Pages

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

la niña strikes back!

I hinted about it in recent posts, but it's been DRY around these parts lately! Which isn't super unusual, I guess. Seems like we never get much rain from about June to August, with the exception of concentrated hit-or-miss T-cell storms.

welcome to Rain Watch 2024
This time of year was always the worst for Charlie -- a real balancing act between keeping him in some semblance of work, without beating his feet into the hard dry ground. 

always interesting watching the storms roll in from 9 floors up
Doozy doesn't seem to have the same sensitivities... Or at least, certainly not at our current level of work LOL! 

pictured: driving north to charles, looking west where it's raining near doozy
It's a good thing, too, bc one of the biggest challenges in moving barns after so long in one place is the resulting shakeup in my team of pros. Charlie's new farm is still within my original farrier's territory, but Doozy's is not. So my original farrier made a referral for us.

increased turnout + growing grass + daily rides = HOLY TOE GROWTH, BATMAN!
pic taken at 4wks 3 days since last shoeing
Tho I'm not sure we made the best first impression on the new guy either, whoops!! I had to cancel our first appointment at the last minute bc of jury duty... so by the time he first met the horse she was about a week past due (at 6wks when ideally she'd get done at 5wks). 

Guys. Pro tip: Any good professional will do a good professional job.... but it's still in our best interest to present the horse as clearly well cared for, maintained, and managed lol. Like, it's hard to take claims of high standards seriously when the horse looks like a hot mess, right?

playing with puddles
But ya know. This new guy did a very nice job, put very beautiful shoes on Doozy, and we scheduled our next appointment based on how her feet looked at that time --- which again, had been at 6wks. 

He has other clients at this farm, so we figured if Doozy could stretch to 6wks again I'd be able to get on the same cycle as those other clients -- a win win for everybody, right?

calling it right now: at some point this mare is probably gonna roll with me in some water lol
Meanwhile, Doozy's lifestyle has changed dramatically over the last month. She went from quarantine in a dry lot, with only very low intensity riding.... To overnight turnout in a large grassy field, with the addition of finally getting into regular daily work. 

Oh, and another unintended bonus from switching farms?? Doozy (and Charlie too, actually) got a significant upgrade in her daily nutrition -- at less cost to me. Crazy how some farms just have quality feed included in board like that, LOL(sigh).

possibly an ill-advised ride overall lol... sand all up in'er bits! and we pulled a shoe, womp
All this, plus Doozy's innate thoroughbred qualities mean that her toes have straight up jumped the shark.... At legit only 4wks and 3days, you could probably host the Miniature Winter Olympics off those ski slopes omg!

well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own poor choices!
I was absentmindedly weighing options for how to present this conundrum to my brand new farrier, while strolling around in the immediate aftermath of one of the aforementioned T-cell storms. We'd just gotten like an inch of rain in about 30min, and yours truly thought it would be fun to play around with the puddles in our soggy outdoor ring. 

Ya know. On my long-toed creature, who's been living in more or less draught conditions for a few weeks. Do you see where this is going?

eh, she needed done anyway and the farrier was able to come out asap!
Yea. Uh, whoops? Poor Doozy made a good effort of the slop (esp considering it was her Ride 1 after a day off), but predictably got a bit bogged down and pulled a shoe. Womp womp.

fresh kicks!! new farrier has a plan, and i'll be curious how her feet develop over time, esp re: lateral symmetry given her conformation
Turns out, Charlie pulled a shoe too in the same thunderstorm (tho he did that by himself --- no stupid pilot errors involved there!). I guess if it rains hard enough after a long enough draught, just about anything can happen with those poor shoes.

charles got in on the fun too -- tossing one shoe a couple days before his farrier appt, and then another shoe AFTER OMG said appt. brosef, why tho!
Luckily both farriers have been super responsive and both horses were able to get reset without a lot of fanfare. Obvi Charlie will be sad sore and pitiful for a little while bc... Well. He's retired for a reason, right? 

my lame ass gelding's literal face after he chased Avi away from his fence-line girlfriend....
But ugh. Summer is my least favorite season for exactly these kinds of situations!! If you need us, we'll just be hiding out, biding our time and waiting for better conditions come Fall....

Well. Except for Charlie, who is clearly already living his #BestLife, sore feet be damned LOL


9 comments:

  1. It’s been dry here too. But frequent storms have put down some rain in the past few days. I’m away so hopefully I come back to find Carmen still has shoes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i'm so grateful for the rain -- things were starting to look crispy crunchy brown, before bouncing back to vibrant and lush again after just a few good storms. hoping the grass can catch up!! but pls no more lost shoes!

      Delete
  2. Ugh opie is on grass in the loosest sense of the word and at this time of the year his feet think he's gallivanting in knee deep blue grass and need to be done every 3 weeks. It's painful 😭

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dude tell me about it.... like where is all that even coming from???

      Delete
  3. She was just really being helpful with removing that shoe to get the farrier out sooner! 😂

    We've been dealing with lost shoes too, a whole combo of factors going into it. Hard time of year for sure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. honestly i don't know anybody whose favorite month is july LOL.... for real, tho, i'm kinda glad she lost the shoe. was feeling a little insecure about trying move our appt... but she just took out the guess work for us LOL

      (i'll add, tho, the farrier reaffirmed that i should always reach out if i'm unsure... which was also nice to hear!)

      Delete
  4. I wish I could send you some of our rain! Hope everyone's feet get to feeling great soon. Glad you have a good farrier who is also happy for you to check in with him. Mine is like that also, and it's so nice!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dude tell me about it... we are lucky to have a LOT of excellent professionals in my area, but i still always really hate having to change things up in the primary care team ya know?

      Delete
  5. Dozy looks fantastic at her new barn!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving a comment! You may need to enable third party cookies in your browser settings if you have trouble using this form.