Dark Days

Warning. The following post is not happy and could be considered graphic in sections.

I thought my next blog post would be a happy one about the half and how I really felt pretty good throughout the whole thing. However, life doesn't always go how you expect. We had retired my horse last week in order to let him live out his life in relaxation. The first few days were great. His legs got a little sore from moving around so much but he was happy.

Then one day someone going by the property noticed blood from his nose. We had the vet out and she was worried. It wasn't normal blood. It was very dark and smelled awful. She put him on antibiotics thinking it was an infection. The symptoms looked better in day 3 so we thought we had turned a corner. By day 5 though thing were going downhill fast. Wednesday was day 7 and when I went to check on him things were obviously bad. I called the vet knowing we were at a decision point. I left work because my coworkers are amazing and covered for me. I met her at the farm and she immediately said our only option was to take his pain away.

O stayed with him and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. If that wasn't enough we had conferences Wednesday night and all day Thursday and Friday. All the while I was having to make arrangements for his move. It was horrific.

Tonight I'm going out to drink. A lot. So if you think of it, raise a glass tonSaint Lucas. He was one of my best friends and never let me down. He was the horse of a lifetime.

What a releif

I can love fall again! Remember how I said I wished I could gracefully decrease amount I worked at the barn? Well, it happened? The barn owner decided that she really needed someone who could work full time (duh,) and that I had too many things going at once. I'll still be a sub and my status at the barn is still in good shape. What a relief!

In other news, I LOVE college football! This year I get to watch again since I won't be working at the barn all the time.

Today's a good day.

So much yet nothing

• Mom and dad were here. That was fun. Mom and I went shopping and had a blast. I'm down a pant size! Woohoo! Also, The Limited is my new favorite store. Between their educator discount and sweet sales, I'm really not paying more than I do at Target.

• Saw Star Trek. Totally fun summer movie. My friend and I are going to see Harry Potter next week. I'm such a dork. Wanna come?

• My horse was Reserve Champion at the horse show last weekend. Go Lucas!

• Everyone has been posting nursery inspirations. I'm getting my photos together so I can share too. My ideas aren't as concrete as some, but they are there. Hopefully I'll post soon. :)

• PD at school tomorrow. It looks to be interesting, but I have a hard time sitting still for that long.

• Everyone I know is pregnant. That is totally adding to my baby fever.

• I'm enjoying So You Think You Can Dance. I've never watched it before but, despite a ridiculous judge, it is enjoyable. The dancing is really fun.

Long Holiday Weekend

My parents are in town for the long holiday weekend. I love my mom. She is one of my best friends. My dad is, well, my dad. I love him too, but damn he can be irritating. Now that they are getting older, his behavior is almost worse! They usually visit at different times. Mom will come for a week to hang out, shop, go to the barn, and all that good stuff. Dad will come for a weekend and we'll go out to eat and see a movie. That has always worked well. For some reason, the last couple times they visited, they have come together. That means I get less time with mom (they never stay as long when Dad comes,) and we don't get to do all the fun stuff Mom and I enjoy. Oh well, at least I get to see them for a few days.

On another note, my horse is showing this weekend. I've 1/2 leased him to a girl for the summer, and she is taking him to the show. I can't wait to go watch on Saturday. I showed him at this show last year. Here are some photos.





It wasn't our best show by any stretch of the imagination, but we had fun. Oh I want to show again!

Good Monday so far

I woke up at 5:00 today. I know that sounds unpleasant, but the barn owner gave me permission to come ride today since I had to miss Sunday due to a commitment at church. (As a rule, show barns are closed on Mondays.) I got up at 5:00, got to the barn a couple minutes past 6:00, had the place to myself while I rode, left the property at 7:30 and was home again a few minutes after 8:00. DH was still asleep! It was cool, quiet, and I was able to be totally efficient since I had the run of the place.

I think I'll have some breakfast and go to the gym here in a few minutes. Hopefully the rest of the day is as fabulous as the morning has been.

I'm tired, and that shouldn't be my job!

I left my house at 8:30 Sunday night to go to the barn. Why? Because a horse was sick. How is it my responsibility? Because everyone else who knows anything about horses is out of town. I so did not sign up for that. I got there at 9:00. The horse was in the middle of a mild colic. That isn't a big problem in people because we can burp and/or puke. Horses can't let any air or anything out of their digestive tract though, so if a horse colics, it can eventually lead to death.

