Why aren't I more rested?

I didn't ride Shade my 3-day weekend, only had to give 2 shots on saturday and continueing adding tucoprim to 4 horses' grain and cough free to 9 horses. Sunday I was despondent, saw whitish snot in Shades nose. Told myself to wait before jumping to tucoprim. I haven't seen much since. Monday I was going to ride her, just walking, doing some backing and lateral work but she ran off rather than let me catch her. Galloped hard a few hundred yards back to pasture and no coughing so maybe maybe maybe maybe she is pretty well recovered.

I did ride Lady saturday and monday. I am not a paso person. She was fairly good saturday, monday she wouldn't walk heading home. Its not rough but the corto really does not rock my boat. Feels like a 4 mph runaway, even though Lady would stop when I asked her. She's been hard to mount and monday after numerous circles around me before she stood still so I could hop on she wanted to take off right away and when I checked and turned her she did several fairly tight fast circles before she finally stood still for a couple seconds. Little too much energy from me feeding her up maybe; but when I got back I decided she needs to work on mounting, from the block. She was starting to get it after 4-5 mount ups, stop moving, now you get a treat and I get off. I don't think I can sell her to a green or nervous rider though.

Sunday I cleaned pens with the tractor. I did Lady's with the wheelbarrow sat and monday, and got Sadie and RazzMo's hot spots with the cart on monday, plus spread along the road fence with my apple picker. I really need to get a good poop scattering drag made. Heh, I should get something for the mini's to pull.

Then I worked on loading Sadie. She didn't think the store treats were much good and I couldn' t find the flax cookies I'd made that morning. So I got some pellets for her. That actually worked out really well cuz she kept her front feet in the trailer and put her head down to get her pellets. I can probably get a hind foot up next session. I think I'm going to want to get 1 hind foot then ask her to back out before we go for loading all the way in the trailer since she was nervous of getting out before. She's growing so it gets easier for her. Saturday I hopped on Grey and ponied Sadie. It went ok, in some ways I'm not doing a whole lot with her but then I think I am doing enough. The vet and farrier don't hate her at least.

again: I love this mare

Shade came to me hating needles and vets and she is being so good to let me give her penicillin injections. Its like she wants to get healthy quickly as much as I want her to. What a trooper. I need to shuffle horses tomorrow. My tentative plan is to put Razz with Sadie. The 2 snot noses can be sick together. Razz has weeks before he needs to be healthy and so does Sadie. --I'm not pulling them off the tucoprim treatment, just don't want them passing extra germs to the horses that seem to be recovering more quickly.

Then I will probably put Grey and Cindy together in the small pen for now. Then I can open the gate so CJ and Shade can graze and get extra vitamins etc.

Grey or CIndy or even Grey AND Cindy might go with Razz and Sadie, depends on if I see snot. Or maybe I can split the water tanks somehow to reduce contamination between those 2 and Shade if I'm on the bubble. This is probably liking wrapping a minor scrape on a horses leg or smearing snake oil on it --it makes the human feel better that they are DOING SOMETHING about the boo-boo or illness.

captain she's overloaded.

I knew I was nearly losing it. Walked to my dental appt today and they said 'what are you doing here?' My appointment is next week. I 'think' I dragged their reminder postcard to the office to write it on my calendar a few weeks ago. I couldn't find the card searching last week and saw on the 2007 calendar "dentist, 3:30 May 21" So I thought I must have written my appt on the wrong calendar and then tossed the postcard. Nope, that was last years appt on the 2007 calendar. At least I did not miss my appointment. Its next week.

But I may have to buy an extra $$ small tub of tucoprim from my vet. The tub only lasts 3 days and when I first put in my order to get the big pail I went for std shipping (I hadn't counted very well). I called them today and asked to upgrade to 2nd day air but my shipping info they emailed says ground. Darn it, I'm going to end up with tons of extra tucoprim and be out all this extra $$ and special trips. SIGH, nearly a sob.

