Rainy Day Adventure

It was raining yesterday for the second or third day in a row, and it was supposed to keep raining all day. I had invited Charles to go up to the feed store about 30 minutes north of the barn, just so we could do something different. My original intention was to go to the barn around 11:00 am to walk the girls and have Charles meet me there after I was done, but it just kept raining. The horses are kept in when the weather is bad. This meant I'd have to walk Jez and Lily in the barn aisles, while everyone took a turn at trying to bite their butts as we went past.

So I waited. And waited. And waited.

At 1:00 pm the rain was still coming down hard, and I gave up. Charles went with me to the barn, and waited in the car (playing with the iPad of course lol) while I took a peek at Lily's leg. I'm glad I did, as with the humidity it had puffed up a bit, but she was slightly stocked up on her other 3 legs too. I walked her up and down the aisles for 10 minutes (most of the horses pinned their ears, but no one lunged out at her), then cold-hosed her and wrapped her hoof, as her bandages had fallen off overnight.

On Monday night I had Magic Cushioned both hind feet to see if it would make any kind of difference. I'd been wanting to do that forever, but with the turnout schedule I'd never been able to do it properly.

This should be an ad for Magic Cushion...
On a good note, she is a lot more willing to put weight on her left hind. On a bad note, when she rests a leg now, it's the right hind. If you notice in every recent photo of her hind legs she's resting the right hind...I need to White Lightning it pronto! 

The puffiness of the left hind went down somewhat with the cold hosing, but there is some swelling stubbornly remaining at the back of the leg, along the length of the cannon bone. It's been there since we stopped the diuretic and antibiotic.

I put Lily back in her stall after re-bandaging the left hind hoof, and off we went to the feed store.

Charles had never been up that way, and he loves exploring, so that's why I had invited him to come along. He kept ogling the countryside, as we drove past newly planted cornfields and hayfields, past barns and Maryland houses sitting on acres and acres of land.

Uber-green field. I think this was corn?

All of this is like nothing we've ever seen before in real life. You read about places like this, but we never thought we'd live in a place like this. We love it!

We found the feed store, except it wasn't where the GPS said it was. Thankfully, I noticed bags of soil and mulch stacked behind an auto parts store, and told Charles to go around. Indeed, there was the feed store, hiding behind the auto parts store.

I purchased 2 bags of Triple Crown forage cubes, some Epsom salt poultice (the Animalintex I ordered from Smartpak hasn't arrived yet), ichthammol, and Corona ointment. We loaded up the trunk of the car, and crossed the street to go eat at a little place called California Tortilla.

We'd never been to one before, but Charles had been told at work that the food was decent. We were pretty excited to discover a place very similar to our favorite hangout in Florida: Tijuana Flats.

Tijuana Flats was started in Winter Park, in Orlando, and it became a local Florida chain of California-type Mexican fare. The food is good, and they have healthy options like low-fat cheese, sour cream, and whole wheat tortillas, which was one of the big reasons why I liked it so much. And they served beer. One of Charles's friends in film school worked at the Winter Park Tijuana Flats, and he would often go there for free food. That's how he was introduced to the place. Tijuana Flats was the setting for so many important dates in Charles' and my life together: our first New Year's Eve together, anniversaries celebrated on the cheaper side, the day my best friend and I took the Veterinary Technician National Exam, visits from my mom and brother, the day I won my division on Bella my barn manager's show pony, the day Lily was shipped to MD, and just random week days when Charles and I wanted to grab something to eat outside of the house without spending an arm and a leg.

My friend and me, after taking the VTNE. Ready to celebrate our freedom after 2 years of very intense studying in tech school! Out of a group of 25 students that started, only 8 of us graduated!

Charles and me at the Tijuana Flats closest to our South FL apartment. My  mom took this pic.

Tijuana Flats has a huge hot sauce bar. California Tortilla also has a huge hot sauce bar!

At California Tortilla: the Wall of Flame. Haha...

I still like the food at Tijuana Flats better, but California Tortilla was a nice second. I ordered the Honey Lime burrito bowl, and Charles ordered a steak burrito. I'm getting a regular burrito next time. There is a California Tortilla not far from our current apartment. The one drawback: because of the stupid Blue Laws, they don't sell beer. Boooooo!

After that, on the way back to the barn, we stopped at Jimmie Cone. Sally and I had driven past it on our way to Tractor Supply that one time, and it had caught my eye. At work this past weekend I'd been told they have some of the best soft-serve ice cream in Maryland, and I had told Charles about it. I had been warned that in the summer, lines can be quite ridiculous, but since it was a rainy, chilly day, there were only 2 people in line in front of us.

Photo from the Trip Advisor website. It was pouring when we got there, making it impossible to take a photo of the sign from the car.

We ordered small waffle cones, Charles with chocolate ice cream and me with vanilla, both with chocolate sprinkles. It was indeed some of the best soft serve ice cream we've had in a long time. It was comparable to Ritter's, our fave ice cream parlor back in Fort Lauderdale, except at half the price. $5 for TWO waffle cones.

Back to the barn, driving through worsening rain.

Old barn in the rain

A pretty big house hiding behind the trees.

Once there, I took Lily out for another walk, then cold-hosed and slapped her ice boot on so I could walk Jez. I tried to get pics of the thickened left hind, but it barely shows up in photos, though it's definitely palpable.

A rosy area by her white line on the left hind hoof. I started to freak out about laminitis, but she let me scrape it with the  hoof knife, and she is not lame. Not even resting that leg, really. So maybe it's from that weird "V" on the front of her hoof growing down...it's almost touching the floor at this point. The vet is looking at her again today, as she is going to be at the barn to give the rest of their spring shots.
The dark area in the center of her frog is where the puncture wound is located. 

Then it was Jez's turn for a walk. My plan was to walk her for 20 minutes since I hadn't been able to take her out earlier, but about 7 minutes into her walk she started to get really fired up. It had stopped raining and we were walking outside. There was no breeze, and there was no one at the barn to upset her. But at the 15 minute mark, I marched her back to her stall, after her 4th attempt at trying to get away from me. She pranced, rolled her eyes and arched her neck, ears and head up. She is in raging heat and Sally mentioned that she can be very sensitive to pressure changes when the weather is bad. Hopefully it's a passing thing. She had been perfectly fine the day before for her evening walk. She was incredibly cranky while being groomed, even offering to kick (of course with her bad leg), which is a new thing.

I walked Lily one more time after icing her legs, and by then the puffiness in her left hind had almost completely disappeared, except for the thickening at the back of the leg. I wrapped the hoof with the Epsom salt poultice, and put her way for the night with a full haynet and a scoop of her new hay cubes.