• Monday 1 - Uno's Fat Leg
• Tuesday 2 - Wound Care, Barefoot Uno?, Scene of the Crime
• Thursday 4 - Lack of Hopi Progress
• Saturday 6 - Uno's Mending and We Do a Longer Loop From Home
• Sunday 7 - Roop Makes the Back Page of Endurance News
• Monday 8 - AERC-ed
• Tuesday 9 - Blankies for Fergus and Hay
• Thursday 11 - Hay stacking
• Sunday 14 - Scene of the Crime Attempt 2
• Thursday 18 - Truck Upkeep
• Friday 19 - Horse Feet, Waterers and Freezes, Horse-Sewing, GPS
• Sunday 21 - Winter Arrives - well, lots of wet, anyway...

Back to November 2008 • Forward to January 2009 

Monday 1 - Uno's Fat Leg

A friend gave me some cordless clippers she won at a ride here in the US - she couldn't use them in England because of the different electricity. I've never had clippers before, so it's quite exciting - I can clip all sorts of things... the horses... the dog... the chickens... pft....

Uno's leg is still fat. I finally got the clippers charged up properly (apparently, if you plug them into a strip which you then turn off, they don't charge) and shaved the rest of his leg this morning so I could glop the Surpass on it. He was a very good boy and just stood quietly - loose - while I did it.

He looks a little more comfortable, but it's still so fat I'm not getting a good feeling about it. <sigh>. He does seem to be a bit of a drama queen - standing around with his foot pointing out, looking sad and pathetic. If he was a dog, he'd keep putting his poorly paw in your lap, I suspect.

Later that evening: So we just got home and I went out to doctor Uno, resolving to get aggressive with the swelling in his leg - to ice, and hose, and wrap, and..., etc

And I'm looking at his leg and it's a little less puffy. I can actually sorta feel tendons in there. So I pick his foot up
and I'm squeezing his tendons up and down, up and down, really hard, thinking "why isn't he flinching? There's obviously a catastrophic failure in his leg which he must be feeling and he hasn't been buted since this morning so he can't be numb from that...?" squeeze squeeze I go, and ... nothing. No flinching. No objection.

... but I can smell something nasty...hmmm... so I'm feeling around and I find he's got a great big scalp in the back of his heel.

Nice and deep, going in right at the coronet band, all squidgy and puffy and stinky and mushy. I'm guessing when he slipped he scalped the back of his heel and it's right at the hairline, sort of scraped so that the top of the hoof is flapped away from the foot.

I poked it and he went "ow".

I'd be wimpy and pathetic if it was me.

I hosed it just now, downwards into the cut and then glopped magic brown ointment in there. His pen is nice and dry, so hopefully it'll stay clean now that I've found it. 

Of course, this could be an ancillary thing and he could have done his tendons too, but he had no reaction whatsoever and I was squeezing as hard as I could. Fingers crossed

I didn't think his legs could be *that* wimpy. I mean, he's relatively big and strong, he shouldn't break that easily and abruptly I'm really hoping. I've been so bummed about the whole thing and trying not to and tying to pretend it doesn't matter, etc. but so bummed inside.

Tuesday 2

Wound Care - Being concerned about the smell to Uno's wound, this morning when I rinsed the cut out on high-pressure hose jet (Uno thought that was fun - not), I sniffed and inspected it carefully to see if I could detect any nastiness. The wound is pink and clean-looking (instead of mushy and black when I first found it) and doesn't have any odour, so I'm encouraged.

Barefoot Uno? - Here's an interesting observation. Uno is barefoot and the day Ann and I rode down to No Hands from Cool, he was really comfy on his feet - trotting out happily and I was quite pleased how well he was doing barefoot. But also remember that he'd been cooped up in his "nice dry pen", so his feet were dry and hard.

Fast-forward to two weeks later - he's totally gimpy. But by then I'd turned him out with Hopi and Roop - into the mud, so his feet would be softer and moister.

So I have the choice: sound horse that is unrideable and dumps me from being cooped up, or gimpy horse who's been self-exercising. Hmmm. Difficult choice.