My treated horses seem pretty good but I don't want to skip a day in their dosing and had even thought I should give Shade a week of tucoprim starting friday after her 5th peniciilin dose on thursday. I can't do that now. Maybe I'll try to give her 1 or 2 more days of penicillin but I'm running out of spots to give shots. Mom is too wimpy to be much help with the horses that could use a serious shoulder twitch or to hold a nose twitch while a horse moves around like Shade did when I did her hams sunday when I had dad helping --so I haven't been getting shots in the hams much --but she has been getting up and helping me all week and I couldn't give shots to Shade at all without a helper, its just so stressful having all these things that I'm not getting quite right and therefor losing all chance at efficiency etc.

monday blahs.

ugh. I finally called for appointments. Mammogram tomorrow, previous dentist wednesday, eye dr monday june 2. Nurse will call me back on ob/gyn. Which solves nicely the 'should I call and find out if surgeon needs to see me etc' but the foggy communications was a wee annoyance. And in a major breakthrough (2 calls in 1 day is that for me) I had called my vet first to pick up some tucoprim powder and see if he'll write a prescription for more to an on-line place. I don't want to undercut his margins but by the time every horse on the place gets sick and its looking like they will ALL get sick it will save me almost $100 if I just order the 2 kg tub on-line instead of buying the extra 5 400 gram tubs I think I'll need from him. Duke and AJ are also 'sick' now --just snotty nosed but they aren't working to show if they would cough under stress. They are taking penicillin good so will get that and maybe just a short course of powder. Since I didn't think it was going to spread to Duke and AJ I have had Lady next to Duke grazing in the yard so she will no doubt catch this too and I aslo thought V's gelding looked kind of snotty nosed today --so he and her pony and all 5 mini's will probably go thru having this crud also. So I don't think I'll be able to advertise Lady for 3 or 4 weeks. Sigh.

I spent so long dithering, giving shots etc this morning that I think I sunburned my arms below my t-shirt. The temp in my office was ok for just a tee, and now is cool, but not quite sweatshirt cool. Wonder how many days I'll swing between hot/cold before I remember to bring in just a l/s shirt to throw over the tee. Being incredibly absent minded can get so annoying. And I was crazing salt and I ate too many pretzels and olives I think &/or drank too much coffee &/or I am stressing too much over this respiratory bug. It will pass, if I don't get to do summer rides then maybe this will be the year I go longer into the fall. Its only recreation --not my livelihood so I need to give it to god and really let it go.

OK I am WHINING

I went and bought 500 cc's of penicillin today because Shade and Sadie had white snot this morning and CJ was hacking yesterday and the other 3 east side horses have had clear snot. V offered me a spare tub of tucoprim she had so I would not have to wait until I can get to the vet to get more to start dosing.

Then I nabbed dad to help hold horses and twitches and gave S, S and CJ penicillin, CJ was easy, no twitching needed. I'll try him in the ham tomorrow. He should be ok to get 5 doses of penicillin with little trouble. Shade got a shot in both hams because when I moved the needle I wasn't going to get it in the same side again. I'll give her a shoulder shot tomorrow and then hopefully ham(s) tuesday (last day dad will be around to help) Mom will have to help me after that and I'll do shoulders or even pec if I have too (even though my vet is against using pec) I REALLY want my healthy Shade horse back, I miss riding her so much, but at least the timing is good with dinking with Lady trying to get her ready for a forever family.

Sadie will probably only get 2 shots and then back to tucoprim cuz she thought the shots were pretty awful although she didn't try to hurt me but I don't think I can use her hams and I don't want her to be sore and be getting more pokes and I don't think she has enough pec to be safe. Razz, Grey and Cindy just got tucoprim, they are pita's for any kind of shots and I don't think they are as sick. I'll have to buy quite a bit more $$ tucoprim but its preferable to sick horses all summer. And the plan may change when my vet calls me tomorrow.

I'm just so bummed that this respiratory crap is dragging on, wishing I had hit the panic button on thursday and called my vet right away to get some input, plus already just dreading having to drag a whining mom out of her sick bed (its about a 300 days of the year state lately FROWN) to help me give shots on days 4 and 5.

Lady be good

She was (smile)
I was lazy today, but I led Lady around to hand graze some, played around rubbing her with the lead end like a brush, then putting it around her legs to see if she has good potential to be kid proof. She was excellent about that.

and then I decided I would saddle her and graze her some more. Yes you read me right -- I often encourage a horse to eat a bit under saddle and I figured it would be excellent for unwinding Lady a bit.

I had to move the saddle back a bit after riding her a few minutes. Walked her around the large farmyard a few minutes and then into the back back yard where theres good grass but not much room to go. She was on a mission at first but realized there was nowhere to get to and settled down to walking and even enjoying the grass after a few minutes. We spent several minutes grazing and walking then I came back into the farmyard area and nabbed Valerie to take a couple pics of me on her and put her away. I like this one. Lady is still not eager to stand still but she's doing well. My helmet is brushing the Russian Olive branches and making some noise and she didn't spook or anything.

mini meltdown

waah, I feel so tired and overloaded. I was all pleased with myself for catching something as the 'operator' last night and getting fair detail on what was missing, calling the pro to fix it, finding a routine problem they have almost every night and correcting that, then I get in and find out I missed a routine problem that crept in after the one I fixed. I was tearing, I felt so ineffective.

