for the fetlock...I know he's not off, but I hate unclean legs! And swelling is a sign to me that something is stressing that joint and causing a problem...maybe not right now, but certainly it could be down the road.

So here are my new goals for the next few weeks:

- Pole work 3x a week
- Jumping twice a week
- Equitation work
- Getting Cool rounder and bent more correctly, especially to the left!
- Take photos/videos

Thats all for now!

Peace.Love.Ponies.

A few photo updates

Here are some photo updates from last week's riding:

Oi Vey on the jumping position....George Morris would smack me if he saw this lol. I definitely need to shorten my stirrups a hole for jumping! That jump is also the out of a 4 stride line, and Emmy left like half a stride out! We trotted into the line, so it should have been a 5 stride line, but Emmy was like NOOOO ITS A FOUR! Lol Oh mare, she always thinks she knows best. However, I love her flat photo. That's my 26 year old baby!

In other news, the vet came out last Thursday and checked out Emmy and Cool. She pulled their coggins for the year and check their teeth. Cool has also had a lump on the side of his head for about 3 weeks. I was thinking that maybe it was in infected tooth or an abscess, but he had no nasal discharge and no bad breath. The vet checked him out and agreed that it was not a tooth. She actually thinks that its a mirco-fracture in his skull. Its a very bony lump with some fluid around it. Our vet told me to keep and eye on it and if it seems like its getting bigger than we will take some xrays, but as of right now, she thinks that its a fracture and unless you do surgery, there really is nothing to be done about it. It doesn't seem to bother him at all...I'll try to take some pictures of it for you guys.

Peace.Love.Ponies.

The Lead Fairy Part II

Many of you may remember a few years ago when I called upon the Lead Fairy to come down and pay Johnny a visit, which said fairy so generously did when Johnny suddenly began picking up his right lead canter. The same Lead Fairy must have paid Cool a visit over the past week because

WE DID FLYING LEAD CHANGES TONIGHT!

The left to right change wasn't very clean, but the right to left was almost perfect! I was SO proud of him!! This is the first time that I have ever really asked him for a flying change, lately it has just been simple lead changes. He was awfully fresh tonight, so I can only assume that this helped him a lot, but I was just SO pleased and amazed by him! We did a single canter pole, a 4 stride line of canter poles and then a set of 9ft bounce poles, followed by a small vertical on the diagonal before working on the lead changes. After riding, I fed him TONS of cookies and took him out for grass. After grooming him back off, I linimented his legs and bandaged them all just to be safe. His hind leg swelling has gone back to normal with a little bute, turnout, liniment, ice and stable bandages. I want to make sure that it stays this way! I didn't give Cool any bute today, so I am curious to hack him early tomorrow morning (before heading to the show again to groom) and see how he feels without the bute in his system. I'm wondering if he was so good today because he still had the bute in his system? I'll be curious to see...I think that he really need to see a chiropractor and get his back adjusted.

I didn't get to ride Emmy today, but that's alright because she was a LOON when I rode her the other night. Which is wonderful, because it means that my old lady is still feeling good, but she actually considered bucking me off! (Cool also threw a couple bucks in after jumping today...he was just full of himself!) I'm glad she feels so good, I can't wait to ride them tomorrow morning. I'm really trying to get back in riding shape...I used to ride so well and now my equitation is really terrible...and I haven't jumped anything of a reasonable size in FOREVER.

I keep taking my camera to the barn and then forgetting to use it...I wish I would have gotten a video today :(

Peace.Love.Ponies.