Scene of the Crime - Late this afternoon I took Roo out for a spin down along the lane. As I was tacking him up, I noticed that the saddle was missing one of its velcro-on-knee blocks from the underside.

After searching the trailer, I concluded that it must have been ripped off the day Uno went through the bushes - keeping in mind he also ripped the sheepskin cover on that side, and managed to pop the GPS out of its pocket (and skewered himself in multiple places about the head and legs).

So Roop and I went searching. This is the first time I'd returned to the scene of the crime and it took me a while to figure out where it happened. I found a nice stout branch which I think is what I landed on, causing my butt bruise. And I found some poison oak (not as much as I remembered from my on-the-ground viewpoint).

What I didn't find was how on earth Uno got through those bushes?!?

I was in there on my hands and knees, pushing through manzanita and trying to find his footprints - it is thick, thick brush and I have no idea how he got through. As a result, I have no idea where my missing knee-block is. Maybe I'll persuade pft to go up there with me at the weekend to search more.

What's also funny is that I've ridden 20+ miles or so in that saddle since the knee-block came off and hadn't noticed - it's obviously a crucial piece of equipment.

Roop and I had a nice ride, even if we did have to negotiate a 3' high log - which Roop jumped on the way home (I was on the ground). I rasped a bit of his toes off and was able to get him into two size 0 Epics, but he still sounded clompy - I think he's clipping the back of the boot with his back foot, so I might rasp some back toe off and see if that helps.

Thursday 4 - Lack of Hopi Progress

Hopi's so strange. This morning he about had a cardiac arrest because I went in to his stall with a broom. <roll eyes>. He's definitely a work in progress.

I made him "work for food". He had to pick up his back feet for me, without leaving or being tense. And then he got an apple. Took a while to convince him it was worth the trouble - but those apples *are* yummy. Sometimes he's still not convinced, so I start eating the apple, making sure to slurp and smack as I do it. That usually causes him to reevaluate how much he wants it.

(Note that yesterday, both he and Roop has escaped sometime in the night and wandered about and consumed an *entire* bucket of apples that Ann brought from her overflowing tree. I'm surprised they din't both colic, the fat piggies. I should have known when they were so quiet during their outing).

Saturday 6 - Uno's Mending and We Do a Longer Loop From Home

He's still confined to his pen (not that he seems to care) so I can keep it clean and dry and so he doesn't walk 
around on it too much.

pft and I rode from home today and did 12+ miles with 2600' of climbing (and descent, since we came home again). We rode along Andy Wolf as far as the Powerlines, then down the Powerlines, across Greenwood Road and up Old Greenwood Rd (dirt) and rode around a mile or two of trails in the woods at the top. Then did the whole thing in reverse, only when we got to the top of the Powerlines (400' straight up in 0.3 of a mile!) we turned right and continued along Andy Wolf (although by then it's just a dirt rut) down to the locked ranch gate at the end and back.

We were nearly home when I realised we needed just one more mile to get us to 12 miles, so we dropped down the hill behind the house and rode down to the bottom and back up to the top (another good hill).

We were both a bit crunchy when we were done - tough trails with lots of overgrown-ness and ducking through bushes, etc. But we had fun and got a good ride in.

Chili came with us and looked pretty good afterwards, considering how far we went. Over Thanksgiving when we did that three mile fiasco-ride with Uno, she was super-creaky that evening which was worrying (she's 8 now).

I had to rasp off Roo's toes to get him in his Size 0 Epics. I'm still swaying back and forth - trying to decide if I should take the plunge and keep him in boots for DVE (and risk failing, since at this point I've not even put back boots on him - I need to get one more boot to make a set) or just put shoes on him and worry about it later (when I know that maybe I won't - I'll just chicken out and keep him shod).

We also need to get another pair of boots for Fergus - we only have two Size 2 Epics.

