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One month ago today, Scout had her surgery. She's been bandage free for a week. Other than Dr. B having to dig a bit to remove a couple of ingrown stitches, the leg has healed well. On Monday we'll have post-surgery X-rays done to get a look at how the internal healing has gone. I want to talk with Dr. B about Scout's next step, turnout in a confined space. Right now, I'm not sure putting her in a 12 by 12 pen will work. I'm worried that she'll try to thrash her way out if something happens with the other horses that she wants to be in the middle of. I'm wondering whether it's better to keep her in until she can really go out.

Without the twice-daily dose of sedatives, though, my pony would have lost her mind. It's not that she's dying to get outside, not really. She's cool with munching from the hay net hanging beside her window; it's like watching TV all day without feeling an ounce of guilt. She loves the carrots, the cookies, the apples, the cookies, the cookies, the cookies. But she hates, hates being separated from the other horses, especially those she considers to be her personal crew: Keely monster, tiny Gambler, and steadfast JR. This morning, those three were turned out in zero-degree air to stretch in the huge, frozen pasture, far from Scout's window. Sedation, ha! She put up a classic spazz attack, screaming, spinning, bucking and rushing in her stall. E had to move her across the aisle to Dar's double wide stall so she could finish cleaning Scout's. "It's like I wasn't there," E told me on the phone. I knew exactly what she meant. That's Scout forgetting everything and everybody except herself and her emotions. Wish I'd been there, because I could use a reminder. It's easy to romanticize my feelings about Scout when I experience them through this frame of injury, recovery and rehabilitation. One day that will all be done, though, and Scout will be standing there in front of me. How can I be ready, and ready for what?