I have made a few mentions of my first pony on here before. I still get teary eyed when I talk about him for too long, so I try to keep it at bay. But as I was going through some old pictures of when Blake and I first started dating for a photo book, I ran into pictures of Booger. And his giant gaping wound.
Just adventuring. What we did best.
I was gifted Booger when I was 13 years old. My grandma knew I was yearning for a horse of my own, and she busted out the bills for this sweet baby gelding. Seriously, my first horse was a 2 year old green broke halter bred breeding stock APHA. But he was my rock through all of my hardships. We learned so much together and did all the things. And then one day I got a call he had been in a multi-horse bizarre accident and had a pretty serious wound. It was late at night when it happened, so my dad did not let me go to the hospital with him.
The next day after school I went out to treat him and take a look at what had happened. Yeesh.
This is when the flap was still attached. It came off and I could fit my two fists in his wound.
One of the other horses had broke their leg, so she was euthanized. Another horse had a giant hematoma on his abdomen. As for Booger, the best theory they had was a war with the t-post. Pretty sure the t-post had won. They had tried to stitch some of the muscle back, but eventually it was ripped off. Antibiotics, hydrotherapy and scrubbing of the wound, swat around the wound, and vaseline all down the leg twice a day. He was the best pony about the whole situation too. Blaker and brother came out with me one time so we could take pictures of him.
Isn't that just the cutest face?
Eventually we added scarlet oil spray to the mix. I was so worried that he would heal incorrectly and be uncomfortable or not be able to be ridden like he use to. Much to my surprise, he healed incredibly well. More so than the vet thought he would. You would not even know that something had happened there.
Wash it out. Lots of pressure directly into the wound. He didn't even feel it.
Swat and vaseline.
Brother feeds grain and antibiotics.
I miss that mug. I thought I would have him forever. But I am glad I had the time that I did with him.
I am always discovering what my horses look like. Sure, they look like horses, but sometimes they resemble things totally different. I am sure you have noticed the same things with yours. Anyways, here are some things that resemble my hooved hoes.
BACON
Majestic AF.
Things Bacon looks like:
Short back, long neck, also majestic.
Legs everywhere. Also short back. Majestic in the way it can make people scream and be masters at pyrotechnics.
Heelz yeah.
LUCY
Round and loveable and sweet.
Things Lucy looks like:
Well duh. Just look at it.
What she looks like walloping through the irrigation.
What Pandora sees out in the pasture.
PANDORA
Zesty and cute.
Things Pandora looks like:
Oh the zest. All of the zest. Some cute.
POA. Blake's least fav representation of Pandora. Also, what everyone thinks she is.
Pretty cute. Add own zest.
VEGAS:
Kind of evil, pretty and carmel colored.
Things Vegas looks like:
Barbie horse. No brainer. Love that bit, better get one for her.
A bitch. Definitely this on her bad days.
A UNICORN, DUH.
So, there you go. This might be a fun blog hop, so if you want to join, go ahead and join in! I would love to see what your pones resemble!
I have toodled around on Vegas a lot this year. Always bareback, always not asking for much. She is the kind of horse that doesn't really care if she works or not. Most of the time, she would rather not, so I haven't worried about her too much. Well, I had this itch to take the mare out and actually put in a working ride.
Cob sized 5-point is almost too small on her. Sigh.
This was the first time I rode her with all of the new eventing tools I have gathered in the past year and a half. She was a pleasure show horse, so she was taught to always be super soft, do not look for contact, travel on a loose rein, etc. So, needless to say, she was super confused when I asked her to move forward into contact. She was trying pretty hard to figure it all out, but she was getting frustrated. I was also asking her to carry her head higher than before, and that was also new.
Trying really hard to get under herself. It is hard when you are built like a weener dog.
I kept laughing because she is sooooo different than riding Bacon. That is probably an obvious statement, but I never really payed attention to that when I messed around on her bareback. She has such a long back, a short neck and is soooo damn wiggly. I don't remember her being that wiggly. She is so heavy on the forehand I feel like I am going to go ass over kettle. When I made the comment about the difference, he said "Well yeah, you went from riding a giraffe to riding a hippo."
