Littering has never seemed so tempting

Since we didn't do much actual work on Sunday, I took Dixie out again on Monday. We trailered up to the Rides of March ridecamp near Red Rocks with Cersei. I was smart, though - I went early in the morning and I brought water for the pup!

Dixie stood like a rock for me to fly spray her and tack up. Just another amazing little Dixie transformation.


We meandered off pretty slowly - it wasn't hot but there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I didn't want the little yellow butterball to overheat. We climbed a new-to-us road (past a rattlesnake!) to a deadend at the top of a hill where Dixie was content to stand and look at stuff for a while. I hopped off and gave Cersei a drink from her Wal-mart knockoff camelbak liner I'd carried stuffed in the pommel bag. (She had to drink out of the bag because my makeshift travel bowl had a huge crack in it.) Then I tightened up my tack and we moved on to the next hill.


Cersei's camelbak liner has a screw top that's kind of hard to get screwed on right. I thought my leg was wet because the top wasn't screwed on good, so I briefly halted, re-screwed it on, and kept going, but my damn leg got wetter and wetter. Eventually I yanked the 2 liter bag out of the pommel bag only to realize that it was leaking from the bottom, where the drinking tube comes out - and the pommel bag was half full of water. Lovely. At least my left knee was cool, and Dixie's left side was cool. I flipped the stupid leaking bag over, so the tube attachment was on top, and we kept going to the next hill.


There, I gave Cersei the rest of the water from the bag, but she was still pretty hot. I had a broken bowl and a leaking water bag and a pommel bag half full of water, and I've never been so tempted to throw my trash off a cliff and call it good. We'd only gone a couple of miles but I knew I needed to take her back to the trailer to cool off, so we headed back. Dixie did not want to go back to the trailer but I hollered a lot and made her. We had to take care of the little dog.


Back at the trailer I fashioned a collar and lead out of a compression strap, a carabiner, and a lunge line. I know! I'm a terrible human, taking my dog out without her collar and tags. Lesson learned. Cers has spent enough time tied to the trailer (and she was hot enough!) to listen when I told her to stay there, and Dixie and I headed off without her.


I didn't want to go too far, just in case Cers got bored and slipped the "collar" and came looking for us, so we headed back toward the road and did some loops. The ride ended up being about 7 miles, which is right where I wanted to be. Dixie was still not very enthusiastic about going back to the trailer and back home, but I'd promised G I'd check in with him in two hours so we called it a day.


Cersei was much recovered when we came back. She's been one with the couch since Monday afternoon, but not in an overtired way - just a lazy dog who Did Something and is now good to sleep it off for a week. Dixie was just fine. Tight legs, even with a little bit of hills, a little bit of gaiting and cantering, and more miles than we've done post-injury. Wednesday (tomorrow) I'm going to meet an endurance friend and hopefully do 10-15 miles with her.

I am going to submit driving directions to Red Rocks on Mel's trail site. Right now it's just got Central Valley CA trails, but soon it'll have Northern Nevada trailheads too. I hope the rest of yall will consider submitting something too and maybe one day we can turn this into a really valuable resource for a lot of equestrians. I don't mean just my endurance friends, either - all of yall can take a couple mins to type up some directions to a favorite trailhead, write a short blurb about the footing and length, and send it in. Speaking as someone who knew no one IRL when I moved to Nevada, the Internet is an amazing resource with a lot of potential! I have met less than ten percent of my current Reno-area friends from "real life" networking - the other 90% are Internet contacts who turned out to be cool people IRL. Trailheads should be the same way!

Got 'er done

Well, I went and rode. I was in a complete tizzy about it all day, and I finally just settled on a plan and did it without thinking too hard about it. I hauled Dixie 9 miles up the road to the end of Antelope Valley - it's a little different from our usual trails, and there's a couple miles of mostly flat packed sand roads. We did 4.8 miles in 53 minutes.

It's been a while since I really rode Dixie, so it was a good chance for me to notice what a good horse she is. Her "I don't wanna you can't make me" dead slow dog walk is 4 mph. Her super easy smooth jog, the one that's almost easier to sit than to post, is 8 mph. She gaited a bit for me but I didn't try to get her to stay in it. She's pretty bored with the trails right around the house and she's awfully barn sour if I ride her away from home, which is why I wanted to trailer out - but out in a new place she was alert but not spooky. I rode the whole hour on a loose rein.

