Weekend Update

I had planned to try and ride the day after Thanksgiving, but sometimes all good intentions go astray.  The entire herd decided that the weather was way too nice to make an appearance for dinner and come into the barn for the night.  Personally, I think Blue had something to do with their decision.  I don’t know whether he has a Ouija board or ESP, but somehow he knew he was going to be ridden so he must have talked them out of coming in.  We left the barn lights on until seven p.m. but when they were a no-show, we put the feed tubs away and closed down for the night.  They know the rules:  be home by seven for dinner or you don’t eat.

Saturday morning they showed up for breakfast around eight and we brought the feed tubs into the catch pen.  I waited until Blue had finished his tub and brought him in.  After a thorough grooming to get the ground-in mud off and a de-burring session we were ready.  The time had come; it was exactly four weeks since we parted company and I landed on the ground. 

I feel it is important to get back on as soon as you are able after a mishap concerning riding.  If not for your own mindset, then for the horse’s thought process.  How can we know what the horse has been thinking about since he lost a rider?  Each horse has a different personality and handles situations differently.  I’ve been off a few different horses and each one treated the situation in their own way.  Erik would come over to see if I was okay, Dusty would just stand there and give me a disdainful look and Blue galloped a few laps around the ring as I was laying on the ground [and then stood staring from across the arena with a look of alarm.]  This may be the first time anyone has ever actually fallen off of Blue and I think he didn’t know what to do.  So I think it was important for me to get back on and show him we’re still a team and everything is all right.

We went down to the arena and introduced him to the new built-in mounting block in the corner… he couldn’t care less.  The geese were screeching as usual in the pond outside the windows.  I mounted and we went for a leisurely walk around the arena on the buckle.  Then walked a pattern over some cavelletti followed by two trot circles in either direction.  Blue seemed fine, if a little lazy due to his being tired from wandering all night.  I can just picture them all out there having a poker game, smoking cigars and Dusty bringing them their drinks.  He got lots of treats and lots of praise, so hopefully all is well in Blue Land.  As an example of Blue’s mentality, yesterday he was the only one all the way in the back pasture grazing with not a care in the world.  The rest of the herd was in a totally different pasture all huddled together grazing.  Go figure, he’s a horse of a different nature who never ceases to mystify me.

To wrap it up, we had a quiet short session that we will build on as we both get back into shape after four weeks of unused muscles—both in our bodies and in our heads.  Oh, and they stayed out again partying last night, the weather has been in the unheard of sixties and I can’t blame them; I’d be out under the night sky with a billion stars surrounding me too.

Until next time

Quote for Today

 When you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have.
    - Sir Winston Churchill

Have You Ever Been This Tired?

 Until next time

Quote for Today
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.  ~Anton Chekhov

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.

Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway ---
Thanksgiving comes again! 

Quote for Today

John Greenleaf Whittier

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

About Riding Again

Blue modeling his "helicopter" ears

I was hoping that this weekend I would be able to ride again.  Unfortunately, although I’m much better, I’m still sore.  Seems the muscle and soft tissue injury isn’t healing as quickly as I thought it would.   The day after Thanksgiving we have a tradition of either going on a trail ride, weather permitting or riding in the arena.  So that’s what I’m shooting for.

Some people have asked me if I’m fearful of getting back in the saddle again.  The answer is- not really.  This isn’t my first time off a horse and realistically it won’t be my last.  Although with some wishful thinking I could hope for it not to ever happen again.  It’s important to me to remember that it wasn’t Blue’s fault I came off.   When Blue spooked he was simply being a horse and horses have the flight gene when something startles them.  I feel when a horse spooks it’s my job to try and stay on somehow and help to calm them down.  This particular time I wasn’t being as diligent as I used to be with my horse Erik who was an epic spooker.  He was a horse who could never be trusted completely and also had the fastest spook in the East.  With Dusty I was somewhat cautious just because she is so green.  Blue has on rare occasions spooked with a small jump sideways and one time he actually bucked about half a foot off the ground. Not a big deal really.  The spook that has caused me so much trouble came out of nowhere and I never expected it from him.  Just goes to show you every horse has a great startle reflex in there somewhere.

Unlike most horse people I won’t get back on a horse unless I feel one hundred percent able to handle any situation that may come up.  That’s one of the reasons I took a few months of rehab after my knee replacement to climb aboard Dusty who I hadn’t ridden for a good many years.  If I don’t feel that my legs and seat are properly connected to the horse and saddle I try not to take unnecessary chances. Not to say that I didn’t use to get right back on after a fall because I did, it was just the way things were done way back when.  Now I’ve found that it takes a longer time to heal at my age and I pretty much just proved that to myself recently.  So even though I could ride with the proper medication I’d prefer to wait until I’m totally healed.    Don’t know whether that makes me a wuss or a lesser horse person, but those are my feelings on getting back on after an injury.

Until next time

Quote for Today

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
    - Confucious

Burr Central

This is how we spent our morning.  De-burring manes and tails is time consuming and not a whole lot of fun but it's one of those jobs that needs to be done.  I just wish I knew where they were picking these burrs up so I could mow them down. The entire herd was well-behaved and let us show sheen their burrs and remove them.

Blue surprised me today by being very friendly and cuddly.  He let me kiss his nose and put his cheek on my cheek and just stood there quietly for a moment or two.  Normally he's not quite that sensitive a guy.  Dusty was also being very cute, until she bopped me on top of the head with the underside of her jaw.  Not on purpose, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe she's trying to knock some sense into me, but I think she was really looking for a treat.

