Mr. Oats rides again!

Sadly I had to leave my dear Mr. Oats while I was travelling in Mexico for the past five months. He was left in the very capable and caring hands of my barn friends and his half-leasor, Chris. Unfortunately it immediately went downhill, with a series of health issues for Mr. Oats 😦 He experienced really horrible diarrhea due to his hay (sensitive to high sugar, despite how $$$$ the hay I buy is!), and then refused to eat his meds (he is on Previcox for arthritis, and Prascend for his Cushings disease), and then the worst of all worst things happened: Serious lameness due to a problem with his hoof. More accurately, my amazing barn friends would pick out his feet, and BLOOD would gush out. Needless to say he was in a lot of pain, and lame intermittently.

Of course, the day I got back I rode a barnmate’s horse too!

It was apparently challenging to diagnose as well (as it ended up being the literally perfect shitstorm: My vet was going through serious health issues, and we had a stand-in vet. Very nice but did not know what was going on!). I really did appreciate the thoroughness of the stand-in vet but GOD DAMN was it expensive while I was travelling. I had one month of 7 thousand dollars in vet bills, hay bills, board, car insurance and horse insurance. Almost none of it was from travel? Good christ!!

So, the long story was…It was close to 4 months of drama, drama, drama, drama and oh? More drama! Yay. Shoot me.

Mr. Oats says, “Drama? Me?”

It was immensely stressful and I almost flew back actually. My leasor certainly did NOT sign up for this shenangians and I felt sooo horrible that I was traipsing off in another country enjoying beaches, etc. when everyone was really struggling at home. The stress and guilt ate me alive inside. It was horrible.

To top it off, my fabulous leasor was also going through serious health issues and wound up in the hospital as well. And our barn manager who keeps the whole shitshow running? Her mother passed away as well. So, like…good news all around, right? Shiiiit. It was not good, and I felt very guilty.

I called my regular vet when we were in our last leg of Mexico and he said to just schedule an appointment with him when I got back. He was not concerned- just said as long as there is no swelling coming up in his leg, he’s fine to wait. So we waited a few more weeks (what’s a few more when he’s been off for four months, eh?) and I had an appointment with him on Apr. 14. I got back into town on the Wed. of April and he looked good actually! Much to my amazement!

For months I’d been hearing pretty bad, seriously grim things about his foot/lameness. Words like coffin bone infection, or a hoof tumour (keratoma) were tossed around. It was the worst case of all worst case scenarios pretty much every single day I was gone. Looming over me like the nastiest black cloud, it did colour a lot of my trip with negative emotions, fear, stress and guilt.

I saw that Oats was pretty darned sound, so the day I got back he went for a walk, and then I started riding the next day! Vet appointment came and the vet is known for being a bit of a gloom-and-doomer and he was like nah, this is a puncture wound. Big deep one, would have taken ages to heal and no wonder the horse was lame- it’s super painful! We then had a few weeks of more on-and-off drama, as we struggled to get the hole to close in. I left it open to give his poor chafed heels some healing time, and the second I did that, BOOM! A sliver of hog fuel got jammed in the hole, Oats almost fell to his knees in pain. I jumped off, pulled the splinter out and it gushed blood. I was SO sure this was it, end game due to my stupidity.

He was fine! I booted him though to ride the next day (sound!) and the boot rubbed the everloving shit out of his poor feet…Damned if you do, damned if you don’t eh? He developed really nasty heel abscesses and was foot-dragging lame one day. What a freaking time of it eh?

The next day, he was fine! Hah. WTF horse?

Oh Mr. Oats…we had our first lesson back on Thursday! He was such a gem, I love him and missed him SO MUCH. I now owe a LOT of favours to people, whooo boy. I am just lucky, so lucky, that it turned out ok~

Now where was I? Oh right, five months in MEXICO!!

And it has been interesting to get back, that’s for darned sure. Horse drama, teeth drama, more horse drama, my poor legs not loving running back in Canada again, getting locked out of every single password two-factor-authenticator drama and more! Wow!

Thanks world, I did need a reminder about how real life kind of sucks and can be difficult, and that it will encroach heavily on the jet-set travel lifestyle I did become so fond of.

