http://denver.craigslist.org/grd/4636989302.html
I had not heard back from the gelding's owner in ages and ages and decided if I really want a 2nd horse maybe I need to look elsewhere. This cutie is almost next door. Think I need to get a look see. Sure seems to move nicely and maybe has a bit more bone than Shade and Sadie --would be nice to have legs that stand up to the rocks and hills a bit easier.
Of course after I see this the WY geldings owner gets back to my email but is pushing off to next week and 'two other people interested in looking at him'. So if I did really like this mare I'd just say 'sorry, found something closer and more available.' I also like the idea of giving a good home as the kid joins the military. I could invite them to come ride the mare any time they are home on leave. But I'm resisting calling, not sure if I'm still clinging to the notion of the gelding or not really ready to buy another horse. I certainly thought I wanted a backup horse but perhaps the subconscious knows different.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Things that are good
Reading someone describing their ride and whinging about nuisance dogs, or so many bicycles on trail or rocks, ruts ..... and thinking: I'm so happy that I enjoy my horse so much that teeny factors like that barely register AND I have friends to ride with that are the same mindset so I only have to 'bite my tongue' in cyber space where it is much easier to ignore the negative Nellies.
I DO have to learn to be better at skipping reading posts from the Nellies but life is good.
I DO have to learn to be better at skipping reading posts from the Nellies but life is good.
In Baseball a .500 average would be great
In distance riding not so much. But the first pull was me entering a ride last year just to get exposure for Sadie when I knew she wasn't ready for more than a fun ride but the management was not putting on a fun ride that year. I could have just ridden her w/o entering but I wanted to support the manager and be on the ride insurance just in case, plus the vet exams were part of the exposure I wanted Sadie to have.
This is what I put on FB this morning.
Thanks so much Yvette. I had a great time again this year, the vets were so wonderful. I would have liked to have had Sadie legged up to complete again the second day, but maybe next year. I so appreciated the vets looking at her so I had confirmation of my feeling that she should not go the last loop. Having a sound horse this morning is priceless.
That is all true. I am still feeling a bit deflated though. I was wavering on whether to even enter the ride the 2nd day. Should have gone with not entering in hindsight but I am pretty sure that Sadie IS FINE this morning and that is the important thing. And I had a blast 80% of the first loop. I bought a HRM from Flattop Tack on saturday afternoon (was not on the ball enough to get it before that days ride) I remember years ago when I used one on Grey I often looked at a high reading in sand or up hill and thought "oh this must be wrong, his HR can't be this high"
Sunday with Sadie I was looking at the rate and going "I don't know if this monitor is catching all the beats or keeping up when we go to trot or up a hill because these numbers are pretty low" . Then her HR was higher the last couple of miles of that loop on level ground but into a strong wind, I think her LH leg was starting to get a bit sore at that point. So the HRM is going to give me great extra information to know if Sadie is tired or sore and WOW she rocks with her cardio system. Hopefully her legs can toughen up and handle the hills and rocks that are a part of most of the rides around here. If the legs can catch up with her heart and lungs she'll be awesome at this sport.
This is what I put on FB this morning.
Thanks so much Yvette. I had a great time again this year, the vets were so wonderful. I would have liked to have had Sadie legged up to complete again the second day, but maybe next year. I so appreciated the vets looking at her so I had confirmation of my feeling that she should not go the last loop. Having a sound horse this morning is priceless.
That is all true. I am still feeling a bit deflated though. I was wavering on whether to even enter the ride the 2nd day. Should have gone with not entering in hindsight but I am pretty sure that Sadie IS FINE this morning and that is the important thing. And I had a blast 80% of the first loop. I bought a HRM from Flattop Tack on saturday afternoon (was not on the ball enough to get it before that days ride) I remember years ago when I used one on Grey I often looked at a high reading in sand or up hill and thought "oh this must be wrong, his HR can't be this high"
Sunday with Sadie I was looking at the rate and going "I don't know if this monitor is catching all the beats or keeping up when we go to trot or up a hill because these numbers are pretty low" . Then her HR was higher the last couple of miles of that loop on level ground but into a strong wind, I think her LH leg was starting to get a bit sore at that point. So the HRM is going to give me great extra information to know if Sadie is tired or sore and WOW she rocks with her cardio system. Hopefully her legs can toughen up and handle the hills and rocks that are a part of most of the rides around here. If the legs can catch up with her heart and lungs she'll be awesome at this sport.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Sadie is sporting new shoes on front feet only
Other than to be a big enough client to justify his drive there was no reason to have him touch Shade or GreyMoun. He said they both had good trimming and he only rasped a bit on Shade and barely took any hoof off Grey. Which in a way is nice reassurance that it was not wrong to be keeping with my old farrier for so long but OTOH its not a warm fuzzy that the new guy is going to be way better for Sadie.
