Grounded

Blue skies!!! And a tiny looking Marley galloping around the pasture

Well this was not the post I was hoping to write when I tacked my horse up Tues afternoon! But things don't always go to plan, especially when dealing with horses.

I was pretty excited to be out riding on Tues. My ring was dry, the weather was warm, and I was trying to get Chimi and myself ready for our first outing since April of 2018. FENCE is hosting a XC schooling day this coming Sunday (weather permitting) and I had signed up with my trainer to go. I figured we'd just bop around some of the Starter/Beginner Novice jumps and see how it goes. I'm still working on building my fitness so I really wanted a fun low key outing and couldn't wait. HA. HA. HA. Damnit.

My birthday present! It is now hanging up in my barn :)

My ride started out really nice though. Finn's leaser, T, was there too and we both were supposed to go schooling together on Sunday. It was nice having someone to ride with even if we were just tooling around the ring. After having a wonderful warmup I asked her if she wanted me to put a jump up in the arena so that we could both pop over something before Sunday. She hasn't been able to ride Finn a lot this winter so she gladly said yes and I hopped off and gave her Chimi to hold while I put out a jump. I decided we should have two jumps, one a regular poles and standards and the the 2nd one the white plastic boxes I have. Both were honestly about 2' so nothing difficult and something pretty basic to get us started.

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T popped over the jumps first while I climbed back onto Chimi and after a quick trot and canter around the ring I headed for the regular standard jump and it was fantastic! Chimi perked his ears forward and popped over the jump like it was nothing. I went over it a few more times and all was pretty good. He was trying to do his stupid canter right before the jump like he did in the early days which for him is an evasion. It's a lot to describe and I don't even think I can word it correctly for you guys to understand how he feels when he does it but just know it's him being a bit of a "know it all" and he tends to lose focus on what's right in front of his face so things will surprise him b/c he was to busy "knowing things". I had it mostly under control, but definitely not fixing the problem over the pole jump and again the jumps were so small I really didn't think anything of it. I was just so excited to be jumping again that I just let it slide. Famous last thoughts.

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I turned to the white boxes and that was it. The next thing I remember is feeling pain on my face, a cramp in my calf, and I'm just laying there on my back on the ground hearing T call out if I was ok. I called back "I'm fine just give me a second!" and I laid there for a bit going through a mental checklist of where I was hurting and how bad. I have no visual remembrance of any of this. I know what I said, I know what I felt but I couldn't tell you what I saw. I could see but it didn't compute into my memory. I remember standing up, looking at the ground, feeling sand in my pants, and talking to T. I told her I'm not ok, I can't get back on, I think I have a concussion, and can you please take Chimi over the jump because I can't do it. It wasn't because I was scared, I knew I was seriously enough hurt and getting back on would of been a mistake.

Fall Off GIF from Horse GIFs

 I don't really remember what happened next. I can assume that I held Finn for her while she hopped on Chimi but I was lost somewhere in a mental cloud trying to think about where my Arnica was and having some sort of weird dream while I was standing there. It's kinda of a weird feeling thinking back on it and honestly feels more like a dream than a reality. Honestly I feel like I had a dream while I was laying on the ground and then again when I was holding Finn. Couldn't tell you what the dream was about but you know that feeling you have when you wake up and you don't remember what you dreamt but you know you had a dream? Yeah I had that feeling when I was laying on the ground and then again as I was standing there "watching" T take Chimi over the jumps. It's really a creepy feeling trying to pull up my memories from the fall and having zero visual memory. It's all black with just feelings, emotions, and conversation as the remaining part of my memory.

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As for what actually happened... well my best guess from what I do remember and my injuries is this. Chimi did his stupid canter evasion where he basically takes the bit and runs while shouting "I know best!!!!" gets to the base of the jump and went "Oh Shit!!! We're jumping??? I can't jump from here! I didn't know we were jumping!! I'm going to stop because I obviously can't jump over this thing in my way" and I fell forward, hit my face on his neck, got road rash from his mane, and then fell off to the left and landed on my back. And that's all from feeling memories- I remember what it felt like but I don't remember seeing it happen.

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Overall I was pretty lucky that day. I of course was wearing a helmet (which will now be tossed out) and having T there to take care of Chimi and feed all the horses was a blessing. I'm not seriously injured, just really sore, but able to function. My stepson is an almost EMT (just has to pass the 2nd half of the test) and he came up to make sure I was alive before laughing at me sway around like a Weeble Wobble while I was doing the concussion test. I didn't go to the hospital because 1) I hate them 2) I was fine (enough) and 3) my stepson has had plenty of concussions from football and having an accident prone "youth" (hell he's still damn young!) and told me to take it easy and if things got worse then yes I would of gone to the hospital, but they didn't.

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And as for my weekend plans? Well they've gone into the crapper. I'm sidelined for at least a week while my brain heals and then once that happens I'll take things a bit slower with Chimi and make sure his brain is functioning to!!!! He really can be a Dumb-blood at times and I just shake my head at him. We'll eventually be back to normal riding but I need to make sure I don't skip any steps next time!!!

Practice makes Perfect...Wrapping edition

Nova wondering when it's going to stop raining every damn day

3 of our animals decided this month that they needed to pay a visit to the various vets' offices and 2 of them require me to dust off my wrapping skills and practice perfect tension and even spacing.

Lilo is a bit of a cinderblock- she just plops down wherever she wants regardless of who might of been there first!

