Thursday - Carla and I rode in the afternoon. I rode Jazz and she rode Faith - taking her out for the first time for Amy. We just did the Dutton Loop. Jazz led to start, and Faith did pretty well. She was totally fine with traffic, cars from in front or behind didn't bother her at all. When she is not sure about something, she stops and won't move. Carla had to really work to get her going. Once we got on the dirt road, Faith started calling for her horsey friends - of course we were too far away for them to hear. After we rounded the corner and headed downhill she picked up the pace a bit. It is a lot more open at that stretch of the road, with fields on both sides instead of woods/houses, and I think she was less worried about that. She ended up leading most of the way home, Jazz just took the lead a couple of times when Faith wasn't sure about something. For her first time out she did extremely well - yea!!!

Friday - A rainy day... I went to Cheshire Horse in Keene and picked up stuff for Carla, Amy, and my horses. I got a new bit and some peppermint flavored bit wipes for Jazz, a couple of new cinches, a new crop, some buckets, gloves for cold weather, and a bag of vanilla flax treats. On my way home I stopped in Westmoreland and visited Sparkie. Of course I had to open the treats to give him some! He looks wonderful! He's in great shape, his feet are the best I've seen them, and his coat is beautiful. He was in when I stopped because of the rain, he had been out during the morning. He has a little pony friend named Blackberry. She is about half his size and they get along just fine. Most of the other horses there are riding horse size, but there is one cute little newcomer. I don't know his name but he is a little buckskin mini stallion. Oh my gosh! Talk about cute!!! (No, I am not going to go buy a mini now!) No pics today, but I'll try to get some soon...

Saturday - Carla, Julie, Amy and I rode, Ziegy, Dolly, Faith and Tapper. It was Amy's first real trail ride with Faith, and it was Tapper's first time out since she was hurt. Tapper was very stiff and limped a lot when we first got on the road. I was thinking I would get off and lead her home but she started to walk out of it as her muscles loosened up. Dolly was being very poky - Julie needs to get after her more when she's like that. Ziegy was doing fine, and Faith was being great! We did the Dutton Loop so she had already been around it once and did not have to stop and look at half as many things. When we got around to the Tenney Rd. trail we split up. Tapper had been out long enough for a first ride after injury, and Faith was getting a little ouchy on the stones, so we continued around the loop and home while Carla and Julie took the Tenney trail. Faith wasn't happy about us splitting from the others and she called for them several times. Tapper was fine with it, I think she just wanted to get home! Faith settled down, and took over the lead from Tapper and led the rest of the way home. Carla said that Ziegy led through the trail and on the road home - good for him!

Sunday - Carla and I rode Scotty and Jazz. We meandered through a bunch of trails and the boys did well except when we had to go around a downed tree and they both tried to rush through the brush/trees instead of giving us time to find the best route! Scotty kept trying to rub his face on Jazz's tail and was getting a bit annoying about it. Carla had to be in his mouth a lot to hold him back but he didn't want to lead and he wanted to be right on Jazz (I think if he could have climbed in the saddle with me he would have!) I think next time she takes him out we will try Jazz's double twisted wire snaffle with him and see if he listens better. Carla has light hands and won't be in his mouth unless needed so it will be fine. Jazz tried out his new bit - a full cheek snaffle with a slow twist. He did really well with it! It's less harsh than the double twisted wire so I'm happy that it works for him. If Scotty smartens up quickly (which he probably will, he's a smart boy), he will be able to go back to his slow twist snaffle. The trails were beautiful, the foliage was lovely, and the weather was great. The pics below are a few of the things we saw along the way...