I do think her new shoe job looks better than when I had D put on fronts back in May but not a huge difference. I guess I'll find out if he has her balanced enough that she doesn't step on the shoe this time and the thing with the endurance is that even small faults in shoeing job can cause big issues with the # of miles we do.
I'm just not 100% confident that all faults are gone and holy cats it seemed expensive. Probably not much more than my old guy if he was not giving a cash discount so if this is going to work well for Sadie I'll probably stick with this guy but as it was it was like paying for a full shoeing job and 2 trims. I skipped doing her backs cuz A) the hoof boots fit her hinds better, B) she stood well but I was concerned she'd decide she was done before he was if I went for shoes all around and C) all the above stuff.
Sigh, I wish I was like L seems on the boards. Seems like every new product, vender, service provider is just the best thing ever WooHoo. I'm always cautious on 'is this better or not?' Is it worth the extra dough? etc. Worth quite a bit to me to keep Sadie sound since I'm sentimental and will keep her and feed her anyway so making sure I can ride is definitely extra value but we shall see.
I make my own sunscreen makeup powder on Sunday. So far seems to be working, my skin does not feel irritated and isn't breaking out in a bunch of zits and I haven't gotten sunburned. I have the tone a bit too pale but I was tired of messing with it and decided its paler than my tanned skin but pretty close to my ears etc so I'm calling it good.
One thing I'm glad I did was use ginger for a bit of yellow tone. I had gotten a couple "don't do this making your own stuff you'll ruin your lungs" hits searching for the recipe and was like "harumph I can mix this w/o inhaling a bunch of it" --I did not even read the scare articles but after putting more oil than the recipe called for in my mix I was still getting powder up my nose when I was applying it to test the color and would it stay on etc.
I KNEW I was inhaling some powder because I could feel the ginger. So I added some sunscreen cream I found until it went on w/o the ginger up the nose feel. W/O reading the article I suspect that applying the zinc and titanium oxides daily if they were too dry and fluffy would be the health concern rather than inhaling some while mixing it up unless one was trying to start a home business and making bunches of it to sell every week.
I do think her new shoe job looks better than when I had D put on fronts back in May but not a huge difference. I guess I'll find out if he has her balanced enough that she doesn't step on the shoe this time and the thing with the endurance is that even small faults in shoeing job can cause big issues with the # of miles we do.
I'm just not 100% confident that all faults are gone and holy cats it seemed expensive. Probably not much more than my old guy if he was not giving a cash discount so if this is going to work well for Sadie I'll probably stick with this guy but as it was it was like paying for a full shoeing job and 2 trims. I skipped doing her backs cuz A) the hoof boots fit her hinds better, B) she stood well but I was concerned she'd decide she was done before he was if I went for shoes all around and C) all the above stuff.
Sigh, I wish I was like L seems on the boards. Seems like every new product, vender, service provider is just the best thing ever WooHoo. I'm always cautious on 'is this better or not?' Is it worth the extra dough? etc. Worth quite a bit to me to keep Sadie sound since I'm sentimental and will keep her and feed her anyway so making sure I can ride is definitely extra value but we shall see.
I make my own sunscreen makeup powder on Sunday. So far seems to be working, my skin does not feel irritated and isn't breaking out in a bunch of zits and I haven't gotten sunburned. I have the tone a bit too pale but I was tired of messing with it and decided its paler than my tanned skin but pretty close to my ears etc so I'm calling it good.
One thing I'm glad I did was use ginger for a bit of yellow tone. I had gotten a couple "don't do this making your own stuff you'll ruin your lungs" hits searching for the recipe and was like "harumph I can mix this w/o inhaling a bunch of it" --I did not even read the scare articles but after putting more oil than the recipe called for in my mix I was still getting powder up my nose when I was applying it to test the color and would it stay on etc.
I KNEW I was inhaling some powder because I could feel the ginger. So I added some sunscreen cream I found until it went on w/o the ginger up the nose feel. W/O reading the article I suspect that applying the zinc and titanium oxides daily if they were too dry and fluffy would be the health concern rather than inhaling some while mixing it up unless one was trying to start a home business and making bunches of it to sell every week.
