Another Busy Week

Thursday, April 22, 2010: Took a lunge line lesson on Winnie from Sandy. It was awesome! My JRD saddle didn't fit Winnie, so Sandy let me use her Passier. It made it really easy to sit properly and the lesson flew by. I was surprised I didn't feel exhausted afterwards, but I was so delighted to actually ride one of my horses that I was elated instead. Sandy's at a Clinic Tuesday through Thursday next week, so my next lesson will be in May.

Friday, April 23, 2010: Started looking for a 17.5" Medium tree Grand Gilbert Passier with the optional deep seat and gullets. Sandy says it will fit both Winnie and Ferra. Hmm, what to do with my JRD?

Saturday, April 24, 2010: Ordered Hay

Sunday, April 25, 2010: Created French Drain to deal with seasonal spring overflow behind the rear paddocks. Better, but still not fixed.

Monday, April 26, 2010: Hay Delivery. Stripped and re-bedded stalls.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010: The rain's coming down in buckets. Added more bedding and put on everyone's blankets.

Talked to Mehrdad at Saddlery Solutions (formerly JRD Saddlery) about fitting my JRD Accord Dressage Saddle to another horse. He doesn't come out to Placerville, plus he spends half his time on the East Coast so no date yet on when to have him evaluate the fit. I'll probably trailer out to Rancho Murrita. I forgot to ask what the turn around time for fittings is. Mehrdad mentioned that he does have another company take care of some of the fittings, so that may be a possibility. I Did get some prices however:

Change Knee pads (reduce size): $50 with saddle work, $125 without.
Tree Adjustment: $350
Reflock: $375
Change Balance: Will probably be taken care of by other adjustments.

Total: $775, but he mentioned it could be as little as $200, if less work was required to alter the fit. That's cheaper than a new saddle. Perhaps 'll get it fitted for Daphne if the vet can get her sound again? She, Winnie, and Ferra are unlikely to need the same tree size. Plus, I paid about $3K for the JRD about five years or so ago and only used it for about a year, if that, before my mare Ally started having soundness problems. Similar saddles are going used for about $1500. Do I really want to take a $1500 hit on this?

Tax Week!

Monday: Farrier for Ally, Daphne, Penelepe, and Ferra. Ferra got her first shoes ever.

Tuesday: De-wormer for everybody but Winnie.

Wednesday: Planned to take Ferra back into the trainer’s, but decided to leave Winnie for a full month before bringing her home.

Thursday: Ordered a new computer so I can finally put a farm website together.

Friday: Drove out to PEC and de-wormed Winnie. I also left $$ to pay for her trim early next week. I had lunch with my fellow Hanoverian breeder Catherine. Catherine’s Elite mare Anja and her foal Lance by Le Premier looked awesome in the pictures she brought. Yeah!

See more progress on: train my horses

Why I Heart My iPhone

I found a really nice horse record application for my iPhone called Pocket Stable. You can enter multiple horses, their last vaccinations, worming, farrier, float, and a bunch of other text data. It gives me all my horse information that I need on the go.

The iPhone version runs on my iPad too, basically the same thing at 2X size. I'd love to see them come out with a real iPad version and a full records database that would sync with both.

Oh, and the best thing about this software? The price: $3.99

The Downside: No way to print out, backup. or sync the data. I'll be using something else for my horse database. Also, iPhone version looks a bit blurry at 2X size on the iPad. No way to add pictures. Still, a great ap for $4!

You can find out more at the developer's site: Pocket Stable

I think it's time to clean my iPad's screen.

That sentence is so full of fail...

I was watching the third season of The Guild last night when Codex uttered the line, “I’m paying to play a game that has become my high stress, full-time job!”

At which point, I realized that owning a horse farm makes Worlds of Warcraft addiction look like a stable, sane, affordable proposition.

Go watch it

Un-Acquired Tastes

Penelepe managed to eat an entire pound of oats without eating any of the powdered antibiotics I had coated them with. How is that even possible?

Then, when I picked up her feed bucket, she eyed me like a Michelin inspector flinging a turned vintage back to an incompetent sommelier.

Having horses that are better bred than you are can be a problem.

Little Cut, Big Vet Bill

Before:

After:

The very nice vet, Dr. Menninger, and her charming assistant Nicky treated Penelepe’s cut at about 6:30PM. (About an hour and a half after they normally finish work. They had a colic filled day.) After a big dose of sedative, bute, and opiate, Penelepe became a fairly pleasant drunk. She was less enthusiastic about the shots, especially the locals around the cut itself. Dr. Menninger ended up giving her a tetanus shot (standard procedure if their vaccination is over six months old.) Plus, she removed the small flap of skin over the wound and gave me a week’s worth of powdered antibiotics and bute to slip into Penelepe’s grain. Hopefully she’ll eat it, or it’s oral syringe time.

The good news: it’s a superficial cut, rather than a puncture wound, and should heal with little or no scarring.

The bad news: I’ve still got no idea how Penelepe cut herself, though the vet did narrow it down to late afternoon or evening Monday night. Plus, there's a $355 vet bill. With Ferra’s hoof abscess that makes $510 of unexpected medical bills so far for May and April.

I have to go cry now.

Tuesday April 6, 2010

I put up some temporary fencing yesterday and let the girls out to graze. The baby came back with a nasty cut above her eye. I’ve been waiting for the vet for four hours now and am beginning to worry that she isn’t going to show up. (My regular vet was busy and I haven’t used this one before.)

The vet just called me back and will be here within the next hour and a half. Thank god! Being a worrier and having five horses doesn’t really mix. I'll be killing time by bolting down a loose coupling in the paddock and contemplating replacing all the gates that have sharp edges. Hurray, more work.

On the plus side, Ferra’s looking sound again.