SNOW!

It is 10:00 pm on what was supposed to be the last day of the world, and we're all still here. 

This week, Lily had her Eponas replaced. Her soles are much thicker than they were when they first went on, and so are her walls. She has a minimal amount of bruising left on her right front, but it is almost completely gone. The farrier gave me the choice of nailing the shoes on (this would save me $50), as her walls were thick enough now to be able to handle it, but I chose to have them casted on again so we can hopefully go barefoot again by March. Her hinds are also looking better, even though they haven't received any particular kind of treatment other than applications of Durasole about 3 times a week (I haven't been able to make it out more often-I need a day off a week from driving to Maryland. I drive up there on my 3 work days, and then on another 3 days to go to the barn). She had developed a case of  scratches on both hind pasterns, but that has also cleared up thanks to anti-fungal shampooing and Muck Itch. 

Lily was an absolute BRAT for the farrier, constantly fidgeting, sighing, snorting, trying to yank her feet away from the farrier, and turning her head to look around behind her, no matter which direction we had her face on the cross ties. Why? Because everyone had been turned out and she was the only one left in the barn. She's never been this bad, though. I ended up slipping the rope halter on her and taking her off the cross ties, and this helped, especially when it came time to glue the Eponas on. Afterwards, I took her into the indoor and we did some groundwork, mainly lunging over ground poles and then cavaletti. This is the first time I've had her do this kind of exercise for real: I laid 8 ground poles in an arc, so that during half of the lunge circle, she was going over ground poles. I set them about 9' apart for trotting, and discovered that if I wanted her to canter over them without missing a beat, I actually had to set them about 7'-8' apart, otherwise she'd break the canter and trot over them anyway. For the cavaletti, I alternated raised ends on the poles, which made her have to step higher over them at the trot. I got her to slow down over them, so that she was almost performing a passage as she cleared them. At the canter, she bounced over the cavaletti. It was a nice workout for her, different from anything else we've done in a long time, and she actually broke a sweat while doing it despite it being in the low 40s. 

Afterwards, she finally got to go out with the herd. By then, she didn't care-she was relaxed, and waited patiently while I unclipped the lead rope from her halter. 

That was Wednesday. I took Thursday off from the Maryland drive, and now I'm back to my work week. I think I'm coming down with a cold, which sucks, as the next day I'll be off will be Christmas Eve and Charles and I had plans. :( Right now, I'm taking as much Airborne, zinc and Vitamin C as my body will tolerate. 

It snowed today! I was running around at work, as the ER was busy during the day today, when at 2:00 pm one of the receptionists points out, "It's snowing!!" There were flurries coming down in the wind. They were melting as soon as they hit the ground, but it was beautiful to watch. I hadn't seen that since I was 5 years old. I wanted to go outside and stand in it, but we were too busy. Next time!