Bad Blogger

I've been a very bad blogger. I guess I don't really qualify as a blogger at all. I have lots of excuses...

First, my usual excuse--work was taking too much time and energy. Since I wasn't riding much through the winter, I wasn't inspired much to blog about anything back then.

Then, my personal computer died. My company has installed all sorts of tracking software, so I couldn't do anything on my work computer, so that left me with no personal computer access while I tried to fix my old computer, then agonized over whether to get a Mac or a PC. A new computer was definately not in my budget this year, but, such is life.

Then, we had so much rain and flooding back in March that Jeeves's stall was flooding...alot. I was carting 4 or 5 wheelbarrows full of heavy, wet, bedding out of his stall several times a day. It didn't take long for my back to go out. So, when I wasn't working, walking dogs, mucking out stalls, I was lying flat on my back on the floor. Not much chance of doing any blogging in that position.

Then, during all that a dear friend got sick. I ended up taking her two older TB geldings while she was in the hospital. The girls have moved up to Vermont on a big farm where they are out with a herd of 2 yos learning about herd etiquette. When my friend was released from the hospital, she came here for recuperation. She's still here, getting better, gaining strength every day.

Finally, my older brother, really the only family I have left, is bent on drinking himself to death. :-( It started last autumn when he was laid off work. Apparently, without a job, he had nothing else to do but drink. He has been spiralling out of control since then. He spent over a month in the hospital, 22 days of that in ICU. For awhile, we thought he might have to spend the rest of his life (he's 55 yo) in a locked psych ward. :-( Miraculously, he recovered enough that he was released from the hospital last Monday. He should have gone directly to a 90-day, in-house substance abuse recover program, but he refused. Said he wanted to find a day program, despite the doctors all saying he NEEDS to be in a residential program.

He managed to keep it together long enough to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding on Friday (yes, poor kid had to deal with this crap while preparing for her wedding). He was not allowed at the reception. But, yesterday, he pushed his wife over so that he could get his car keys (he's not supposed to drive, per doctor's orders. He's still not "normal") and he went and bought 3 quarts of vodka. The police did come and take his car keys. At this point, I told him that I am through. IF and when he decides that he needs help and agrees to go into an in-house program I will gladly pick him up and take him there. But, until then he is dead to me. His son has done the same. I told his wife she should do the same. He will just push her around again and take her car keys if she stays with him.

So, I'm done. I've lost too many days of work and too many days of riding and too many days in my garden to the lost cause that he has become. It breaks my heart, but there is nothing more that I can do for him. He has to do it.

There's more, these were just the highlights.

As is always the case, my animals, especially Jeeves, have been my solace and my sanity through all this. For now, I'll just share these pics of Jeeves and me.

Winter Riding Woes

This was what my riding arena looked like on Christmas day. The weekend before Christmas we it snowed for 3 days, with a total of 2 feet of beautiful, fluffy snow. Of course, the two days after the snow stopped it was bitter cold--single digits with wind chills well below 0. I wimped out and didn't ride. Then, Christmas Eve day it rained. And, this is what the rain did to all that beautiful snow. Sigh.

Even though he has his winter shoes on, I wasn't going to ride him on that ice. But, I DID get on! Finally. It had been almost 2 months since I got on and I was darn well going to ride on Christmas! All I did was walk around my property, picked our way over some downed limbs. We half passed up and down my driveway. We went a little way up the road, but I was worried about kids with their dirt bikes and ATVs. So, we didn't go too far. But, I got him marching forward with a nice swing through his back. He stretched his head and neck out nicely. When turned him back to the barn, he didn't want to go. He enjoyed our little outing. He's the only horse I've ever ridden that doesn't try to turn around to go home. OK, he does prefer hacking out to the ring work, but he enjoys the ring work, also.

It was so nice to get back on him, even though all we did was walk. I miss riding him. I hope I can get back into a routine of riding. Sunday the temps got near 60 and all that ice melted. Today, we're getting 6-8" of snow, so that will be perfect for riding. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty cold, but maybe I can bundle up and get a ride in. It will be a good way to start the new year.

