Hither and Thither

Thank you all for your kind words on my last post! It means so much to see how many people care about Leo.

Last week was quite the adventure, packed so full of things that I barely had time to sleep. I worked overnights Monday-Thursday (typically I work Wednesday to Saturday; but I got the weekend off); cleaned stalls Monday-Wednesday, led feed shifts Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; rode in lessons on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; GOT TO MEET TERESA (!!!!) on Thursday; deep cleaned my house and worked on packing; iced all four of a lesson horse's legs twice a day for the entire weekend; worked Fante for her owner; aaaand then today to top off all the craziness I had a long planned surgical procedure done. (So if this post seems a little out of it, it's probably the Percocet).

Brief recaps to follow, in no particular order.

Blogger meet-up!

I was able to flex my work schedule and go in later than normal on Thursday evening, which allowed me to drive up to Leah's house and hang out with her and Teresa! Leah graciously shared Ruby with us, and it was such a blast to ride a real dressage horse in a real dressage saddle. Ruby is absolutely lovely, and despite some zoominess did not seem to mind my lack of dressage knowledge at all. And it was so great to meet Teresa in person! We've been internet friends basically since I started this blog, and she's just as fabulous in real life as she sounds online.

So fancy <3

Nigel hates me

Leg icing took up a huge chunk of my weekend. Barn favorite Nigel came up lame on Monday, and has been on stall rest ever since. Unfortunately, his legs were so swollen that the vet was unable to ultrasound, so I was tasked with icing all four legs, two times a day, for three days. (Thank GOD we had ice boots because initially the vet told me to cold hose them individually. Which I would have done, but ice boots were INFINITELY nicer). His legs slowly have been going down and the vet should be out tomorrow to take a look and figure out what's going on! 

FINALLY got some pictures of the new house!

The lesson plan last week was super badass and took cross training to an interesting new level.  Our outdoor arena is a massive space that at one point was used for hay. The half closest to the barn is dirt and where all the jumps are traditionally set up; the other half is still grass and is set up as a Dressage court.  About a month ago, Trainer dragged all the solid, cross country style jumps down to that end so that our courses could involve "stadium" and "xc" jumps, and also so that the horses could work on their collective issues with herd/barn sourness. Summer camp has started, so now there are barrels set up and most of the big jumps have been pushed to the sides, but this week Trainer K decided to have us do it all.

Rough AF sketch, not to scale

We started up top with a simple stadium course, but the entire thing was timed so it was ridden at jumper speed. Then galloped down the track to the very far end of the entire arena, sharp 90° turn to the brush boxes, jumped into the barrel setup, ran a barrel pattern, jumped out, another sharp turn to get to the ("scary"bright red) rolltop, then galloped back up top to jump the final outside line. (This last bit was eliminated later in the week when we remembered that galloping towards the barn wasn't exactly the best plan, so it switched to a circle at the far end and then walking back up top)

It was pretty freaking badass, and I don't have any media, but I do have a gif of a brief tiny jumper course that Jordyn and I did at the very end of our lesson on Friday. 

Love her.

This post has been about as scattered as my entire week, so kudos to you if you've managed to wade through it all! The Equioxx seems to be helping Leo, and in a month or so he'll go back to the University vet to potentially try a second round of injections as a "one last attempt" sort of thing - should that fail, he'll be on 6-12 months of pasture rest to see if that leads to any improvements. 

New fly mask - with EARS! 

I'm out of the riding game for at least a week, possibly longer, and most likely won't make it to the barn at all for a while, so posts likely will not be happening. Ill def still be reading everyone's posts, though, and hope that you all have excellent weeks!