Sunday afternoon/evening - Kathi and Gail had a lesson and were concerned because Scooby was lying down and rolling. He tends to do that a lot so I wasn't too worried but I figured I'd check him anyway. By the time I got to him he was up and standing fine. I haltered him and tried to lead him back to the barn but he didn't want to cross the stream - too many rocks I think. He had been very ouchy on his feet for the past few days and I was giving him bute for that so I wasn't surprised. I was standing down in the stream and he was above me and I noticed an area on his right front, just above the hoof, that looked sore. I took a closer look - it's an abscess! So I led him back to the barn by going the long way around (through the riding ring, around by the ponds, up past the round pen). I crosstied him and filled a big rubber bucket with warm water and Epsom salts, then got him to lift his foot, dragged the bucket under him, and put his foot in the bucket - not easy to do by myself! Scooby likes soaking his feet so once he's in the water he usually just stands there. We did it a lot when he first came because he had a really bad abscess on his left front. While he was soaking I figured I would check him over - I didn't want to miss a colic because I was focused on his foot. So I listened for stomach sounds - none on either side (not good), took his temp - normal, his gums were pale, he wanted to eat, he was not dehydrated, so I just wasn't sure. I called the vet. My vet is away at a conference so I got a call back from the vet who is covering for her, it was about 5 PM. He said I was doing what he would do for the abscess. He wanted me to give Scooby 3 grams of bute and call him if the stomach sounds and gums didn't seem better by 6:30. Do you think Scooby would eat the bute??? Of course not! It was even the apple flavored kind and he wanted no part of it! I tried it in sweet feed, with molasses, in an apple - nope! He did eat a little, maybe half, before he figured it out but he needed the other half. So I took his foot out of the bucket (he'd been soaking for about 1/2 an hour) and then Carla was kind enough to come back up and bring me some of her home made applesauce. We put the bute in the sauce, put it in a dosing syringe, and squirted it right into his mouth - SUCCESS! By 6:30 it was obvious he was not colicing, so I did not call the vet back. He called me about 7:30 just to check in and make sure things were OK which I thought was really nice of him. He said to keep on with the bute, 2 grams twice a day, and continue soaking each day, and to call if I had questions or needed anything. Scooby is feeling much better this morning, the bute helps with pain and inflammation. He ate his breakfast, I dosed him with more applesauce/bute, and he is hanging out out back in his run. I blocked off the hill so he can't go up it but he still has plenty of room to move around. He'll get his foot soak later this afternoon. Hopefully the abscess will clear up quickly and he'll be back to normal soon!

Let's see..... Where did I leave off? Well, Tapper got another week off and was on pain meds again. Last time it was Cami who hurt her and it was Tapper's fault for starting the fight. This time Autumn got her for no reason at all and since Autumn has hind shoes she managed to do quite a number on Tapper's right hind leg. So she's had both hind legs hurt in the past few weeks and then she bit me! (On the arm, I'm fine.) I'm thinking it was because she was in pain, but the marble seems to be throwing her behavior way off so we are going to get it out. She has to be in heat to have it removed so I will give her a shot later this month, 6 days before the vet comes, and that will put her in heat. The vet will do an ultrasound to make sure the marble is still in there, and then she'll reach in (I know - yuck!!!) and take it out.

Jazz is definitely getting a workout with Tapper out of commission. Carla, Julie and I rode Sunday and did a 2.5 hour loop. All the horses behaved although Jazz was a little stubborn and kept trying to find shortcuts home! We also met some very friendly cows that startled Jazz. Once he got a good look at them he was fine, but when he first saw them he jumped! Dolly is doing much better at keeping up with the other horses. I think she has figured out that Julie isn't a push-over... When we came home we didn't come through the field as usual, but continued up the road and returned via the driveway so that it would be different for Ziegy. We wanted to see how he behaved if we changed the pattern and he was fine! No silliness at all - hooray! Below is Julie on Dolly and Carla on Ziegy.

The vet was here yesterday to give everyone their flu shots. While she was here I had her check out Tapper's injuries and we discussed the marble plan above. She gave shots to everyone except Cami. They were all good for her except Ziegy - silly horse thinks the vet is really scary. We need to work on that... She also checked Faith's saddle fit. She recommended putting the saddle back a lot further than normal on Faith. She has a very long shoulder and in order for the shoulder to move freely under saddle it has to be back about 6 inches from where it would normally be. It looks a little different, but it makes it comfortable for Faith and that's what matters.