Stormy Weekend

We got the remnants of Hurricane Hanna up here Saturday evening into Sunday morning. Fortunately, the wind wasn't very strong, but we got a good 6" of rain in 12 hours! Fortunately, I had additional drainage put into my basement last spring, so I did NOT have to spend any time wet vaccing water out of the basement. :-) I opened the door to basement this morning with great trepidation and peered down the stairs, afraid I would see water pooled at the bottom of the stairs. But, all I could see was dry basement floor! Water did get in, but the French drain handled it. Phew!


However, when the dogs and I headed out for our morning walk, I discovered the driveway did not fare as well. I had just filled in the end of the driveway with the left over graded base from the shed flooring project. I thought I was all set to get through the winter. Sigh. Mother Nature does like to remind me that she is a force to be reckoned with.

Fortunately, Jenn (owner of the fillies) and her boyfriend Dave came over this morning to borrow my trailer. Dave is great with a tractor and enjoys doing site work. When they pulled in to the driveway, Jenn said he asked her if she thought I would "mind if he fixed the end of the driveway". Mind?! Ha! Immensely grateful is more like it!

So, Dave hopped on my wonderful little Baby 'bota and smoothed out the end of the driveway. :-) It looks much better, but I do have to figure out a more permanent solution as this does happen far too often.

There's always something to deal with. I never seem to get caught up with the To-Do list around here and more things just keep getting added.

In the meantime, Jeeves and I had a great ride this morning. It was still rather humid and the sun came out and it got uncomfortable so I only schooled him for about 20-25 minutes. But, we did trot and canter 1/2-passes, counter canter (3-loop serpentines) and lead changes and he did everything really well, so he deserved a break. The "squat" exercise seems to be really building him up. I just wish my riding was improving as quickly as my horse is.

There's a beautiful, bright half-moon out there now. I think I'm going to wander out there by moonlight and give my buddy a good night snuggle.

Busy Weekend

Again, I disappear for the weekend. The weather was fantastic up here in New England--no humidity, cool (temps in the mid-70s), and enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away. Just delightful!

On Friday, I had 10 yards of graded base and 14 yards of stone dust delivered.

Earlier this summer, I had a run-in shed built. Originally, I had decided to build the shed so I could have Jeeves and Lance go out overnight and stay in their stalls during the day. Jeeves is especially bothered by the heat and bugs. So, this was ideal for him. He was much happier being in his stall during the day, with minimal bugs, and out in the cooler temps overnight with his buddy. They both did really well this summer and I'm very happy about that.

Then, my friend needed a place to keep her fillies, so we figured they could come here and spend days outside while the boys were in and then spend the nights in the Jeeves's stall while he was out. This was working fine until Cara coliced. :-( Best guess we came up with was sand colic from the base I used in the shed. I had what's called "gravel" put in, but it's really a very sandy soil and on days we had t-storms forecast, i would put the hay inside the shed. So, Cara was probably getting alot of sand nibbling all the hay. Since the girls are going to be living out there and eating hay and grain out there, this needed to be fixed.

I did some checking and asking around, and the best I came up with was to put down 3" of graded bases, topped with 3" of stone dust. My vet has stone dust in her run-in shed, so I figure if she thinks it's safe, then it should be safe.

All I can say is I'm very glad that I have this tractor. It's a life saver around the farm. But, even with the tractor to move the materials, I still had to rake and shovel to even it out. Then, there was the compacting. Ugh!

Last night, I could barely walk up right. Everything from my feet to my hands hurt. But, hopefully, the shed is now a safe place for the girls to live. Just in case, we're still going to feed them psyllium, to keep any sand moving through their gut.

What do any of you with horses in run-in sheds have for footing? Do you bed the shed? I wasn't planning on it, but now I'm wondering what do I do about the wet spots? I'll be digging up all this stone dust and will have to replace it every week. :-( Why aren't things simpler? Sigh.