Sunday 7 - Roop Makes the Back Page of Endurance News: A friend pointed this out, since I hadn't even noticed, despite looking through the magazine - Roop and Sinatra figure in the back page advert for next year's National Championship. The funny thing is, although I'd recognise Sinatra, I wouldn't have recognised Roo. <grin>

Monday 8 - AERC-ed

Called the office and registered me, pft and Fergus. Fergus = AERC # H44323 - he's official!

Tuesday 9 - Blankies for Fergus and Hay

Last night I realised I didn't really have a blankie that would work for Fergus. I've got a shell (not v. waterproof) that came with Uno which fits him, and I have some coolers that are big enough - but they are of the Batman Cape variety and come down to his knees so aren't great for layering - visualise a soggy mess sticking out below the shell. So a trip to Walmart was in order to buy some inexpensive fleece to make him a cooler. I measured him last night and he's an 80! (most of the others are 70/72s). 

Preparations for DVE are underway - I got the big propane tank filled (golly that thing's heavy) so we'll have plenty of heat (most important) and bought two new stove gas bottles. And pft came home with three hot water bottles - just as important since we only had one and I wasn't sharing <g>.

My Walmart excursion proved very profitable. Although they didn't have any suitable fleece fabric, they did have some 90" x 90" fleece bed blankies for $20 so I grabbed a couple of those and a bunch of smaller throw-type blankies to make rump rugs out of. Unfortunately, I chose red for Fergus - a colour that turned out to look awful on him, so I'm hoping to exchange it for a navy one. Score of the week was two $15 super-chairs (most of our outdoor chairs have disintegrated). These are strange round folding chairs which are very comfy to lounge in. 

And lastly for $42 I got 100+ feet of rope lights to put up in the barn (the existing ones are starting to burn out and half the bulbs don't come on).

Next stop was Dave's Hay Barn in Shingle Spring to replenish my hay supply:

6 x three-grain - $12.99
16 x 70/30 grass/alf - $15
24 orchard/pasture - $14.50

Now all we have to do is stack it in the barn before the rain comes on Friday night... gulp.

Today I did the math: 40 bales lasts 4 weeks exactly - so we're feeding 5 bales a month per horse...

Thursday 11 - Hay stacking

pft and I got all the hay stacked last night when we got home from work - 5000+ lbs of hay. YAY!!!!!

We had a bit of a struggle getting it all squashed in and had to put some bales in Uno's pen with him temporarily while we were moving things around. Uno thought he'd died and gone to heaven - completely surrounded by hay <g>.

The hay stuffed in the barn - it doesn't look nearly so impressive on the photo as it does in real life. I particularly like the strange face Roo is pulling. And look - there's Tiny Rooster up on top of the bales of three-grain in the foreground - the chooks heartily approve of that three-grain hay.

Sunday 14 - Scene of the Crime Attempt 2

pft and I tramped around in the snow out back for a few hours and although pft did find where Uno ran through the "bushes", we never found the missing knee-block. Predictably - despite being careful - I still managed to get poison oak for the third time in as many weeks - this time on my hand and neck. Technu have come out with a new product that is a homeopathic scrub and I've been using that with good results.

Looking at where Uno went through, it's actually amazing that he wasn't more skewered than he was - he had "pushed" (? I'm not sure this accurately describes what he was doing) through massively thick manzanita, ripped a couple of bushes out of the ground, snapped off some huge branches, and jumped through a big fork of one manzanita. pft says it was very lucky I din't go with him (no way, no how).

I hereby proclaim Uno a "stupid idiot".

Thursday 18 - Truck Upkeep

We dropped the truck off in Shingle Springs this morning to get an oil change and have a knocking in the steering looked at. As it turned out, the steering coupling had come loose and was repaired under warrant, together with a leaky hydraulic line. The truck is now ready for DVE.

Friday 19 

...And there was me thinking it would be quiet at work the week leading up to Christmas... not.

