Sunshine State

I didn't sleep much last night, worrying about that beginner girl leasing Bella. People in South FL are a sue-happy bunch and you just never know what can happen when giving riding lessons, especially when the horse being used for the lesson has no patience for beginners. Just last week we had a serious accident involving another trainer's student on one of the barn manager's horses. This horse in particular is a big sweetie who is on the lazy side in the arena under normal circumstances, and has proven to be a pretty good lesson horse. However, on that day, said horse had a bucking fit when asked to trot by this rider. The rider, a beginner, fell and couldn't get up. We had to call 911; an ambulance and a bunch of cops showed up. The rider was taken to the hospital, where it turned out she had a cracked vertebra and would need surgery to repair it. We were all pretty shaken up; nothing like this had ever happened at our barn, and none of us individually had ever witnessed a riding accident so serious that the rider needed to be whisked off in an ambulance.
The barn manager understood when I talked to her; she was the one who had been pretty unnerved by  that accident. She said she would have the parents transfer the lease to Tater Tot, the other lesson pony. He's an ornery little guy, but at least he doesn't rear or spook with beginners on him.

It was broiling hot today, despite it being the morning. I tacked up Lily, hosed her down, and decided to take her out for a solo ride, since I hadn't had a chance to take her off the property by herself in 2 weeks. The minute I got on, she balked. She does this sometimes, but today was the worst she's been! She would take one step and balk. I would thump her with my legs. She'd take another step and stop. We made it across the parking lot, but she tried to back away from the driveway. I swung her around and made her back up away from the barn, down the driveway. One awesome thing about her is that Lily backs up almost as well as she goes forward. However, halfway down the driveway, she pauses and I see her ears tense up. When she has her little crowhopping fits under saddle, she gets this funny expression with her ears-they point straight up, super-stiff, with the front of the ear facing back. It makes her ears look almost like antelope horns. Well, right now she had THAT look, and the thought crosses my mind, "What naughtiness are you thinking?" There was one moment of hesitation, and she half-reared! It was a slow rear, if there is such a thing-she was showing me that she did NOT agree but at the same time she was being careful. A good thing, as we were halfway down the driveway, our backs facing the slope! "LILY, NO!!" I yelled at her. Her feet touched the ground, I spun her around, kicked her forward, and she marched down the driveway and off the property without another complaint. I kind of had to laugh because the little rear had been so tentative, like a half-hearted attempt at seeing if I would give up. Nope. Lily-0, Me-1.

We made it down to the park uneventfully. Entering the main gate, I texted the husband to let him know where I was going and for how long I'd be out. He had gotten home from working an overnight, and said he would wait the hour until I was due to call him back, to make sure I made it back okay. I love him. :)

Once inside the park, I wanted to trot. Lily wanted to stop and observe. We had a small disagreement. She trotted. Lily-0, Me-1. Then she startled at a patch of dark brown mud in the grass. There were a lot of mud patches because it had rained the night before. We were stop and go all the way up to the first hill, her trot extremely choppy (the more tense she gets, the more uncomfortable her trot is). We did hill sets-trotting up the hill and walking down. That kept her mind busy-she has to concentrate to go downhill correctly, but is getting better and better at rocking back on her haunches while coming down. There is a valley behind that first hill, and I asked her to trot again with the intention of doing some long and low work, circling, in the valley. More mud patches, more stops. She would NOT step on the mud patches (I think she was seeing them as giant holes in the ground) but she would trot past them after realizing that nothing was going to reach out of the mud and grab her as she went by. I decided to adjust my stirrups while in the saddle. The stirrup tapped her side while I was yanking at the strap, and she gave a giant jump and tried to walk forward. My heart leaped into my throat, as I had one leg propped up on the saddle to adjust the stirrup. I stopped her. The stirrup tapped her again when I finished ajdusting it, she startled again. I stopped her again. I got off to adjust the other stirrup, and made it tap her side on purpose. Not even a flinch. She was really out of sorts today. I got back on. Lily-1, Me-0.

We did more sets on the next hill, which is steeper than the first, then walked down to the powerlines, where we trotted in a straight line all the way down, and all the way back up. She was a really good girl on the powerlines, dropping her head and extending her trot. Then I had her follow the street that winds around the park. This street eventually leads back out of the park, but first it goes past a petting zoo. The petting zoo has some farm animals on it, including a miniature pony the size of a labrador retriever, who she thinks is bat out of hell dressed as a small horse, and 2 spotted cows with zebra-striped fly masks. She HATES those cows. She thinks they are carnivorous mutants that like young fillies for dessert. I headed that way on purpose. Last time we had come through there, we were with Beau and Mark. Beau had freaked out about the cows, but Lily had walked right on past like nothing. The first time we had gone through by ourselves, I had to back her up past the cows. *lol* She would not go forwards past them that first time. I wanted to see how she would behave now, though I was expecting her to be a freak this time as well given her behavior during most of the ride. We worked on working walk and free walk on the way there. She always relaxes on the free walk, so I made sure there was slack in the reins as we approached the cow enclosure. It made no difference; she tensed up the minute she saw their stalls and stopped. She hadn't even seen the cows yet. I made her take a step forward and asked her to stop myself. Before we started fighting, I got off and led her over to them. She followed right next to me without hesitation (I love how she trusts me!) and we stood right outside the enclosure fence and stared at the cows for a few minutes. Her ears were way forward, eyes big and nostrils flaring. But she stood right next to me without even trying to turn away. The cows didn't even look up; they continued grazing slowly. I think we're going to have to do this a couple of more times, though, before she's completely over the Horse-Eating Cows. I also led her over to the paddock where the Ferocious Tiny Mini Pony was also calmly grazing, and let her stare at him too. We have 4 minis at our barn and they are all right across from her stall. You'd think she'd be used to them. Ahhh, baby horses.