And I am scared that Shade and Sadie are still sick. Trying to convince myself that the active infection is gone and they are just still having to expel some phlegm. Well I am watching right now. If Shade seems worse I will call Dr Mike &/or give her penicillin this weekend. She's restless, she was cantering this morning; but her and Sadie both have moist noses and Shade snorted. Better than coughing, yesterday I extended her tucoprim a 2nd extra day cuz I heard her cough but today I just gave her basic grain and minerals.

Lady has a fun horsonality I think. She wanted out this morn, (or maybe was eager for the grain) She had to evade me a bit before I could halter her. I put her in a pen that is full of junk but also has green grass growing, yeah I know, bad horse keeper of the year. She was fine, I heard a bit of banging plastic that was not 100% sure her and put her away before I finished graining. She was unsure of letting me snap the lead on and I was like 'we are not playing tag in here with all this junk' I walked away, she walked to the other gate, so I latched the one I came thru and walked over and got her.

I guess I'll see if Razz and maybe CJ too feel ok this weekend. I haven't seen any snot on them but since I didn't know Shade was sick till I rode her ....... Then if Grey is clear nosed I'll try and pony Lady with him. I might put him or Cindy in with her for company, I want to let Shade and Sadie have some grass and I don't want to have 4 horse in the smaller pen. I have to decide who to mix together. After more coffee and hopefully a full nights sleep.

well that felt odd

I hopped on Lady today. Well first I put my LJ on her and longed her a bit. I don't think she's been longed before, but she was kind of getting it and was being good. Her only evasions were turning to face me and wanting to duck into the stall when she went near the doorway. But no bolting, or bucking, she must be pretty smooth I don't think she made the stirrups bump her any.

I had meant to let her settle in longer before I got on the first time but mom's farrier was out and they were trimming mini's so folks were around if I needed help so I plunged ahead. I felt like a bit of an ogre, she is not very big (and my arabs are 14.2 and 14.3 so its not like I need a huge horse to feel right but she's shorter yet and built thin + needs to put on some weight) but I decided to go ahead and see how she reacted, thinking possibly I would only get her used to the mounting block. I put Grey's sidepull on her and tightened the cinch a notch. --that was her only mis-behavior. She was getting really antsy when I tightened the cinch and moving around, and right into me -I'd put my hand out and move back but she didn't just stop when she connected with my hand. Well I don't let a horse do that, but with her I just tied her short and that was all it took.

Well mounting block work didn't really happen - she was quite nervous of the block and/or having me above her although she only skittered away, nothing dramatic. Mom had walked over so I went ahead and swung up from the ground. She did pretty well, but I actually had to remind myself to breath deep some. She felt like a compressed spring. I could tell that part of that was just her gaiting style but since she had been showing some nervousness too I had to remind myself to breath deep and stay very relaxed. I was only asking her to walk around but she was doing some kind of gaiting; and seemed to be waiting for me to demand serious SPEED or something.

The only part I actually felt a bit of real nerves was when I was going to get off. I stopped her and was shifting my weight, and she seemed to get nervous. So I took 2 times of her feeling too tightly wound and deciding to walk her around a bit more first before I swung on off. She wanted to go when I brushed my leg over her rump dismounting but took just a teeny check with the reins to stop her even with only the sidepull. Then she got a bit of head rubs until she started tossing her head and we walked over towards the gate and she got a cookie. I had her stand right outside the arena gate and munch some green grass while I pulled the LJ off and checked for any rubs. She is still shedding and had some hairs collected where the cinch was, so perhaps she was getting a bit of hair pulling when I was tightening the girth before. Then I put her away.

10 minutes later L had finished up trimming and walked over to look at her and noticed she had opened a scrape on her inside back pastern. So I found some swat and then she demonstrated for him how she acts scared of people. She's funny, I can't scratch on her -she skitters off but she will let me halter her pretty readily. She had a dried owie on her hip and I smeared swat there first to show her it doesn't hurt and then got the pastern boo-boo.

