Playing Hooky

I decided to skip work yesterday since it was absolutely beautiful out - the sun was shining and it was a whole 52 degrees! The great thing about work is they don't care when I come in, so a quick text to say that my plans had changed and I'll work on Thursday instead and I was free!

I still can't believe we're a month and a half into the new year and I still haven't hit the trails. We were wayyyyy overdue. I don't think Jetta's ever been so excited for a trail ride. Once I started putting on her hoofboots in the crossties she knew exactly what the plan was and she started impatiently bobbing her head (her version of pawing).

We got to the trails in record time. Jetta's front hoofboots twisted off during the trailer ride. She's due for a hoof trim right now so the front boots don't fit right. I really just need to sell them and get another pair. They never really fit right. But since she's due for a trim and since I was just planning on just walking we decided to do it barefoot. Winter is so wet and Jetta loves standing out in the rain which makes for soft feet, but with that little bit of extra hoof wall she wasn't tender at all on the gravel.

She was so excited to get on the trail. At this trailhead there's a wide bridge that you have to cross first and usually she stops and snorts at it (you know, just to make sure you realize that if she wanted to, she COULD refuse to cross it if she felt like it). But today there was no pause at all and she did her excited speed walk over the bridge, almost slipping a bit on the damp wood because she was cruising so fast!

We had a great ride. I let her trot a bit on a flat spot before getting to the hill. She really wanted to power up the hill but she is definitely not fit enough for that and I didn't want to overdo it so I made her walk. If she could have grumbled about it she would have. We kept the ride short and only went for an hour, doing barely over 3 miles. But it was perfect. I really hope we get to go on the trails more. Especially once Jetta starts getting more of a big belly my plan is to just go on trail walks and mosey along just to keep her brain engaged and keep her a little bit in shape.

Earlier, over the weekend, I went over the mountains to a two-day mare reproduction conference. Holy cow did it make me nervous for all the things that can go wrong! I might type up some of my notes and post them, but we'll see how much time I have this week. It was a TON of really great information but I am going to be an absolute basket case. Jetta is officially over half way through her pregnancy and tomorrow she hits the 180 day mark. Baby nugget is about the size of a beagle now!

Oops

Oops, I did a thing. My poor bank account. Centerline Style had a sale for $30 off and I've been eyeballing a Lemieux outfit for Jetta (especially since Courage has been modeling the same one that I want and it looks stunning on him - another bay, blaze-faced TB!). Sooo... I bought it. It arrived Saturday (super fast shipping from Florida = awesome).

Then, Millbrook Leathers had a 35% off sale on their leathers which I wanted as soon as they came out. I always get bruises on my shins from my jumping leathers. Every time. So it seemed like a really neat concept to have thicker leathers to prevent that! They also say that they're supposed to make your leg more stable, but we'll see about that. I'm thinking that I need more strength building exercises than anything, but I'll take all I can get! (no extra charge for 2-day shipping from Colorado? impressive!)

All the pretties

So yeah. I'm STILL waiting on two of my orders that I made at the beginning of last month. One is because I went through the local farm store and they just take forever with special orders because that's how they roll. Sigh. Apparently I would have gotten the same deal through a Riding Warehouse sale as I'm getting stealing my BF's employee discount so... should've gone that route. I'm impatient.

The other order... I'm not really sure what's going on. I keep getting different answers every time I talk to her, that is, IF she decides to answer my messages. She tends to take at least a week to reply to me, if at all. Frustrating to say the least. I kinda never want to order from this shop ever again because everything was supposedly in stock when I ordered it 5 weeks ago, but it's now coming in next week supposedly (I was told it was supposed to come in a week and a half ago, but it was backordered without her knowledge, so now the ETA at the shop is next week) meaning it'll probably be 2 more weeks before I see it... sigh. 

Super attractive picture, but look at that belly!

I had to have a ride to try everything out - it looks awesome on her! Hopefully I'll get to ride in the daylight soon and get a better picture of it. Sadly I ordered the wrong size ear bonnet (should have known that "regular" was not going to fit her mule ears!) so I need to exchange that... My bank account is now on lock down until further notice. But I guess that's why I'm still working two days a week during school!

Weekly Update

"Remember how far you've come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be." ~ Rick Warren

^^A little vet school/riding inspiration for myself and anyone else who needs to hear that this week!

Midterm season has begun in full force... I have one today, one Monday, one Wednesday, one the week after, two the week after that, one the next week, then TWO WHOLE WEEKS off of big tests (usually not the case) and then finals. Fun, fun, fun.

Anyways, horse-y related stuff.

Hmm, belly is looking a little bit bigger to me! (possibly just fat, lol)

Starting with last Monday, I had a nice ride after basically not riding for almost 3 weeks. The weather was gorgeous and spring-y so we rode outside in the outdoor. I didn't do too much exciting, but it was nice to be out and on a horse!

SUNSHINE

Tuesday I went to a talk about orthopedic bone disease in young and growing horses. Yay more things to worry about in my baby! But very interesting to learn more about OCD, bone cysts, etc. since they are topics that we're covering in radiology right now and I can actually find and diagnose them on radiographs! (most of the time at least)

Lots of lunging

Friday I went to an absolutely awesome talk on equine cardiology at the Endurance conference. It ended up being a 4 hour talk, but it was so worth it. We had a really, really rough cardiology unit in physiology that wasn't well taught last year so it was nice to have all of that drudged up again and explained in a way that made a lot of sense. Plus I definitely remembered more than I thought I would. We got to hear different types of murmurs in horses, lots of physiologic murmurs from endurance horses (cool note - fit, hard working horses are pumping their blood very quickly and efficiently causing turbulent blood flow which can make a low grade murmur when at rest, that goes away with exercise, typically not a huge deal - crazy to think about when you always hear about murmurs always being so bad) and it was great that the vets attending had the same issues with diagnosing systolic vs. diastolic murmurs, etc. that we were having.

Cutest little mini-me. I need him.

I've been doing a lot of lunging Jetta in the vienna reins since I haven't had too much time to ride. I think it really helps keep her in shape because when I finally got to ride again on Saturday, she felt super nice, really lifting the base of her neck, reaching for contact and lifting/swinging her back. We had a short ride, but it was a really excellent one!

More lunging this week, then I rode yesterday. I didn't lunge before I rode since I lunged her the day before and she was super hyper so I'm pretty sure she got that all out of her system! She felt really good again when I got on and we had a lovely start to our ride. It kinda ended up snowballing as I started picking at her transitions and getting more bend, etc. She decided bracing was a much better technique, sigh.  Our canter-trot transition is the worst thing ever right now, but upward transitions are really doing well, shoulder-in is great, spiraling in and out on a circle at the trot is great... it's really just that downward canter-trot transition!

I'm not bad, I'm cute

I'm hoping at some point the stars will align and it'll be dry enough for a trail ride without me having too much on my plate to study for. I need to be in the forest for an hour or so on my pony, it's been too long!

Slurping up her bran mash I made for her