Oh, and does anyone need any stone dust? I bought waaay too much stone dust. I think I have over half of it left and now will be spending a day moving it from the driveway to the behind the riding ring where it will be out of the way. At least I have plenty left for patches. :-)

The Mystery Continues

Thanks everyone for your comments and well wishes! The vet came out Tuesday afternoon. She looked at the bump. Palpated it. Scratched her head. Her first inclination is side bone, which is pretty common in drafts and Cleveland Bays are considered light drafts. He's certainly big enough to be prone to ailments of draft horses.

For those who don't know, sidebone is the calcification of the collateral ligament. But, she was able to feel the collateral ligament under the bump,which if it were side bone, the ligament should just feel bony and hard, not springy like a ligament should.

She did an ultrasound which didn't show anything. It's a tough area to get an ultra sound of, since there's not much flat area for the probe to be on. So, she also took some xrays. Called me back Wed. evening. The xrays did not show any calcification of that ligament. She said that perhaps we are seeing this at the very beginning of the process??? She also mentioned that the coffin bone (which is what the collateral ligament attaches to) had a very slight "bulge" on that side. She said it probably would not be noticeable if she weren't looking for something in that area. She also thought that he should be showing some signs of lameness and that she was remiss in not having me trot him for her on the hard ground.

When she said this, I remembered that back in late May/early June, Jeeves was showing very slight signs of lameness. One of those agonizing "is he lame or isn't he lame" subtle unevenness in the gait. It was never very bad and if I pushed him more forward, he would always work out of it. This is when I hate being here on the farm alone. There's never anyone else around who can watch me ride to see if he IS lame or not. And, if he is slightly off, it would be nice to have someone to discuss it with--how bad did it look? Should I keep riding him since he works through it or give him some time off? Call the vet or wait and see? As you can see, I drive myself crazy with doubt, especially when it concerns the health of one of my animals.

Anyway, I chalked it up to stiffness because of all the time off he keeps getting because of rain, pulled shoes, or my crazy work schedule. By the end of June it was gone and he felt good at the start of our rides.

So, now, the guilt rushed in! I shouldn't have kept riding him through that, that...whatever it was! I made it worse! I've ruined him! Of course, I had a wonderful lesson on Tuesday before the vet came and my trainer agreed he looked perfectly sound.

My vet asked me to see if he is lame when circling on hard ground, instead of on the softer footing in the riding arena. Yesterday morning, I lunged him on a small circle in my driveway, both directions and he looked pretty sound to me. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news.

So, my vet doesn't know. She says I should go ahead and ride him and just watch it. If it continues to get bigger, call her. Otherwise, wait and see.

I hate these ambiguous, undefinable things. :-( Sigh.

I'm debating whether I should send the xrays off to a lameness specialist??? But, he's not lame. He just has this bump.

Strange Bump

Jeeves has a strange bump on the inside of his left front pastern. You can sort of make it out in the attach pictures. The good news is that he's not lame on it. It's not hot. It's not tender. So, that eliminates some sort of tendon (are there tendons in that area?) or abcess. It's been there for almost 2 weeks and it's slowly getting bigger. The diameter is larger than a golf ball.

Now, since he's not lame, I know alot of people wouldn't worry about something like this, but given what happened last year, I am more than a bit paranoid.

Last year, some time in mid-June, I noticed that a bump on his right haunch had started to grow. That bump had been there for a couple of years, not causing any trouble. My vet had looked at it when she'ld been out for his annual vaccinations and said that as long as it didn't change, don't worry about it. At first, I wasn't sure if it was growing or not. You know how when you look at something every day, it's hard to notice tiny changes. So, I asked Terri to look at it. Since she didn't look at it 5 or 6 times a day, she noticed right away that it had grown in the 2 days that she had not been out here. So, I had the vet out. She poked and prodded and decided to do a biopsy. It turned out to be a mastocytoma. Cancer. Eeek! I made the mistake of googline mastocytoma. Mistake because this cancer is highly malignant in canines. My vet calmed me down and explained that cancers act very differently between species and it's a pretty rare cancer in equines and when it does show up, it is not usually malignant. Big sigh of relief.