Pretty girl.
Technically, she is not as round as a hippo, and definitely longer than one.
The major difference was as soon as I stopped riding her, she would quit. I had to work so hard to get her to go and try. My leg looks pretty crappy in all of the photos and that is partially because I was really trying to dig my heels into her the whole time. Spurs would have really helped. After riding her, it felt like I had just got done riding at an event derby. And it was only 25 minutes. I was exhausted. I was maybe hoping to take her to the jumper show this weekend to ground poles and maybe cross rails, but I think I am going to skip that idea. She was always so reliable at all of her other shows and I can always hop on her and just go, but I am not really setting her up for success there.
Oh, it was awkward.
I think she looks best in her western tack. She was bred to be a cutter, and she most certainly looks more the part of that than anything else. That is not to say I won't be riding her in the english get up, but one day I want to take her out and test out her cow. She is still pretty cute though!
It might be nice if I did a post to let you all know that the friend who was in the kicking accident is alive and well! They tried to wake him up slowly from his coma, and the tough guy he is tried to wake up too fast. They tried again the next day, and he woke up more appropriately. He asked his mom what had happened when he was finally fully awake.
When Vegas was clean. Because I forgot to get a picture of her and Goose on their spa days.
It is amazing that he had all of the brain function after being without a beating heart or oxygen for so long. I guess he was at the local arena in a town, and a nice lady driving by saw him get kicked. She thought she might go see if he was ok when she got to the stoplight. When she got to him, he was unconscious and gasping for air. In the short amount of time it took for her to dial 911, he had no pulse and had stopped breathing. Another person came to administer CPR until the paramedics arrived. Had this woman no stopped or not even see the kick happen, he probably wouldn't be with us today.
A big thank you to those who try to help others. Thank you a million times over.
He is now home recovering. Thank goodness.
My lunging pics were all horrible. Sorry!
As for me, I have been about the same. The smoke has been bothering my breathing, but a puff on the inhaler helps. Last week was spa week for all of the ponies. Everybody got a nice bath, manes and tails shampooed and conditioned, bridle paths trimmed. And, get this, Bacon let me braid her mane. Without moving an inch. What the hell horse? Whatever.
Fattest most worse braids ever, but I was just trying to get it done and make it a positive experience.
Everybody has been getting back into some lunging work or bareback rides now that the arena is a safer place again. I am hoping to possibly go to a show this Saturday, but I am not sure if I will be up to it, or if Bacon will. She doesn't seem to have lost any fitness and has been all go from the beginning of last week. It is a local schooling jumper show. I am almost half tempted to take Vegas just to get her out for a little trip and maybe a xrail course. Husband has demanded that I go to this show if I can. We will see.
Pretty girl Lucy.
Cute little husband as a 5 year old mutton buster with a brand new motorcycle!
In case you forgot, horses are awfully alarming when they injure someone. Even if the injury was unintentional. While I was out scrubbing Bacon's tail yesterday, I kept playing a scenario in my mind. That scenario involved kicking. Why was I all of the sudden thinking about my loving horse kicking me?
Because. Horses are dangerous.
Oh hey look. Some danger happening.
A local equestrian and friend had an incident on Sunday that has been heart wrenching and devastating. He is a super friendly kid (I swear everybody knows him) about to go to college for the first time. I use to compete against him on Vegas. He shows up to jump nights. He paddocks race ponies. And he was kicked in the chest so hard that his heart stopped.
Yep. It stopped.
From what I know, somebody was there to perform CPR on him and he came back, but he was without a heart beat for so long that they are worried about brain damage. The hospital kept him in a medically induced coma to let him heal before seeing if he could wake up successfully. They started the process last night, and the horse person and fighter that he is, was trying to wake up too fast. So there is some hope.
Just leading some danger around.
It is amazing seeing all of the horse community over here rallying together for him. I watched that happen another time when another friend of ours had a horse rear and fall on top of him, and the saddle horn went through him and was touching the arena dirt. That man is now one of the friends rallying for this new fallen equestrian.
Jumping some danger over some stuff.
