The latest happenings at BBQH HQ!

*editor's note:  I started this post 2 weeks ago! 
Here are a few updates from the past couple of weeks:

We got 100 bales of 1st cut tucked in the barn (yeah!) and I even used my truck for the first time to get a round bale!  I love having a truck, even though it is a small one.

Lil' Red being a farm truck!

My friend/boarder and I started fixing the electric fence too.  Fred has broken the electric rope in 3 places so far this spring, so it was time!  We fixed the spots he trashed and then we replaced all the wiring from the barn to the start of the circuit and even dug up one of three grounding rods to replace the wiring.

Since Fred wrecked the fence, he gave himself some rope burn on both pasterns.  *sigh*  I've been doctoring it, but the left hind gets a little puffy on me if I don't stay on top of putting ointment on it.  And to make matters worse, I noticed Fred was limping a bit this past week - not super lame, but definitely NQR. I was hoping it was just the rope burn bugging him or at worst an abscess. Sure enough Monday morning the farrier was out and was able to open up an abscess on his the sole of his RH.  Fred seems to like being kept in his stall and all the attention and food he has been getting, but his leg was swelling too much being kept in, so I tossed him outside last night to see if that would help get the fluid moving.  It looks much better this morning, thankfully.

Bingo - abscess on the RH and rope burn.  And a puffy R leg. Oh Fred...

 Trying to get pictures with a giant cuddly 4yo gelding is tough. 

Oh hai!  Do you has fud?  Fred, probably.

Fred has been in the barn for his legs lately, but as well to keep Bailey company. Bailey somehow cut his lip open and needed some stitches.  It was one of those injuries that we can't quite figure out. My hunch is that he was rubbing his face on his leg and cut it on the nails of his shoe. He has been pulling shoes like crazy and one had nails sticking out.  Horses, I tell ya - always keeping us on our toes!

partially healed cut - he's blown 4/5 stitches, but hopefully it is healing

Spencer is totally judging those horses that get hurt all the time - he would *never* do something so silly as to get hurt at his advanced age.  Lol  He has a big scar on his face from an injury when he was young, so I guess he learned his lesson?  I was trying to get a picture of his scar to show you guys, but I had a hard time with the light and with photo bombers!!

Not 1, but 2 photobombers!

I have my fingers crossed that Fred is back to being sound now that the abscess has done its thing.  Having a hospital ward going for these guys is a lot of work!

2019 Mid-way check in

Wow - this year is blowing by!  It seemed to drag on this winter, then we went to Hawaii (woot!) and then I hurt my ankle and well...you guys know the rest.

I've been pretty lax about horse plans and goals since my injury.  I'm still waiting to see a sports med doc in mid July so I'll hopefully know more about what I can expect pain/healing wise moving forward.

via GIPHY

I feel sort of lucky that I didn't have a lot of time, money and effort put into horse plans that the injury would've forced me to cancel.   I'm not a big goal-setter type person, but I do need a bit of a roadmap to follow, or else I find myself navel gazing when winter rolls around, wondering what I did with my life.

via GIPHY

So, let's just move on past the first half of the year and focus on the time left in 2019 to still pull this year out of the fire and have a few things accomplished:

Horses
Fred: 

• as my ankle allows, work 3-4 times/week - lunging, ground work, poles, maybe working towards being backed
• continue to get weight on him and develop some topline
• find basic feed program that works without all kinds of supplements
• ponder plans for 2020 for showing, etc.
• take baseline height/weight for kicks

Spencer: this is a tough one.  What to do with an 18yo gelding that I can't ride due to my injury?  He is 100% sound and willing and able to ride. Do I try and sell him, find someone to lease him?  I'm hoping this will just work itself out and I won't have to worry about it too much.  I need a teenager to move in next door that wants to ride!  lol

Copper: kept his weight down and keep him healthy

Barn/property

Try and maintain fences, lawns and gardens as best as possible with gimpy ankle.  I'm taking some pressure off myself on this one.  I'm just going to do the best I can as I feel able.

Clean up barn and organize horse stuff.  Actually, I think I'm going to start a horse product shopping ban!  What???  I'm going to use what I have and only buy something if needed - like medical items or fly spray!  *Gulp*  We'll see how long this lasts!

