Life and Stuff

Part of me has moved out west.



This is my daughter Heidi. Daughter # 2.   She has moved to Carlsbad, California and has been living out there a few months now.  I believe I have lost her to the thrill of California (she loves it there).  If you see her pretty face, hug her for Mom will ya?  She is working on building a business, has patented a very green emerging technology, and has a very busy life right now.  She is my wayward, free spirit, heart of spun gold child.  Having her away and out of reach is like having my heart a little bit on the shelf.  But when you love them, you want the good things for them, and she is happy.   So I love you little California girl.

Daughter #1 got married a few weeks ago.
 
 June has been a busy, busy month.

Exposing shocking white legs and dirty bare feet at the reception...my daughter is so beautiful.

My CMO is temporarily sidelined.  Plan to pick that back up in September, the CMO guru (Marti Caldwell) has invited me to hitch a ride up north for those.  I'm on a team now for short course ILLINOIS (my other team member is from that region).  I'd rather ride long, but decided to do short for a year or two to "slow things down" and let me better wrap my head around map reading.  Let me just say..."why do people make maps that don't show the many other intersections?"  I've found maps to be generally frustrating my entire horse riding life.  If the map shows a Y what do you do when you get there and it has three branches?  These kind of things don't come to me intuitively.  If I choose, you can bet 99.9% of the time I'll chose wrong.  One day I thought, this is my turn, I'm ALWAYS wrong, so I take the other turn.  Guess what?  WRONG *lol*.  I also have to hold a map in the direction I'm traveling or I'm doomed, DOOMED.

Endurance riders of the northeast are AWESOME.  So much so that I wish I could pull up stakes and head that direction.  But instead a little part of the northeast is residing in my inbox and assisting me with a future project/ goal for The Spotted Wonder (a.k.a. Journey).  Thank you sincerely fine women!  I affirmed that much of what I've done with my horses is right, and there are some areas that could use tweaking considering riding an Appy vs. the traditional arab breed.   A longstanding issue for Journey was a hanging pulse even on ultra conservative training rides.  It doesn't hang forever, but enough to eat into our time, when time is precious with a slow trotting horse.  So I'm going to try some things this summer since it is so hot and humid you can barely draw breath here in the midwest.

• A pump up sprayer for cooling.  The suggester of this idea has her's rigged up to deliver a cold mist of water and uses a battery operated pump to keep the water coming.  I'm going to purchase a regular garden pump up sprayer, fill it with very cold water, and set it into the cooler to get it to hold temp.  Put it on mist spray and work the jugular area, and those big veins under the horse.  
• A cold wet sponge for under the tail.  This sounds like ohhhhhhhhhh!!! squeeeeeeee!!!!  but it is supposed to help bring pulse down, and the horse naturally clamps down on it and the sponge stays in place (theoretically).  So I've got that to try.
• I'm going to experiment further as well with how far I "have" to walk in to get her pulse calmed down on a hot day.
• I'm dying to "try" renegade boots, but money has poured out of this little homestead like a big sunami driven whirlpool this year...so instead, I'm going to experiment with the glue-on boots. Which requires only purchase of the glue and 4 shells.

Phebes is 99% over whatever happened to her.  She does exhibit a mild tremor in the lip once in awhile, but it works now, and she can close her mouth, and pick up food, and eat like a big fat pig.  It was a horrible experience, and no wiser at all to what went down.  The vet-excitement blood draw induced Tye-up has resolved and her muscles feel better than they have in a long time.  We've taken all of the soy out of her diet, pushing her diet heavily to forage, and beet pulp, and she gets only enough whole oats to get down her vitamins and minerals and salt.  She's lost some weight and I see that as good.  I've been looking at a lot of feed labels and there is often soy product in processed feeds.  Not saying "soy" is the culprit, but in nature a horse would not eat soy.  They wouldn't eat beet pulp either but there seems to be enough empirical evidence (read Susan Garlinghouse, DVM) to support it does no harm as a source of fiber.  So we are using it in small amounts still, soaked, with no molasses.   Journey seems less sensitive to things and some more thought needs to go into fueling her energy demands.  She doesn't need to lose weight, she is "just right."  However her work level is low currently.

That is the full report on life and stuff.  Keep the horse between you and ground.  ~ E.G.