When Your Body Won't Cooperate

I had a loooooong ride on Jezebel yesterday.

Her left hind (where she got cut last Monday) was fat when I brought her in from the field, despite being turned out. I lunged her a couple of minutes before grooming her, just to watch her move. She seemed sound at walk and trot. Her leg was hot to the touch, but she allowed me to palpate it. I hosed off the leg to get the mud off so I could see it better (no pus, but it looked like it had still been draining blood till recently), then texted Sally to let her know how it looked. She was okay with me hopping on Jez to see how she did. Sally arrived just as I was finishing tacking up, so she'd be able to watch me work her girl.

Jez's puffy left hind (the black leg)

Jezebel did fantastically, and Sally took several photos and videos of us warming up. She was rounding up at the trot and NOT trying to zoom all over creation. However, when it was time to canter, one of the trainers came in with one of her senior students, and another of the more timid, older riders entered the arena as well. For some reason I assumed that both of them were taking a lesson, and made it my duty to stay out of their way. However, after 30 minutes of this, it was getting old really fast-the flow of the first student's lesson was backwards: they started popping over fences, then were doing fast trotting and cantering down the long side of the arena (I'm not sure what kind of exercise that was-we all have our opinions about this trainer, and they are not nice opinions...), while the other rider cantered her horse around at a Western lope pace. It seemed like there was no way of staying out of the way of both riders simultaneously, so I decided to hold off on attempting to canter, and when I found myself trotting circles in front of the gate because I couldn't move anywhere else in the arena, I gave up in frustration and took Jezebel into the indoor.

We had a lovely 15 more minutes of walk and trot in the indoor. She was focused, calm and soft. Of course, we had really gotten going, when the 2 riders and the trainer left the outdoor arena. Sally and Heather with Nate walked by, and invited me back out.

We had a great time, chatting about some of the most recent goings-on at the barn, admiring Heather and Nate (Nate is a handsome OTTB, but he is gorgeous when Heather rides him), and attempting to get Jezebel to canter. I could not get her to canter correctly on the left lead AT ALL. She kept coming up on the incorrect lead, then correcting either front or back (not both) and cross-cantering. She was resistant enough about it that I started to think maybe she was guarding her left hind, so we switched directions and cantered on the right lead without a problem. There is a classical dressage trainer that comes to our barn every 2 weeks. I'm hoping to watch one of her lessons next week, as I'm interested. If it works out, I'll probably take some lessons on Jezebel as well as Lily-I'm still fairly certain I'm doing something wrong with that left canter lead, and would like some corrections.

We did a lot more trot work after that, and then the temperature started to drop and the wind began to pick up. Jezebel started to get more and more quick at the trot, and she started doing this weird evasion when I asked her to circle-she'd overbend and pop her outside shoulder, drifting to the outside of the circle in a sort of warped version of a shoulder-in. This only got worse the more I tried to correct it, and of course by this time I had decided I wanted to wrap up, but couldn't if she was being naughty. Sally thought I was deliberately asking her to move laterally while circling, which gave me an idea of how to fix it: I asked Jez to circle, and when she pulled her little stunt, I pushed her hind end to the outside with my inside leg, forcing her to really have to use her hindquarters laterally in a true shoulder-in around a circle. I won, and we called it a day.

Sally got on for a little bit, but Jezebel was in the same odd mood for her, and she decided to cut her ride short. I just think the little mare was done-I had ridden her for almost an hour and a half without realizing with all of the interrruptions, which is much longer than the 45 minute-1 hour average I normally ride her.

Thankfully, her leg responded really well to all of that exercise-the swelling was completely gone by the time Sally took her into the barn.

The horses had been in the back part of the field, but luckily they all stampeded down right as I was opening the gate to go get Lily. She came flying in the middle of the group, halted a ways from the gate, saw me with the lead rope in my hand, turned tail and ran!! She made me chase her halfway across the bottom part of field, which royally pissed me off. (At least she didn't go back up the chute, though she did think about it-that's where she came to a stop!) She finally stood by the fence and turned around to look at me with pricked ears, like, "Oh hi! I didn't see you there!" Uh-huh. Right.

She had somewhat of a wild look in her eyes, and tension throughout her body as I tacked up, though she didn't fidget in the cross ties like she usually does when she's in wild woman mode. She was extra-flinchy to everything I did, however, so figuring she's still amped up from being in heat, I put her rope halter on over her bridle so I could lunge her before riding. I decided to ride her in the indoor, as it was really getting windy and cold outside.

I lunged her a bit, and she wasn't doing anything crazy on the lunge, so I set her free. She immediately wandered off to the far end of the indoor to stare out the gate that faces the big field, from which she could see her friends clustered at the field gate. She didn't respond when I asked her to trot off. It always makes me mad and sad when she blatantly chooses her horsey friends over me. I went over to the whip bucket by the indoor and pulled out a lunge whip. As soon as she saw that in my hand, she immediately got to work. I let her gallop around, then she settled into a gorgeous extended trot, which I had her do in both directions. When she responded and didn't offer to gallop around any more, as a reward, I stopped. I stopped by ceasing to move (I'm always walking in the center when she's moving around me), pointing the whip down, and stopping the energy. It's like bringing my insides to a standstill-if I don't do that, she doesn't stop. So of course, she did stop. But she didn't come. She turned around and went right back to the far end of the indoor! I cracked the whip, something which I never do, which made her jump and spin around in terror (despite me being 2/3rds of the way down the arena away from her-that's how reactive she is to whips!), and  another 10 minutes of gallopy running around ensued. Several times I tried getting her to stop and come to me, and she would respond but she kept being a brat and going to one gate or another (there are 3 gates to the indoor-one leads outside, one faces the row at stalls at the opposite end, and the middle one leads to the wash area). She NEVER does this, so she was really being defiant today. Each time she did that, I made her work some more. Finally, I stopped, and she stopped mid-canter stride, ears pricked and facing me, and took a couple of steps towards me. "Lily, ven." I bowed, and wiggled my fingers. She came the rest of the way. Phew! That took a lot longer than I had expected.