Anyway, the lady who is staying at the farm saw that he was acting a little funny so she called me. I drove the 25 miles to the farm and knew that it was good I went. We called the vet and the owner, but after treatment he needed to be checked at least one time in the middle of the night. The owner had school today, so I got to do the 2:00 am bed check. Sigh.

I love horses, and I always want to do my best to take care of them. I don't resent him for getting sick. But my boss/barn owner is so understaffed right now, that I have to drive across the county to do this stuff that the person who lives on the property should do.

This probably only made a tiny bit of sense. I have a personal training session this morning. I can barely stand I'm so tired. And I have a super long day at work. Wow. For the first time, I really feel like using FML in my internet writing.

Well Poo

I didn't get to do either of the two activities I had planned this morning. I really wanted to go to church this am. On Christmas Eve I went to the Gathering for the first time. I'd been wanting to try this church for almost a year now, and I had a great experience on Christmas Eve. I went again the Sunday after Christmas. Again, it was a good service, and people were super friendly and nice. I've been wanting to go back so badly, but my horse has been injured and I've needed to take care of him on Sunday mornings. He has some suspensory problems in his hind end, and getting out and moving every day is the best thing possible for him. It's a fact of life that his welfare has to come before my wants. It's like having a 1200 pound kid!

On to today. I was going to ask my friend to give my horse a little TLC so that I could go to church. Well, when I talked to her last night it sounded like she was going to be really busy at the barn today, and I didn't want to make her life crazy so I didn't ask. I forgot that I had left her a voicemail on her cell saying that I wanted to ask a favor. Well, she just called and said that of course she would take care of my horse for me. Sadly though, it is too late for me to go to church. I guess it's good in the sense that it saves me money in terms of driving so many miles. At the same time though, I now don't get to do either of the activities I had hoped. :(

I guess this means I should start getting my taxes in order or take down the Christmas tree. Yuck and yuck.

I'm "Special"

Below is a picture of the snow as I cleared my car. As I went around the front, I looked down and saw this. I wondered, who in the neighborhood has a pony?! What is going on?



Oh wait, that's what the heels of my sneakers look like in the snow. I'm a dork.

A New Leaf

I called in sick to work today.  One thing though, I'm not sick.  Hee!  If they would just give us personal days, then I would have been happy to be honest about the fact that I was taking the opportunity to ride with a great trainer who was only in town for a day and a half.  But no.  If I were to even ask for a personal day, I would get a 10 minute lecture about how we don't do those.  I'm sorry, but everyone needs personal days once in a while.  We don't even have official sick days.  This was only like my third one in six years though, so I'm not even too worried about it.  However, I do feel a little guilty about the lying thing.

As far as the clinic goes though, it was awesome!  I rode well, Jeff Cook was a great teacher, and Luke was so much fun.  Thank goodness spring may finally be here to stay.

Horse Vent

So in competitive English riding, there are three main disciplines: Hunter/Jumper, Dressage, and Eventing. I do h/j specifically hunters. This was originally intended to simulate field hunting, so the jumps are made of natural materials, and the horses are supposed to flow around and not spook at stuff. Jumpers jump bright colored stuff and go fast. It is easy for lay people to understand because they are trying to beat the clock.

Dressage is the pretty dancing that you see with the riders wearing top hats.

Eventing has a dressage component, a jumper component, and a cross country component that take place over three days. Here is where my vent lies. The eventers are nuts! They have changed their scoring criteria and they have changed the cross country courses to be much more technical and difficult but have also lowered the required times to complete these courses. This means that they gallop, hell bent, for all these really tricky fences.

How is this different than jumpers you ask? Jumper jumps fall down! Cross country folks go galloping across natural terrain and jump solid fences that don't move when you hit them. That means that if a horse catches his front end on one, then he has a VERY real shot at flipping over and breaking his or his rider's neck. There was a front page article about this in the NYTimes a couple weeks ago. Then this weekend TWO MORE horses has to be put down because of falls on the cross country course, and a rider is in critical condition with a broken jaw, ribs, collar bone, etc. These are top level people, so you can't even say that novice riders are causing the accidents.

It just annoys me so much that so many horses have been lost in recent years due to ridiculous changes in the sport. It also worries me that animal rights folks won't differentiate between the disciplines and will start making trouble for all of us. Sorry for the rant. I'm just upset about the situation on several different levels.

Hunters


Jumpers


Dressage


Cross Country