Amy has been working with Faith on the ground and under saddle. This photo is from yesterday when she rode Faith in the paddock. Today she saddled her up and I saddled up Tapper and we rode around on the property for a little while. It was a good way to get Tapper back into riding, she's still pretty stiff and she hasn't been ridden in about 3 weeks. Faith was good. She followed Tapper, but was not right on her tail and gave her plenty of space. She can be a little stubborn like Dolly (OK, they can be a LOT stubborn!), but she wasn't spooky, was curious about everything, and was a very good girl. She did get a little ouchy on the rocks, I think she may need front shoes for trail riding but we'll see.......

New Boarder

A new boarder came in yesterday. "Faith" is a Percheron X something (probably paint or spotted draft). She belongs to Amy T., and is here just temporarily this fall so Amy can put some miles on her. She'll work on ground manners and round penning, but mainly she'll ride out with us so that Faith will get used to traffic, spooky things, different terrain, etc, with horses who are (usually) calm and well behaved. Faith is 8 years old, tri-color, about 16.1h, drafty build, and weighs about 1545lbs. Amy got her at the end of the summer, she was a PMU mare from Canada. You'll be seeing more of her in the next few weeks....

Saturday & Sunday

Carla and I rode Saturday morning. Though the swelling has gone down, Tapper was still stiff in her left hock from her fight with Cami so I gave her the weekend off and rode Jazz. Carla rode Ziegy. We had a nice ride, Ziegy was a little silly going out but seemed to settle down pretty well. It was coming home that was the issue... We came off the road into the field and he started doing his little "I want to run home" dance, so while Jazz and I waited at the bottom, Carla took Ziegy around the field one time. He did well until Jazz trotted over the culvert, then Ziegy decided he needed to be first and run, and Carla wouldn't let him, and he got mad and so did she!!! After some dancing, bucking, and rearing (Carla stayed on), they went to the round pen. Carla got off and did some round pen training with him. Ohhh was he STUBBORN!!! He didn't want to give at all and he made her work and run. Of course she made him work and run too and she's even more stubborn than he is! When he finally gave in a little she mounted him and went back to the field. Jazz and I stayed at the bottom again and this time all was fine and we walked back to the barn. We can't figure out what's gotten into Ziegy lately. A lot of the mares have been in heat and he's been with 2 of them and over the fence from several more, so I decided to take him away from the mares for a while and see if that helps. He is out back with Scooby and the mares are all on the other side of the barn. He has all the same tack, nothing has changed and nothing is making him sore. Plus, it's always when we are almost home from a ride that he starts to act up. He's been a little more pushy on the ground too, but I've (hopefully) nipped that in the bud! If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions I'd be glad to hear them. Click on comments below and let me know what you think.

Sunday was a gorgeous day! Carla, Julie and I went up Mt. Ephriam. It was the first time up there for Julie, and the first time Scotty made it up there too. Carla rode him, I was on Jazz again, and Julie rode Dolly, of course. We took the back way up and the easy way down so it was less steep and rocky. Scotty is doing a lot better but he still has a tendency to rush down hill and not watch where he's putting his feet so we didn't think he was ready for a hard descent. Carla tucked him in behind Jazz for the down hill trip and he did really well. He's only 6 years old, so he's still learning but he's very willing and quick to pick things up, he's a smart boy (so is Jazz). The foliage is a little muted right now, but it was still beautiful. The trails are covered with leaves and the horses crunch through them as they walk. The flies are mostly gone for the year, and it's cool and comfortable. Basically perfect riding weather! The boys couldn't have been too tired when we came home - they went up on the hill and played!

Friday...

