Category: stupid human tricks

dressage · stupid human tricks

The Anxiety of the Horse Mom

AmandaLeave a comment

I am a generally anxious person. In some ways, it serves me well. In others…sigh.

Last night I waited until thunderstorms had passed through and the temperature dropped a good 10 degrees from its 88 degree high before I went to the barn. I know many of you ride in 90+ degree weather, but it’s all about acclimation – and 88 degrees is WAY hot for Vermont, especially in early July. We won’t hit 90s until mid-August, and then only for a week or two.

So I waited. And I got to the barn about 6:45, on by 7:00. I described the ride to another woman there as nice, rather than good. It felt great to get a dressage school in. I felt like we made substantive progress from start to finish, and I got some work done on having him lift through his shoulders in the canter.

Overall, though, it wasn’t a particularly good ride. I haven’t ridden much in the last few weeks, nor have I had any really good other exercise, so I felt ineffective and floppy. The rides I’ve done have been in my jump saddle with XC length stirrups so I actually raised my dressage stirrups after flopping out of them one too many times. I was definitely too handsy, and too light in my seat, especially through transitions. I’m not desperately worried: it will come back.

We finished with a bit of a hack around the fields and slow, deep canter up the long hayfield hill. It was still and quiet and the sounds were of the wind in the hay, the particular thud of hooves on turf, and Tristan’s deep breathing as he struggled a bit but gamely kept going. It was a great exercise for him, and he recovered really rather quickly.

Afterwards, we walked and walked, and then I hosed him off for some time, and then spent the next 30 minutes fretting that I’d actually hosed him off too much. The sun was starting to set and he did not dry nearly as quickly as I wanted. I let him have some grass on a sunny spot, and then put his cooler on and threw him a flake of hay to keep his core temperature steady. Then I fretted, and fretted, and fretted, and kept finding delaying actions to go back and check on him.

He still wasn’t exactly dry when I left, but he was warm and comfortable, and it was still 75, for crying out loud. I left a note for night check to pull the cooler from him and I haven’t received any calls, so I’m sure he’s fine.

I’m off to Maine for a few days with family, and then it’s Pony Boot Camp time when I return!

stupid human tricks

The Quiet Still Point

Amanda2 Comments

I’ve had a busy, difficult week. Deadlines are crowding my brain at work. Evenings have been filled arranging details for something that might come to fruition next week – but has been stressful and worrying in the meantime.

Last night, I made it to the barn at 7pm through sheer force of will. I put one foot in front of the other, and I kept going. I told myself I’d just keep going and I’d go as far as I felt comfortable.

I got the grooming box. I pulled off his sheet (thanks, Vermont, I thought we were done with those?). I curried, and curried some more. I used the shedding blade. I chatted with the barn manager on the phone, who had called to update me on a few things.

45 minutes later, the muscle ache in my face and jaw from grinding my teeth had faded. My shoulders had loosened, despite grooming hard. I could breathe easily again.

I never did get to ride, but I didn’t need to. I just needed to escape.

The barn manager’s news was great – she gave Tristan his second dose of Pentosan on Monday, and used him in a 30 minute beginner walk/trot lesson on Tuesday. She couldn’t stop raving about how forward and fluid he’d looked. She said she’d never seen him like that.

I won’t be able to ride until Saturday night, but that was awesome news to get. It sounds like the Pentosan is helping. I’ll report back if that’s the case.

Sunday: drop off the trailer at the mechanic
Monday: saddle fitting

We’ll see what next week brings. Just keep swimming.

stupid human tricks · winter

That’s a nooooooope

Amanda4 Comments

Still snowing hard, temperature dropping fast, and no barn for me today. This is what it looked like outside my office window last night; add another foot of snow and you’ve got this morning.

Good news: I have finally downgraded to a normal(ish) bandaid on my hand after either wrapping it or using the XXL size for a month.
Better news: the oddly shaped yet adorable My Little Pony bandaids I bought like 6 years ago are perfect for my purposes!

physical fitness (human) · stupid human tricks

Health Challenges for Riders

Amanda12 Comments

I suspect it’s pretty rare, if not impossible, to be a human being in this world and not have your own challenges and physical issues. I would be shocked if I didn’t know an equestrian in particular who didn’t have a nagging something – bad back, bad knees, lingering concussion syndrome, general arthritis, you name it, whether from a bad fall or just wear and tear. This has been much on my mind this winter: many of the workers at my barn have been injured, ill, or otherwise out of commission physically.

(As the barn manager said, and I agreed wholeheartedly, better us than the horses. Then I had a moment of pause and considered my priorities and realized I still felt that way and…I need help.)

I have a standard assortment – some arthritis in my hands, a bum knee (why I don’t ski anymore; I partially tore the ACL and decided I’d rather wreck my body riding than skiing), a lower back that’s less than optimal after a bad fall about 5 years ago.