Food (and photos!) for thought

After a drought of a summer here in Ohio, Mother Nature has graced us with a pretty rainy fall...which is great for the plants, but bad for my riding! I managed to get Emmy and Cool both out for light walk/trot hack yesterday despite the rain. Cool was a ball of energy since the pasture was under water and he didn't get his usual 8 hour turnout...I really can't wait to have an arena to ride them in again! Emmy was perfect (as usual) although I have noticed that she's getting a bit sulky in her old age. I wish I had the money to inject her hocks and fetlocks so that she could feel young again! As soon as I get myself pinned down with a "real job" that's making decent money that's one of the first things on my list of "horse spoiling." She's never had any work done on her in the past 10 years that I've owned her, save for a massage once, and I can't even imagine how amazing she would be with some maintenance. I mean, come on. The horse can still easily jump a 2'9" oxer...can you imagine what she would do with new hocks? Buck me off that's probably what!

I'm seriously itching to get started working on Cool this winter. He puzzles me so much with his movement, body type and mindset. When you first look at him you instantly think "good gracious...that is the most nonathletic horse known to man kind." He's at inch too short in his legs and his back is 8 miles too long. He's over at the knee and his pasterns are too upright. Riding him only confirms that first impression...he walks so stiffly that there is zero swing in his back. World's best equitation horse right? Haha! But seriously...he's got no shoulder movement, no sweep to his walk and no swing. It's really weird to sit on. But then you turn him out and watch him let loose and play in the pasture and you go "holy crap! why can't he do that under saddle!?!" It's all a big ploy...that horse can go from a stand still to a dead gallop, barrel race through the corner and come back to a lope, LOPE across the paddock and do a perfect flying change, then run full speed again down the long side for a sliding stop right up to the pasture gate, where he will stand for a moment, then roll back 180 on his haunches and take off in a medium canter and let out a buck that could clear a working hunter fence. I'm not joking...that horse gets vertical (thank god he doesn't do THAT under saddle...) It's breath taking to watch.

Last winter, when I did get him going a little bit, I took him for an over fences lesson with a local A circuit hunter trainer who really liked him (despite his laziness). He's not ultra correct in his jump, but my absolute favorite things about him are that a) he's not scared and b) his canter is SUPER consistent. He had only jumped maybe 3 times ever and we did canter bounce poles, bounce cross rails and then made a little course of 4 jumps (bounce on the long side to a diagonal vertical, roll back to the opposite diagonal vertical) and he never even blinked. I have a feeling that there is greatness deeeeeeeeep down inside him...we just need to fight his halter Quarter Horse breeding and figure out how to unlock it! He's tough like Johnny was, but in a totally different way. Cool is bullheaded and belligerent, but in a strange, sweet kind of way. Johnny tried his heart out but just didn't always understand.

Probably the best that I ever got him to look under saddle last winter...and this was inconsistent at best.

The one time that we free jumped him...this was his first time really jumping anything. He's not naturally very tight up front, but neither was Johnny at first - I had to teach him to pick his legs up. At some point in my life I am just going to have to accept that Emmy is a freak and 99% of all other horses do not jump like her! Not too bad for (literally) a first attempt though.

 One of Johnny's first "real" jumps. No, I am not riding him and no, I do not advocate jumping without a helmet. This was a friend of mine who wanted to jump him. I remember watching him jump and thinking that he was dangerous with his front legs.

Johnny - Six months later (yes this one is me)

Johnny - 1 year later (also me) He always had a hard time getting that right ankle to tuck. He's got a big osselet or something on the outside of that fetlock...never really had it check out, but it limited his mobility in that ankle.

Johnny - Two years later. These legs are a little more "tucked" and not quite so "up" as I would have liked, but if I remember correctly, the height of this jump caught him off guard a little and I got jumped out of the tack a little (Johnny is the only horse to this day that has literally almost jumped me off his back. He was like pogo stick sometimes!)

Recent photo of Johnny giving a lesson in his new home. See? His front legs got better! There IS hope for Coolio! On a side note: check out that right ankle? His new owner injected his right navicular bursae and suddenly he jumps square...apparently that was what he really needed all along!

...compared with Emmy's freak jump. This was taken in June, so yes, she is 25 years old in this picture and the jump is 2'6". Not too shabby for an old lady!

More tomorrow.

Peace.Love.Ponies.