Today was farrier day. Ken got here about 9:30AM and left about 4PM. He started with Tapper and made her some rocker toe front shoes with pads and regular hind shoes. Then Scotty got front shoes, Ziegy got front shoes and fancy pads, Deja had a trim, Maggie got front shoes and Autumn got 4 shoes. (The ones with just front shoes have their hind feet trimmed and stay barefoot behind.) Ziegy's pads are different. Ken puts the shoe on, then makes a form to stick to the bottom of the shoe. He fills the space between the form and the bottom of the hoof with some goopy stuff (that's the technical term) that then sets up into a flexible, rubbery pad. Then the form is pulled off the shoe and he's good to go! The horses all seem to like Ken and are reasonably well behaved for him. Check out Scotty's tongue in the pic below!

Thursday....

Kathi gave lessons to Julie and Gail today. She also had a chance to ride Cami and do a little jumping with her.

Carla and I took the boys (Jazz and Scotty) out in the afternoon. We went out the trail to a field we had explored with Ziegy and Tapper a few weeks ago. There is a scary looking tree stump in the field and Tapper and Ziegy snorted at it, tried to bolt, and were just VERY silly about the whole thing. We wanted to see how the boys did with it - no big deal! They were more interested in the grass! You can see the stump in Scotty's pic, Jazz's pic shows me fighting to get his face out of the grass long enough to get a photo! (See Julie.... I put on a pic with me in it...) I wasn't able to get any photos of Gail's lesson because that was when Carla and I were out riding, but Gail said it went well and Autumn was good.....

The First Week of October.....

Monday morning....

out to the barn about 6 AM, it's so dark in the mornings now, good thing I have a lot of lights. Fed the horses, put out hay, turned them out and started chores. Cleaned the stalls and did water and hay, headed back to the house to feed the dogs and birds and me... The vet was due to come at 10:30 but her office called and said she was running about 45 minutes late. Vet (Heather) came about 11:15. I brought in Deja Vu and Heather gave her a legend shot (for arthritis), then we discussed feed and winter care for her. We've been trying to get her weight up before winter without having her gain so much it puts stress on her joints and ligaments. Heather said it was OK to up her grain more so that's what we did. Deja has been staying in her run behind the barn alone for the past couple of days because she was coming in with bite and kick marks and we couldn't figure out who was going after her. Heather checked the wounds - all superficial - and agreed with the care we were giving her. Put Deja back outside and brought in Tapper. Heather checked Tapper for sore spots (she had a few, that was a long ride yesterday!), then started putting in the acupuncture needles. Got them all in and then chatted while we waited for the needles to work their magic. After the needles came out I put Tapper back out. Cami was up by the watering trough and Tapper cornered her and they started kicking. They kicked and kicked all the way down the hill and finally stopped. Brought Tapper back in and we checked for wounds. Fortunately they were all superficial though she had some swelling and bruising on her left hind and was limping on it. Put her in her stall with hay and went for Cami. Did I mention Cami doesn't like the vet (any vet)? Brought her in, Heather went to look at her........ went and got Cami from Ziegy's run, put the chain over her nose, and Heather tried again to look......... caught Cami again out by the main gate and led her into her stall, closed the door, then Heather looked her over. Just a few scrapes, no big deal. Cami was lucky she was the horse on the uphill side. When Cami kicks, she squirts urine (weird), and she managed to squirt it all over herself! She stunk!!! She had it on her back, sides, legs, and neck. I knew Kathi was coming soon so put Cami back out and brought Scooby in. Heather set up all her x-ray equipment while I cross-tied Scooby. Then Kathi's farrier came (she uses a different one than the rest of us), then Kathi and her student Sarah came. I filled her in on the Cami/Tapper situation, she brought Cami in and her farrier started to trim her feet. Meanwhile Heather and I were dressed in our lead aprons and trying to get Scooby to stand still on a platform so we could x-ray his front feet. We finally got him to cooperate and took the shots. Heather went to her van to transfer the images to her computer. It's a digital x-ray machine. Once she had the images, we looked at them and she said she wanted to try again on a different setting because they were too dark. So back into the lead aprons and give Scooby a couple of apples to convince him to cooperate again. He did.... Cami's farrier finished up and Kathi started to groom and clean her up.... Heather called me over to the van to see the x-rays. This digital stuff is very cool! She can play with the image on her laptop, zoom in, change the color, and lots of other stuff too. The good news is that Scooby has just minor bone rotation in his bad foot, and none in his good foot. The bad news is that he has ring bone, more in his good foot - go figure! For now he is fine, moving around and happy. Hopefully the ring bone will progress very slowly and he won't be lame for years to come (it's like arthritis/bone spurs). The soles of his feet are very thin - which we knew - especially the bad foot which is why he gets ouchy if he steps on a rock. Scooby went back out with his buddies, Cami went back out with Dolly and Maggie, Kathi and Sarah left, I wrote a check for Heather and she left. I cleaned up Tapper's wounds, gave her some grain with 2 grams of bute in it (per Heather's directions), left her in her run and went up to the house for lunch. It was about 1:45.....

