Where Art Thou, Friend?

Harley has a dilemma.  The dilemma has become his indirectly, but I am sure that in his mind, the problem is 100% his to deal with.

You see, Harley's friend has a foot problem called navicular (shiver).  Navicular is a condition which scares me the way laminitis and colic scare me.  His friend has been barefoot for years and improved dramatically when his shoes where removed, but recently (the past 12 months) his comfort has decreased.  His owner is very caring and dedicated.  She has been giving him special (read: expensive) supplements to make his feet feel better and hopefully offer some healing.  She also employs body and energy work techniques and booted him with feverish regularity for the better part of a year.  When his comfort could not be improved enough with these tactics, she recently decided to take the plunge and have glue-on shoes installed on his front tooties.  He is now sporting Epona shoes, which I find very curious, but unfortunately I cannot examine them and satisfy my curiousity, because his glue-on shoes are covered with cast material.

Why the double duty (shoes and casts) you ask?  The answer is simple:

MUD

We have lots of it right now in southern New Jersey.  The mud is thick and deep and sticky.  It is especially bad at the entrance to Harley's shed.  Harley visible despises walking through it and will actually balk when I ask him to leave the shed and follow me.  This is very un-Harley-like, but the expression on his face when he squishes through the ankle deep mud says it all:

This sucks.

And what it really sucks at is shoes.  Mud especially loves EXPENSIVE shoes.  The more expensive the better.  Harley's buddy is sporting some champs right now and the good news is that they have finally made him comfortable.  His owner reports that her horse was trying to entice Harley to play with him using the "nip and run" strategy shortly after the installation of his new flats.  Harley loves to run around, but she said that he actually looked surprised and a little confused since his docile friend does not usually initiate such games.  I was very happy for all three of them.

But now, the mud is threatening to rip off the precious hoofware that is making Harley's friend so happy, which would make him an unhappy pony and his owner very, very unhappy (Did I mention that the shoes are expensive?).

When I visited Harley yesterday, I found that his friend was no longer in the same paddock as Harley.  Harley's friend is temporarily hanging out in the riding ring, because the sand is doing a much better job of draining the water.  His shoes should be much safer in those conditions, but it is sad that they are also temporarily separated.  Their living arrangements are right next to each other and they can definitely see each other and even stand within thirty feet of each other if they want to, but they are still apart until the mud subsides.

I thought about moving Harley over there with his friend, but I really do not want to do that.  The riding ring is adjacent to another horse paddock and the horses tend to fraterinize over the fence.  This is unsafe and a horse management no-no in my book.  Harley's friend will probably be fine, but Harley is an alpha.  I do not want him fighting with another alpha over the fence.  I have never seen Harley fight with another horse, but I do not want to give him a 24/7 opportunity to give it a try, so separated they must stay for the time being.

As an aside, it was so windy that his mane was completely flipped to the other side of his neck in the next photos.

There was some heavy nickering going on here.

Don't worry guys!  It's only temporary.

The Things People Say

I have read a number of articles and threads about the stuff that people say to pregnant women.  I would never have had an appreciation for those stories before I was expecting myself.  I thought it might be fun to make my own list.  Feel free to add to mine!

1. Was it planned?/Were you trying?
2. Do you have a doctor?/Are you taking vitamins?
3. That's not a belly; that's a bread basket!
4. How much weight have you gained?
5. My delivery was so painful and traumatic that I never had a second child (true statement revealed to me right after I shared my good news).
6. Are you hoping for a girl or a boy?
7.  How far along are you?
8. The last place I would want to be looking is in maternity (said by a random shopper while walking by me in the maternity section at the mall, my husband heard her and was pissed).
9. Oh, you are getting so cute.
10. I can see your belly now./You're getting so heavy.
11. Your stomach isn't nearly as big as this other pregnant women.
12. Do you have insomnia?  Better get used to not sleeping!
13. Do you want to find out if it is a boy or a girl or do you want to be surprised? (isn't it always a surprise?)
14. Do you know what you are having? (it's a human!)
15. Breastfeeding is great and the best thing that you can do for your baby!
16. Breastfeeding is painful/horrible/impossible; use formula and save yourself the trouble.
17. Did you pick a name yet?
18. Just use drugs. (this one gets said a lot in reference to the delivery which I find kind of amusing since usually the status quo is to "just say no")
19. How are you feeling? (multiply by 1,000,000,000)
20. And the creme de la creme:

Can I confirm your birthdate?
Reeallly??  I thought you were like nineteen!
(Said by a phlebotomist after vampiring more blood from me.  I waited until I was in my early thirties to have my first baby and people still think that I am a teen mother.  Not cool!)

