| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 01/02/2007 10:02:41 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator, reason:
Locked - New thread - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1761352/posts |
Posted on 06/19/2006 8:46:45 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share. In the previous threads we have had a great time talking through lessons, training, horse lamenesses, illnesses and pregnancies... and always sharing pictures and stories.
I always have a link to this thread on my profile page, so if you have something to say and can't find the thread in latest posts… look for it there and wake the thread up!
I also have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will now be pinging everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list. As FreeRepublic is a political site, our politics and other issues will probably blend in…. There are many issues for horsemen that touch politics… land use, animal rights/abuse cases that make the news…. Legislation that might affect horse owners.
So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends. There are lots of ways of doing things and we all have our quirks, tricks and specialties that are neat to learn about.
Previous threads:
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!
I found those gloves made by Hanes are pretty good for riding in. I only use gloves when it's cold tho. These gloves are made of stretchy stuff so fit real good, and have a leather palm, and up the fingers, so they last a good while.
They're really not the best for warmth tho, actually, but better then nothing. My hands are like leather, I don't really wear gloves for anything, gardening, riding, etc...
Becky
I don't ride without them very often, I'm just used to them. Can't garden with gloves on, though, can't feel the soil, and it's dangerous to run a power saw or drill with anything on your hands (including a wedding ring or a wristwatch.)
Becky, glad to hear Nikki will be OK :~) Hope she's even better by this morning. Sounds like it's not too hard to get pills in her, but Our Rimadyl is in a tasty chewable. It's like a treat. You can ask if they have that if/when you need a refill. She may not need it every day... Even when Logan was 16, he didn't always need it, once the inflammation is down, it may only take a few times a week to keep it down. You just watch, and give her one on days she looks stiff... And, I suppose, don't let her overdo by sneaking along with you again. Once she feels better, she might try again!
Oh - and hello! We're back! Report coming...
Hello:), I figured they'd carted you off to a looney bin by now, with what you've been dealing with:)
How's your horse/barn situation...you had one really interesting post over on the other site, about how it could be electric...The poster that talked to her electrician son.
Nikki seems about the same today...still doesn't appear to want to get up. After we got back from the vet yesterday, she came out of the barn and laid in the sun in the front yard. But she gave me a fright. When the sun started setting she somehow worked her way into Harley's run. I noticed her because she was doing a lot of barking..She was trying to get out but couldn't and I could see Harley out back coming in to see what was going on. He doesn't like the dogs, because Grizzly pesters him. I had to carry her out, I put her back in the barn, gave her a drink. I looked out later and she was back in the yard....I kept an eye on her, and by night she still hadn't made it back to the barn but was barking non stop for me to come put her back in the barn...Now I don't know how much I should make her move herself, or if I should be carrying her around...I guess this is just a wait and see thing. He said it could be 3 days before I see big improvement.
Becky
Oh, and most definitely she will be locked up every time I leave on the horse...I'm not going to be suckered into that pitiful look:)
Becky
The pictures for my report are loading... We were quite out of sorts yesterday, after the power came back on, I expected to have internet back, TV, news, something!
Jeepers on the poor pooch, but glad you ~can~ carry her around. I hope she'll move around better today. She should know better than to get in with the horses! I remember seeing Logan, who was fairly deaf, getting out in the paddock to eat horse sh__, and the pony ran by and kicked out, barely missing him, and he never even looked up :~)
I think she landed up in there on accident. She was laying in the yard, I'd been watching her, and every once in awhile she was kind of scooting around. I think she got tot he edge of his run and just rolled down the incline under the panels, then could get back under to get out, because that was just too difficult.
Looking forward to your report....So you didn't have anything all day yesterday....?
Becky
I'll go check it out in a bit. Haven't been over there yet, getting caught up here first!
Internet came back on just this morning.
I don't like carrying her, one she is kind of heavy and awkward, because if you hold her just right, she cries and yipes...She never goes in the horse pens on her own anymore, just stands on the outside and runs up and down the panels barking while Grizzly is inside pestering:)...He's going to land up dead..Harley will strike at him, he always manages to get out so far, but I'd say his number will come up sometime...When I know he's doing it I go out and stop him...But he just enjoys playing, and I "think" Harley is playing too...but Grizzly attacks from the front rather then the heels, and Harley will strike with his front feet, head down, running at him...
Becky
STORM DIARY
We spent the night in the barn Sunday night. But it was a good night :~)
Sunday Night, I fell asleep early, 8:30 or so, for which I was thankful later… I woke up every couple of hours, but got more sleep than I otherwise might have. Ecurbh stayed up a while later and said that when he went out to check at 10ish, Cyn was laying down in her stall. That was a good sign that she's getting over whatever frightened her the other night.
The storm didn't hit till late. At 1:30 am I woke up to the wind gusts sending small branches onto the roof, and what I was I wasn't sure at the time was lightning or transformers blowing, or both. It turns out if was transformers blowing all over. It was lighting up the sky. I went to go check the horses.
