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%.

Riding Lesson for Casi

We made it back from our weekend out of town in the early afternoon on Sunday. Though I didn't expect to make it to the barn this past weekend, we ended up going out Sunday evening, and Casi had her first riding lesson on Taz! While he is being leased in my name, his owner indicated that it was okay for me to put Casi on him as long as it was only in the arena, and she was supervised. So that's exactly what we did.

Casi is mostly interested in learning some basic control and a good seat so that she can ride comfortably and safely on the trail someday. I'm hoping maybe by the end of the summer we can go on a trail ride - I can ride Taz and she can ride one of the barn owner's horses. I put Casi in my dressage saddle last night for a few reasons. The first is that it's easier (in my opinion) to learn how to post the trot in an saddle. Secondly, the seat one uses in a dressage saddle is the most similar to western (longer stirrups than used in jumping). And finally, the last reason was because I was too lazy to deal with getting my brand new latigo attached to my saddle.

We got Halo and Taz both out, groomed them, and tacked Taz up. Halo got a lesson too - in patience. We left her tied while Taz was being ridden. Up in the arena we worked on some basics of steering and halting at the walk. Casi learned about how to use her seat to rate the horse's speed, and how much directional control can be had with the leg. Taz is the perfect horse for these basic lessons because he moves so well off leg and is very responsive. One of the things I was most proud of Casi for is that she has a very natural sense of balance (probably learned through mountain biking). I never once caught her bracing on Taz's mouth for support - her seat did all the hard work. If anything, I kept having to tell her to shorten her reins a bit.

I had her walk on the rail, using her inside leg and outside rein to move Taz away from me. He likes to cut into the center to come visit, so Casi had to frequently remind him to stay on the rail. They were doing wonderfully by the end of the lesson. I also had her walk between two ground poles to work on steering, and then I set up a cone between the poles and had her halt at the cone and back up. If anything, she whoa'd too soon the first time! I told her that was great, as it's always better to have a horse stop sooner, rather than later, when asked.

At the very end we did just a little bit of sitting trot, with and without stirrups. At first Casi said she felt like she was more likely to fall off without the stirrups, but was surprised when we trotted that her seat actually felt more secure. Ah, the wonders of stirrupless riding! So next time I will have her work on a little more trotting and learning to post, as well as reinforcing the basics learned this week.

After Taz's light workout, we took him back to the hitching rail and cleaned him up. His owner asked me to put hoof dressing on him when it's been dry out, so we took care of that today. After letting him graze for a few minutes, we put him and Halo out for the night and headed home with the moon rising in the east.

No News This Weekend

It has been a quiet week this week, and you won't hear much from me through the weekend, either. I made it to the barn on Tuesday to work with Halo. A few girls were out in the arena taking a lesson, but we had the adjacent round pen to ourselves. I kept the workout simple since it has been a while. We stuck to walking, trotting, and cantering on the longe line. I didn't tack her up - just wanted to give her a brief workout to get back into things. I also set up trot rails on either side of the pen and had her trot and canter over them. It made her more aware of where she was putting her feet, and slowed her down a bit from her sometimes bombastic canter.

After longeing, we did some brief showmanship. We went back to the absolute basics of just walking, halting, and setting up. I've been neglecting my showmanship terribly, and it shows. I want to get back to where we were earlier this spring. She's started routinely walking ahead of me a little bit, and it drives me nuts. More summer goals! I've been working on a list of goals for the summer, so I will try to get them posted soon and chart our progress from there.