Q3

• do not purchase any new horse products - like mane conditioner, halters, brushes, combs, or even tack (unless urgently needed - like flyspray or medical items)
• try and use up current supply of "stuff"
• sort winter/summer stuff in bins so I can actually find things when needed
• clean and sell tack I'm not using 

Q4 

• be able to find winter blankets that I put away in the summer
• ditto for the heating element for the water trough!
• store summer stuff in an organized manner so I can find it next spring

Personal

Sort out finances: I'm not going into detail here, but in 2016 my hubby was very, very sick and now he is ok.  Our finances took a big hit and we are now finally close to getting things sorted out a bit.

Q3-Q4

• bank appt (this is low hanging fruit - it will give me something to check off!)
• Start saving for a vet fund - 6 animals (3 horses, 2 cats, 1 dog) even when healthy, rack up significant vet bills for maintenance, shots, etc.  I'd like to have a bit of money set aside for next year so the bill isn't as much of a shock.
• set aside $50/pay to start

Heh heh - just replace twinkies with Popeye's!

Health - I need to get this back on track.  My weight and fitness have been up and down a lot lately, but 2016 and now this injury really caused things to tank.  I need to make this a priority.

Q3 - Q4

• dr's appt's (3 in July! yuck) to get back on track
• find some sort of exercise that is easy on the ankle - I'm thinking cycling?  Normally my barn chores and riding help with fitness, but since that is very limited, well, we need a plan B
• work on ideas to help anxiety (kinda vague, I know!)
• plan meals and try to limit eating out (Popeye's, I lurve you sooo much)

Work - yeah, I'm adding this here.  I need to work on my French language skills for work.  My level used to be really good, but it has also tanked the past few years.   Pure laziness on my part.  Not sure what these goals will look like, but for starters:

Q3-Q4

• listen to the radio in French
• read work-related news articles in French (fun topics like organized crime, terrorism, etc.  lol)

I think that is quite a list for now! I'm feeling a bit refreshed looking forward to the rest of the year.  I decided not to show Fred at any AQHA shows this year, so I didn't have the added pressure of trying to fit him up with my ankle not getting the rest it needs to heal.  Now that I've made that decision, I feel like I have some room to actually accomplish a few things this year.

How are your goals/plans going for this year?  Have you ever considered a shopping ban of some sort?   Learned/maintained second language skills?

Well, that didn't go as planned...

Fred and I did make it to the show yesterday.

Fred and Bailey ready to go!

We managed to do our halter class, getting a 2nd out of 4. Halter does a grand and reserve champ as well, where the first and second place horses from all halter classes go in together. We did not do well there but that’s ok, I had a bigger problem.

Fred was having trouble standing still. We ended up a bit out of line...lol

Working on setting up his feet.

He was slightly distracted by the goings-on outside the ring, but it was ok.  He put his ears up and looked cute.


Not only was my ankle sore (really sick of talking about that!) but this last week I developed a cyst in my right knee joint (same side as the ankle) and it made it very painful to walk ( it is called a baker's cyst and there isn't much you can do about it - since it is internal to the joint - until it bursts and goes away!). I had to scratch my showmanship and in hand trail as I couldn’t jog my horse in the deep sand, let alone walk him much. 

Slightly discouraged, but still trying to smile.



Fred didn’t seem to mind. He was tucked into a nice stall with 2nd cut hay, lots of friends nearby and the best horse treats. :-)

The best treats! Locally made and apparently very tasty!

I, on the other hand, was more than a bit bummed out about the whole day.  I did have fun visiting with friends and enjoying the nice weather.  Fred was a champ and loaded no problem.  My friend's difficult to load horse is now walking right on the trailer.  I'm pretty pleased with that.  Somehow we seem to have got it through his thick skull that the trailer isn't so bad.  I hope that trend continues, so my friend can get out and show more. 

This year has been frustrating to say the least. I don't want to be negative, but I do want to keep this blog somewhat realistic with my struggles.  It seems my health is causing more problems than the horse, which I think is a first.  lol  I knew going in to this season that Fred wouldn't be very competitive as I haven't had the ability to work him and prep him as I normally would.  The outcome of this show is that I need to focus on me and getting myself feeling better physically and mentally.  Not any easy task, but definitely important.  I think that will be my 2019 Q3 and Q4 goals!

And I also realllly need to go through my show kit and sort out where all my stuff is. A few things were missing from my toolbox that would have come in handy.  We have a long weekend coming up this weekend (yeah Canada Day!) so my plan is to go through all of my stuff and get organized.

Roxie my feline supervisor is on the job!

So, all in all, the show was a bust. However, it did highlight some things to work on.  And I had some fun...sort of...in between bouts of pouting and grumbling.  lol

Anyone have any tips on mental preparedness and such for shows and goals and life?