We rode up a road about half a mile to a T, turned right and rode another mile to a cattle guard, turned back to the T intersection and kept going up the road for another mile, then turned around for the trailer. I really thought the poor horse was lost again (bless her heart) because she wasn't at all excited to turn back for the trailer. But she didn't perk up at all when she saw the trailer, and in fact she tried to duck onto a side road when we were just a few hundred feet from the trailer. I really think she wanted to keep going. How cool is that?

I brought the butterball, aka Cersei, with me. Poor Cers, I didn't ride with her much this spring and then this summer Dixie's been out of work so this was her first ride in months. You have never seen a dog so excited to fling herself into heat exhaustion. I should've brought some water for her, but I honestly didn't think she'd need it on such a short ride. Bless your heart, fat dog! She's sacked out on her couch now.

I kinda haven't mentioned our weather because I don't want anyone living east of me to hunt me down and kill me, but... I went in the hottest part of the day and it was a scorching 85 degrees with a soggy 29% humidity. When we got back, I hosed Cers down, then Dixie, then Cers again. I have decided that Dixie needs her face sprayed more. It's just not that unpleasant on a hot summer day. She makes horrible faces and flings her giraffe head up in the air, but when I quit rinsing her face and point the hose at her lips, she does the flappy lip thing. :)


Endurance stuff:

Yall, I need a new pad. The stupid woolback bunches up under the saddle when I ride hills. It's completely unacceptable. I've had a couple of recommendations for Haf Pads so I'm thinking about one of them. Here's my criteria:

Dixie has skin like an elephant and thick hair.
She's round with medium withers.
Saddle is western-type so it's got fleece underneath.
Saddle fits fine with minimal padding - the Woolback is maybe 3/4" or 1" thick.

Any suggestions?

Lake Almanor, hopefully!

I've finished all the new/new-to-me books and I'm just waiting for the new Dresden Files, so I might as well try to post. I really have started working through the backlog of unread blog posts, I promise!

Barring calamity, I'm off to Lake Almanor at the end of the month... on an Arab! I've ridden this super fun, all heart, great recoveries grey mare twice now, and I'll probably ride her in the 50. Her owner has two horses ready for the 50, and we might swap last minute, but I really do think the grey is fun so I'll probably ride her if I get the chance. She reminds me a lot of Dixie, without the extra gaits. Trotting downhill is weird, yall. So is trotting at 12 mph! When are you going to break into a rack, horse?? She's skinny and jiggy, and she's got a nasty habit of stumbling hard on level ground when she's daydreaming about whatever Arabs think about, but I like her anyway.

I am trying so hard to get my nerve up to ride Dixie again. We went out on Thursday or Friday for a couple miles of easy neighborhood walking and a bit of sand gaiting. She was totally sound, totally fresh, no heat or swelling since then.. but I'm so scared of breaking her. Nobody can tell me the magic formula of X miles Y times per week, and I desperately want that. I rehabbed her exactly like I was supposed to, and she looks great, and what do I do now? For once in my life I desperately want an Authority Figure that I can believe in 100% for guaranteed perfect results.

Tomorrow I'm going to do the pit loop. It's about five miles, easy, flat. I'm reaching out to people in town to hopefully get some company for some easy 5-10 mile rides later this week and next week. This is so hard - harder, in a different way, than when she first came up lame, and even harder than riding her when she terrified me.

Vacationing muse

I have so much to tell yall but I can't get it together to write a decent post!

I went camping with Mel. Camping is fun! Believe it or not, I'd only been (horseless) camping once before in my life, and it rained and the WWII tent leaked so we walked home in the middle of the night, which wasn't hard because we'd only walked a mile into a cow field in the first place. And I've blogged every time I've been horse camping - it's been a rapid learning curve but I'm getting it figured out. Camping without a horse is much easier than horse camping and (I suppose) almost as much fun. Anyway, I've got lots of pictures and I swear I'll try and get up a real post soon.

Then I went to SFO. Of course I had Korean fried chicken and watched surreal k-pop MTV, and I went to a fun Fourth party, and I melted my new food processor. G needs to email me the picture of the damage!

The Mystery Plant turned out to be a turnip. A three pound turnip. That's on the house site. Then today I dug out two more beds beside the house, added compost, topped them with straw-mulch, and edged them with rocks - I'll put pics of that on the house site too.

Dixie has proclaimed herself healed and acted like a dumbass two days in a row - spooky and hot on the ground, cantering in place in horse jail. I figure extra riding can't do more harm than airs above ground, so today I rode her a whole block down a new street. I don't think the exercise will help as much as the mental stimulation from novel things. She's been content all evening, so if her leg stays tight we'll just walk further down different blocks of my neighborhood.