Honestly, I needed to come back. I was dealing with a lot of stress and fear and frustration due to an ongoing problem with Mr. Oats and it was seriously eating at my brain. No way i wanted my dear friends having to manage this for so many, many months- and the fun continues now that I am home 😦

I have been back for two weeks now! It’s crazy. The adventure was crazy. It’s so hard to encapsulate, all of it. How do you tell people about your whole life? I was a different person then.

I’ll try to do some updates, now that I am NOT WORKING whoop whoop! (I have six months left in my sabbatical, which is amazing and kind of insane all at the same time). How do you look at six weeks of your time without your head exploding? I don’t know? But I guess I have time to figure it out.

Between the breaths

I had my dressage lesson on Thursday, and I was feeling apprehensive. Why is it that my rides are SO GOOD in my lessons, and then so….underwhelming, disappointing, frustrating on my own?

I mean look at this handsome boy, who wouldn’t love him?

So I did it. I owned up to my trainer and told her that I had been struggling, and how do I change it?

Well, firstly, she called me on my BS and said I needed to change my attitude and expectations first. I had a bad attitude about progress- wanting too much and accepting too little, ha. And that my rides previously were great chiefly because I had no expectations about them- they just ‘were’ and it was great!

From last summer- so nice! We’ll get there 🙂

It’s all true, isn’t it?

So we worked on developing a good, solid canter, one that I can take to a jump, or to a circle or anywhere. It felt really nice! And we also worked on a better mental state, one that accepts fluctuations in my ride and in my day. Can I accept that the day I come with a plan could get derailed? And be positive and kind about my ride? Yes, I definitely can.

And now I need to start!

My rides this weekend were great actually- not amazing, but solid, no-drama rides. Getting me and Oats where I needed to go. I only wanted to start the tension yesterday, and ended up letting it go, phew. Saturday I was actually in a pretty bad, amped up mood: I locked my keys and phone in the car at the feed store, fun fun. Ended up cooling my heels for awhile after I borrowed a phone to call the tow truck, and then a cool $70 to get it opened up! Shoot!

I was at the feed store to buy a fattening product for Oats, as he has been losing weight as an oldster who is getting back into work regularly now (four weeks, can you believe it??). He needs more help to address his weight, as I noticed in the past two weeks I had to put my girth up two extra holes on each side! Funny that I was so worried about him blowing up and getting chubby only a few months ago….Well, the work is good for him, and soon he will be back at his regular weight with a little extra help. Poor guy is getting skinny!

We also had our farrier appointment on Friday and he was well behaved, which is always a treat. 🙂

And me? My leg injuries are still giving me a lot of stress and trouble. Had another shockwave session on my left leg last week, which was excruciating, and had my hip tendon worked on (crunched the hell out of it squatting down at the barn and pulled it out, and it never went back in for weeks= pain and discomfort). So, hoping something works out for once?!!! Been now two months. Yay.

You, Forever

So I alluded briefly to this, but damn the weekend really went sideways. I was working/on call Saturday, so I had Monday off as my weekend. Sounds good, right?

WRONG.

I had a poor ride on Sunday- it felt crummy, and 100% my fault- so I was looking forward to meeting with my equine counselor to review my issues on Monday and I had the luxury of time! What a good opportunity, right?

Oats decides to eat his hay (we don’t keep halters on in their homes, I just wanted to see if he would eat after I hand-grazed him).

HAaaaaa.

I woke up to about 10 text messages from the morning feeder, who said Oats didn’t eat any of his night time hay, wasn’t eating his morning hay, was sulking at the back of his paddock and refused to get turned out.

Instantly alarm bells were ringing in my brain. Colic? What is going on? Oats’ friend Donato had a big bout of colic on Tuesday last week (and then I learned ANOTHER round of it on Sunday which is quite rare and frightening). Shit shit shit shit shit!!

So I called the vet, they said to go out and take his temp, see how it is and let them know.

I rushed out, tossed on jeans and a tshirt and raced out to the barn. Oats looked fine, his temperature was normal-to-low, and yep all of his hay was still there. The vet asked me to hand graze, and he was very eager to eat grass. So the next step was to shake out the hay bags and see if it was the hay, or if it looked different, would he eat it? Yep! He started eating it.

So WTF? They just said check on him, see how he is throughout the day. So I left, ran some errands (and yeah just went nuts at Greenhawk and bought a bunch of stuff…a new helmet, gloves, a replacement fly mask and SWAT for his poor swollen sheath).