The most frustrating part is that we've been doing tons of groundwork this week, and she had been responding really well. My only wish with the groundwork is that some day she will choose me over her friends. That is all that I want. She gets to be free with them 10 hours a day, and at night when she's in her stall, she's still with friends-the horses stalled next to her are part of her little group in the field. It's not too much to ask of her to be 100% with me for 2 of those hours, 5-6 days a week. She only gets ridden 3-4 of those days-on others we do groundwork or I just take her out of her stall after work to groom her.

Some day we will be like Klaus Hempfling and his horses...

I keep trying. I do wish he explained his method a little better in his books, as what I've applied from his techniques has worked better with Lily than a lot of the other NH methods.

So I got on. And she was all mellowed out. I will say that we might have overdone it on the galloping around, but I couldn't let her get away with running over to the gate every time I asked her to come. I decided to keep the session short, as I was tired too after riding Jez.

My back and hip had gotten really tight again while riding Jez so I knew that my ride on Lily was going to be a difficult one simply because my body wasn't cooperating. I could feel my sciatic nerve on the left side, and the tension in my muscles on that side despite being relaxed-Lily was going to be misinterpreting. It never ceases to amaze me HOW MUCH this mare can feel through the saddle. 99.9% of horses learn to tune this stuff out-she never did.

We walked and trotted, and when I asked for the left lead canter, we were a MESS! Lily kept leg yielding into the center of the arena (that's how much the muscle tightness was shifting my balance!) when I shifted my weight to cue the canter, and then when she finally did pick up the canter, I was doing something weird trying to rebalance at the canter because she just COULDN'T continue. Change of plans-we were going to work on going forward today. No circling, no collection, no fancy stuff-just forward. I stayed as straight as I could in the saddle, no weight shifting, no leg cues, sat back and cued her verbally into the canter. She offered up her short collected canter, and I pushed her through it. She moved into her fast little canter, but I had to stay with her with the energy and with leg pressure, as my body was still involuntarily telling her to slow down, and if I so much as relaxed, she would come down to a walk! So we used this to our advantage-we did canter-halt transitions, and this is the first time EVER that she has nailed them. Square halts after cantering. Wow! Not only that, they felt easy for her! After halting, I'd make her back up, and we'd pop into a trot-her trot would be uphill, light and forwards, which was way easier for me to post to while staying out of her way, and I was able to maintain it down the long side of the arena. And then I remembered this video, and I based the rest of our session on what I could remember from it. Watch!

This is doma vaquera. Doma vaquera was the training originally used for training bullfighting horses and working cow horses in Spain, and focuses on collection, agility and lightness. Reining, Alta Escuela, classical and modern dressage are all derived from doma vaquera. It has turned into its own sport in modern times. Read more about it here. The description of the ideal doma vaquera horse fits Lily. There is a group that is starting doma vaquera and garrocha in the Western US...I hope it reaches the East coast at some point. I wouldn't mind having access to a DV trainer in this area-I think Lily would thrive on it. It is dressage on steroids-look at the horse above do canter pirouettes and half passes! And those crazy lateral counter-canter circles towards the end...wow. Jesus Morales, the rider above, is one of the top doma vaquera trainers in Europe-he is a gorgeous, quiet rider, and his horse, Cantinero, is beautifully balanced. Note that there is only one hand on the reins. He is NOT neck-reining-this is forbidden in doma vaquera.

Doma vaquera principles applied (please disregard the bull and just watch this AMAZING horse!):

I've posted that video on here before but couldn't resist showing it again. I heart Merlin!

So back to yesterday. We cantered in both directions, transitioning to halting, backing up, and trotting, then did leg yields across the diagonal to change directions. I would then turn her down the center line, halt at A, and we'd CANTER all the way down to C, where we'd halt. Then back up, and trot up the long side and repeat. We did this a couple of times. It was nowhere near perfect, and did not look like Jesus Morales's work with Cantinero above, but you get the idea. lol I was trying to halt carefully after cantering-I didn't want her doing any sliding stops on her little toothpick legs, so we had some walk strides after cantering before the halt, and she started to get squirrely backing up before trotting-she began anticipating the trot and the direction we were going to turn in!

After that, we did some trot leg yield serpentines lengthwise down the arena. Lily did them so well despite my uncooperative body that, as soon as we finished the last loop of the serpentine, I stopped her and dismounted as a reward for being so patient with me. I thanked her and walked her out on foot.

Wearing her ear bonnet. I had put it on in anticipation of the wind-it blows her forelock back and tickles her ears.  She's sporting the new mullen mouth pelham with 5" shanks, which she likes and is a happy medium between the soft rubber 4" shanks and the low port 6" shanks (I've gone from having a collection of snaffles to a collection of pelhams...wtf?) She has not tossed her head again since that one time I wrote about.