Monday afternoon.....

back to the barn about 3 PM. More chores, then Gail came and told me all about her ride on Sunday. Got the horses in and fed, Deja and Tapper are both on bute for pain and inflammation, put Aloe Heal on Deja's and Tapper's wounds, fed Petrucchio, Gail put out the hay for Jazz and Scotty and I turned them back out for the night. Back to the house to feed the dogs and give the birds a treat. Then I went to work trying to pull together a lot of photos of Scooby and his foot to put on a CD for Bruce. Bruce is speaking at a farrier's conference in Cincinnati in January and he is going to focus his talk on Scooby! He'll set up a power point presentation with the photos. Our Scooby will be famous!

Tuesday morning....

out to the barn about 6AM. Fed horses, put out hay. The horses are being moved around today because of yesterday's fight so Scooby, Ziegy and Autumn went into the main paddock, Jazz and Scotty into the side paddock, Deja stayed in her run out back, Tapper and Dolly went to the pasture beside the driveway and Cami and Maggie were going to go out back next to Deja (in Scooby's run). Unfortunately, when I led Maggie out side Cami attacked her before I could even get her halter off! Naughty Cami!!! So Maggie joined Scooby's group and that seems to be working for now. Cleaned stalls, then back to the house to feed the house beasts and do some work inside. Actually had a little time off this morning!

Tuesday afternoon.....

Julie and Gail and I rode (I rode Jazz). We had a nice ride, weather was beautiful, horses mostly behaved themselves. We were out for about 1 1/2 hours. Sponged off the horses when we got back and turned them back out. Gail helped with chores while I went to the house to let the dogs out and answer some emails. Carla came and helped me bring everyone in for dinner, then she put aloe heal on Deja's wounds while I put out the hay for the boys. Turned Jazz and Scotty out and we are finished for the night.

Rest of the week..........

aside from the regular, everyday chores, today I need to run errands - bank, groceries, feed store - and then Rosy has her acupuncture this afternoon up at Heather's in Reading, VT. Tomorrow Kathi is giving lessons to Julie in the morning and Gail in the afternoon, and Carla are I plan to ride in the afternoon. Friday Ken comes. He will trim Deja's feet, put 4 shoes each on Tapper and Autumn, and front shoes only on Scotty, Ziegy, and Maggie. Saturday and Sunday we are going to RIDE!!!

Weekend

It was a great weekend for riding. Carla and I rode Friday and Saturday, and Carla, Kathi, Julie and I rode on Sunday. That was a long ride, about 3 1/2 hours. We had a great time! Oh, in case you are wondering, Julie is doing a trial half-lease with Dolly. She is a riding student of Kathi's (adult), and so far she and Dolly are getting along just fine!

We were invaded by a flock of turkeys on Saturday. They were on the lawn, in the paddocks, in the fields, in Petrucchio's pen, just everywhere! As you'll see from the photos, they are not the most graceful birds, but they can be really pretty.