My stress buying stuff. June has been just so crappy. To be fair, I did need a new helmet for safety.

I went back to the barn to apply the SWAT and Oats was back to eating his hay like nothing had happened. Weird. I left a note on the board saying to not turn Oats out in the paddock he was freaking out about, and flagged it online to the stable community…And then I got the message about why, exactly, he was acting so weird.

He had gotten left out till about 8pm in the paddock. His stomach was likely sensitive to due to being out on grass for that long, and he was in a big snit about being ‘abandoned’ in the pasture the next morning too.

Soooooooo that was why. SIGH! I had to text my counselor to cancel. Just too many things going on (see below also…).

No harm no foul, but sheesh I almost had heart failure after my friend’s TWO colic episodes last week…On a hair trigger.

OH and the best part? My hot water heater also died this weekend, so we enjoyed some cold showers and then it got replaced yesterday, a cool 4 hours of that happening and we got to kiss about $2k goodbyeeeeeeeee…FML.

And when I took my dog to the beach, there was a naked guy swimming. UGH.

I hate weekends sometimes. Jesus GOD.

 

When your life resumes (sort of)

At least my riding lessons are back on! Yes!

I ran my shoulder into a telephone pole a few weeks ago. Totally an accident but ouch! 

But with the resuming of some ‘normal’ activities comes roaring back all of my previous concerns/issues. Footing in the indoor.  Horses not being turned out enough. The outdoor is kaput, at least for this season? UGH.

I told my husband that I want to just buy a farm and deal with all this myself, dammit!

Ian made bagels and they were great! 

Otherwise…Address what I can, and then see what I can manage or not manage. Oats has been great otherwise, we had a return to lessons last week (jumping and dressage!) and I was really able to address our warm-up issues in a way that felt both calming, and productive. Go us! Phew!

I felt rusty as all hell but otherwise? Pretty darned good. Oats is moving great, I’m very pleased with that. I missed my trainers like crazy too. All the drama, angst, moving, rude and horrible boarders and COVID 19 and just…Man. My trip to Argentina  (haaaaaaaaa) not a thing anymore, summer holidays..?? Just. ARGH.

Oats has enjoyed lots of hand grazing, now that I work from home during this time and I have no commute! 

It still feels like some of my life is on hold, and will remain so.

Ian and I are able to get a lot of cool runs done throughout areas locally, and in the Cowichan Valley and I feel extremely grateful that we are able to do so with ease. Same with riding- at least I can do it? Despite all the ‘should I stay or go’ angst that continues to plague us?

I miss horse shows, friends, races, travel…Happy hours are coming back, and so are hair cuts, but the other stuff? Nope.

Ian and I are forced to be creative with our time, so we do a lot of running, food projects, and some creative projects too- like water colours.

This is a long and strange time, and I didn’t want to blog about it because all I felt was gloom and doom. I don’t really feel that anymore, but I do feel like I’m in this strange limbo where everyone is acting like normal, but behind the act is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty.

But since it’s going to be awhile, I might as well come back for now.

Music for the long emergency

Sooooooooo…Work is crazy right now, and that is due to the emerging coronavirus. I am assisting on the file (it’s an ‘all hands on deck’ thing right now), and making life extremely difficult for many, and in some cases, deadly. It’s a real challenge, and while I don’t want to dismiss fears, the risk we have here on the Island is very low. I do accept that the impact will eventually come here- like the flu, like H1N1, it will spread and sort of becoming ‘the norm’ but right now? Yeesh. Also I can be a bit paranoid, so having this be my ‘all day everyday’ existence is difficult.

Bright side to the weekend: Doughnuts and sunshine!! 

But anyways, my normal life is fine actually, with a few dramas. Oats got out of his pen twice this weekend- 1 time on Friday night after I rode, where I SWEAR TO GOD I double checked his latch. I have never, ever left it open.

The other boarder suggested his horse might have opened it by playing with the gate. I thought that might be it, but my trainer said it’s really unlikely, but that I probably forgot to do up the gate. Ok, but yeah…

Until Sunday night it happened AGAIN! And I was not at the barn on Sunday- at all! And even worse- he got out past the external fencing, that leads to a MAJOR ROAD. WTF?