The Mist

I FINALLY made it to the barn last night.

I drove through fog on the way up to Maryland to work, and we all figured it would burn out during the day, but at 2:00 pm the view outside the hospital lobby was still this:

I didn't care. There was nothing stopping me from seeing Lily last night. My cough was finally under control-I wasn't waking up coughing in the morning anymore. You have NO idea how bad it is to get bronchitis with an allergic asthma component-any allergen exposure will immediately set you back. I've been there before in my stubborness to get back to the barn ASAP. I've never mentioned it here, but I'm severely allergic to horses. A long time ago, just grooming Lucero could put me in a state of anaphylaxis. Sheer will and finding the right combination of prescription allergy meds with the help of a doctor who understood my love of horses, helped make it manageable. It's better when I'm exposed to them daily-I can eventually wean myself from the meds and be fine. But whenever I get a chest cold, the allergies resurface with a vengeance-if I'm sick with anything involving coughing, no meds will control the additional coughing and wheezing that ensues when exposed to horse dander and barn dust until I'm at least 90% cured. Otherwise, it is a surefire major setback in the healing process that often involves rounds of antibiotics. I'd already been coughing 2 weeks-it was worth it to wait it out a few more days, just so I could get back on a consistent barn routine.

So yeah-I was feeling better, plus it wasn't pouring, snowing or sleeting, and I didn't have to wake up at 4:00 am the next morning to work. What's a little fog?

It was a weird day at work. It was the warmest it's been since we moved up here - in the 70's, I heard, though I didn't get to step outside to confirm - so this meant a lot of people were out with their dogs, it being the weekend. We had a lot of dog vs dog cases. More than half of our cases were dog vs dog. It was bizarre and unusual. Someone even brought a mouse (our hospital used to see pocket pets, but not anymore) and guess what was wrong...it had been bitten by another mouse! One of the dogs even bit one of our doctors. Halfway through the day, we started wondering if it was a full moon.

Of course, dog vs dog cases almost always seem to involve some pitbull-like dog. We don't always get to see the culprits-it's always the owners saying, "My dog was attacked by a pitbull." As a side note, did you know that a veterinary study was done on this subject about 6 years ago? Dog vs dog accounts almost always involve accusations against a pitbull. Yet according to this study, only 10% of the population (including veterinary professionals!) can truly recognize a real pitbull!! Most of us working in the veterinary field adore this breed-we get to work with them on a daily basis since so many people have them. In 5 years of working in veterinary emergency and ICU (very sick and often cranky animals), I have met only 1 pitbull that was aggressive towards us. ONE. (I could tell you some pretty amazing stories involving pitbull patients, including some with improper guard dog training-even those were awesome patients. I LOVE this breed, and if we owned our own house, I would have a couple of them. It's just a nightmare trying to rent while owning one-so many apartment owners will refuse to allow them...) Meanwhile, I would say that about 75% of daschunds, which is another VERY popular breed, will try to bite us. Same goes for min pins and chihuahuas. I've heard of Jack Russells maliciously killing other larger dogs. But you never hear stories of "A chihuahua mauled my shi-tzu." That story would go, "A small dog bit my dog."

With Amaretto, one of the family dogs in PR. He is a true boxer-lab cross, but looks very much like a pitbull mix. He has the same sweet nature and incredible intelligence as well. :)

My point? We had a client bring in 2 shih-tzus that had been attacked by their neighbor's 2 pitbulls. One of the shih-tzus was fine, the other had a puncture wound on his head that was easily fixed. We were annoyed when we heard the news initially, because this is the kind of thing that gives pitbulls a bad rep-we assumed that the pitbull owner had been irresponsable. The 2 shih-tzus proved to be a handful-both of them were confident, dominant little things, trying to bite us and being generally unruly. The one that was fine had to be muzzled and held down firmly on the table just so the doctor could perform her physical exam.

Well, the story changed A LOT when the neighbor showed up with one of his pitties. The poor dog looked terrified and like she was having a really bad day-ears down, eyes wide, tail between her legs. She had bruises on her nose, and there were bite wounds somewhere on her, but I didn't get to see because I was triaging other patients. I just saw her briefly when she was brought back into the ER by one of my coworkers.

The pitbull, despite being afraid, especially with the commotion we had going on (including a full blown code, where half the hospital came in to perform CPR on a dying poodle), was quiet in her run and gave the doctor kisses during her physical exam. A physical exam she was able to do by herself, with no one restraining the dog for her. Not the case with the shih-tzus...

As it turns out, the fight was started by one of the shih-tzus...who was off-leash.

I wish the general public could hear more stories like this one. A lot more stories like this one.

6:00 pm arrived, and I ran out as soon as I could to go see Lily. The fog was no better, but it was driveable and mine was the only car in the parking lot when I got to the barn. The horses were already in for the night and Lily was eating her hay. I poked my head in over the stall door. "Lily" I whispered. She looked up. "Lily, ven." "Ven" is "come" in Spanish. Hey-cops get to train their dogs in German so only they will know the commands. I get to train my horse in Spanish just so she'll only come for me!

She swung over to me. She is a very sweet horse and she always checks people out, but I've always seen a little bit of tension in her during initial greetings with someone new. There was that little bit of tension in her now as she took a step closer, and then she stuck her head out to sniff at me (I was wearing a scarf, and this is what she chose to sniff), and I saw when her expression changed-her eyes relaxed and softened, "Oh, it's you!" She loves her home and is very happy there, but it's nice to know that she misses me, despite the fact that she's living the dream.