I think Lady will be fine

She's lonesome, spends quite a lot of time looking longingly at Shade and Sadies pen; but she's still eating. I put her hay feeder in the big pen which doesn't view Shade's but the mini's get fed across an alley so she can see them. I gave her a little grain today with some minerals. She didn't pay attention when I dumped it and was lonesome so I haltered her and led her out and then put her in the alley so she could have a bit of fresh grass for the vitamins. Then I cleaned her pen real quickly. While I was mixing grain/supps/antibiotics for the other horses I hear the mini's get excited and glance out the door to see a grey mare in the yard.

So I already know that just having a line of empty barrels is not going to hold her anywhere, LOL. She wandered over and said hi to CJ, then wandered back rather than let me walk right up to snap a lead on her halter. But I turned her with a casual wave away from going back towards CJ and Shades's pens towards the big hay shed and Dukes pen. She eyeballed things and turned and let me walk right up and catch her. I put her in her temporary pen thru the panel with the walk-thru gate rather than go around to the front and she led right thru, no snorting about having to cross the bottom bar or anything.

So I am feeling good that she is ready to be using horse and I shouldn't have great difficulties finding her a home so long as I get after it with advertising and networking. An internet friend in eastern Oregon wants her next horse to be 6 S's (short, smooth, sane, safe, ? ? ) I'll have to look it up. If it wasn't such a long ways and fuel so high I would be working on her - Lady is short, and seems quite sane. She does some kind of gait --I don't have the eye to say what she is doing other than it is not a trot. I think she'll be safe too. Oh well we'll have to see what happens; I bought Lady because I figured if she is a safe ride there are probably plenty of potential homes here near metro Denver; and there is probably a horse close to M that will need a home and meet her criteria when she is ready for one.

YAAY! I think Shade is better

I got Lady and myself home safely. Sat and vegged for quite a bit after giving Lady a bucket of water and flake of hay. I did find ambition to wrestle the panel back into place so she could have the 80x45 ft back pen and stall and not just a 24 ft run with the back of the shed and 12 ft overhang while getting peanut butter out of my camper.

Anyway around 4:30 I went out, saw no snot on Shades nose and she was clear sat. morn too. I'm not sure CJ and Razz are not going to catch the crud; they had moist noises --no thick snot at least. I opened gates so all those 6 could go out in the pasture. Sadie was very excited to get to the grass, and Razz cantered after her. CJ and my greys were hanging in Shades pen. Shade ran around, rolled, ran into her pen to collect the boys, they didn't follow right away, she tried agan and left w/o them. No coughing and she feels frisky. Whew. I am going to wait a bit on shuffling horses though to see if CJ gets sick or not. I won't risk having him re-infect Shade with some slightly different bug if he gets sick.

Lady wants to be with a herd but she is not off her feed over it. She kind of likes having 3 mini colts drooling over her, LOL. She's in heat so they are really drooling. I think she's going to be a pretty safe sane horse. She was acting so fearful of me yesterday I was worried but I guess that was more the 30 mph winds and 40 F weather + knowing something was changing. Now she is in the middle of the change and it was sunny mid to high 70's this afternoon she was fine to let me walk up and was good when I led her around. I left her halter on a few hours but took it off. I am not comfortable leaving a horse haltered. Horses can find something when you think you have a proofed envirnment and our pens are full of gate pins and stuff that could snag a halter with just a little bit of bad luck.

gnawing my nails ....

not literally, I pick hangnails but I don't chew my fingernails. But I'm having a hard time not obsessing with worry that Shade is not going to get over her bug in just a week or 2. She's still got a snotty nose. I'm trying to cling to logic, if its like a people bug its going to take a week and this is only the 4th day I've been treating but, well I so hoped to make this the summer we got more serious with endurance and racked up 100's of miles and actually do a pioneer ride (3 or more days in a row) Well, there is a lot of riding season left. I couldn't decide if I wanted to drive clear to Utah for a fun sounding ride or to Otto WY for a ride that would be no-frills and not real scenic for a late May ride so I'm not mourning the fact that neither is going to happen, just worrying whether my June 21 ride in 6 weeks and then the 3-day ride 2 weeks after have any chance.

Oh well if I have to ride only 1 or 2 days of the Shamrock or 'catch ride' for someone else that is not the end of the world, just as long as Shade does recover and we can keep having fun on the trails like we have been. I do have some slim worries that she might have lasting respiratory damage but Dr Mike, didn't have concerns on that & he does give worse case scenarios. Just need to breath. Inhale, exhale, repeat. Take care of loose ends at work and stop obsessing.