Horse Feet - Although Uno's foot seems to be healed (he spent three weeks locked up in a dry pen), Roo is still going to DVE - Uno doesn't have enough base on him to be able to take a month off and then suddenly pull a distance ride out of the bag. Mind you, after five months off, does Roop? He's felt pretty good for the few rides we've done, so I'm clinging to the idea that horses hold their fitness way longer than we do. ...And whether I'm capable of doing a 50 also remains to be seen. Because of the recent cruddy weather, I can't say I've been much motivated to get out there and ride-ride-ride, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

Today Farrier Ted came and put shoes on Roo. I was hoping to keep him barefoot but still don't have enough size 0 Epics to do him all around and have never put boots on the back, so I wasn't confident about trying that at a ride this late in the game. At this point, I'm thinking I'll keep shoes on him through the wet season to avoid having to go to boots in slippery mud - which scares me - and then try and transition him to barefoot later next year (by which time his feet will have turned into hard rocks and will be really hard to rasp).

Waterers and Freezes - This week we've had a little snow but are too low for it to stay longer than a few hours - 500' higher, and we'd have 6" on the ground. In the middle of the week we had two freezes and not having tank heaters, we are relying on the "Lucy going out before she goes to bed and turning off the hoses" method. It got down to 26°F/-3°C.

This works OK for the Barn Pones (they have a big 30 gallon trough) and for Fergus (has his own 5 gal automatic waterer), but the non-workers (Provo, Mouse, Zini & Jackit) are sharing a 5 gallon automatic waterer and they pretty much drain it by morning and are then thirsty.

Then the hose doesn't unfreeze before we leave for work, and I can't just turn it on because the float is "dodgy" and doesn't seat itself properly after it has been completely empty, causing the waterer to overflow excitingly. Bad idea.

Horse-Sewing - The forecast for this weekend is sloppy, so I'm hoping to get my horse-sewing done. I exchanged the bad-for-Fergus-red blanket for a smoky blue one (no navy ones left in that size of course), so have to make him a cooler to layer under his shell, as well as a rump rug for Roop. I've also got a couple of cordura hay bags that Fergus destroyed that I'm considering mending, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. And I have to mend and re-waterproof Fergus' shell.

GPS - On request, Mumma gave us a new GPS for Christmas and we've been practising with it already. This GPS has the "new" chip in it which means it picks up a better signal under trees, etc. Sure enough, riding along Andy Wolf at the weekend, my old GPS showed us going along in a chunky, linear fashion, while the new one showed our every zig. To make it more fun, someone at work also told me about a way to link photos and GPS tracks on Google Earth, so that you pinpoint where photos were taken along the way. Have to see if I can pull that together for DVE.

Roop looks like an artic fox - all white and fluffy. The others look like mud balls, so I don't look at them.

Sunday 21 - Winter Arrives - well, lots of wet, anyway...

Today Leslie and I were going to ride so long as it didn't "monsoon". Predictably it then monsooned all day, so no riding for us. Instead, I finished off Roop's new bright blue rump rug (and very spiffy he looks too, even though he wasn't much impressed) and spent the rest of the day wrestling with Fergus' blankie. 

It's a little tight around the shoulders, but if I let out the tail-tie it could move forward but then his pointy bottom would stick out and look drafty. Note also how it has a seam along the bottom edge? First I tried it on him, cut off the bottom edge, sewed, fiddled, shaped... only to discover it was too short, so then I had to sew the bottom back on again...talk about making work for myself <sigh>.

I'm whupped and Fergus was getting decidedly testy by about the third (of five) fittings. And I was getting tired of going out in the pouring rain to try it on him. And having to look at muddy ponies that were pooping and peeing in their shelters. Just look away, Lucy. Pretend you can't see them...

Yesterday, we also screwed the wood panelling onto the back of Uno's stall (this after they had been propped there for the last year). He'd discovered the joys of chewing on them, and pulling them down, walking on them, and then pooping on them for the last two nights, so it was definitely time. They aren't quite as whole as they once were, but the end stall in the barn now looks toasty.

And we started to pack the trailer for DVE - well, at least cram in the dirt bike and three bales of hay into the front stall. We finally got it all smooshed in to our satisfaction. It's due to rain on the way down, so we couldn't put the hay in the truck bed as planned. The forecast for DVE itself is looking quite promising, though.

On to January...