I was pissed. And it’s definitely the new horse neighbour messing with his gate that caused it to open both nights. So, there is a new chain, and mercifully Oats is ok. Phew!

And in other annoying news…Oats was stiff, balky and shitty on THur/Fri, and I found out why- and it’s twofold- 1. He needed his feet done like, 2 weeks ago. Bad me. I thought he was fine, and he just…Wasn’t. This is entirely on me.

2. He was playing too hard with his horse friend, and was sore. He felt prettttty terrible on Thur/Fri. Thursday I chalked it up to him just being stiff, but on Friday he felt awful- moving laterally, balking, stiff, stopping. It took about 45 minutes of riding to warm him up enough to feel ‘ok’ but not great.

The farrier came out on Saturday and trimmed him up, and then I rode. He was definitely improved from Friday (no tripping!) but his left lead canter still felt like a bag of crap. His trot work was almost back to 100%. He then had Sunday off (to escape…) and then I am riding tonight. Fingers crossed that he is back to his old form by now!

Man, Life. Just…ah.

Why do I always feel this way?

Kind of a mixed week- I am not complaining because nothing bad is happening to ME, per se, just…Everyone around me?

Oats’ favourite game. RIP Willie, Oats misses you! 

On Monday Oats was playing bite face with his neighbour horse, Joey. He then proceeded to rip a chunk of Joey’s face off, with blood splattering everywhere! Jesus christ. His owner had the emergency vet out, who did about six inches of stitches. It turns out Oats had ripped some of Joey’s face muscles, along with the skin.

My other friend’s horse is now on stall rest, after 3 weeks of lameness and a vet visit on Tuesday. Diagnosis is still TBD but maybe something with the DDFT tendon? Either way, it blows.

On Thursday morning, my trainer’s father died. It was not unexpected, as he was suffering with a terminal illness, but still- so very hard for their family.

Add these recent incidents on to a winter scarred with tragedies (my friend’s horse breaking his leg and getting put down, my trainer’s dog getting put down due to a terminal illness…) and wow, it’s just.. a lot.

My parents and my in-laws both moved away in Feb.

Can we just…like say bye to February? Maybe to all of 2020? I’m not sure yet. Jeesh.

Anyways, despite Oats turning into freaking Hannibal Lecter, he was a good boy this week. My trainer cancelled lessons on Tuesday (which I didn’t know about, I should have asked, so that was on me for sure), and he didn’t get ridden or his meds, which I was immediately annoyed about. If I had known, I have time to get to the barn on Tues nights to ride and administer meds. ARGH. So, Oats had Tues/Wed off, no lesson yesterday due to the family death, and I have a lesson tonight.

He did get his meds on Thur, and we did a little jump school (set up 3 jumps, trotted the xpole a bunch of times and then cruised the course 1X) and some stretchy trot circles to really round out the focus. He was falling back through his hind end a LOT, which to my suspicious mind is linked to him missing a few days of meds?!! Oh well, I guess not much I can do now.

He was a good boy for jumping though. Phew the arena is so dusty! Gak! We go from flooding, still mushy in some spots, to too dusty. We can’t win!!

So, a good week for me, but an extremely challenging one for everyone else.

Terrible Thrills

Had my jump lesson on Thursday, and despite a LOT of drama-rama (jumps are leaving with my friends, my trainer is going through some truly devastating personal loss), it turned out pretty darn good. Note: This is not to make light of what people close to me are going through- at all. Life goes on, and it can sometimes take a real toll.

Man, I just love this guy! 

Oats was so light, springy and forward- he felt fantastic! I haven’t felt him being this ‘fresh’ and smooth feeling, like air, in ages I felt like (and then I proceeded to ruin his light freshness this weekend, because I am an idiot)… But we worked over a small course and man, he just felt SO GOOD. Through the small three-stride, we were almost getting two. TWO! On OAts! What a little star.

We did have 1 hilarious blooper- we took a tricky inside turn and BANG almost ran head first into a jump standard. I really misjudged the turn and kind of…Drifted out further and almost smoked the second jump in our course. Yikes! Oats of course, is a freaking saint, so we circled after our regroup and just…Did it again! And he was great, of course. I love my boy.

