Flying Dirt

It seems that pastures are all gone for the summer, which means that Halo and her friends are now confined to their dry lot. Despite the heat, that means Halo has exponentially more energy! I took her out and longed her last night with the bareback pad on. She was very hyper, and wanted to go, go, go. She did buck some at the canter, but I pushed her forward. Fortunately, it didn't take much cantering in the heat to decide that maybe listening to me so that she could stop was a good idea.

After 15 minutes or so of that, we moved into the round pen. I took off her halter and did some free-longeing work. I wanted to see if I could get her to do rollbacks on the fenceline. Sure enough, she can roll back. I had her do it once or twice each direction and then stopped. I don't want to push the issue since a) she was very good about it, b) it was hot out, and c) it's tough on her hocks to do a lot of that. I didn't get the best pictures, but it was beginning to get dark outside. Still, you can see all the dirt she sent flying.



This second picture is really odd. I think I caught her post-roll back at the point where she was launching out of the turn.



And here she is as I'm sending her out at a walk to cool off a little bit.



After this I slipped on her sidepull, did about five minutes of walking/steering from the ground, and then I bit the bullet and jumped on. I wore my helmet this time! We worked on the very basic concepts of walk, stop, and back. We did some turning through the middle of the pen, but mostly walked around the perimeter. As long as she was moving forward where I pointed her nose, I stayed completely off her face. I want her to have a relaxed frame. I think too much contact was a mistake I made with the first horse I started. He was very well-behaved, but didn't stretch down as easily or as much as he should have. Hopefully I can avoid that pitfall with Halo.

She was fantastic! She had typical baby moments of wanting to toss her head while backing, but she quickly figured out that if she lowered her head and backed I would immediately release pressure. We only backed up one or two steps at a time - just enough to let her know that she was doing the correct thing. Then we'd release and stand for a few moments before picking up the walk. To keep things clear, I tried to pause between each thing I asked of her so that each action was definitive. We would walk, whoa, wait a moment, back, whoa, wait a moment, and then walk again. As I said before, she was wonderful.

Afterwards she got hosed off and walked for a little bit, and then got her dinner. She was a happy filly, and I was a happy horse mom.

Perking Up

So far, so good with Halo's recovery from colic. This weekend she looks much more like her fat and happy self, and doesn't have that sucked-up look she had when she came home from the clinic. She's eating well, and drinking like a fish, and overturning water buckets whenever she has the opportunity. I think she misses having a pond in her pasture.

I trimmed her feet last night and she was miss fidgets about the whole thing. I decided if she was going to be that fussy, I might as well put her on the longe line for a few minutes and see how she was moving out after the trim.

We had some guests haul in to use the arena last night, and Halo was in high gear showing off. She pranced around on that longe line with her tail straight up in the air like an Arab. Goofy filly. I let her canter a few times each direction to work some of the punk out of her, and then quieted her down and made her listen. I focused on having her obey my requests for transitions, even if the gaits weren't her prettiest. We only worked for about 15 minutes, but she was sound as could be and very energized. I get the sense that this is the kind of filly who is going to need to have a job.

I forgot my camera, so all I have is a blurry iPhone pic, courtesy of Casi:



After all that she still had her tail up a little bit!

Honeymoon Pictures

Not much going on with Halo this week since she's still recovering from her colic. She looked great when I saw her on Tuesday, so I'm feeling a little more confident that she'll be okay. The real test will be this weekend when she comes off the meds she's been on all week. She's back out in the normal pasture now, but I've been slipping her some alfalfa and a bit of hand grazing when I come out.

Here's a few pictures from our honeymoon! I managed to find horses, even 2,500 miles from home.

Huey was the amiable Percheron who took us on our carriage tour in Victoria. He was very perky and always eager to hop into a trot across busy intersections.



I found a horse at the Butchart Gardens! They're installing a carousel soon. One thing I haven't grown out of since childhood is my love of carousels...probably because I was always afraid of bigger rides.



We went over to Vancouver one day. This picture was taken at the harbour and I was very happy with how it came out. I miss the mountains already.



And near the end of our trip we went ziplining!




Ziplining was a big stretch for me because I'm scared of heights. After the first couple of ones, we figured out that if I go off backwards I don't get scared. It's looking down at the ground off the platform that makes me feel terrified and sick. In the end it was pretty fun!

Quick Update

We saw Halo yesterday, and she was doing better. She got out of the hospital Friday night, but went back in on Saturday. Argh. The bills are definitely not good right now - I may be selling my vintage Circle Y show saddle to help recoup some of the costs. I don't need it as much as I need a healthy horse!