Yall may be on to something with the bareback thing. I actually put a saddle on her today - I wanted some stirrups in case she spooked - and it was kinda weird.

Saturday I'm off to ride crazy ay-rabs again! Plotting my return to endurance with A - she has plenty of horses that need 25s and 50s, so maybe we'll go off to a ride soon.

I was planning on taking Dixie in for a recheck in two weeks, but I might take her in next week. I don't really know how to restart her - mentally. I am just terrified that she'll reinjure because I pushed it too soon. Even if she trots out 100% sound for a lameness vet and there's no tendon disruption on u/s, how do I get up the nerve to ask my horse to do that again? Right now I'm thinking I'll just restart slowly - we'll sign up for two days of 25s and I'll see how she feels after the first day, and if that goes well maybe gulp a 50 again? No idea on a timetable yet.

So - everybody else has had a horse that hurt itself and went back to regular work. How do you deal with the fear of Doing It Again?

Better post while I can

The dreaded Blogger Flu has finally caught up to me. I can't log in to anything blogger related from Chrome, but apparently I can from Safari - for now.

Today I rode my horse :) I'm not supposed to ride til this weekend, but you know I don't listen good. I just slipped on her bareback and we walked four houses down the street, then back - less than 5 minutes riding. It was lovely.

I'm actually really enjoying rehabbing Dixie. We seem to spend a lot of time hanging out together. She really likes the new patio chairs - she likes to watch me when I sit out there in the mornings and afternoons.

My kitten is a killing machine. She brought me a whole nest of baby voles, one at a time - five in 24 hours. That was a lot of effort and required a day of sleeping, but today she rejoined the hunt and brought me an adult vole. Atta girl. Just... make sure they're dead, ok? I don't like the ones that still squeak.

Anybody like True Blood? New season premiere did not disappoint.

I did a bunch of stuff around the house - cleaned and de-cluttered, hauled trash to the dump, worked in the yard, and got most of my tools organized in the garage. Now I can pack tomorrow and go camping this weekend - then maybe to SF for the 4th, but I'll be back Tuesday at the latest.

Not that it matters. I bet Blogger will still be a temperamental bitch when I come back. Sigh!

Sounds sound!

This is a terrible video, but Dixie sounds very even in it. Close your eyes if you get seasick!

Sound sound! from Funder on Vimeo.

So, it's been 2.5 weeks since she got hurt. She's really been a model prisoner patient. The hockey hay net, I think, is a large part of her happiness in life. Gotta remember to take pics and do an updated post about it. If you don't have pasture, you really should consider making some kind of slow feeder for your horse!

Today I took her out for a very short walk and a very satisfying grazing session. Some of my front yard cheatgrass has finally gone to seed, and like Merri says, horses only like it when it's still alive. She picked out the green and purple cheatgrass and seemed to really enjoy the stuff that looks kinda like dandelions.

I could still feel a tiny bit of warmth in her leg before I left last week, but now it's totally gone. She hasn't had filling in the leg since a couple days after the injury. I'm definitely feeling hopeful at this point :)

Gonna try to trim her some tomorrow morning. She was due for a trim a couple days after the injury, but she wasn't comfortable standing on three legs so I postponed it. I can muddle through her hooves for a trim or two, and I'd rather do it myself as slowly as I need to for a bit.

Dixie update

We did it! Five days of bute and she doesn't run when she sees me coming with the halter. Of course it's sickly-sweet bute - I made applesauce and sugar bute for a couple days, then last night I found molasses in the cupboard. I can't remember if I bought it for Dixie or for gingerbread cookies, but it's hers now. Today's molasses Bute went down quite well.

She is still quiet. Part of it is that she knows her leg is not right - she stands bearing weight on it, but she's reluctant to walk around for no good reason. Part of it, I think, is that she just usually stands / lays around and sleeps all day normally.

With that in mind, I don't go out there every hour asking her to interact with me. I pay her more attention, and if she's watching the house or watching me in the yard, I'll bring some carrots and do clicker stuff, but if she's just napping in the shade of the run-in, I let her nap.

Cold hosing is going well. I hose while she eats her normal grain at night, and while she eats a handful of oats in the morning. She's used to this strange new routine and doesn't even need haltering anymore.

I spent two days getting the swamp cooler set up, correctly, for summer. Mainly it took so long because I had to go under the house a bunch of times, and I found Shelob the world's biggest black widow had set up a lair two feet from where I really needed to be. This discovery threatened to set off a panic attack and I put off dealing with the spider til the next day. I survived my confrontation, my swamp cooler works perfectly, and I'll try to get it written up for the Other Blog today.