 I made a point of getting back on her right outside the cow enclosure, and we headed back to our barn. It was so hot. I could see the rain clouds starting to gather to the east, and thunder rumbled in the distance. My head was throbbing from the heat, and Lily was panting, even though we had barely worked. I hate South FL summers. I hate them so much I had my husband convinced that we needed to join the Air Force just so someone would pay us to leave this part of the state (among other reasons, but that was one of them!) THAT'S how much I hate these summers. I always vowed that if I moved to the US, it would be to a state with 4 seasons, where it got COLD in the winter. South FL is just like living in Puerto Rico, except it's hotter, muggier, and there are no real mountains.

Once back at the barn, hubby got a call to let him know we had made it back alive, and Lily got a nice bath and was hosed off until she had stopped panting-she had been walked out for 15 minutes. When it's this hot and humid, walking them out longer makes no difference. I also massaged her neck and back as an apology for taking her out when it was so hot. She closed her eyes for that. So cute.

I brought her in and cleaned her stall. The clouds had really rolled in then; thunder was close. The barn manager and I were the only ones there, and we both ran down to the manure pile to empty our wheelbarrows. The heavens opened up as soon as we were back inside. It was like cheap special effects-it looked like someone was tossing down buckets of water from the sky. The walkouts, paddock and arena all looked like swimming pools within 5 minutes. Thank God for our barn being built higher than the properties next to it-everything drains quickly as soon as it stops raining. We locked the horses in their stalls though, so they wouldn't be standing in the mud outside in their walkouts.

The horses had their lunch and I headed home. By the time I got home, the sun was out again. At 4:30pm I left the house to go to a nearby horsey warehouse to get a pair of thinning shears. Elisabeth had asked me to trim Crissy's mane-she has a fungal/bacterial infection going on in her mane and it needs to air out. It was bright sun when I stepped out of the house. When I turned on the street, however, I saw this:

See the light glinting off of the cars in the first photo? And then see the storm up ahead? In the second photo, it looks like The Nothing. Yeah, that's a Florida summer for you. These storms come out of nowhere every single afternoon. I swear we give Washington State a run for the money when it comes to the amount of rain that falls here. If you ever come to visit South Florida, don't come in the summer ("Summer" being defined as April through October). Whoever called it the "Sunshine State" obviously did not live here!

At the barn, I took Crissy out and crosstied her in front of Lily's stall. Lily and Crissy are best friends, which is funny because they've only been turned out together once. But it was love at first sight between those two, like long-lost sisters reunited. They have always liked each other, and even though they are several stalls apart, they call to each other when one leaves or returns. They are of similar height and build, with the same slender legs and feminine faces, but Crissy is a registered Paint. She is so pretty! She has a pink nose and her liquid brown eyes look like someone did her up with eyeliner. She's stall-aggressive, though, and does not like people standing outside her door and trying to make advances. She will pin her ears, roll her eyes, and might even bare her teeth at you. But when you walk into her stall, she pricks her ears and looks at you curiously, standing very still.

I brushed her mane out on the crossties to get any loose hair out. She had such a pretty mane. Elisabeth noticed something was wrong when she found the mare with half of her mane all tangled up in a knot, and had it all fall off in her hands when touched. Some more fell out while brushing it out today. However, you can barely see the bald patch with it brushed out. It's to the left of her brown streak in this photo:

It's a nasty infection, though. The area at the root of the mane is pink, oozing, and has crusty scabs. It almost looks like a hot spot. It was worse than yesterday, though, which concerned me-it's getting larger. Elisabeth had washed it with an antifungal shampoo yesterday and then applied triple antibiotic ointment. I really wanted to wash it again, but our wash rack is outside and it was thunder and lightning.

I cut off half of the mane with regular scissors, then got to work getting it the length I wanted with the thinning shears. I have NO patience when it comes to pulling manes-I've never been able to do a whole mane like that, but I'm really good with a sharp knife and thinning shears. Crissy's mane was done in 15 minutes. I pulled parts of it so it wouldn't look so crisp, but the vast majority was trimmed with the thinning shears alone.

I applied iodine solution to the wound-it's very oozy and iodine helps to dry up moist wounds while killing almost everything. Hopefully its better tomorrow. Poor Crissy. :( We'll see.

I added more shavings to Lily's stall to make it extra-cushy, since she'd be spending the night cooped indoors due to the rain, and she received an extra pad of hay to keep her busy longer.

Hopefully the good weather lasts longer tomorrow...