Growing up, my family was always into metaphysics. There is a belief that when someone pops into your head out of the blue, it's because, wherever they are, that person is thinking about you. Have you felt that before? It's like all of a sudden you fall into this warm mental current with that other person. Maybe a few days after that you'll get a call, an e-mail or a text from said person. Sometimes you'll call them first, and they'll say it, "Oh, I was thinking about you the other day!" I don't know about you, but this happens to me a lot. And it happens to me with my animals. Of course I can't get verbal confirmation from them that they were thinking about me at a given time, but some of them will just be really present psychically when I'm away from them. I had a really strong bond with Cloud like this, and it was one of the things that was so emotionally wrenching when he was taken away from me-I knew, I felt, that he thought I'd abandoned him. I think Lily thinks about me when I'm not there, but not like Cloud. He was just one of those once-in-a-lifetime horses-he had an incredible work ethic and he loved our time together. My relationship with Lily has come a long way from a year and a half ago, but it is still maturing. So yes, I had felt very distanced from Lily this last week while I was sick, so I figured she was really happy enjoying being a horse, but it's nice to know that she did miss me.

She was covered in dry mud. Since it had been warmer, she had been turned out without her sheet and blanket, and she was filthy. Laughing, I took her to the cross ties by the indoor, and worked on cleaning her up. While grooming her, I noticed the casting on her right Epona is starting to peel off behind the heel and texted my trimmer/farrier to let her know. She's coming today to check Lily out.

The indoor had been watered and dragged, so I clipped Lily's lunge line on and took her into the arena to stretch her legs. I like to check how she's moving after all of the drama with that left hind frog. I warmed her up at the walk in both directions.

Shiny! I should've taken "before" pictures prior to grooming...she was FILTHY!

I then had her trot and canter a bit-she was "up" but not crazy-hyper. After she had trotted for about 10 minutes in both directions and done a couple of circles at the canter, I then set her free in the arena. She flagged her tail and galloped around, blowing loudly at the corners of the arena, then settled into her floaty, snappy trot (God, I wish she'd do that under saddle!!) I had her work in both directions, and then at one point she just stopped in the middle of the arena and looked at me, asking for permission to come.

"Can I come now, Mom?"

She just stood there waiting, while I took that photo -so stinking cute!- so of course I gave her permission. I loved on her, scratching her withers and the top of her tail. There was a little stretch I used to do with her that involved running my thumbs down both sides of her spine on her croup, from the point of her hips to the base of her tail. This always made her tuck her butt in, and it's supposed to work the abs. I did it, and she did not react. Surprised, I palpated her entire back and discovered one very happy horse without a single sore hair on her. She's always had a sore lower back, and after consulting with different professionals (her saddle fits perfectly, her hips are aligned, she didn't have problems with her stifles or hocks that were reflecting in her lower back), we arrived at the conclusion that it was from years of incorrect trimming. I had noticed an improvement back when Marianne started trimming her in FL, but nothing like this. This is one true pain-free horse. She used to have a slightly weak connection between her croup and loins-there was a slight dip there-that has been progressively muscling up over time. I'm proud to announce that the slight dip is completely and 100% gone. This is a sign of a solid, strong back. Correct trimming and proper turnout are da bomb. :)

I then started walking, and she walked next to me, no lead attached, while we circled and did serpentines around the arena, and she stayed right by my side. She was especially lovey, nuzzling me, sniffing at me, letting me hug her head and give her kisses.

By then it was 8:00 pm, and I started to worry about the fog, so I led her back to the cross ties, washed her legs, getting all of the mud off from her hooves, and brushed her out again. She kept reaching around to nuzzle me-so sweet! :) I then picked her stall, and let her settle in for the night. I think she almost looked bummed when I put her away.

Outside, there was a thin veil of cloud over everything-the fog had certainly thickened, and the lights in the parking lot were haloed and appeared to float in the darkness as I walked over to my car.

The drive home was interesting.

One disembodied street light floating in the gloom

The fog changed the way everything looked. I was glad this was happening now and not when we first moved up here, as I now know this route like the palm of my hand and can find my way home even without being able to see the road signs. I was fascinated with how the lights and trees looked in the fog (no, I have never driven through fog like this-another one for the lists of "firsts" in our new home)-everything looked eerily unattached. The inspiration for Stephen King's "The Mist" was obvious.

I drove within the speed limit (some people were driving retardedly and unnecessarily slow), avoided changing lanes if I could, and kept a good distance between myself and the car lights in front of me (I could see the lights, not the cars...) It could have been a lot worse, which was a source of constant tension as I made my way down the GW, half expecting to find visibility reduced to a few feet with every turn of the road (the GW runs right next to the Potomac, with only a nice cliff separating the road from the river as you get closer to DC). I was surprised to discover even more fog in Alexandria. This was the view in the parking lot when I stopped at the grocery store by our apartment:

It was beautiful. And wet-the entire world was dripping with the moisture from the mist. I've always had a fascination with fog since I read "Season of Ponies" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder as a kid. (If you love horses and you've never read this book, you're missing out. Go read it. It's a children's book, but even as an adult, you'll still get caught in its spell.)

After reading it, you will understand why there was a very special kind of magic in going to find my own pony in the mist.