" Blue "

" Donnie"

" Sami "

" Sami "

" Dusty "

Until next time

Quote for Today
You never get the pleasure of owning a horse, you only have the pleasure of being its slave.
 

The Latest News

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of my blogging friends in the equine community for your kind and caring comments.  I’m not surprised that people who love and care for horses also care for other equine enthusiasts even though most of us have never met in person.  My injuries are healing but are still sore.  I’m guessing it’s an age related thing, the older you get the slower bruises heal.  Just a fact of life but I’ll deal with it.  Thank you again your kindness touched me and makes the healing process easier.

Falling into the category of more bad luck this past Monday continued to bring unwanted injuries to our family.  My daughter Jacquie was in a very serious auto accident on her way to work.  She is okay and is at home recuperating with some very colorful and painful bruises from head to toe.  The front of her car was involved and the car is now totaled.  I’m very thankful for seat belts and air bags, without them I’m not so sure she would have survived the crash.  It’s every parent’s nightmare to get the call saying, “There’s been an accident.”  She was very lucky and we’re grateful that she’s going to be fine.

It could be a while before I’m back to blogging but I will try to visit you all and keep up to date by visiting when I can.

Until next time

Quote for Today

In bad luck hold out: in good luck, hold in

German Proverb

 

Unceremoniously Dumped!

"Thanks Blue", because of you I've been sitting on ice packs all week!

This past Saturday I was unceremoniously dumped by Blue, the “safest” horse in the barn.  He’s just lost that distinguished title, by the way.  Since a storm was moving in, I decided to ride early and my daughter was then going to lunge Grady and Nate.  I opted to ride outside in the ring by the barn; we were soon going to be under snow so I thought it would be nice to ride outdoors.

My daughter gave Blue and myself a lovely lesson.  Walk, trot, canter all went seamlessly and felt great.  During my last canter in a two-point I came around the bottom left corner and was just about to transition to walk and end our lesson. Out of nowhere Blue spooked/jumped to the right as a black van came up the road behind him, the saddle slipped and I became unbalanced, which in turn led Blue to gallop full speed away from the offending unbalanced rider.  Needless to say, I gracefully sailed through the air like an acrobatic butterfly caught in an updraft of wind and landed like a sack of potatoes on my back.

Apparently, I gave my daughter a little bit of a scare because I was knocked unconscious.  Now this is her description of me as I lay there: “I thought you were dead; your eyes were rolled back in your head, you had blood coming out of your mouth [bit my tongue] and you were making the most god awful noises from your throat--I thought you were choking.”  Didn’t sound too good.  She then cut my sweatshirt and turtleneck, which had bunched up tight, away from my neck thinking I needed air.  She’s good in an emergency.  Personally, I don’t remember anything except waking up with a bunch of people (neighbor, ambulance people and Jacquie) standing looking down at me like I was a specimen pinned to a board.  I never even heard the ambulance pull in.  How embarrassing.  I don’t like being stared at, especially in that condition.

Anyway, they loaded me onto a backboard and secured my head.  I’d never been in an ambulance before, so this was a new experience.  You know you’re getting old when you think the two EMT’s look like they just graduated high school.  The girl kept trying to insert an IV needle into the vein on the top of my hand, but on bouncy roads this wasn’t working out.  So I asked her to stop.  The hospital was about 45 minutes away.  We have a closer one but it’s not so good so my daughter wouldn’t let them take me there.  During the ride the ambulance stopped so I asked if we were pulling into the hospital and was told no we were in a traffic jam.  So I then inquired, “Excuse me, but isn’t this ambulance with lights and sirens?”  Teenage EMT  “Uh, yeah, Joe put the lights on and let’s go.”   Even in that state I could still be impatient in traffic….

We finally made it.  When they took off my boots and half chaps the nurse remarked “that’s a lot of dirt on the sheet now.”  “Do ya think so?”  I got some x-rays.  Nothing broken, just contusions in my butt and probably a bruised tailbone.  Nice.  Hurts like hell too.  Guess it pays to have a little extra padding once in a while to save you from broken bones though.  Asked them if I needed a CAT scan for my head to make sure my brain wasn’t Swiss cheese.  Not required the doctor said; my daughter confirmed that I wasn’t acting more addled than usual.

By the time we got out of there the snowstorm had kicked in to an almost white-out condition; after a few wrong turns, a stop at the drugstore for pain medication prescriptions, and a few stops along the way to check for people in cars off the side of the road, we made it home in about two hours.  Lots of trees and wires down because the leaves couldn’t take the heaviness.  Not a fun Saturday by any means between the accident and the snow.  Good thing it was close to Halloween because my new Frankenstein shuffle fit right in.

So the moral of this story - even the safest horse in the barn can have a bad day, which in turn rewards you with a painful week.  And everybody comes off once in a while no matter how good a rider you might think you are.  Even if, like me, you’ve had a good run and haven’t hit the ground in 10-11 years.  It should also go without saying, ALWAYS, ALWAYS wear a helmet.  This is the first time in all my many years of falls that I have been knocked out; if I wasn’t wearing a helmet my brain would be scrambled eggs.  

  

Also, beware of scary black vans!  (Good advice for several reasons ;-)

Until next time

Quote for Today

When you're young and you fall off a horse, you may break something. When you're my age and you fall off, you splatter. 
    - Roy Rogers