Many of the gems above were eyebrow-raising, but the one thing that has really surprised me is that people have not advised me to stop riding my horse, even though horseback riding is at the top of the list of dangerous activities to be avoided by pregnant women.  I had been bracing myself since day one expecting to be judged for riding my 1000 lb pet while gestating a baby.  I am not sure if people just don't want to go there and tell me not to do my most favorite thing in the entire world or if they truly believe that I would not take the chance if I thought that I would be taking too large a risk.  I have been happy to see that pretty much everyone, from riders to non-riders, have been supportive of my decision to keep riding my horse.  My husband and I discussed it with one of my doctors and she said that because I have been riding regularly for most of my life, I can continue to ride, but I can't fall off.  She also said that "bouncing is okay" and won't hurt the baby.

As an avid rider who values a good seat and the work I have put forth to improve my balance and position in the saddle, I couldn't resist clarifying for her.

"Oh, I don't bounce."

October 2012: At the beginning of our new adventure.

Hungry As A Horse

Unfortunately, I do not see my horse everyday.  I board Harley at a nice place and they take very good care of him, so I do not have to be there to feed him or clean up after him everyday (I DO have to pay for it to be done, though).  I try to see my horse as often as I can, whether it be to ride, lunge, trim his feet, or just groom and feed him carrots.  Despite my best efforts and the fact that spending time with my horse is among my favorite things to do, life does get in the way at times and I have to miss seeing him.  Here are some examples of reasons why I might not be able to go to the barn:

• I have to work late at school.
• I have a bag full of grading, which is working late but at home.
• The daylight hours are short, which also means he gets fed dinner earlier in the day.
• I have a doctor or dentist appointment after work.
• There is a family birthday on a week night.
• There is a family birthday or holiday event right in the middle of the day on a weekend and I also have work or household obligations sucking up time before and after the midday event.  I detest midday events, because they monopolize the entire day.  Just make it in the morning or at night!  (please) 
• One time I had to wait for guests to arrive for a family event (not my event) and I couldn't leave the house until they arrived.  They were about four hours late and it was an absolutely gorgeous Saturday in the spring.  I think that it had been raining for a while before that, so I was nearly beside myself knowing that I could have left and gone to the barn and been back before they arrived.  It was so difficult to hide my distress and socialize/entertain for hours afterward.  The only one who understood my frustration was my Mom (and my husband).  She watched me cry over enough rained out riding lessons as a kid to know exactly what was going through my mind!
• I have to clean the house (with my husband) before guests or a holiday.  With both of us working and neither of being very domestic, this usually turns into a cleaning marathon ending minutes before our guests/family arrive.  It's miserable, but at least it gets us to clean the house!
•  Household projects or yard work, which must be completed during the daylight hours, can hog up perfectly good barn time.

And speaking of "hog", here's a new one:

• I'm too hungry to go to the barn. 

I can hardly believe it, but this actually starting happening to me a lot in the fall.  Of course, it was because I was pregnant, and like my horse, I have a high metabolism and a high energy job.  I knew that I would have to eat more to share with a newly developing human, BUT I had no idea what that would be like.

During the first trimester, I would actually rush home from work with a hunger so intense that I didn't even take my coat off before I opened the refrigerator.  I could down a can of soup, an entire avocado or cheese sandwich before my husband came home to see any evidence that I had made food.  Other times, he would walk in and I would be stuffing my face with my "first dinner" only to have no problem a few hours late eating a "second dinner" with him.  I felt very, very fortunate not to have any sickness or fatigue.  I have spoken to enough women and heard enough stories at this point to know that I should thank my lucky stars, but MAN-O-MAN was I hungry. 

This started to interfere with my barn time as the days got shorter.  There was less and less time after work and I needed a good chunk of it to fill my stomach.  My husband remembers seeing me looking kind of upset after work one day and when he asked what was wrong, I lamented that it was a beautiful day and I wanted to go ride my horse so badly, but I was too hungry to leave the kitchen.  It was really distressing to me.  I had never been a slave to my physical being before.  As a teacher, I was used to ignoring my bodily needs to suit a bell schedule.

Of course, I was still able to get out to see Harley, but it was much easier to do on the weekend.  I would bring a snack (or snacks) and take a break from trimming or grooming to eat before a ride or finishing my work.  I started giving Harley his hay cubes while I took my food break.  He enjoyed this deal immensely and I found myself appreciating the expression "hungry as a horse".

I started eating the baby carrots that I brought for him and he would definitely give me a look if I walked out the tack room with one in my mouth and none in my hand for him.  I don't think that sort of thing was lost on my equine companion. 

Sorry, Harley.  I couldn't help myself!