2012 in Review

I didn't do this last year because 2011 had been a tumultouos year and I didn't really feel like re-hashing it. In January 2011 I had just had my heart horse taken away by a vindictive horse rescue owner (if you want to read about it, go to My Equestrian Journey), and found myself adopting a very green and beautiful warmblood cross to take his place. Rhythm's terrible issues with bolting and spooking turned out to be the result of some sort of neurological disease that we could not afford to have worked up at the time for 3 different reasons: I had a broken toe as a result of him falling on me, which had made me miss work and my hours had been cut once I was able return, plus I had no health insurance at the time and had had to pay all of the expenses out of pocket; getting Rhythm worked up was horrifically expensive in South FL, and even if I had been able to come up with the money, the accident had finally shattered my confidence to the point where for the first time ever, I couldn't see myself ever getting on a specific horse again-I was too terrified of him, especially now that I understood why his issues had not responded to training: he couldn't help it. He was spooking on days when he felt vulnerable due to his disease. And Charles and I just weren't willing to go into another huge debt for a horse that I had no intention of ever riding again. The stars aligned for Rhythm and us: my vet happened to have a client who needed a companion horse for her elderly gelding, and so Rhythm quickly found a home. And that is how Lily came into my life-the rest I wrote about here when I had time. I had been very unhappy and felt extremely unfulfilled at my previous job, and so my professional life found me taking a position as an emergency and critical care veterinary technician at a start-up emergency and referral practice. Despite being relatively new to the profession and one of the least experienced techs there (4 years of experience at the time, 3 of those in referral practice) I quickly became one of the lead technicians there. My confidence in my skills grew, and I finally started to feel and see the potential that others saw in me. We were struggling financially, however, and other than work and the barn, Charles and I weren't really doing much else with our lives.

In contrast, 2012 was an epic year for us.

January
My mare became a little spitfire with the cooler weather, a side of her that had been unknown to me before. She bolted on me for the first time ever that month.

Judy and I went to Homestead with Sarah to try out Paso Finos and Trote-Galope horses and had an absolute blast while doing so. This post is still one of my greatest hits-I think most of the views my blog has had have been due to that post!

It finally dawned on me that maybe part of Lily's issues with inverting were due to poor saddle fit, and I started looking into the Ludomar Spanish saddles. In the meantime, I tried out Judy's Wintec Pro Dressage, and discovered a consistently and completely different mare-one that was a lot more willing to give me her back! In trying to get her to settle, I discovered how to get Lily working long and low for me for the first time since she became mine.

February
All of us from the barn went to Tree Tops park with 2 trailers and 4 horses, and we had a lot of fun. It was our first outing since Judy had taken over the barn, and it would be our last with this group due to barn drama that would eventually ensue. At this time, though, it was unimaginable in our future: Elisabeth and her hsuband, Judy, Dianne, Mark, Ines, Sarah, Charles and I had a really great time on an unseasonably warm day.

Lily acted somewhat frisky and herdbound, but she proved to be an awesome trail horse in a completely new environment, and gave me some more of this:

I thought Lily and I were doing great for the most part-we had gone to working correctly maybe 15% of the time to more like 50% of the time. However, during one workout where I was having a hard time getting Lily to start coming onto the bit during the warm-up, Judy decided to get on her and try to figure out what the problem was. Lily did not like all of that contact and threw Judy, which resulted in my trainer's torquing her knee. She was out of commission for almost 2 months, and during that time I worked with Rose, her Azteca, to keep her on the rehab program ordered by the vet after a strained suspensory. Each ride on Rose was supposed to be compensated with a lesson with Judy.

March
Judy and I went to watch the dressage and jumper shows at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, and I became melancholy watching all of the professional riders. I mentioned my old dream of riding at the Olympic level, and Judy started feeding that dream-she said it was something I could most certainly still do if I wished to. I honestly didn't think so, not for lack of talent, but for lack of money. However, I allowed myself to listen to her. Lily and I were going through a particularly rough patch, and after one major freakout from her and an optimally timed ad for a gorgeous Donnerhall grandson colt, I put Lily up for sale and went horse shopping. The Donnerhall colt sold within 24 hours of me going to look at him, and 2 girls came to try out Lily: one was a total failure and almost got thrown, the other did fantastically well on her. The second girl happened to have a Selle Francais gelding for sale, and we discussed trading horses if her gelding worked out for me. Other than being a fancy breed, this gelding didn't have much going for him and at most would have been a resale project. We did not click-there was no chemistry, and after coming back home and riding Lily, I couldn't see myself living without her. That, and the fact that even trying to get recognized at the upper levels in dressage, whether at the Olympic levels or not, was a hugely expensive ordeal. Judy had an outrageous plan B, and she even offered to sell me Rose, but ultimately I am SO GLAD that I came to my senses. In the process started to reassess my goals with Lily: I would continue to explore dressage with her, but only up to the point where she would allow us to go. My competitive dreams slowly started to fade at this point-I realized that I did not need to compete to be happy with the horse I have.

Judy was trying to get certified as an ARIA trainer and needed a video of her giving a lesson to a student on a First Level horse. Lily proved she could do the movements, so Charles filmed the video. We discovered Lily leg-yielded a lot better to the right than to the left, so there were a lot of shots of her leg-yielding to the right.

