ah the killer lambs...

so there've been a few orphan lambs on the yard, and they were turned out into the field today.

I went out for a solo ride along the back drive, with his new back boots on, just to go to the ford and back and see how he went with them (also would rather have company to go further just now...)

the lambs were in the field on the left of the track, with YO's wife ... M stopped nad looked and i was talking to her and he moved forward and she hopped over the fence and came to talk to me... we went on our way.

on the way back, i thought he'll be fine, he's seen them..

but of course, they'd moved slightly into the shelter that had been built for them, the angle was different, the person wasn't there

 u-turn... says he....

doh!

much more forward

he was moving a lot better tonight ... much happier with life altogether ... moving better - longlining went well .. guess he was depressed with the weather, which has been awful ... and i think he's feeling the benefit of our new supply of sole cleanse spray on his feet. we need a long dry spell really to really get it sorted...

i didn't try the hoof boots - far to late to think about riding when i got there, and  no one to go with (as i thought.. wrongly, as it goes, but there we go..) ...

lunging more lunging

yesterday with me, and he really couldn't be bothered at all.

and Jean, it's really not my body language - I've been lunging for 20 years now, and can happily lunge my mate's difficult gelding that her groom can't lunge.. i just can't lunge my current horse...

and he wasn't that keen on doing the same for G tonight either... but by tonight he was probably thinking "enough already" LOL

the good news was that the new supply of sole cleanse arrived, we'd just about run out and hadn't been able to put enough in, AND the other hoof boot, so tomorrow can boot up behind and see if I can get some company for a ride... subject to the weather, of course, which has gone back to being pants...

longline improvement

in that he was much more keen to actually keep up a decent walk, and thus more able to seek the contact.... partly, i think, as I improve with it as well.... also the flirty mare had him interested, which meant i had to work harder to keep his mind on me, which shows, i would suppose, that i hadn't been doing enough to move him on before.....

bath time

followed by a lunge session.

We decided that it was hot enough to bath him .... outside the stable is a regular sun trap as well, so we both went to do that job!  think he quite enjoyed it, and my goodness did he need it!

after that, G lunged him.....

he went very nicely, trot both reins... why he won't do it for me is beyond both of us, i did suggest that perhaps i ought to take a recording of her voice?  bizarre it is..

and amazingly, he DIDN'T roll when turned out later .... or at least if he did, he waited until we were long gone!

after the hack

the roll!

winter at the end of May

was what we have had...

9 degrees with added wind chill, and rain....

:-(

forecast to be warm tomorrow, though - believe it when i see it, but the wind dropped after i got home tonight so there is some hope that the forecast might be right...

i knew it would rain again

a warm bath it was leaving the office, so didn't really believe the forecast (which had said, dry!)

but i rode, if not for long - he was too full of grass and there was too much going on, what with the phone ringing and trailers moving about

the sad news - one mare on the yard got taken off to horsepital with apparently colic or something, potentially needing an operation

then another made like he was going to get colic, happily didn't and his vet arrived anyway for pre arranged appointment, so he got a shot of whatever it is on a just in case basis anyway...

floods!

happily not for me, but the rain!

coming back from mother's yesterday on the main road, i ended up pulling up and ringing the police i was so concerned about the number of flooded areas on the road - 5 between Lanchester and Durham - VERY difficult to get past, at one point "drive on pavement" (sidewalk to you Jean! LOL) was the only way round, happily that was wide enough, and people being stupid about it

G on full flood watch, unsurprisingly

but it stopped raining eventually so hopefully not too much damage to everyone.

not worth trying to ride - the mud was still damp on M's back, apart from anything else..

feet improving

it turned out that not ony had he had thrush, he had also had, at some point, an abscess blow out through is sole.. we think this must have  been about the time the thrush kicked off, and possibly was all the same event.. he certainly had given no indication of having an abscess, none of the sort of lameness you would expect..

but as the thrush was driven back, the sole grew a thick rounded odd bit that i worried about more the more it became obvious
a

anyway, the feet were good enough today that the trimmer could do more work on the sole of the near hind, and that bit came off - and there was the remains of the abscess hole!

so keep going as we are as its all coming right.

and I've just read Mary  Lou's very sad news about Tetley, so having a bit of a cry about that - i had met and ridden him, once, when Caroline had him... a lovely boy with a piaffe he loved to show off....

not brave....

very strange.  when he's ridden, he's happy to go on ahead of whatever company he's in, or to ride out on his own.

on the longlines?

"i can't possibly go down the 20 acre/along the drive"

but woke him up a bit, anyway, we'd started off lethargic in the school, went out (or tried) both directions and then back in the arena slightly less lethargically..

9 degrees and rainy gales

so the feels like temperature is less...hey ho...

new frog

on the foot that was worst afflicted by the thrush.  thank goodness.

i wasn't there, it's G's turn on Wednesdays, but she sent me a photo of the new and it's good, trimmer should be pleased when she comes next week. and i think the new spray on antithrush stuff i got has helped a lot as well...

summer?

it's been a lovely weekend, warm to the point of hot!

G's day yesterday, and i went down this morning, just tried some lunging (he still won't trot on the lunge for me, but at least he'll walk round!)

My aunt Celia is 100 today!  so yesterday we went out for a very nice Sunday dinner at a very good local restaurant, family only (there's not many of us!) and today there was a party at her care home.  lots of food provided by the home, sandwiches and the like, and lots of cakes - a cousin madea fruit cake,i did a chocolate sponge, and turned out someone else had made another fruit cake, and the home provided two cakes as well.

This is the second family member who has made 100.  in 1998 my maternal grandfather's youngest sister had her 100th, and the aunt who is celebrating today is my father's brother's widow....

out on my own!

very pleased with myself, I am....considering the struggle i've had in my head to go anywhere on my own!

just along to the ford and back, last time i tried that on my own he didn't want to move very far or at any pace at all

no problems at all this time

:-)