Covert Muffin Drop

A mighty blizzard is forging its way toward my city. This is how it will look by nightfall. I decided to take preemptive measures and whip down to my office to grab some work for the next few days. On the way, I swung by to see Saxony. After all, I had five German Horse Muffins left.

I'm used to Saxony recognizing me by now. I think she knows the sound of my Pathfinder. She'll always lift her head and either watch, waiting for me to come out to where she is, or move to the fence line. But the other horses have also wised up about the fact that I pretty much always have something good to eat, so they tend to crowd around us. I didn't have a lot of time, so I didn't want to have to manage a mini-mob. Instead, I went into the barn to access the paddock from the back door. I opened the door, closed it softly behind me, and then whispered, "Saxony. Sax. Come here." She was watching me from the turnout shed. Absurdly, I waved her toward me, gesturing with a cupped palm. She came, slowly and deliberately, but casually. I couldn't help but imagine she understood this was to be a covert muffin drop.

I gave her the five muffins one a time, scratching her ears and face in between bites. It was so good to see her. Fat snowflakes in fairytale shapes landed here and there on her seal-thick coat. I lifted her muzzle between my hands and scratched the sides of her mouth. She rested her nose on my shoulder and I felt her warm breath glow across my neck.

Just this one little moment to cheat the coming storm left me feeling renewed and happy enough to have come out today.

Cosequin ASU - The 90-Day Trial, Update 1

German Muffins?

My vet's notes from the day we did all the X-rays of Saxony's hooves and hocks included the following finding: Saxony is much improved since starting Cosequin ASU. Her right hind was much improved - bit stiff, but otherwise sound.

At that point, Saxony had been getting the loading dose (which means double dosing to prime the pump, so to speak) for two weeks. I think it's interesting that my vet could see a significant improvement in her after such a short time. But when I thought about it, I realized that I might have been seeing a response even earlier when I wrote here about a moment that happened just one week after she started the Cosequin.

Now that she's completed the loading dose, she'll be getting SmartPak's one-scoop maintenance dose for the next two months. My vet returns at the end of February to extract Saxony's wolf teeth, so I'll get another assessment of the Cosequin then.

I just need the greatest barefoot trimmer in the world to materialize in front of me right now. Or any barefoot trimmer. Not a pasture trimmer, but a barefoot specialist who believes in such a thing as the balanced foot. The search has been frustrating and makes me understand why some people give up and learn how to do it themselves. I feel Saxony's toes growing like nails on a chalkboard, and it's making me cringe.

Sidebar: Lately, it seems Scout has been on my mind more than Saxony. And she has been, just in a different way. Laying around working on getting better leaves me with time to ponder (kind of, druggily) and Scout somehow presented herself at the outskirts of my mind and then wandered up close. Right now she seems to stand for me as some sort of proof, in the mathematics sense, which, according to my  huge old broken-backed dictionary, means a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations that leads to a valid conclusion. Yes, I think that's the exactly the way I mean it. Now I just have to figure out what that "valid conclusion" is.

Eight-minute rides are best, I find.

Ten days of not seeing either of them has been really rough.

Eff You, Blogger, But Thanks Anyway

Blogger ate the final paragraph of my last post, about three sentences' worth. Because fever also bends the mind, I don't remember the words precisely as I wrote them. I'll just try to assume for now that they were smart, incisive and confidence-building. Why not.

But I do read what I write, and, looking at that post today, I mined from it these two things:

   1 - All the other horses were outside and she was ticked off. 

   2 - Scout mindful that all the other horses were inside. 

The one was the catalyst of her blow-up, the other the keeper of her calm. And this started me wondering: If Scout got everything she wanted, would I be able to ride her no-drama confidently? What would that be like; I mean, what parameters would Scout set? Well, I'm just fever-warped enough to try thinking about it from her point of view...

Hi, Scout. Hey, pony. Let's go riding tonight.

I am busy happy being with the horses right now, thanks.

Come on. Just a short ride, nothing fancy (like we ever do fancy.)

Don't want to, but it's not like I hate you or anything. I love you, bringer of carrots. Say, could you pull those bits of ice off my whiskers?

We could both use the exercise, you know. 

Yes, you could. I see that. Well, you can ride me right here in the dry lot, then. It will be nice to walk along the fence. You can have your "ride" and I can monitor my herd. 