She came home again on Saturday night. Their theory is that she had colic on Wednesday, then the stress of being cooped up at the vet gave her some gastric ulcers that caused her discomfort on Saturday. So she's on horsey Maalox for a week. When I saw her yesterday, I was pretty alarmed by how much weight she'd lost. Not that she couldn't have stood to lose a pound or two, but it was a pronounced difference.

Overall she was her usual alert self. We gave her a bath to clean up some of the muck that accumulated in her tail from being at the vet (and all the oil they put in her). She also got about 1/3 flake of alfalfa. The vet wanted her started on alfalfa at first because it helps draw water into the gut to keep things moving through. She should be getting more food as the week progresses, and will hopefully be back to most of a normal diet by next weekend. I'll likely be out tomorrow again, so there will be more updates and pictures then.

Thank you to everyone for your good thoughts!

Good Thoughts Needed

Apparently summer is the season of trips to the vet. Halo is spending the night at the Elgin veterinary clinic tonight. She has gas colic, and we're very concerned about her. Unfortunately, I'm also still out of the country on my honeymoon. Please send your best thoughts to Elgin that the little girl will pull through just fine and be on her way home tomorrow. 

In the meantime, here are a couple of our wedding pictures. I'm on the left in both shots.

Agitation and Allergies

What a week! I apologize for the lack of updates. I'm leaving for Canada on Thursday to get married on Saturday, so things have been hectic to say the least. And, amidst all the chaos, Halo managed to get case #3 of random swollen lymph node syndrome.







These pictures are from last Monday, and it's clear that she's very swollen on the right hand side. I first noticed the swelling when I was out on Sunday.

As of last Thursday, the swelling had gone down a bit.





Last week I put warm compresses on her swelling every time I went to the barn in hopes of drawing out any infection that might be present. However, the lessening of the swelling makes me think that it's unlikely to blow out. I was a bad horse mom and didn't go to the barn this past weekend, but I checked in with the barn owner and she's about the same. Argh. Hopefully I will make it out before I leave on Thursday, and I have a friend who may check in on her while I'm gone.

The vet was out last week and said that he does not think it is Strangles, but to continue monitoring her condition and to call him if anything changes for the worst. Through it all she's still continued to act like her normal perky self, so I doubt it's anything severe. I feel confident that it may be an allergy to something growing in the pasture.

Summer is Here

The heat has arrived in Texas with a vengeance! It is this time of year that I begin moaning to Casi about hell, and how close we must be living to it in order for it to be this hot. Fortunately Miss Halo is more heat tolerant than I am, because yesterday night it was her turn for a workout.

As usual, I cobbled together an odd assortment of tack for her to wear. I decided it was time for her to have something on her back, but I didn't want to use my english saddle since I'm still worried about it being a poor fit. All the synthetic western saddles were in use, so this was the solution. It actually worked out well. There's not much weight, but it does give her the feeling of the cinch. Also, it's a good thing for her to wear if I decide to get on. Strange as it seems to some people, I do like to get on babies bareback at first.




We did a brief longe workout - just enough to have her walk, trot, and canter on command both directions. She was very well behaved with only one or two bouncy canter strides. Of course neither of us counted on me being a moron and not checking the cinch one last time! As Halo made some lovely counter-clockwise canter circles, the bareback pad began to slide around her big round barrel. I said, "whoa!" and she stopped on a dime, the pad completing its slide over onto her right side. Poor confused filly! However, you can see from her reaction that it was not of any concern to her. I got her readjusted and snugged up between fits of laughter. I am SO glad to have such a mild-mannered baby horse!





After our brief longeing session, I got on for a few minutes. Casi led us a couple of times around the arena, and then we walked independently for a few more minutes near the gate. She's pretty good about steering and following her nose, but the go button doesn't work very well yet. I imagine I may get up on her 1 or 2x per month and do a little bit of walking. In those sessions, when I have an assistant, I'll have someone lead while I teach her the leg and voice cues for forward motion. When I don't have an assistant I probably won't ride, but from the ground I can do long reining to work on voice commands. In fact, I think that is what I will plan to do for our next session.



Halo got a warm water rinse and a mane and tail bath after her light workout, and then we took her height and weight. The baby is now a tiny bit shy of 14.2h at the withers and 14.3h at the hip. She weighs approximately 850lbs. At the end of July last year she was 13h at the withers, 13.3h at the hip, and weighed about 575lbs. I can't believe how much she's grown!

I've been using a height/weight tape to chart her progress, but at some point I plan to do a more accurate check with the following formula:

• Measure girth in inches
• Measure length in inches (point of hip to point of chest)
• Multiply Girth X Girth X Length, Divide by 300, Add 50
• Example 70" x 70" x 65" = 318,500 / 300 = 1061.67 + 50 = 1111.67 lbs.

This formula is accurate to +/- 3%.