It started off with Lilo having some gastric upset and upon further inspection/tests her gut was so screwed up (she was found on the side of the road) so she was on medicine to kill all the bad gut bacteria and then probiotics to replace the bad stuff with good gut bacteria. She's looking good and finally gaining weight!!

Bad dogs have to wear the cone of shame. Smart dogs figure out how to flip the cone over and still be able to chew wrap- bad smart dogs get a bigger cone of shame that can't be flipped. Don't be a bad smart dog.

Then Pepper somehow ripped off a chunk of her foot exposing the tendons in one of her toes (scroll to the bottom of this post if you want to see it!). Have no idea how she did it but Husband found her at the backdoor trying to tell us that she was hurt. We jumped into the car and drove the 7 minutes to the vets office and they cleaned it up and put a bandage over her paw. The really interesting thing though is they're using Manuka Honey to help it form granulated tissue and heal quicker. The 2 vets that she's seen have just gone on and on about how much success they've seen using the Manuka honey when it comes to healing injuries and growing skin back quickly (Pepper didn't even leave a flap of skin- it was all gone...never found the missing chunk of skin...) Now that we're in charge of wrapping Pepper's foot for the next 14 days (instead of paying the vet $30  to do it every 3 days- if we made it to day 3 before she chewed it off...grrrrr!!!) I've had to practice my skills on a dog's paw and it is a good bit different than a horse's leg! Thankfully Pepper is a very good patient and just lays there while I do my best to get honey on gauze,  grab the casting wrap stuff, wrap some other thing around all of that, then cover it in vet wrap followed by elasticon all while hoping it's not to tight or loose. I should be a pro by the end of this! Or so I hope!!

Is she a mule or a horse? Some may wonder...

And the final (I hope- especially b/c we've reached the "3") Marley got kicked in the leg and it swelled up and looked like it might be on the way to being infected (plus she blows up like a balloon at the drop of a hat) Of course the cut was on her forearm so I've had to do some elaborate wrapping making it look like her injury was way worse than it really was. The vet gave her some antibiotics and bute and decided not to stitch the cut so it would easily drain. She's been such a trooper and honestly whoever taught her to have such good manners thank you! She doesn't like me squirting the medicine in her mouth but she just stands there and swallows quickly. Gah she's such a good horse and I'm just sad her riding career was cut short before it ever really got going. (that's a story in and of itself but basically she injured her back and struggles to carry the weight of a rider, even a very tiny light one)

First prints in a freshly drug than rained on ring- oh and of course Chimi sprung his shoe so this was all at the walk and now that his shoe is fixed we're getting MORE rain

Riding continues to be hit or miss b/c of the weather and suddenly I realized it's almost the end of February which doesn't leave us much time to prepare for the spring season!!! In 2 weeks FENCE is having a XC schooling day (weather permitting) and I'd really like to take Chimi out and hop over some of the basics to refresh both our brains. But this next week we have rain in the forecast for 6 days straight and neither of us have jumped since the hoof crack. I'm hoping to haul to an indoor and I need to organize my time better so I can squeeze it in between work, barn/house chores, and all this bandaging I have to do! I know I can do it I just have to be better about using my time wisely (which I'm TERRIBLE at)

Did spring sneak up on any of you guys? Or have you been good about keeping the riding going despite shit weather?

(Scroll down if you want to see Pepper's toe when we got to the vet's office)

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Chimi's Photoshoot

His face gets me every time... I smile just looking at it!!!!

Back in September I had a few houseguests for WEG. I loved having them here for the weekend and lots of hilarity and wine was enjoyed! One of the guests was Britt over at Red on the Right and she of course had her camera handy for some epic photos of WEGness and Chiminess!!!

He's really good at staring off in the distance

With rain/a hurricane in the forecast we were lucky to sneak the photo shoot in the first day before we were tired from the endless walking around TIEC and eventual Hurricane Florence that basically canceled WEG for a day and made us all cry over the not to be rescheduled Freestyle.

just excuse Chimi's hay belly...he definitely enjoyed his 6 month vacation

Poor Chimi was quite feral looking when Britt arrived b/c he'd basically been sitting in a field all summer waiting for the hoof crack to grow out. His mane was long, he hadn't had a bath in ages, he was FAT, but luckily his winter coat was starting to come in and he was in that perfect moment where all his dapples were at their peak before disappearing into a full on black coat for winter. Right before the photoshoot we quickly pulled his mane, washed his sock, brushed his tail, and rinsed off any trace of mud on his body.

I mean seriously- those DAPPLES!!!!! This picture is my computer's wallpaper

After doing the quick cleanup of Feral Beast we headed out to various spots around the property where Chimi showed off his best poses. Overall he was a pretty good model and kept his ears forward the majority of the time. We got so many amazing shots of Chimi that I can't really decide which one is my favorite. I was so appreciative of Britt for taking her time to not only capture amazing photographs of Chimi but help me pull his mane!

Nothing here...just posing because I'm so handsome...

 If you ever want a quality photographer to take gorgeous photos of your pony I highly recommend Britt! This was the 2nd photoshoot I had with her and I love both sets she did. The first one was of my old guy Johnny who ended up passing away a few months after she took his pictures so they were even more special because they were the last quality photographs I had of him. Also if you enjoy just looking at gorgeous photographs on Instagram and Facebook give her a follow at Britt Gillis Design!(hopefully those 3 links will work and take you to her Facebook, Instagram, and website)

WEEEEEE!!!!!!!