In here? I thought we'd ride to the south pasture, just over there.

Why would we you do that? I can't see the herd from there. I'll jig, you know, and scream out. I'll go spooky on your ass. I'll have to rush and brace. Here is best. We can even trot a little, k? I do like that bendy-stretchy thing you do. My neck gets heavy reaching down to eat all day.

(Sigh) 

So I'll keep noshing hay while you get the grooming box and the saddle and bridle. I love that grooming, by the way. K, an hour for grooming, 10 minutes tack up, and then food time at six means hey, we've got, like, eight minutes. Yay! Let's go riding! I'm so glad you asked.

( . . . )

( . . . )

And I'll go take my temperature now.

 

Fever Bends the Mirror

Did I See It or Just Dream It?

Only once, a long time ago, did I ever get seriously sick. It lasted a week or so. I've never been hospitalized, but I probably should have been then. I didn't know what sickness I had, but I was  tempted to imagine it was some rare, exotic malady, Dengue fever or the like. It felt especially foreign and intriguing because it threw me into a sustained, fitful delirium, where I stayed for days. I remember thinking a lot during that illness, or thinking I was thinking, anyway. One thing I seemed to obsess over was that Hitler had been to the United States. Friends who came to visit me still remember my asking them When did Hitler come to the U.S.? That's what I asked: when, not if. I was convinced that he had been here and that I had missed the precise details in all my reading about the two world wars. I still recall the certainty of those feverish Hitler thoughts; it's as if the baking happening to my brain seared them into brands. (It did: When I was better, I still had to go check the Hitler business with H.G., who wasn't my lifetime mate yet, only someone I was selfishly flirting with.)

Here, now, I've been thinking of one particular incident with Scout during the past few days. The recollection weaves through sleep and wakefulness, pushes into the foreground, then recedes into the background. What is it about it that caused it to flower in the over-rich Petri dish that is me in a flu-state? I don't know.

Back in early 2008, I kept Scout at an expensive semi-private barn for a while. I put her there because my trainer's new horse was there and the indoor arena was huge. I was willing to scrape together the board in pursuit of the answer to the question about whether Scout and I would ever be able to partner. This barn wasn't elitist or smug, but there were a few expensive horses there, no matter that some of them seemed rarely to be ridden or even visited by their owners. It all motivated me to ride through the winter months, and I was in a regular lesson schedule with my trainer, as was Scout, who even played a role as a walk-trot school horse once a week.

I have to define "lesson" in this context. E always worked with me on my riding, but she also worked with me on how to ride Scout, in particular, and additionally worked with me on how to train Scout as I rode her. A three-layer sandwich slathered in patience. A four-layer sandwich, actually. E had to manage my fear, as well.

During a lesson one cold morning in March, Scout began to crow hop as we rode on a 20-ish meter ovally circle to the left. All the other horses were outside and she was ticked off. The crow hopping terrified me. I could hear E calling instructions, but her voice was drowned out by the rush of fear in my head. I quickly fell off. E was never judgmental about things like that. Calmly, efficiently, she checked on me, reminded me to breathe, and then went to fetch Scout.

I knew I would have to get back on, and I did. As I settled into the saddle and gathered the reins, E stood at Scout's head and repeated the instructions I had been unable to follow. She told me Scout would do the same thing, only this time I could be ready for it. Meanwhile, the tears were building up; my emotions had really seized. I could only nod. We walked on. We made it almost all the way through a wobbly, misshapen circle before Scout blew, and then she did. I was crying. Like a robot, mechanically, I followed E's instructions, and they worked. Scout crow hopped and I stayed on. I pushed her forward, I made her work. All of it worked. But none of it worked. I nodded, crying, while E pointed out everything I had done to bring Scout back to me. I got it, I understood, but I didn't care. My fear was just oozing out of me, it was what was defining the moment. And this was nothing like the fall that had led me to consider divorcing Scout in the first place.