We as a group are frickin' insane if you think about it. We usually get hurt at one point or another, and COME BACK. "Silly 1,200lb animal, let's try this again. Let me climb on you and guide you. Let me pick up your legs. Let me strap things onto you. Hey, why don't you climb into this dark rattling moving box so I can take you somewhere and climb on you some more." We should have BAD ASS tattooed across our body. Or dumb ass? Either may work. What is it about horses that makes us come back after injury? All I can say is you can't keep me away.
Cause why not. I just put this baby on the youtube. You can point and laugh or clap and cheer or whatever you'd like. I am avoiding outside because there is massive smoke from a local fire (currently the largest goddamn fire in the nation, btw) and fire and I don't get along. This sucker is currently in Idaho and Oregon. There was ash on my truck this morning. Ash scares me.
Soda Fire. Currently more than 414 square miles (over 260,000 acres). All livestock grazing areas just gone. Source
Quick side note on the fire fear. In August of 2008, the day before college started, a ginormous fire started over by my house. It was hot and windy, and that baby took off. I could walk out the front door and see flames behind the house in front of me, and go out the backyard and see flames behind that house. It was snowing ash. People in the neighborhoods were in a panic. We were told to be ready to evacuate. It was quiet and loud at the same time. Gas tanks were blowing up. Fire trucks from everywhere came to help. We never had to evacuate but we came so close. 10 homes disappeared in the flames. 9 more were incredibly damaged. One life was lost. I stayed up all night and had class from 9am-9pm the next day. I smelled and looked like I had rolled around in a campfire. I did not have fun.
One of the houses by my house. Our friends house was next to this one. Also gone.
So there. I don't like fire. I despise fire season. I love cross country. So we are going to look at that instead.
The first 4 jumps were missed and so was the last flower jump on video, but you get the picture :)
I don't even know where to begin with all that happened this weekend. I guess I will break it down by day. And I mean really break it down because there is just too much to put into detail.
Friday:
I saw my new rheumatologist. He was very nice and listened to everything I had to say. I believes that I have late stage Lyme disease (third doctor conformation on that) but is also worried about other things that may be happening. He wanted to fully diagnose the Sjogren's disease, so later that day I came back for an ultrasound on my salivary glands and do a Schirmer Tear test. We also pulled a bunch of blood and I learned one of the things we are looking for is Leukemia. Scary.
Fast Lane Johnny was fast.
Happy!
After that, I went to the track to get our handful of horses ready for a few of the races we were in. Fast Lane Johnny was in the Idaho Cup Sprint. He came out of the gate and never looked back. It was an easy win and super fun to watch. I wasn't sure if we could win the next one with Rocky Mtn Freedom, but once again, Rocky went to the front in the Claiming Stakes and stayed there. We also had a mare in for a trainer friend, and she won her race easily as well! It was awesome.
Handsome Rocky
Go buddy go!
Winners!
Saturday:
We got up bright and early to drive about an hour away to pick up 3 tons of hay. Husband was already a little crabby, so when he realized that we were going to run into a triathalon race, he was not amused. We got our hay loaded onto the trailer via tractor, and the best hay man asked if we should try to put some more on top. Why not? Blake strapped the hay down, and again we battled traffic and bikers and it wasn't fun. I told him that things could be worse. Well, we were two turns from home. We had to make a sharp turn, and once the stack started moving there was no stopping it. So, we lost at least half of our stack into the road. We parked the truck and trailer in the parking lot next to us and ran out in between cars to drag bales onto the side walk. Three people stopped to help us. I felt pretty useless (these are 95lb bales of alfalfa) but we got them all out of the way and didn't lose a single bale. One man stayed to help us re-stack and we made it home.
Mr. Mayhem and his daddy.
Boogle had flies all over his face, so he wore a fly mask.
It was also the last race night and we had two in. Nibbles (Outrageous Deal) was in the first in a 3 year old fillies stakes race. This was only her second race, and she is a pretty nervous girl, but Lindsey did a great job ponying her. She ran pretty green, but still tried her heart out and ran a game third place. Tribal Money (Blackie) ran in the last race. It was a mile and 3/16ths, the longest he had ever ran. He came out of the gates flying and got hooked with another horse. They led the entire race, bobbing head and head. They went flying down the stretch for a photo finish. We lost by a nostril. Still, it was an exciting last race and he ran awesome.
