Thunder and lighting

Newcastle is flooded i am told. It was like night ar 6 pm. Now sunny but like a sauna outside.  Set off no rain at home to go to yard; less than a mile later could barely see and rivers of water on road. Stopped at gainers while it passed before going to yard where i had to dig drain out - all the mud of years washed in to it! Which at least means that the car parking area is not going to be muddy for a while! Horses were fine when i got there if somewhat damp! Monies cut another leg yesterday bit it was only surface. Charlie has one too so i went with wound powder in pocket along with the apple for Charlie and polos for both of them

in the gap

between rainy evenings - last night, in fact - i had Monf in the arena and actually got him to walk round me a few times - had to get myself really fired up to get him to move... he's such a bizarre and frustrating lad on this .... other end of the arena pony being perfect lunge pone for his teenage owner/rider....

then went home and mowed lawns with borrowed lawnmower (mine is broke), all after doing huge amounts of work

so today - guess what, raining again!  and i was pretty tired, it was a black coffee afternoon!

95 not out

my mother, today.  scary!  sister came up and we took her for lunch, i'm still feeling stuffed!

in the meantime, it rained some more...

i was on horse checking duties (G has a VERY poorly 3 year old) and had to walk up the field for Charlie as he wasn't coming down (monfils did, and then followed me back up wanting more polos).  Charlie was fine, but i had to wait for them to settle before i could look - he'd been up near the electric fence with a couple of others, one of which rashly touched the electric fence - so cue much rushing about!  at least i could see he was sound, LOL!

and got soaked in the process, i did....

i said to G, we may have whinged about losing the summer to our respective injuries, but as it turns out, there hasn't been much summer to lose!

so funny

but of course by the time i could get the phone with camera out...

attempting to get him lunging in walk....

anyway, we're getting to what he clearly things is the end of the session, and I'd dropped lunge whip and was just using the bundled up end of lunge line, all I wanted to do by this point was just keep him walking

so he stopped with his nose to the deck and sniffed the lungeline - then picked it up by the lash and carried on walking for a few strides... then turned in to me still holding on to it .. it was so funny....

the rain DID stop!

so took M out for an in hand walk round the 20 acre (with Gaynor riding charlie). 
True, I could have ridden - but i reckon i'd rather give the leg another week to be sure, and then it's only a fortnight to my summer holiday, so little point in starting serious ridden work until i get back ... so will do more lunge/inhand in the next fortnight (weather permitting, of course!)

rain rain go away..

not that it's going to any time soon, i don't think

in the meantime, jean, here's a blog you might be interested in:

http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/

positives...

the leg subsided and as it subsided he became calmer standing in (thank goodness)  - i did have to resort to molasses in his feed, as otherwise he wasn't eating his feed (can't watch the world go by with your head down in your feed dish, can you?)

i did some work on trying to get him to lunge; gaynor lunged him properly tuesday (vet had said to lunge) and then we turned him out as the swelling had gone down hugely and he was sound... therefore better out

tonight (drum roll......) i actually managed to get him to lunge myself, only in walk, but hey!  result!  one moment he was looking at me challengingly, and the next, he'd caved in.... don't know why, maybe i'd altered something about my body language (probably) .. but off he went.. not hugely fast but not dead slow either...

the only way is up (not i hope literally, LOL)

a bad patient

last year when he was kicked he was a good patient, probably because he'd only just gone into the herd and didn't know the other horses, or the field

this year, he's a bad patient.  stressed because he's in, didn't eat his breakfast (which had his antibiotics in), not settling when walking out, crossing fingers he doesn't develop a stress induced colic....

but the leg was not nearly as swollen this morning, or this evening, so that's good

wish he'd lunge, though - vet says, lunge him - i said, he won't ... even as wound up as he was today, you'd think he'd want to move, but no......

kicked!

at some point between 0500 (when gaynor turned Charlie out) and 7.45 pm ...inner aspect of near fore between knee and shoulder, up like a pudding, clearly infected, lots of cold hosing, vet out arrived about 8.45 pm .. antibiotics and bute, in for a week at least, in hand walking out at least twice a day, see how it goes....

at the point he was discovered, i was at the hospital having my left thigh injected, and was still with the consultant when the phone rang with the news .....so an exciting medical evening all round.

do hope it's at least not as swollen in the morning... it's a bit scary...

still won't lunge ....

ggrrhh...

think i'm starting to get somewhere, then i'm not ....

finished, therefore, with some in hand left rein, which he's improving at a lot (as am I).  still can't have my shoulder etc as i'm supposed to, but think that will be a long term impossibility (frozen shoulder does NOT need more dodgy positions!)

walk out...

after some in hand work.....Gaynor schooled in an empty field, I did a little bit of in hand in the arena, then she said, did i want to walk to the ford and back?  go on then i said...knackered time we came back (both of us, LOL) - especially as we came back via the field, i was knee deep in long grass!  2 more weeks i think it is and i can get back on ... TBH I COULD get back on now, but consultant was concerned in case i had another crashing fall before the bone had strengthened  .. so i'm being a good girl. the fact that i could just as easily trip whilst walking....

in other, bad, news ... a lass on the yard has been fighting cancer for a few years, third go round at the moment .. and the news this morning was that it is into her bones... and she thought today would be her last time at the yard..    :-( :-(  lovely lass....