Failing, and Planning Ahead

Shortly after my last update, we had a bit of a heatwave. “Yay! Summer is finally here!”, I was saying, annoying pretty much every non heat loving person out there (and Bridget)

Well, I’m back to say summer is stupid. I put some healing balm stuff on a few scrapes and scratches on Sophie one night. Feeling like an extra good owner, I added some SWAT a bit later, since the mosquitos and flies are exceptionally bad this year.

And...whatever concoction I created ended up making Sophie’s hair fall out and the skin underneath almost look a little burned :( I suspect it was more a result of using oily based products and light coloured pony being in the sun vs an actual issue with either product, but still...yuck. I feel terrible.

It’s been about a week now and it’s all healing just fine, but I haven’t been riding since a couple of the patches were under where my saddle would sit. 

On the plus side, she has (had?) a couple of old scars from a pasture ‘accident’ (overly aggressive pasture mate beat her up, says me) from that winter I boarded her,  and whatever happened irritated those enough that there’s now pink healthy skin there, so maybe I can hope they’ll heal a little better this time. 

No pictures because I’d like to forget it ever happened, but I’ll tell the story because I’d feel bad if it happened to one of you.

Anyway, I messed that up.

 I did attempt to use the down time productively.

I’ve made up my winter feeding plan (surprisingly complicated given our location and hay availability and delivery options) and managed to fill our truck with bags of hay cubes on a recent trip across the water. Hay is classified as a dangerous good on the ferry, and the worker was sceptical but agreed bags of cubes are unlikely to spontaneously combust and let us on. Hay that’s not hay for the win, and hopefully by subbing in the cubes for some of their forage I can be a bit more flexible with my “real” hay supply deliveries.

Equine Super Diet is my new favourite thing, and I picked up a giant bucket of that on sale too and probably have about a years supply now. No more big bags of grain or ration balancers...a tiny cup of this stuff has all the vitamins my two need and they’re thriving. So much more cost effective and no worries about grain deliveries and orders now.

Shiny, happy

I got Lake Bridget out a few times and “training” is progressing well.

Loads reliably

Ties, good with water

I also got a good start on my bedroom turned home office space, finishing all the painting and getting the desk built. So much more to do, but I put in a lot of hours this weekend and progress is being made. Very horse relevant because the ability to work well from home means I have so much more time for riding!

Was a closet, is now an alcove for a desk. I was going to put in shelves above but the closet and the walls themselves are not remotely built square and I’m done with that. Just a PSA if you see a cute closet remodel...given all the fiddly time spent on this, a nice stand-alone desk would have been well worth the expense. The only reason I persisted is that the closet doors needed replacing as did the falling down organizer...so why not do something different and keep more of the room open for yoga space.  Also, please ignore the mess, and my short person problem of having a chair dedicated to being a step stool :D

Finally, I bought my husband his very own manure fork, thereby doubling paddock picking productivity! (Joking, I DID buy him a nice manure fork to use when he wants to instead of his current wobbly duct taped one no one else wanted, but his days are his own. He’s the best and super supportive of my crazy horse obsession but horses aren’t his thing and I’m good with that!)

Fingers crossed, I’ll be back in the saddle this week, then next week is part two of my Staycation 2020 which I’m hoping will feature a lot of barn time!