That was Tuesday morning. Thursday night I went back to the barn. The fall had jarred me and I was sore. I did something I hadn't planned at all. I took Scout out of her stall, groomed her painstakingly as I like to, clipped my double-ended lead rope to her halter and led her to the arena. It was well lighted; it looked beautiful that night. From the mounting block, I slipped onto her bare, fuzzy back. There were people around, and a couple of them must have known about my fall. The barn owner did, I'm sure. She was a kind person. E finished brushing down her big mare, and then she and the barn owner stood leaning in the doorway. They weren't watching me, but they were being near, and I understood that. I lifted my knees and rested them against Scout's withers and then hunched low over her neck, stretching my sore back. Gently, she shifted underneath me, so soft, so easy. "I needed to sit on my pony," I said. I was really comfortable, familiar with me in my jeans, sweatshirt and scarf, wearing battery-powered hot socks, and familiar with Scout warm underneath me, comfortable to feel me, carry me, ready to dawdle on forever. Scout mindful that all the other horses were inside.

Time Not to Write

When living in a fever dream like the one that caught me on Thursday. Then I went to sleep for some 24 hours and woke up mired in a muddy, viscous molasses of weariness, my head hovering high above me on a spiderweb string. Throat closed, ears ringing, inertia, chills and sticky sweat. Sick days are days of nothing to me. I hate the sensation of hours evaporating, free time I didn't earn and haven't the energy to use. I've taken this flu badly, worn myself further by fighting it, not fighting it, fighting it some more.

I read horse blogs much of Saturday, if only to be up out of bed. So many words and ways given to trying to understand them, given to trying to know them. The varied accounts spooled into a stream of consciousness, into one pulse, heavier than mine, quicker than mine: the horse, the horse, the horse. I'd give up a lot to know that any horse understood me, never mind that I thought I understood any of them.

I tried to spend some time studying the anatomy of the hoof. I have research to do for Saxony, another farrier to find. Feel bruised thinking that when it was my turn to find a new farrier, I brought in one that ended up doing on hack jobs on our horses. Learning what's not the right thing doesn't point the way to what is the right thing. How can I ask Do you know what you are doing? when I don't know what they are doing? Trying to learn what they are doing becomes impossible when words and images wave and ripple before me on the screen, like cramming for a calculus test at the eleventh hour when I don't even know basic math.

I watched two of my favorite football teams make it to the Super Bowl, but it happened in a haze, barely breaking through the indifference that illness sometimes brings.

I have an awareness of the cats during this confinement. They claim me, sleep on me, surround me, carry on with their lives. I like them all, like how they assume I am there to suit their needs. Sleeping dully beneath their weight, I feel glad they are getting something useful out of me.

I can see through the windows it's a lovely day, my kind of January day. The grey flanks of the winter sky lay soft, enclosing, sheltering, windless against the snow. I want to be out, like a horse.

Saxony's Feet

A recent visitor asked me, after reading about Saxony's X-rays here, if I could put up some pictures of the bottoms of her feet. As it happens, I had snapped a couple of shots a few weeks ago because I was struck by the different colors of her soles. Black soles on the black legs, white soles on the legs with socks. So here you go, June. These pictures were taken on December 29th and they were the only two that came out in focus.

Left Front

Right Rear

Barn Chores, Scout Chores

I had PM feed/clean chores tonight, so I went out early to pace myself in the ridiculous cold. I like it that I can manage the bitter cold despite its insistent edges. In the end, it doesn't matter. I can still settle in to do the chores, appreciating the beginning, middle and endness of the task. I love to take care of the horses.

They were way out in the north pasture, snug in their blankets. After getting set up to clean the stalls, I went out to check the water troughs. In the absolutely flat stillness that only dry, bitter cold can create, the horses heard the grinding squeak of the sliding door. They came running, hoofbeats dulled against the snow. I always pause in my very being to watch them; I can't help it.

Scout and Keely led everybody into the lot next to the barn. They passed me as I was walking back from the trough in Lot 2. Idly, I extended a gloved hand and dragged it along Scout's neck on my way back to the barn. She turned her head to meet my fingers, so I stopped beside her. She lifted her muzzle level with my nose, offering it. I knew what she wanted because she taught me last night. Icicles form on her whiskers, and apparently she loves how it feels when I pull them off. Using my index finger and thumb, I peeled the icicles off one whisker at a time. She made minor adjustments to her position so I could keep sliding the bits of ice free. When her whiskers were clean, I cupped her muzzle in my hands. There she stood, sighing, motionless. There we stood.

There's no picture of this, no lens to capture the silliness of it, but charms like this made the horse standing before me in that moment the most wonderful horse in the world.