Our first, and rather tense, leg yields

This ended up being a problem, as it became the focus of our lessons even after the video: instead of stepping back and working on getting her comfortable leg yielding in both directions at the walk before moving up to the trot, we did a lot of leg-yielding to the left at the trot in our lessons, which only succeeded in making her more and more resistant to this. I still don't understand what the point of rushing her was. It has taken almost a year to correct her intense resentment of leg yielding at the trot to the left, and she will still swish her tail in annoyance when asked. Around this time, I started to lose faith in Judy as a trainer, though she gave me many exercises that I would add to my training toolbox. March was also the first time I got a flying lead change out of Lily. :)

I didn't write about this, but that month Lucero, my Paso Fino back in Puerto Rico, became very sick, and Mark and I also had a really nasty argument about a really stupid issue, and both of us being knuckleheads, neither one of us admitted defeat, so we simply didn't talk to one another for almost 2 months. It was a really rocky time for me. There was also some drama beginning between Elisabeth and Judy, which started a war of passive aggression that created a very tense environment at the barn on the weekends when we were all there.

I didn't write about his either, but in March, one of the owners of El Sueno Espanol stopped by with some Ludomar saddles for Judy and I to try out on Lily and Rose, and I ordered my semi-custom Alta Escuela saddle.

April
It was such a busy month that I didn't even write in the blog! April was a huge breakthrough for Lily and me. We went to the Manuel Trigo clinic in Stuart. It started out as a negative experience, but resulted in this:

At the clinic, we experimented with a Spanish bit and discovered classical dressage, which Lily seemed to really like. This became key in her future training, and allowed us to explore a whole new realm of possibilities in dressage. Lily's body began to change by leaps and bounds.

May

May was a weird month. Judy started dating a guy that turned out to be toxic for her, and we watched her personality and priorities at the barn change. Maybe it wasn't the guy-maybe she was just showing her true colors. Either way, it seemed that May was the start of Judy's loss of interest in the barn, and the beginning of a lot more work for the rest of us. I did not write about this, as I had shared the link to the blog with her and I didn't know how faithful of a reader she was at the time.

Part of the reason why I wasn't writing as much was because I was exhausted even on my days off due to the added barn work. I stopped riding Rose at this time because Judy's health issues had resolved for the moment. Plus Judy owed me over $700 in lessons and artwork at this point, and I didn't want to keep adding to that bill. Of course, most of Judy's dates were now occurring on the weekends, so I stepped back and waited for her to let me know when she could schedule a lesson with me. I figured eventually things would fall into place with the boyfriend, and she'd have time again for lessons. This never happened. Part of it is my fault for not bringing it up like this or letting Judy know exactly how much she owed me in lessons, but up until that point, she had always been pretty good about keeping a mental tally about these things herself. I trusted her to have an idea-of those $700, $300 were from artwork she had commissioned from me. She did not keep track this time. I wouldn't discover this until it was too late.

In May, Judy evicted Elisabeth from the barn, and this temporarily resolved some of the tensions at the barn.

This was the time when Charles and I really started talking about leaving South FL. He began collecting information on travel nursing companies, and applying for jobs locally in the Orlando area.

Lily flourished. This was her at the end of May-no inversions in sight!:

                                      

                                     

June
My best friend Diana FINALLY moved from the horrible barn down the street to our barn, bringing Bali, her Percheron cross mare, with her. I can't begin to say what a big deal this was for me-I had been begging Diana to move for the last 2 years! It would be nice to have a friend around at the same times I was at the barn, and Diana needed to get out of the scary environment at her old barn. She had been talking about moving for the last 2 months, so Judy had been given a heads-up way in advance. Flooding rains in May finally prompted Diana to get out-all of the stalls on that property were flooding, and Bali had been standing day in and day out in 2" of mud.

Bali

However, Judy charged Diana for the 2-minute trailer ride down the street from her old barn, and this contributed to further friction between our barn manager and the rest of us (Diana is a nice person and had been planning to give Judy a hefty tip anyway just for the trouble of hooking up the trailer). Why a trailer ride to a barn so close? Diana had to pretend she was sending Bali to an off-site lease so she could safely remove her mare from the property, and we had asked Judy if she would be willing to help out. Diana had other people she could ask for a pretend trailer ride. However, Judy had said yes-it wasn't a problem. She would gain a boarder and another person to help out with chores around the barn. At the last minute the day she was going to pick up Bali, she decided that there were other things she'd rather be doing (going on a date with the new boyfriend, specifically), and decided to charge Diana for the inconvenience. I was not happy with this. Diana could have asked someone else if it was going to be a problem, but the day of the move was not the time to decide you have an issue with doing a favor. It was just so unprofessional all around. If she was going to charge for moving the trailer, it should have been discussed 2 weeks prior, when we first asked her about using her trailer to move Bali. This is what a professional would have done, and it would have been taken well. However, deciding to charge a fee at the last minute for something originally discussed as being done for free just seemed plain spiteful, especially to the new boarder moving in.

I also started doing a lot more groundwork with Lily, which made a huge difference in her work under saddle. Her skittishness during her heat cycles began to dissipate.


July
Mark and I finally made peace and started talking again. What a relief!