For my dressage lesson on Friday with Sam, (yes it WAS a busy two days for us), we worked on trot, sooo much trot. Leg yield trot. Across the diagonal trot. Shoulder-in trot. Big trot. Smaller trot. Stretchy trot. Wowza…My legs were tired, and I had sweat dripping across my face. Oats was sooo good again. Light, springy, just moving gorgeously. I am too lucky to have this horse in my life.

Too bad I kind of blew up his good vibe this weekend- I felt tense, edgy and for sure let it out on him. And I know better too. I just need to actually RIDE better and let the tension go! He was going fantastically and I got too handsy and angsty.

I know better for today, and my mantra for today’s ride- relax.

 

Ride it out

So, I had a long weekend- Family Day in fact! THREE whole days off!

One bright side- I made a cake! 

In true good wish/bad wish fashion, the weekend was…Challenging. Not all bad, but not good either. I learned on the weekend that a ton of people are vacating the current boarding stables that I am at (and I get it, no place is perfect), but it’s just a huge bummer for me to see them leave. I will miss them, their cool horses and their awesome jumps!

So, that was a downer. Plus the extreme negativity is just getting to be a huge buzzkill and it is making me not want to be at the barn right now either. UGH!! Can we just chalk this up to everyone else’s drama for once?

Plus I started a new medication for a potential endometriosis diagnosis (unconfirmed but pretty sure) called Visanne and wow…The side effects of it SUCK. Bigtime. Hardcore. I started it last week, and by day 3 had a full blown period complete with hemorrhaging. And I am chronically anemic. By the weekend, I spent a fair amount of time Saturday night at like 3am wracked with extreme nausea and vomiting. I was literally sweating out of my hair, my fingers. UGH. So awful. I was in pain (cramps, thanks to the surprise period that started immediately), and had such horrendous nausea. Man. I also suspect that I can’t eat fried food anymore, because it has made me puke every time lately!

I am still not feeling super great. Weirdly bloated and random cramping. Welcome to my life, isn’t it amazing? Between the side effects of the new medication, and all my friends leaving me, I basically had a crying meltdown on Sat. as well. Greeeatt…

Oats? Oats was so good this weekend. I feel very thankful that among great change, sadness and abandonment that I feel, he is still here, and solid as ever. Love my boy. Plus my husband helped me out a lot, made me not feel so alone this weekend too. We enjoyed running up Mt. Doug (man, my legs were like JELL-O after. Woof!) and shared a free hotdog from a gas station that hilariously I really enjoyed?!

Anyways, I’m kind of over it, and guessing from the long weekend that several of my colleagues had, they also are over it (flooding, food poisoning…I guess we all had the same delightful weekend?!).

At least the weather is nice. I am going to end on that.

It’s only a matter of time before I ruin his life: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Ha, the title seems grim but totally isn’t- I found it and found it amusing! I don’t think I am out to ruin anyone’s life, unless they are really not into horses, rabbits, dogs or running. Then maybe I would be ruining their life!

My friend Sarah made cupcakes- she is a professional eh?? 

Anyways, this Valentine’s Day sees me taking the day off the barn, to enjoy a movie with my husband. I was treated to a LOVELY Valentine’s day cupcake at work (yesss!). We had protestors outside this morning, which was fine. I respect the right to representation, and they were polite and calm.

Though it may not seem like it, I have also been doing a TON of riding. The vibe is still…Challenging…right now, and I was in full rant mode about some things I learned about my fellow riders (not my stablemates, other folks who I know), and the theme for this week is twofold:

1. People do not learn.
2. People do not change.

At least four people I know this week (god, if not MORE), are stuck in this weird hamster-wheel of logic. If you do the same thing all the time with the same people who are treating you badly, or it’s a negative environment, or whatever…You are going get the same results. Over and over. Rinse, repeat. And then complain/whine/etc loudly and repeatedly how you are the wronged party. HAH!

I would honestly laugh if I wasn’t also concerned about the animals involved. Jeesus.

Otherwise? Oats has been good, if a bit unremarkable this week. Last week felt pretty good, accomplished, this week…not so much. Not bad, he’s still my best baby, but just kind of lacklustre. His jumps last night- we moved our jump lesson to next Wed as my trainer was sick- was just ‘eh’ all around. Obviously I need lessons! Stat!!

A red velvet cupcake at work. YUMMM

Long weekend coming up, and boy, I think I need it, and a lot of others too!

Happy V-Day 🙂