Weekend wrap-up

This weekend extended into Monday, so I'm technically not late on writing about the weekend. And, hey, it's my blog, so I guess I can post this whenever I want.  lol

My weekend was one of those that I don't want to repeat too often.  I spent almost 4 hours helping a friend load her butthead of a horse (and another 2.5 hours today).  He isn't dangerous or afraid, just incredibly stubborn and difficult.  He doesn't give to pressure, but fights it.  Actually, in hindsight, that does make him dangerous...yikes.  Anyhoo, we have a system going with him so hopefully moving forward we can get him in in a reasonable time frame. I feel bad for my friend as she was hoping to show this summer, but (rightly so, imho) is nervous about getting him somewhere and then not being able to get him home.

Then, on Sunday, my yellow dog decided to give us a scare.  Labs are the worst for eating stuff they shouldn't - I'm sure most people know a story about a lab that ate something bad - and was either fine, or cost their owners thousands of dollars...Sophie stole my purse off the kitchen counter, rooted through it and ate and entire big package of tic tac gum.  Ugh.  Gum is bad for dogs due to the xylitol.  We found her 30 mins to an hour after she ate it and had started throwing up.  She was lethargic and had a really high heart rate.

Xylitol poisoning can cause blood glucose levels to spike and/or liver damage.  Not good.  We decided to take her to the vet to get checked out. We got lucky and found a new vet close by that was open on Sundays and didn't charge super high emergency fees.

They tested her blood right away and things were good.  They recommended keeping her overnight with IV fluids and monitoring.  I have to say this new clinic is great - the care and attention to details was simply amazing.  We got a call first thing this morning with an update. Her levels were fine this am as well and after one more test at noon, she would be ok to come home.

Heading home from the vet. Would totally eat more gum if she found it.

So, that was an expensive and stressful 24 hours. Luckily she seems to be fine and my emergency vet fund got a workout.

And since I stayed home today to deal with vet stuff, I was able to help my friend again with trailer loading.   After that fiasco sort of success, she rode Spencer for me and ponied Fred. And I took a picture.  Wow - am totally nailing this blogging stuff.  

Around and around.  Lots of trotting!  And it was a beautiful day!

Fred and Spencer were both great. Spencer was puffing a bit since he hasn't been worked in about 9 months.  Fred is a bit of a big slug - admittedly, it is a big red bus to get moving.  lol  

Oh, and the best weird news of the long weekend?  My doctor called with my x-ray results.  I did indeed fracture my fibula (outside leg bone) down near the ankle! F*** me!  It is showing as mostly healed now, but with a lot of swelling.  I have to see a sports medicine Dr next to see if there is anything else to be done with it, or if it will just take time.    I'm totally kicking myself for not getting an x-ray during the first week - damn you hindsight - but I trusted the ER doc that I saw and thought it was just a sprain.  Live and learn, folks. And trust your instincts if something doesn't feel right!

Temporarily sidelined

Usually on horse blogs, it is the horse that has sustained the injury.  This time, it's me!

Winter ice:1  Laura: 0

My horses are usually out 24/7, so I don't do a formal night check.  Whoever takes the dogs out for a last pee break usually does a quick eyeball to make sure the horses are ok.

Lately Fred has been pulling apart my electric fence. The fence is off, since all of the deep snow has shorted it.  He wrecked one section that separated the minis summer paddock and I had to just do some makeshift work to make it sort of safe.

Saturday night I was worried that he was tangled up in the fence - I went out at around 9:30 to check on him.  He was fine.  I was walking on a section of the laneway that I don't normally walk on and it was sheer ice.

One second I was fine, the next I heard a loud pop/crack and I was on my butt.  It took a few seconds to process things - I was sure I had broken my ankle!

I managed to hobble back to the house and get the hubby.  We went to our local ER and the Dr. thought it was just a sprain.  It is likely a grade 2 or 3 sprain, with partial or complete tearing of the ligament.

F**k, damn, sh*t, f**k, me probably.

I've been icing, compressing and elevating and I am just able to bear some weight on it as of today.  Yikes.  What crappy timing - I was just about to start working Fred and get my barn spring cleaned!  I guess it will all have to wait a week or two!

In the grand scheme of things, a sprained ankle is not that serious of an injury, so I'm grateful it isn't broken.  Although, Dr. Google tells me that serious sprains can take anywhere from 8-12 weeks to heal.  Fun.  My right ankle is always weak and I think this sprain will make it even worse.  Off to shop for ankle braces - maybe BoT makes one for people?