Bali had a nasty colic on July 4th, which was not handled well by Judy. Mark and Dianne discovered the mare dull and listless in her stall when they fed in the morning, and called Judy, who lived right across the street, to let her know what was going on. It took Judy over an hour to show up. Mark and Dianne left, assuming Judy would take care of Bali while waiting for Diana. Diana showed up to find Bali down in her stall...and Judy riding Rose in the arena! I was at work and could not help, but pretty much everything you should not do with a colicking horse was done with Bali. By the time I got out of work in the evening, Bali was still colicking-she was dehydrated and painful, because Judy had only given her half doses of my Banamine. Being a draft cross, she is stoic and the only one who could see how uncomfortable the mare was was Diana. I gave Bali a full dose of medication and stayed at the barn until 11:00 pm, when Bali finally seemed back to her normal self. Diana was not a happy camper-she still wonders if Judy was deliberately trying to hurt her mare. I was not impressed with our barn manager's ability (or lack thereof) to handle a boarder's horsey emergency.

On July 8, Lily and I celebrated our first anniversary together with a trail ride in the park, where we cantered on the trails for the first time.

Charles had an interview with a brand new hospital in Orlando, but they wanted him to start at the end of the month! Our townhouse lease wasn't up until November. We tried to figure out how we'd finagle this one, but as it turned out, we didn't have to: Charles didn't get the job. He had 3 other interviews with Florida hospitals between West Palm and Orlando and none of them panned out. I began feverishly looking for travel nursing jobs for him, trying to figure out a location where there would be an abundance of jobs so we could just relocate permanently while still allowing him to bounce around from one job to the next in the same area.

We celebrated my birthday in Wolf Lake with the horses, where Bali proved herself to be quite the seahorse, and Lily got used to being in the water again (we had taken her there the year before, but she didn't remember).

Bali having a blast splashing in the water!

"Mom, why you do this?"

Around this time, more tensions came up between Judy and me, and I had finally lost so much faith in her that I just decided to not even try to talk about it. At her boyfriend's recommendation, she decided she needed to move-they were going to move in together, however he was not offering to help her out financially with the deposits. She had offered to let me buy the Wintec Pro and pay it off in installments (this would have allowed me to still have a dressage saddle I could compete in), but I had just bought a very expensive semi-custom saddle and had had no money left over to even start paying for Judy's saddle. Out of the blue one day she asked me to pay for the saddle in full. I had just told her the day before how Charles and I were struggling financially, and I very literally freaked out. I told her I did not have the money and she could sell the saddle at our local tack store. What irritated me about this? I had ridden Rose for Judy for 2 months consistently for 3-4 times a week to keep her in work. We were supposed to exchange that work for lessons. As mentioned in May, when Judy started dating, she was going out on the weekends, so I had stopped asking for lessons, hoping that Judy would let me know when she was available. The $700 she owed me was twice the amount she wanted for the saddle, and I had been hoping that at some point we could discuss simply exchanging the saddle for the work I had put into Rose and the artwork I had done for Judy. Of course, the moment when Judy was asking for money was not the time to tell her exactly how much she owed me, so again the whole subject went undiscussed. The saddle was put up for sale at our local tack shop, and as far as I know, it's still there. Judy had to come up with the money for her new apartment on her own. 

I took a job as a relief technician on the weekends at an overnight emergency clinic to get additional money for our own move. I also stared doing extensive research on equine transport companies and getting quotes.  

In July I also had Lily's front shoes removed, to officially start our barefoot journey.

And my saddle finally, FINALLY arrived after a long, long wait! With the Alta Escuela, we started looking like this:

Judy broke up with her boyfriend, and she almost completely removed herself from the barn. We never knew when she would be in a good mood when she was there, and were often submitted to dirty looks and glares for no reason. I tried a few times to continue being her friend, but in the end I threw in the towel. I continued trying to be friendly with her because Judy had been very good to me, but the change in her was obvious and not for the better. 

August

Lily continued to progress without shoes, showing me how much better she moves without them. Diana and I went riding together in the park. We continued our ground work and progressed to work at liberty in the arena. 

I gave notice at my previous job and started working full time at the emergency clinic where I'd previously been doing only relief work-they paid a lot more, and we needed the extra money for the move. 

We had Tropical Storm Isaac. Judy also proved to not be the best at managing the barn during natural disasters, having Mark and Dianne do all of the storm preparations by themselves while she hid at home (Diana and I both had to work the days before and of the storm itself). This was the talk of the barn for a long time:

Right smack in front of Bali's walkout "to act as a windshield". Diana swore Judy really had something against her.

Which, if you know anything about hurricanes, can result in this:

After the storm, I noticed Lily resting her left hind a lot, and this marked the beginning of the struggle with her punctured frog. 

At the end of August, I ordered my own rasp and trimming equipment. At this time, my Paso Fino Lucero was euthanized-he had lost his long battle with heaves. 

September

This was the worst month of the year for me. I was still mourning over Lucero, when Shakti, my kitty whom I'd had from the time she was a kitten, started vomiting blood. She was also having diarrhea with blood. I'd known for a long time that she had cancer-she had been steadily losing weight for the last year, and she had a lot of muscle wasting around her head and back (cachexia, one of the big indicators of cancer). I suspected  intestinal lymphoma or carcinoma in her digestive tract. I had never had her properly worked up because she became a fiend at the vet's office to the point where she wouldn't even recognize me. Just sedating her was an ordeal-you couldn't restrain her, as it would make her more violent. I've seen the way cats are treated when they wig out at the veterinarian's office and hated the idea of having her go through that. And for what? I knew what was wrong, and I had no intention of putting her through chemo. So I just waited for her to let me know when it would be time. 

