A week under saddle and we are back to normal.

Rose's leg is nearly healed. This photo was taken mid week, and it is looking even better now. She has a bit of swelling still around the wound, from her bandage being removed, but it is going down everyday. A little exercise and cold hose seems to help it.

After a week of consistent work, at long last, Rose's temperament has completely chilled out and she the nice sweet docile mare that she was a month ago. Today was a big day for her. I had my friend Britt come out and hop on her for a jaunt around the arena. It is so fun to get to watch her move, and it's quite nice to have company at the barn as well. Usually, due to my work schedule, I'm the only one at the barn when I ride, so it was quite a treat to have company.

Now that she's in full work again, I can't wait to go for a lesson with Tracie, but unfortunately our weekends are pretty booked up for the next month, so alas, I don't think I'll be able to haul in for a lesson until mid-August. For now though, I'm just glad that she is finally settled into her new home, working well, and is in a good mind set again.

Have a great week everyone.

Back to work, at long last.

Between holiday weekends and moving, Rose got to have nearly two weeks off of work. The good news is that her cut is healing up well and looks like it won't scar much if at all. She's also back onto full turnout, which is certainly helping her mind. Now it's time to get her back into full work. The weather is finally cooperating, and it's been nice and dry and hot (maybe a little too hot, but I'll take that over rain any day). On my way to the barn the other day I caught a magnificent glimpse of Mt. Hood and had to share. This is my drive to the barn and is what has been hidden behind the clouds all year.

As I stated, we've been moving our house this past week. Thanks to the worlds most understanding fiance, I manage to sneak some time in for the barn and find time to longe her on Saturday, and longe/ride her on Sunday. Sunday turned out to be a rough day for Rose. All of the horses were turned out when I was riding, and she wanted to do anything other than focus on me. After so much time off I didn't have high expectations, so I wasn't surprised or disappointed by our mediocre ride.

Afterward I decided to give her a bath, which went well until a fellow boarder decided to fill up water buckets. Startled from the noise Rose shot forward out of the wash stall and turned her self around in the cross ties, ending up panicking and breaking the tie I couldn't get to free from the wall. Luckily no harm was done to her or anyone, just the cross tie. Its moments like that when I remember that she is still just a half trained baby. Now that she looks like a mature horse, and since most of the time she is so well behaved, it is easy to forget her age. As a result, I've decided that our ground manners project this month will be to get her desensitized to the water bucket/hose noise. Prior to our current barn she's always had an automatic waterer in her stall, so it's an issue that I was unaware of previously. My plan involves an empty bucket, her stall, a hose, and a stud chain and lead rope. This should be interesting, wish me luck!

Goodbye Stitches!

Yesterday was the 2.5 week mark since Rose cut her leg. This meant that it was time for the stitches to come out. This was my first time removing them and I was pretty excited about it. It seemed like such a technical thing to do...until the task was done of course. I have to say, removing stitches is one easy task. Putting them in is where the real skill is involved. So as much as I delight in dabbling in my “vet tech” hobby as of late, I don’t think that I earned that many gold stars removing the stitches.

As you can see in the photo, her wound is healing up well. Unfortunately I was fretting a bit too much over it the first day to remember to take a photo, so I missed my opportunity to document the healing progression from day one. I'm sure you can imagine how much worse it looked, although it looked the worst on about day six, due to swelling, etc. After that it just kept looking better with every bandage change. Only one more week of bandages and then we can resume full work. She's been a great patient and I could not have asked more from her. Luckily she's been content hanging out in her stall and run all day long and just walking and trotting under saddle. However, I am very much looking forward to watching her run and stretch her legs in the paddock next week. The vet said she could have limited turnout in a small paddock starting this weekend, so that's what she will start getting. Never having dealt with a wound that needed stitches before, I'm a little concerned about the wound splitting back open.

Am I needlessly worrying? Does anyone out there have any words of wisdom?

There will be a bit of a non-blogging break as we will be in Montana visiting friends and family for the next 5 days. I don’t know how Rose is during fireworks, as this is our first Fourth of July together, and I don’t want her to get re-injured as a result of being reactive. Given that the neighbors apparently put on a huge fireworks show Miss. Rose will be happily doped up in her stall on Sunday.

Have a great holiday everyone!