Go Nibbles!
The Black beast on the inside.
Sunday:
1.1 Mile area. Sawtooth Wilderness.
Hike day. We were ill prepared because of all of the chaos of the weekend. We got up super early and got ready the best we could before we met up with other friends and started the three hour drive to the trailhead. My brother was late to meet us up there, but finally, we were on the way. We started at a good pace and I had the directions in my hand. We came to the first sign at the 1.1mile marker. My directions said to turn left towards the Alpine Way trail. The sign did not say anything like that. So we kept going on the main trail. We hit another marker. It did not say Alpine Way. So we kept going. After about a quarter mile, we stopped and evaluated. I was pretty sure we were going the wrong way and should had turned left at the first sign. So we went back. The directions started to make sense and I knew we were on the right path.
Going the wrong way led to this awesome picture though.
Cross the "bridge"
Scree. Scree is the devil.
Over the creek and a bridge. And then we encountered some steep switchbacks. This is where I started to have some difficulty. They just kept going up and up and up. I had used my inhaler before hand and taken a hydrocodone. And good thing I did. Finally, we got to a spot that was mostly level. We shuffled through some dense forest area for another mile until we came across our next marker. A sign that said Alpine Way Trail. Huh. Whoever wrote those directions was a little off.
Evil boulder face.
Brother on top of a rock that has a face.
Just keep climbing. Just keep climbing.
The next battle was climbing the face of a boulder. It was the only way to the path, and it was slick and steep. It involved lots of crab walking and slipping. We made it up and started another ascent up some serious steep and slippery terrain. Two members of our group were exhausted and worried about the climb back down, so they sat out for the rest of the climb up. I could feel my legs screaming at me but I kept going. If I slowed my momentum it was not good, so we just kept pushing. Finally we made it to a ledge where we got a grand look at Goat Falls. A nice man was coming down from above and told us that Goat Lake was just ahead of some scree. We crossed Goat Creek right above the falls and climbed through the scree.
We started at the bottom.
My grandpa's doorag did a good job keeping the sweat out of my eyes. Also, that's the slippery crap we were climbing up.
Almost there!
And there it was. It was so surreal. Turquoise blue waters and still some snow on the surrounding peaks. A mini waterfall of melting snow pouring into the ice cold lake. We took it all in. Ate some sandwhich (yay I ate food!) and my brother and I played across a beaver dam. We couldn't stay too long because we had to get back to our friends but it was amazing. I took another hit on the inhaler and another half of a hydro and we began our descent.
Goat Falls!
Goat Lake!
Husband enjoying a sandwich.
Look how pretty!
I lub him. Snow behind us.
Oh god. The pain I was feeling was extreme. My legs shook every step of the way down. My knees felt like razor blades. It was steep and slippery. Another friend did not have the grippiest shoes on and she slipped and fell a few too many times. We got back to the boulder and tried a different route. It was the wrong one. Blake got down first. I was crab walking my way down to him. Katie (the slippery one) was behind me and started to slide down the face into me. Blake caught me and her, thankfully, and we didn't plunge into the ravine behind him.
Brother and I adventuring.
Going back.
March, march.
Come on friends!
We caught up to our other friends and kept heading back. It hurt. It hurt so bad. I wanted to just tuck and roll down the mountain. But I kept silent and used my mental games to keep me moving. At one point I got so far behind everyone. Husband made me take the rest of the hydro before continuing. I shuffled the rest of the way. We finally made it back to the truck. I was done. If I had pushed any harder, I think we may have gotten into trouble. I could feel every breath. But I was pretty proud of myself and my friends. That was not an easy hike. We saw another group on our way back that said that was their second attempt at making it up to Goat Lake in 4 years, and they still weren't going to make it. And I did. Another strike against Lyme.
Look at him go.
Good lookin' crew right there.
Such a weirdo.
I am sore in every possible way today. I was sore before we started the hike yesterday. But it was all worth it. This song is one I was playing in my head yesterday, and it is so incredibly fitting. I encourage you all to take a listen.