It was time exactly 10 days after Lucero's death. I made arrangements at work, and Charles brought her in. She died in her favorite place in his arms, peacefully. She had been a muscular 15 lb cat in her good days. She was down to a skeletal 5 lbs on her last day on earth. The vet was able to palpate an enormous mediastinal mass in her abdomen, confirming my diagnosis. I cried a lot the rest of September.

Charles started interviewing with travel nursing companies. We were trying for the Virginia Beach area, but all of the jobs were popping up in the DC metro area. We both applied for our Virginia licenses and got them.

Lily and I started trying more advanced lateral work, and I had a real barefoot trimmer come out to work on Lily's feet. 

October

This was such a hectic month that I only posted once. I pulled a wood splinter out of Lily's foot and had it radiographed: the images were clean. 

Charles was hired by the Georgetown University Hospital. We had to move up here by October 28th, so he could start to work on October 30th. I didn't have much time to ride after that, as we were in a flurry of activity to get everything packed and make arrangements for the move. Charles barely had enough time to get his DC RN license.

Lily had a battery of vaccines and one last trim with our FL trimmer. She shipped to her current barn in Maryland on October 21st.

We left South FL on October 27th, driving right in front of Frankenstorm Sandy all the way up the East coast with our one remaining kitty, Astarte. 

We made it safe, sound and dry, and even got to see Lily at our new barn before the storm hit. I thought she was slightly lame during our visit to the barn, but thought maybe I was being paranoid. The weather change was a big introduction to winter, and Charles got to see autumn for the first time in his life. 

We didn't even lose power during Sandy, though NY and NJ weren't so lucky. 2 days later, it was confirmed that Lily was indeed lame, and she had some extreme bruising in her right front hoof, probably from pawing in the trailer for 5 hours straight during a layover in Savannah on the trip North. We tried Cavallo boots on her and she had another week off, during which she recovered well. I started riding her in the boots. 

November

I started a new job at one of the biggest referral practices in this area. We rode on the trails with Tina for the first time, and Lily was introduced to ditches. In my attempts to do groundwork with her over a stream on the same trail, I had a very close call, during which Lily only stepped on my right foot instead of my body. I was alive, but my foot looked like this afterwards:

Despite having health insurance, I never had it looked at because I needed to continue to work-I preferred to not know and plod on, than to know for sure I was walking around on a fractured foot, or God forbid, be told I needed to rest it for 4 weeks-I needed to keep my new job. I knew it would heal better if I didn't know. I'm pretty sure it was fractured in at least 2 places, but I hobbled on thanks to ibuprofen, Vetrap and an old pair of wide, very broken-in sneakers. 

Riding seemed to make my foot feel better, so I continued to ride as often as possible. Lily was turned out in the big field with the other horses, and it was a nice non-event.

We met our farrier/trimmer and Lily got her Eponas on her front feet only. 

Back in Florida, Judy relinquished management of the barn to Dianne, and moved Rose to a full board facility with a bad reputation in the area. Of course she barely gave 2 weeks notice to the remaining boarders that she was leaving, then tried to sell all of her stuff (which she wouldn't be using) to Dianne and Mark. This included some stuff that they themselves had paid for (like the hoses), and stuff that wasn't hers to sell (the large black rubber water tub-that had belonged to the previous manager; and my pair of cross ties). I had donated my cross ties to the barn, but when I heard Judy was trying to sell them off as her own, I had Dianne hide them and say I had taken them, along with my old bottle of Banamine. Apparently this created a lot of wrath in Judy, because she defriended me on Facebook. Oh well. I suggested setting up the second wash rack, I drilled the holes in the walls for the eyehooks myself, and I paid a lot of money for some rather shitty cross ties from the feed store that weren't even adjustable. The cross ties in that second wash stall were my pair. I did tell Judy that I had done all this, but of course she wouldn't remember a year later. I refused to have her try to sell my cross ties as hers, however, so I made sure Dianne and Mark would have them. 

Judy managed to alienate Mark and Dianne, who are really nice people, and for some reason believed Diana was now her best friend-she even tried to convince Diana to leave with her. Diana, who still thought Judy had deliberately tried to harm Bali. Judy left the barn alone, with all of her stuff. Even Sarah, who had been very close to Judy, felt like Judy had betrayed them all. 

I really hate barn drama, and I'm so glad to be out of that situation. I really do hope that Judy finds happiness in life, and realizes that true happiness is found in oneself, not in a man. 

December

Lily finally started to grow a winter coat. We had some awesome workouts. 

We went on another trail ride with Tina, during which Lily owned those ditches, and my foot got better. We adopted Aengus, our new kitten, who has turned out to be a great match for Astarte:

Lily and I participated in a riding clinic with one of the trainers at our barn, and worked on new things together. We also did our first solo trail ride and it was a huge success:

The in-laws came to visit and we did a whole lot more exploring. We have hopelessly and thoroughly fallen in love with this place:

And we had our first bit of snow in our new home:

So yup: all in all, like I said before, 2012 was most definitely an EPIC year for Lily, Charles and me! 

Goals for 2013? I'm not big on setting goals-I like to just do better than we did last year. I do have some vague goals: I'd like to start working out for real at some point in the near future, since I don't have barn work to keep me fit anymore. I'd like to start working with a quality trainer who will take Lily and me further along. I'd like to canter on those trails that lead from the barn. I hope Charles gets a steady job that pays a lot more. I hope we can resolve our student loan issues in a way that allows us to live as we are now and still have some money left over. And I wish for love, happiness, health and prosperity for us and our families. 

And for you and yours too. :) Thanks for reading!