A kick-ass kind of Christmas

*Warning* Gross pictures. If you are squeamish, don't look!

I am not going to lie, 2016 has kicked my butt. However, I have maintained a level of (obliviously ignorant) optimism and still think 2017 is going to be all the best shit, farting rainbows the whole way through.

But 2016 was not done with me. One final kick at the cat, so to speak.

Christmas morning was glorious. Coffee full of Bailey's, kids excitedly opening presents and me opening the best present ever - a safety vest for eventing!! Best husband right there.

I had fed the horses triple amounts of hay bales the night before just to ensure I could do chores Christmas morning after present opening. I had chopped up huge piles of apples and carrots and had a three bags ready for three wonderful ponies Christmas morning, so once presents were done I headed out with their Christmas morning treats.

First came Meyla and Shiraz, happy to see me heading out to their paddock. But where was Savvy?

Then I saw her, head peeking out around the back of the shelter. I called her and she didn't move. I called again and shook the bag of treats and she finally started to move. As her neck was revealed I was horrified to see something red hanging from her neck.

FML. Sorry for grossness.

For those of you familiar with that moment of discovering your horse is injured, you know it. Feeling leaves your arms and legs. My brain went into assess mode. Vet or no vet level of injury? Once I realised the "hanging" red bit was just frozen bloodcycles and not something worse, I then looked to see what kind of wound I was dealing with. Honestly, I was expecting to see a chunk of neck ripped from a bite. Meyla is a tough pony and leads the group. Savvy always pushes her too far and makes Meyla put her in her place almost daily. I would not be surprised at a bad bite resulting.

But it wasn't a bite. To my utter shock and surprise, it was a perfect circle.

Time to call the vet. On Christmas morning. Let me tell you, that is not an easy call.

I am so lucky to have such a great vet. He came over right away and assessed the hole. Puncture wound versus gun shot. Luckily my vet is much smarter than me obviously, and knew it was a puncture wound because hair was scraped off at the site. Bullets can't do that. He inspected the depth (almost 2 inches!) and did not find any trapped objects. He said the puncture is very close to where her jugular vein runs so she is a very lucky horse to still be alive. She got a shot of pain meds and a huge shot of antibiotics.

I would later have a double shot of Creme de Cocao.

She will be on antibiotics for at least a week and a half, daily saline rinses and topicals. It needs to stay uncovered and draining. My biggest worry is the cold. I am worried about exposed tissues freezing and damaging the healing process, but since it needs to stay open to air, I really can only just wait and see how it does. Luckily I had no intension of riding in the next little while because winter is just too horrible this year. Fingers crossed this injury resolves well though.

Day 3 - before rinse out and topical meds.

I have triple-walked her paddock and still cannot find anything that could have done this. Only Wonder Pony knows.

Holy Snow Balls!

Winter just came flying into town saying 'Yo, yo G, WASSUP?!'

Um, ugh. <face in hands>

Now it is above my knees in some spots out there and I am just loving trudging from the hay shed to the paddock with hay on the sled.

Meyla was born for this! (started growing her coat in August in preparation)

Ponies seem to be loving it though! They have been running, playing and rolling in the deep stuff and look pretty pleased to finally say goodbye to mud.

They are getting all-you-can-eat buffet of hay and extra treats to appease my guilty soul for owning horses in winter in Canada.

Water heater is working well and shelters are full of deep straw.

All the girls grew a pretty fluffy coat before this came. Not fun for riding but perfect for this weather.

I guess it is time to apply the heat gun to my cold, cold heart and break out the barnyard Christmas decorations!

Its about to get real up in here.

Anyone else deep in snow? How do you take care of your horses when the weather gets cold?

Mr. Brown #HobbyFarmProblems

We are the proud owners of a beautiful old (possibly antique) tractor.

Meet David Brown - couldn't you just pinch his little metal cheeks?

It is quite the necessity on our farm.

I do feel lucky to have him and admire my husband's driving skills on the little beast. Unfortunately I have no knack for it and hate tractoring, especially snow. Although I usually avoid driving the thing at all costs, a bit of guilt about how much work my husband does mixed with a bit of unexpected spare time had me thinking a bit of snow clearing would be a good idea.

It all started well, but lasted all too briefly when I ran. out. of. diesel.

For educational purposes, don't EVER do this.

I immediately abandoned ship, ran for the house and ate some chocolate. I then convinced myself it would all be fine. I would just get some diesel, and it would magically start - all before my husband got home so he wouldn't have extra work/stress dumped on him at a time I was trying to offload some shit for him.

With diesel poured in the tank I climbed aboard, crossed my fingers, whispered some sweet nothings to Mr. Brown and turned the key.

NOPE.

Still holding onto optimism, I thought maybe he was just too cold and decided to try plugging him in for a bit. Five extension cords later I reached the tractor as he had died quite far from the closest plug in.

Back to the house, more chocolate and delusional positive thoughts that it all would work out just fine and to wait for the tractor's block heater to do its thing.

The next starting attempt was a massive fail. Not only was it not catching, but the turn over sounded quite like a low battery. humph. Time to ask for help from my 18-year-old son because I had never hooked up a battery charger and did not feel lucky enough to make this the day for practicing.

Back to house and looked in cupboard for hard liquor. Googled how to start a diesel tractor after running out of diesel.  Pissed by their pessimism so turned off computer and returned to believing next time it would just start.

With the help of my son hooking and unhooking the charger and a few more attempts/waiting to try again, IT TURNED OVER AND STARTED!

I got the little hunk of metal back in its shed so fast I forgot to unload the snow that was still in the bucket...

Happy New Year!

Winter Riding

Winter makes for beautiful photos
on the white wonder pony.

The temps have been amazing here for the past few days. If this were winter, I would be so down with that. 












Fancy pony knows she's fancy. ;)

                

 

 

 

 

Having my horses home with me is ideal in so many ways.

 

 

The daily routine of caring for them, being able to watch their shenanigans out the kitchen window or go sit with the snoozing ponies on a sunny afternoon is therapy all in itself.

 

 



Look at me half pass
with the help of my tongue...-Savvy

                                                                               
I love being able to step out to the backyard, grab a pony and ride.



But when I actually want to get down to work on canter transitions, frozen ground and snow equals just...nope. 



So I will continue enjoying a lot of walk/trot exercises at home and save the real work for lessons at the indoor.