Wow, I'm actually posting!

You know, I knew summer was a busy time, and yet I thought I'd be able to write a post at least once a week. I guess not. So, time to bring this up to date.

I had Rho-Dawn, my chestnut Crabbet related stallion, humanely euthanized shortly after my last post. a few days later, Willow had her foal, a handsome red colt with two socks and no other white, by CBA Bahim Shetan. We've been calling the colt Oz, and his registered name will probably be something like Oz Triumphant, to mesh with the Graces theme as well as the Whedonverse theme. Oz is doing well, frisky and healthy. He seems more delicate than Alex was at that age, but I attribute that to different breeding. Bahim is Babson/Old Egyptian and more refined, and Rho was Crabbet and built like a tank.

Oz at 1 week old

Oz at 46 Hours old

In other news, Ken has been building a new blacksmith shop at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I've been trying to help out, but mostly I've been documenting the process. This past weekend was opening, and it was mostly done, it just needed a roof, which should be on by now. He's had so many comments and compliments on it, as well he should because it looks great.

Iron Wolf Forge building, opening day of Bristol 2010

I've been lax in my diet and exercise regime. I've been trying to eat right when I can, going for salads and such, and choosing to park farther away from the store so I can walk more, but sometimes a soda sneaks in, or I spend the whole day editing on the computer. I'm going to try harder now. I found a program in Fitness magazine that I'm thinking of trying, to prepare for a 5K walk/run. I'd be starting with the 6 week 'Your First 5K' plan, with the hopeful goal of participating in a 5K either in Chicago (the Lung Run) or Minneapolis (the Skirt Chaser 5K) We'll see how that goes...

I've been around 180-183 for the past weeks. Yesterday I weighed in at 183.

Catching up

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd summarize they past few months, and try to post more regularly in the future.

Never had been easier to handle since he got home from the trainer. He leads without being pushy, he picks up his feet without a fight, and I can brush him all over without him being touchy. He's pretty dominant out in the pasture, but I can't really do much until the thaw comes and I can put up new paddocks.

Alex is growing like a weed! At a few months shy of two years he's about as tall as his dam, though a little butt high at the moment. He's such a sweetheart, and leads and stands for the farrier with no problems. I've got his Pinto and Half-Arab registration papers ready to go, I've just been holding off until he's gelded (which should be soon).

Willow's Pinto registration application will be mailed this week, hopefully there won't be a problem with the two choices of name I came up with.

Hope had a pasture incident the other day that had her bleeding profusely from a cut just above her coronet band. When I first saw it her hoof was bright red and I thought she had cut her heel bulb through to the coronet band. I washed and wrapped it and gave her a little Bute and kept her on stall rest for a couple of days. After I unwrapped it, I saw it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I wrapped it again for protection and turned her out. That night, I removed the bandage and let the wound air out. She's doing well, a little sore but healing well. I'm hoping I'll be able to send her out for training this year, along with Faith and Willow.

The older horses are doing well, Sparky especially. She's doing so much better than last year, you wouldn't believe that it was the same horse! She's put weight back on, is more aligned in the hips, isn't laying down all the time, and has a zest for life that was missing last winter though to July.

Jul is 37 this year, and is bright and cheerful and has good teeth. Gem is 31, and doesn't have good teeth like his dam, but eats well anyway and acts like he's a teenager. Tassel is also 31, and seems to be feeling her years, but has a bit of spunk every once in a while. Heather is 30 and energetic, I'm hoping to lose some weight and head off to do some light trail riding with her.

Bahim is 26 this year, and has his issues, mostly with his teeth. He choked in October, and freaked me out. The vet came out and tubed him, and there was so much senior feed that came out. She then floated his teeth, and stated he has no real grinding surface anymore, they're plate smooth, so I have to really watch out for choke. He refuses to eat softened pellets, so he gets Purina Senior which seems to crumble better in his mouth. I have his feed pan close to the ground as well, and that seems to have helped.

Rho is in good weight, though he still needs to be sedated to trim his feet. I just don't know what happened, he used to be really good about it.

Fiesta the Wonder Hinny is doing well, plump and sassy. His hooves have been under control for a while not, no more long feet and rocking back on his heels. It took a while to get to this point, and I'm glad we finally did. He also stands for trims with almost no fussing!

All the others are fine, plump and fluffy and content to eat hay and play tag in the pasture. Hopefully I'll keep up with blogging this year, so my posts aren't always so long!

Warming weather + ice and mud = injured gelding

Spring is almost here! It's been in the sixties for most of the week, and while the frost hasn't completely let go, the ice is mostly gone and has been replaced with slick greasy mud. While this transition was going on, the horses got rather spunky, and needless to say, there's a rather unhappy gelding resting his leg in the barn.

I got home on Saturday after spending the day at a hop grower's informational seminar. I fed hay and water, then went to let everyone in for supper. The first one in is Never, and he's favoring his right front leg. I check him out, looking for heat and swelling, and find that it's mostly in his upper foreleg and shoulder. He also has mud on his face, neck and a bit on his side. My best guess is that he took a tight turn while goofing off and fell, bruising his leg and shoulder. I've had him on stall rest ever since, and he's not very happy about it.

I went to the vet yesterday to pick up Dormosedan for Rho (so we can trim his feet without getting anyone getting hurt) and picked up something stronger than aspirin for Never. The vet agreed that it was probably a bone bruise and that I was treating it the best way possible. Even if it was a hairline fracture, there's not a lot to do for it but lots of stall rest and pain killers. The powdered Bute didn't cost that much, about $35 for about 50 doses, but the Dormosedan was a lot more than I remember: $67 for one 1.5 cc dose!

Never's swelling seems to be going down a little, though he's still favoring the leg somewhat. Hopefully, he'll be ready to got out again soon, so he can roll in the mud with the rest of the herd. It'll be nice when the pasture is divided, though, to make it easier to separate the rowdy ones from the ones that need more rest.