Sick Bay update ....

lol, yeah I'm a bit of a Trekkie. Haven't heard much coughing. Didn't notice any snot yesterday but Shade has some back today. Sadie sounds wuffley when she eats but seems fine otherwise and she made that noise when she was younger, possibly never quit but I'm just listening closer again. Both mares have pretty good appetite. Leaving some hay but nickering for fresh good stuff and cleaning up the grain/BP with the tucoprim powder very nicely. Yesterday I put the powder on the dry feed and then added water and it seemed like too much of the antibiotic ended up in the bottom of the cans so today I wet the feed first and it works better. If Shade is not cleared up after a week I may resort to giving her penicillin. Really hope she clears up.

RazzMo and CJ are trying hard to catch whatever the Bayrabs have, hanging on the fence line sniffing noses a lot. Its electric tape but they stand at the pipe gate. I really hate having a hot strand on a gate. So far they are healthy in spite of their efforts. Cindy and Grey have moist noses but not real snot and it is still spring allergy season, so I'm watching and waiting with them.

I'm going to western KS and getting a Paso Fino (no papers) this weekend. She'll have to be in the back pen for a while until this bug runs its course. She is a temporary resident. Family of a friend needs to cut down on horses. There is no market for non stock horses there, I should be able to sell her or get her in a rescue living in our populated area. A new project horse for me to take up all this spare time I have LOL. But I didn't want her on a double decker semi for a thousand miles and feared it would happen if they had to just take her to an auction.

My job is changed for the next 3-6 months. My groups funding is very low so the SV group which was finally going to hire an operator to monitor their processing and do basic restarts etc is going to fund me 70% and I'll do my original work at 30% level. So I'll have to cut way back on time wastage on the internet very soon.

Two sick bays

Bay horses that is. Dr Mike was out this morning. At first he thought Shade must have had a choke issue because her lungs sounded pretty good and her temperature was normal. Of course the fact she let him take her temperature is some indication she is not feeling real frisky right now.

Then she gave her cough. Its gotten barky now, and is getting some crud expelled. Plus Sadie obliged right then, showing she is getting a snotty nose too. So Shade got an iv shot of immune stimulant and a IM shot of penicillin and both girls are to get antibiotic powder for a week. And knock on wood that no other horses get it. Especially mom's minis. Chances are Shade picked something up at our ride 10 days ago.

Crud, Shade has a cough

I rode her yesterday and she was going along feeling strong we had gone about 3 miles with a fair amount of trotting after a good warmup, and we canted up a little rise and she coughed. I rode a bit farther thinking the cough was just clearing crud/dust out, but she started coughing more, so we walked home. In fact I led her most of the way because the cough starting sounding so nasty. Every 1/4 to 1/2 mile. COUGH COUGH with head stretched out to make her airway as straight as possible, and then swallowing what she brought up. My poor sweet mare. I'm waiting for my vet to call me back. I need to ph home and see if they called there and set an appt and gave any instructions.

TGIF

Not a bad week work wise but I haven't ridden since saturday. First I was waiting for my wrist to recuperate, and then the weather was cold and wet. I'm not complaining about the wet (maybe I am whining just a bit) but it was much needed; but I think I must be getting into my endurance groove.

I feel deprived going 6 solid days without swinging my leg over a horse. When I'm in my riding groove throwing them their hay and a bit of grooming just doesn't cut it, I want to RIDE. Uncle Sam should have a day to honor horses (maybe they do ) I've got lots of company of folks that whose main motivation to work is to afford the horses and most of the horse expenses are 100% U.S. purchases. We don't import hay, or veterinary services, or farrier .......

WooHoo, it was snowing this morning.

Can you hear the earth and grass saying mmmmmm thank you very much, could I have some more please? We'll take it as rain or snow. Sadly it seems to be already done. I'm hoping we go against the forecast and get a bit more this afternoon, maybe maybe we will at home. STill lots of clouds to the east but they look a bit high and light to have a whole lot of moisture in them.

The horses were not so thrilled with the morning snow, although they didn't mind it much. I fed more in the shelters than normal. I was lazy and just put Shades and Sadies feed in their paddock so of course they swapped. Shrug, it won't hurt either of them, I was debating just skipping the grain because I didn't want to mess with taking one of them out. I guess I have verified that I really do need to separate them as long as I want to give them different stuff which I do. I want Shade to get her joint supplements jic they keep her joints healthy longer, and Sadie to get the ration balancer pellets and just 1 cup of grain and no msm or corta-flex.