When she had been out to take the tissue sample of the lump on his haunch, I also pointed out a new lump under his jaw. This one felt very different from the mastocytoma. The mastocytoma felt soft and spongy. And, when she took the tissue sample for the biopsy, it looked rather spongey--the tissue sort of flaked and fell apart easily. The lump under his jaw was firm and hard, very well defined in shape. It has appeared rather quickly and my initial thought was that it was a bug bite. He has very bad reactions to bug bites and often has huge welts from them. So, between the time of the tissue sample for the biopsy on the mastocytoma and when my vet came out to remove it, the lump under his jaw had increased in size quite a bite. So, along with removing the mastocytoma, my vet also took a tissue sample of the jaw lump for biopsy.

That one came back as a fibroid sarcoma. ANOTHER CANCER! EEEEK! This one had a "guarded" prognosis. While it's slow to metastasize, there can be alot of tissue damage because it's very invasive locally. In the week between taking the sample and getting the results, the thing had grown so much that it had split through the stitches and was dripping blood. I was a wreck worrying about my buddy, trying to keep the flies off it and keep it clean. Because this one was situated right over the major artery that runs along the jaw line, my vet didn't dare try to touch it. So, I called New England Equine Hospital in Dover, NH, explained the situation to them and they managed to squeeze him in for surgery the very next week.

Long story a little shorter, he also had 2 other growths removed, both non-cancerous. But, he does have a melanoma on the dock of his tail. We left that alone and it doesn't seem to be doing much. Phew. I ended up having to bring him back up for another surgery because he developed a massive abcess in the incision under his jaw. We decided he was allergic to the internal stitches they use. This took up all of July and August and most of September.

Anyway, back to his new bump. I called my vet and she's coming out tomorrow to look at it. She said that there are many innocuous things that this could be and a tumor, especially in this area, is way down at the bottom of the list.

But, having 3 different types of cancerous and 2 non-cancerous growths show up on his body all within a couple of months was pretty much at the bottom of the list, too. So, I'm trying not to worry....but, I'm worried. Please say some prayers, send out some good thoughts for Jeeves.

Sunday Ride

I had a good ride on the beast this morning. I'm amazed at how well he's doing considering how little he's been worked this summer. I'm not pushing him at all, taking it slow, but adding a bit more difficulty to each ride. Today, instead of starting out with 1/2-pass at the walk, we went right to 1/2-pass at the trot as our warm up. This is an exercise I really like to get him supple and bending. We 1/2-pass from the rail to the quarterline, change bend and 1/2-pass back to the rail. Do as many of those as we can fit in along the long side. After 2 or 3 long sides, I'll do a stretchy circle, just make sure he's not holding any tension anywhere. Especially since he's such a big horse, it's easy for him to get stiff and hold himself in a "frame". So, doing the stretchy circle gets him longitudinally supple and the 1/2-passes get him laterally supple.

Then, after a break, we did some canter work. Nothing too strenuous, just asking for forward and round. My other rides last week, we did some shallow broken lines. Today, I asked for some deep broken lines. So, later in the week we should be ready to try a canter serpentine to see if we still have a counter canter!

After another break, we did more trot work. Started out doing a square, asking for a quarter turn at the corners, trot to the next corner, walk transition, quarter turn, trot, etc. The transitions keep him paying attention and sharp to the aids. The quarter turns get the hind end engaged. After a few of those in each direction, I did some 4-loop serpentines at the trot, focusing on maintaining the rhythm and balance especially through the change of bend. Then, I asked for medium trot along the long sides. Like in the 1/2-pass, I didn't ask for much, just a few strides of forward, big trot, then back to a working trot before he could lose it and fall on his forehand and get heavy. My trainer, Kathy, has helped me see that it's better to ask for small efforts--only 1/2-pass to the quarterline, instead of the centerline, only do medium or lengthenings for 1/2 the long side or 1/2 the diagonal. That way, the horse isn't tense or worried about being asked for more than he can do. We can get a few strides of brilliance and build on that. Tomorrow, we'll get a few more strides.