Cyn was nervous and starting to look for escape routes, and as I went around to go in with her, the power went out just as I got Bay's door open and it was suddenly pitch black. I could see nothing, and when I opened the door I could hear horses circling and snorting but couldn't see ~anything~, not even Bay. I closed it again. Was a little scary! Ecurbh was awake too by then, and was hopping on the porch trying to get his shoes on, and had a flashlight. I yelled for him to hurry, which he was already trying to do. We went in and got a hand on Cyn, found a lead rope and stood with her. She calmed down a lot as soon as she could no longer spin and work herself up. The other two remained fine as soon as Cyn stopped.
We took turns holding on to Cyn while the other fetched things… First a battery operated DeWalt light and a couple of spare batteries. Later on, some lawn chairs, a glass of water for us, some buckets of water from the emergency barrel for the horses, eventually some hay, and the camera. Moved the trucks out from under the tall trees and into the store parking lot, which we should have done earlier. The skies were remarkably clear, though, and without any power or lights anywhere, there were a million stars. Unlike most storms, there was no rain.
It was a long night - we sat out there from 1:30 till around 5:30 am. But it worked. We did prevent another wreck by being there, I'm sure of it. But better than that, even when it was blowing and the building was creaking and getting hit by things, they started *startling* less and less. Total immersion therapy… It did a lot of good for us to just be there I think, to keep Cyn and the Pony calm and hopefully show them that no harm would come of all this noise.
After a while the pony laid down and rested. Cyn ate hay quietly, didn't lay down again, but, in an important change of attitude, she moved more freely in the stall, and the real test, stood with her butt to the gate and dozed. And we dozed there in our chairs too.
For a while I there I though ecurbh might fall out of his chair :~)
Bay stood and watched the storm out the doorway most of the night, so for most of the night this was my view, sitting in the corner of his stall:
Or he ate hay… or visited with me…
In the morning around 5:30, we had sat in those lawn chairs about as long as we could take. We decided the wind had quieted down enough and the horses calm enough that we could go doze on the couch till daylight. We briefly went back out again a few minutes later because it started gusting a bit and I didn't want to have a setback that late in the game. We were tired…. Really tired, and chilled, but we were almost done. After the wind died again, we hit the couch. And just a few minutes later, around 6:00 or so the power came back on. Woo hoo!
We fed the horses their breakfast in the stalls, and went to bed. I woke up and went out there around 7:30 to let them out, but Bay was laying down then and I didn't want to disturb him, so I snuck back in and went back to bed. We didn't wake up again till 10:30. Let the horses out to pasture and came back in, had some coffee and couldn't figure out what to do with ourselves. No cable tv, and therefore no internet either. Oh yeah – and the power surge killed the TV in our bedroom. The color's all screwed up and people look eggplants. So we went out for some pancakes. Came back and wrote down this report while waiting for internet to come back. :~)
The road is closed right past our place here, and there's a bunch of work trucks with buckets. Maybe a tree is on a line down there, and when they get that clear, we'll have cable again.
Monday Night update:
Power but still no cable. Feel disconnected! No more wind expected tonight, all the horses went in easily without any drama. No Tryptofan for Cyn, and she seems OK but we're still checking on her. Hopefully this will be a normal night.
Late evening update, went out to check, both Bay and Cyn were laying down.
Tuesday morning update… Everything's just fine! Everyone seems normal this morning. And, it might not be windy or rainy today :~D
Oh my gosh! Sounds like quite an adventure! Work's been HE double toothpicks lately so haven't had much time to be online. Looks like I missed a whole bunch. Glad everyone is safe....except for those eggplant people!
Glad everything worked out o.k. (you might want to take a nap while waiting for cable to come back on . . . )
Well, because it was nasty, and because Bay didn't want to be out, he was happy. But also because without electricity, we have no fence, and if they had the room to get up a good head of steam out there, I'd be afraid they'd run right through the fence.
Heh - and, we talked about this at the time, in the barn we were the safest if trees were going to come down, it's the strongest structure on the place.
And we wanted them to have a good barn experience, where they had to endure a scare, and find they didn't die. If we let them out while it was scary, they'd think getting out was what saved them.
It ~was~ quite a saga :~) Looking forward to a return to normalcy :~)
Well that makes sense.
Hoping things get back to normal now.
Well, I just had to go carry Nikki out of Rocky's pen...I looked out there and there she was with him standing >< this close to her. At least he doesn't go after the dogs like Harley does, but I'm going to have to do something different. How she can get in those pens, and then not seem to be able to get out is beyond me.
I think I'm going to carry her up here and put her in the garden...it's enclosed, but she can see out. It may be the destruction of all the pansies I planted...but I can't leave her where she can wonder into the horse runs, and I just have no other place to put her other then the trailer, and that seems a bit cruel since she wouldn't be able to see anything....
Becky
Or rig a tie, but she'd be happiest, probably, in the garden. It would be safe for her, even if it is hard on the pansies. :~\
On the positive side, it's good news that she at least is wanting to move around!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.