A Long Week and Finding Time

This past week was my first full week back to work.  I am floored.

Having a baby and learning to care for that baby is very, very challenging.  I feel like I have accomplished many challenging things in my life and I still think that this is one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  I know that it will also be one of the most rewarding, but right now I am in the field, on the front line, and it is hard.

As you may know from my blog, I am a teacher.  This will afford me certain luxuries as a parent, for example I will have the same vacation days as my child, in theory, and have summers off with them.  I also have shorter work hours (at least it looks that way on the clock), which will mean more time with my little one.  That is wonderful.

But right now, it is hard.

There is no other way to describe it.  I am extremely lucky to have a supportive husband and family.  My parents are going above and beyond.  My Mom is taking care of Sweet Pea during the day and my Dad even comes by to lend his help and go for stroller walks.  I do not think I would have survived this past week without my parents and husband.  Everyone had made sacrifices to make this work (working full-time as a nursing Mom with a three-month old).

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Fast forward three weeks and I finally have time to finish this post.   My first Draft did not even include my horse,  which is very telling.   Due to my husband's change in work schedule to accommodate care for our now four-month-old,  I cannot get to Harley after work.   We had just hit a rhythm of visits before work started and now I am worse off than before as far as seeing my horse goes.

I will figure it out.   When it comes to my horse, I always do, but in the mean time, baby has dibs on Mommy.  Harley understands.

Horsey Baby Clothes = Irresistible

Buying cute baby clothes is very enjoyable for many people, family and friends alike.  Buying horse-themed baby clothes for a horse-enthusiast Mama and her little one is even more so.  Several family members and friends have spontaneously purchased cute horse-attire for our little Sweet Pea and I am so glad they did.  I am no exception and also failed to resist temptation at a recent baby clothes sale.  I am new to baby clothes, and everything "baby" really, but apparently you can buy the same or similar outfits in larger sizes so that your little one need not grow out her latest horse-themed onesie until she is 24 months old.

Thank goodness.

Thank you for the present Auntie M!

I may have purchased multiple similar horsey-outfits during a recent school-shopping outing.  Truth be told, I don't regret it.

And I am NOT one of those who likes shopping.  I think that I would be in trouble, if I were.

I have a growing collection, so expect to see some cute horse outfits modeled by Sweet Pea!  I have to dress her up before she grows out of them.  :)

Matching leggings!  (OMG, I sound so much like a "girl".  What has happened to me?)

I have an Ariat shirt on, too.

On the actual horsey front, Harley and I are still having fun together with our short rides.  He hasn't forgotten a thing and although both our fitness levels are not there yet (sitting trot feels like "work" these days), he still offers up his usual goodies like shoulder-in without a hitch, a big, explosive trot down the long side, smooth, smooth canter, and a flying change when I am not paying attention.  Silly boy.  I love every minute!

My Barefoot Horse: A Hoof Post At Last!

August 2013: Doesn't look like much, but these hoof shavings took a lot of work to produce!

Wow!  It has been forever since I wrote a hoof trimming post.  This was not so much due to a lack of trimming as it was a lack of photos.  I continued to maintain Harley's feet while I was expecting our daughter.  Thankfully, this was not as arduous a task as one might expect.  My arms remained reliably strong throughout my pregnancy.  They were perhaps the only part of me that did not transform in some shape or form from day one to the birth day.  Trimming was actually a welcomed activity, especially as my list of activities decreased as the weeks progressed.  It wasn't easy, but it was doable and I believe "relatively" safe under the given circumstances (me trimming Harley).  How did I make the feat (hehe) of trimming my horse while pregnant possible?  Here were my strategies:

1. Only trim a sane, reliable horse who knows me very well and respects my space and boundaries: check.  Harley was as solid as they get.  He can get fidgety, but he was saintly quiet for all of my "expectant" hoof trims.  Did he know?  
2. Do not let Harley's feet get away from me.  I was very careful to almost never allow a scheduled trim pass.  I religiously trimmed his feet every three weeks and kept up with the bars diligently.
3. Only trim a pair of feet on each visit.  This cut my work in half, but required two days of trimming.  Since I couldn't ride my horse in the end, I did not mind the extra time we spent together working on his feet.  In fact, I quite enjoyed it.  I kept the work spaced so that I had a week between front and hind foot trims.  I usually keep this schedule during the summer months anyway, because it is just too darn hot and buggy to trim all four!
4.  Use the hoof stand.  Enough said.
5. Use very new, sharp rasps...
6. And use two rasps!  I had a standard (14"), super sharp rasp for taking down excess hoof wall quickly.  I used my usual shorter (12") Ladies' rasp for the bevel.
7. Have a back-up plan if I am unable to continue trimming my horse.  I did not make any phone calls, but I am sure that the farrier or trimmer who frequents our barn would have helped me out in a pinch.  It was not my first choice to let someone else trim my horse, because I did not want to worry about a new person affecting my horse's feet (especially with all those worrisome hormones reeking havoc on my sentiments).
8. Be willing to let his feet grow longer than normal "at the end".

With a little bit of luck, this strategy worked out pretty well.  When our little one arrived early, I was in between front and hind trims, so Harley's hind feet went about six weeks without a trim and his front's only went four or five.  That is not bad at all, especially considering that many shod horses are purposely trimmed at five to six weeks.

There was also an unforeseen benefit to not riding or working my horse for the last two months of my pregnancy: his hoof growth slowed down.  I was really surprised, but he did not have any flaring from excess growth and barely any mechanical separation.  I was shocked about the last part.  I thought for sure that I would have to do some damage control, but, honestly, he was no worse for the wear.  What a relief, because I had plenty to worry about during those first weeks with our daughter.  Not having to worry about the state of my beloved horse's feet was much appreciated.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to take photos of his feet when I trimmed them in June.  They looked surprisingly good, just long.  I wanted very badly to document them, but I was in whirlwind mode and nothing was stopping me long enough to snap photos.  Plus the bugs were killer that day and Harley was not a happy camper.  By July, I sort of got my photography act together.

July 2013 before his trim: This was the second trim since baby.

July 2013: Self-trimming going on here at four to five weeks (heat wave delayed our trim).  Wowsers.

July 2013: Solar view of left hind.  I tried, but I did not have the patience for nice solar shots.  This was the only one that was not totally blurry and unrecognizable.  This is about four weeks of growth; our trim was pushed back a week due to the insane heat wave.

July 2013: Post-trim hinds

July 2013: Harley looking cute, but also wanting for grass (he is not smiling in this picture).  He was not amused by photo ops on this day, because he was already feeling the effects of baby infringing on his grazing time.

August 2013:  Now we're talking!

2-months old: Pink zebras are almost ponies!