He felt really good, nice elastic contact, rounding through his back, some nice push from behind. I love that feeling of connection, of being one with the horse that you get when it all comes together.

I was going to do another session of canter work after a break, but I noticed the neighbor across the street (my riding arena parallells the street) walking around his yard with his (adult) sons, looking up at some trees in his yard. I knew from experience that the chain saws would be out soon, so I decided to end the ride then. Discretion is the better part of valor. Sure enough, by the time I had Jeeves in the wash stall, the trees were toppling. Fortunately, the wash stall is well back from the road, so he wasn't bothered by the trees crashing down.

After a quick bath, I hand grazed him for a while. I really enjoy doing that. It's a time when he can just be himself and do what he wants. I'm not asking him to stand quietly in the cross ties while I groom him, I'm not fussing over him, not asking him to work. He can just relax and munch grass. It was a good way to start the day. :-)

Creatures of Habit

As I was going through my morning routine of feeding the horses, walking the dogs, turning out the girls and bringing in the boys, and finally coming in to sit down and relax over my morning cup of tea, it occurred to me how much of a habitual creature I am. The dogs know, when I am done with that morning cup of tea, that it's time to go out back and play ball and get brushed. We do this every morning. And, every morning, when I bring that empty mug over to the sink, the 3 dogs start dancing and prancing, tails wagging, paws skidding on the wood floors, whines of joy bubbling up out of their mouths.

While I don't get as excited as the dogs do, I do relish my routine. It's comfortable, like an old bathrobe. There's a security in the habitual routines. Following the routine doesn't even require much thought, I do it by rote. Not until I sit down in front of the computer to work, do I have to really engage my brain. Yes, I do notice if the horses all eat breakfast. Was the manure in the stalls "normal"? Messier? Wetter? Dryer? When I go out at night to do bedcheck, I listen for the soft nickers from the horses as I bring them their last hay of the day. Their nickers let me know they are fine. They are happy that I am following the routine, they are getting their night hay, the same as they always do. Day after day. But, I don't really have to think about it. If something is different, something non-routine, it jumps out at me, almost like an alarm. Letting me know that something isn't right.

When the routines are disrupted it's usually because of some crisis--the last one being an abcess in Cara's hoof. Not a severe crisis, but a minor disruption in the regular routine. When the routine is followed, it means all is well. Animals like their routine. They take comfort in it, find security in it.

When I purchased Jeeves, it was in January, 2004. One of the coldest Januarys (hmmm, Januaries? Hmmm...) that we've ever had. He had lived at the previous barn for 7 of his 9 years, so it was rather traumatic for him to be in a strange barn, with strange people and strange horses. New routines. Despite the bitter cold, I bundled up and went down to the barn and rode him. I knew he would find comfort in the routine of being ridden. He understands being ridden, being schooled in dressage. It helped him understand that this new barn was much like the old barn. He still got fed, still got turned out, still got ridden. Similar routine, just different times, different ways.

When I get a new horse or a new dog here, it usually takes them a few days to figure out the routine. Once they have it figured out, I can see them settle in and start to relax.

I know there are people who get bored doing the same things, day after day. It's not exciting enough for them. But, for me, I relish the comfort of my routine.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I hope you like it here. This is my first attempt at blogging, not sure how this will be, but here goes...

I've lived here on my beautiful little 4 acre paradise for 8 years and I brought horses here 4 years ago. I ride dressage...well, I attempt to ride dressage. I chose the name Transitions Farm because transitions are important in dressage and in life--how smooth they are, or not; how well we prepare for them, or not; where they take us.

Jeeves is the love of my life. He's a 14yo, 17.1h Cleveland Bay/TB cross. I've owned him for 4 years now and my heart still skips a beat when I look out my window and see him out in the paddock. He's competed 2nd/3rd level dressage. The last year or so, I've been having trouble finding the time and energy to ride consistently. One reason for starting this blog is the hope that if I blog about my riding, I'll be more responsible about riding and making the time again. So, to anyone who might be out there in the ether reading this, please feel free to nag me and help get me back in the saddle consistently.

That's it for now.