Sigh, Poor MIa
Update: The vets found bacteria. Mia has some antibiotic ointment and pills to take and they gave her a steroid taper to try to knock out the vicious cycle her scratching the itchy ears so hard she is breaking the skin and spreading infection/causing new damage. She seems wobbly on her feet, I think the infection has her inner ears full of fluid and messed up those balance sensors. Did not sound like the vet gave a song and dance that I made things worse before we took her in so that is nice.
******
I am glad Dad agreed to take her to the vets. I'm sure they are giving the big lecture on "you shouldn't try to treat stuff at home instead of coming to us right away" since Mia's ear is a red hot mess now and I did try the 'home' remedy that actually works for ear mites when I came home late on Friday to find she was scratching at her ear and it was all red and irritated and did look to me like it might be ear mites causing the irritation.
Unfortunately Mia has some much bigger issue going on. Last night I came home and it looked like a blown out abscess under her ear, like what cats get after they've been in a fight and inside the ear was also red and miserable. I just did warm compresses for that and gave her a couple Tramadol pills left over from Ole's tumor removal so she wouldn't be miserable overnight.
Well regardless of what I hear the vets say I am not going to feel too badly about not going to them right away since they took months and months to figure out she needed thyroid supplement years ago.
However I do feel badly that I did not cotton on quicker that her ear was not improving, probably should have had Dad get her to the vets Monday or no later than yesterday since things were not improving, but I totally whiffed on catching that the issue was actually escalating fairly rapidly.
******
I am glad Dad agreed to take her to the vets. I'm sure they are giving the big lecture on "you shouldn't try to treat stuff at home instead of coming to us right away" since Mia's ear is a red hot mess now and I did try the 'home' remedy that actually works for ear mites when I came home late on Friday to find she was scratching at her ear and it was all red and irritated and did look to me like it might be ear mites causing the irritation.
Unfortunately Mia has some much bigger issue going on. Last night I came home and it looked like a blown out abscess under her ear, like what cats get after they've been in a fight and inside the ear was also red and miserable. I just did warm compresses for that and gave her a couple Tramadol pills left over from Ole's tumor removal so she wouldn't be miserable overnight.
Well regardless of what I hear the vets say I am not going to feel too badly about not going to them right away since they took months and months to figure out she needed thyroid supplement years ago.
However I do feel badly that I did not cotton on quicker that her ear was not improving, probably should have had Dad get her to the vets Monday or no later than yesterday since things were not improving, but I totally whiffed on catching that the issue was actually escalating fairly rapidly.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Ugh, Anyone want to write some numerical code for me?
The stupid software engineer has written some crap polynomial fitting routine with 6th order fit for the shorter orbit segments and order 16! for longer segments needed to go with ionosphere stuff. I'm wondering how it is not making all the missions have crappy results instead of just the one that got noticed.
He did this to get a chi-square value. Now I'm pretty sure it is not too hard to get a chi-square while using a sensible spline fit instead of a crazy high-order polynomial but I do not know how to code it up quickly. I hate coding stuff like that.
12.5, 4 and 4.5 miles Sat. Sun. and Monday.
Now turning to packing and stuff for the ride. I am nervous again that Sadie is not ready for 2 days of the LD course even though she did 12 miles and then the LD just fine on Aug 1st and 2nd. I just think that the LD course at this ride has usually been a bit long and has a fair amount of technical up and downs so it might be more of a squeeze on pacing to finish in time. Oh well if I decide Sadie is too tired to go out a 2nd day or we end up OT its not a big deal. I just want to build on the getting back into the distance riding. I really missed it last year.
I'm having to force myself to just chill on the weed control at home. Yes I would like to get after them more but I would not be happy if I kept them sprayed all summer but at the cost of not riding Sadie other than a few short jaunts down the field roads at home. I will try to make more progress next year. Hopefully some of the spots I did hit good this year will have less burrs so I can maintain those zones and get some new sports sprayed; maybe do something to improve the pasture.
My fly bait buckets are helping quite a bit. With the darn VS scare I cringe seeing any flies on the horses faces but the # of flies is significantly less than before I started using the fly bait in the buckets with some moistened manure or last years dead flies for attractants.
I'm having to force myself to just chill on the weed control at home. Yes I would like to get after them more but I would not be happy if I kept them sprayed all summer but at the cost of not riding Sadie other than a few short jaunts down the field roads at home. I will try to make more progress next year. Hopefully some of the spots I did hit good this year will have less burrs so I can maintain those zones and get some new sports sprayed; maybe do something to improve the pasture.
My fly bait buckets are helping quite a bit. With the darn VS scare I cringe seeing any flies on the horses faces but the # of flies is significantly less than before I started using the fly bait in the buckets with some moistened manure or last years dead flies for attractants.
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