Blog Hop: Equestiran Bucket List

Poking around on new (to me) blogs and found THIS!!

I've got a few hours still to get mine in, so why not!

Gonna channel my inner Fox-Pitt....

1) Compete in and complete a CCI*
Ever since I first learned of the wonders of a sport called Three Day Eventing, and especially since I first got to watch CCI competitors gallop cross country at the Colorado Horse Park I have wanted to compete at the CCI level.  I have the horse now that has the talent and potential to easily go that far, now it's just a matter of time (and $$$$).   I have a plan to get there, now I just need to make it happen.  Oh, and I want to finish with a number, not a letter!  Easy enough, right?

2. Go to ROLEX
Not as a rider though! Some day I will take an entire week off and head to the Kentucky Horse Park to lap up as much greatness as I can, maybe go on a coursewalk (or two), hit the trade fair, and cheer on the stadium jumping.  I debated over this or the Olympics, but this won because Rolex is, well, Rolex. Plus the KHP is just an amazing place, I've been lucky enough to compete there for Pony Club, but to watch the best riders in the world take on a four star course? Yus plz

Mint julep anyone?

3. And last but not least: The Kentucky Derby
Ever since I first watched Silver Charm gallop to victory I've wanted to go.  On a road trip to the east coast my family took in April one year we got to stop by Churchill Downs for a brief tour right before they closed (we guessed the time zones wrong so didn't get time to mosey around the museum, boo).  I want to get a pretty dress, a big fancy hat, and study my post preps and hope I pick the winner!



Cheers!
Emily

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Cash may have ulcers

Saturday morning I got a call from the barn owner, Rosemary, saying that Cash was not feeling well... that he wouldn't touch his grain and was acting lethargic.  Great.  She said she had turned him out into the dry lot with the two Arabians that spend the night out there to see if he'd eat out there instead of in his stall.  Instead he just poked around and "herded" the one mare around.  Then he was laying down, and getting back up, and laying down, and back up... but not rolling.  Weird.

So I asked Rosemary to give him 2g of Bute, saying that I'd get out there as soon as I could.  This was about 8:30am.  By the time I got myself up, the baby fed, me fed, the other kids fed, the cat fed... humanity fed!  Eerr... it was about 10:30 that I got there.

He wasn't rolling, wasn't laying down, but just wasn't right.  He looked a little mopey, but not as lethargic as he'd been before when he 1) had that cellulitis and 2) when he was colicy.  I got him out, checked his vitals, checked his gut sounds, checked him all over for injuries... all good.  He wasn't dehyrated, he had completely downed his hay from the night before and drank his bucket.  Poop in the stall looked normal, fresh poop in the dry lot was nice n' wet and normal.  But he would, not, eat.  At all!  I even walked him over to a patch of green grass and he nosed around like he was interested but wouldn't even attempt to nibble.  So weird.

So, in texting back and forth with my vet I brought up the topic of "what if it's ulcers?" and she just responds "yep."

Gee, thanks!

Anyway, I hung around, rode Candy (which I rode her in my jumping saddle to see if she'd canter better, and she did, good girl!  She is starting to get the idea that what I say is the law, silly mare), and watched him wander over and take several drinks and otherwise look OK.  The bute was surely kicking in by this point.  So I took a handful of grain out to him and he took a nibble but as soon as he got it into his mouth he stopped munching and turned away.  I poked around in his mouth best I could without him biting my fingers off just to make sure he didn't have a stick or something stuck up in there.

After that I called my vet and we chatted for a bit, long story short: she is working with another vet clinic out by Greeley, CO where the vet is wanting to start a study that will be looking to see exactly how many horses actually do have ulcers.  They are also working on developing a new ulcer medicine that is a combination of the active ingredient in UlcerGuard and rantidine.  Cool!

So I told her to sign me up.  We both agreed that based on his little colicy fits over the past year that ulcers are a strong probability.  Especially considering his past as a racehorse.  So pretty much as soon as they get the go-ahead for the study to start Cash will be in on it.  He'll get scoped for ulcers and get a fancy new medicine and it'll cost me waaaaaayy less than what it would normally.  My vet will keep me in the loop and in the mean time I'll cross my fingers that Cash won't have any more silly little episodes like this to freak me out.

Oh, and, happy ending to this story:  I went back to the barn around 5:30pm that evening and the snot greedily snarfed down several handfuls of grain that I gave him then walked off in a huff when I didn't have more.  Yep, thank you Cash.

Cheers,
Emily

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1950s Dress

So I just realized that I never followed up on this.... I posted back in August being so excited about getting to do this, and never showed y'all the finished product!  That said, without any further ado, I give you my 1950s dress:

This one the color is left un-edited so that
you can see the colors of the dress.
The other pictures I made look more
1950-photography-ish.

And yes, I did win best dressed at work :)

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Plugging along

Nothing much terribly exciting to report on.  School and work are keeping me busy... I'm still waiting on the new level 2 hires that I get to train, can HR get any slower with offer letters? Jeeze. School is a mish-mash as far as how I'm doing, two classes I have As, two I have Cs... I recently got perhaps one of the lowest test scores I've ever gotten in my entire college career, ouch!  This semester is not only my first time doing 300 level classes, but also my first time doing full time credits... and oh yeah, all of them are those 300 level classes!! I totally did not intend to do that, go me!

I'm just finding myself not being able to focus very well this semester.  I'm not sure what's up with that, but it's been frustrating.  It's not that I can't learn the information, it's just that I've been having a hard time getting into the grove so that I can learn.  Having a super active and ridiculously adorable 1 year old running around the house certainly doesn't help any....

Halloween was fun!

I think she's absurdly cute, but that's just me

I left her alone for 30 seconds, came back to this!!

She is becoming quite the climber, eeek!

She loves her kitty!!
(most tolerant cat in the world folks)

OK, baby pic spam over!!

As far as Cash goes, on the days when the stars line up and I'm actually able to get my butt out there and work with him I am actually riding him!  And he's doing quite well.  The farrier was out yesterday and he stood SO WELL!  I was a proud momma.  He's still not so sure of the hot shoeing, but my farrier is amazingly patient with him and I love it.

I've been riding him in just a halter, I made up a special rope halter with rings on the side just for riding and he's really doing quite well in it.  I feel like I have control and steering and breaks... You know, the important stuff!  Just working on bending now, good grief he is a stiff horse.

His SmartPaks came and he started on them today, so we'll see what happens there.  We had another mare starting on a SmartPak as well, so we have some fun last night going through all the new goodies.

Handsome man

And, last but not least in this rather long blog post: I have a new little project ride!  The new gal who moved into the apartment on the farm this past summer has this super cute little Appy mare named Candy and she asked me if I could help with some training issues (mostly canter work), so I said yes.  I'm riding her about once a week, and I really enjoy her.  She's tiny, maybe 14hh on a good day, and feels like such a pushover after riding Cash, ha!  She's got that signature "appy-tude" going on and I've already had a few discussions over who is going to have the final say in matters.  She's a super smart mare and once she figures out I mean business about whatever I'm asking her to do she backs off and does it.  It'll be fun to see how she progresses, I'll keep ya'll up to date!

Miss Candy

Alrighty, I think that's all folks.  I really need to blog more often so that I don't have these massive "update dump" type posts.  If anybody has some magic formula to increase the number of hours in a day I will pay handsomely!

Cheers,
Emily

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