My special snowflake health challenge? Gout.

Yes, you read that right. The “rich man’s disease,” the thing that old, fat, villains in melodramatic 19th century novels suffer from.

So what is gout? It’s basically a form of arthritis, in that it attacks the body’s joints and causes pain, limited mobility, and eventually, damage.
Gout is caused by an increase in the levels of uric acid in the body, something which most people process without difficulty. In a certain number of people, however, those levels keep rising, and the body can’t metabolize the uric acid. The uric acid migrates to joints and forms little spiky crystals.
The most common presentation by far is for those crystals to collect in the joint at the base of the big toe of the right foot. It’s almost always the first place you see an attack. These attacks are extremely painful, as you might guess by the image of the spikes above.

I had my first gout attack when I was 23. I thought I had broken my toe. I kept wracking my memory: Had I stubbed my foot? Had Tristan stepped on my foot? Had I bent it funny? What the heck?
I hobbled around for about two weeks, and it got progressively worse. In the last few days, I progressed to even more classic gout signs. The joint grew red and inflamed. I couldn’t even bear the weight of the sheets in my bed on it, and slept with it propped up on a pillow in open air. I finally went to the doctor. Within about 10 minutes, he had diagnosed me with gout.
The incidence rate of gout in healthy, pre-menopausal, never-pregnant women is a fraction of a fraction of a percent. As it turns out, I completely lost the genetic lottery: my grandfather had gout, and my uncle has gout as well. I inherited the condition (much like my migraines) and it simply waited for the right trigger to appear.
Gout is chronic, and I will spend the rest of my life managing the condition. Primarily, this means I watch my diet carefully. Red wine is right out, as is seafood. I can only eat red meat or drink alcohol in very careful moderation. I discovered over the years that for me, spinach and turkey are also triggers, which is really too bad. I can eat them both, but not much, and not for more than one meal every few weeks. Anything sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup is a no-go, so I examine juice labels in particular very carefully – actually, 95% of what I drink is water, because it’s safest and because it can help “flush” stuff out of my system. I get my blood levels checked for uric acid at each annual checkup to make sure I’m managing effectively.
Over the years, I’ve had attacks mostly in my feet, but sometimes in my knees, and once in my right pinky. (That was weird.) I think anyone who lives with a chronic health condition gets to know it on an intimate level. I know when an attack is imminent, and sometimes I can ease them away with diet. Sometimes my foot starts aching and I am completely stumped as to why. When it’s bad enough, I have a prescription anti-inflammatory that I take to help my body through bad attacks – it’s basically palliative, reducing the inflammation in the joint so that the body can gain time to slowly process the uric acid crystals and get itself back on track. There is longterm daily medication, but I hope never to have to use it.
I decided to write this because this week, my right big toe started up again, in both the ball joint and the toe joint. They’re not bad: just a dull ache, a spiky reminder when I walk. It hasn’t been this bad in months, so I may be falling back on the drugs for a few days.
Luckily, apart from really bad attacks, it doesn’t impact my equestrian activities too much. I might walk a little more slowly, and sometimes I might ride without stirrups to take pressure off my foot, But it’s not like running or playing soccer or another hobby that actively engages my feet. So I got pretty lucky in that regard.
So there’s your primer! I’d be happy to answer any questions.
stupid human tricks · trailering · winter

Fail again, fail faster, fail better

Amanda1 Comment

The theme of this week might be something like I get knocked down – but I get up again. (Sorry for the ear worm…)

Sunday was good! Quiet afternoon chores, in the middle of which I did a really nice longe session with Tristan. Then I hopped on bareback with a quarter sheet and we attempted to go for a bit of a hack through the snow, which he was having none of. The snow was well over his knees and he took about three steps and decided it was way too much work, eff you, lady and spun right back around for the road. I tried again at a different entry point and we didn’t even get three steps, so I relented and we walked up and down the road for a bit.

Monday was not easy. I stepped up to do morning chores, though my hand was not quite up to physical labor, and it was a solid, exhausting six hours in temperatures that never went above 5, and whenever the wind picked up were easily double digits below zero. Most of the paths were too icy to get to regular turnouts, so we rotated the horses for shorter periods through the accessible turnouts, and cleaned stalls as best we could. Every piece of manure made a clinking sound as it hit the wheelbarrow, and every water bucket was so frozen it took me three, four, five stomps of my boot to break through the top, pour what little water was remaining onto the manure pile, and then tip the buckets over in the sun to help dislodge the icy rims. Most of the buckets had an inch or more of ice all through the insides, clinging to the bucket walls.

Needless to say, too cold for riding or working, and on top of that Tristan had once again – somehow – irritated his eye. I flushed it with saline, which was an adventure, and gave him a gram of bute and another gram with dinner. It was dripping clear thin tears, he was acting totally normally, and there wasn’t a hint of anything different about the eye itself. Plus, it was clearing up slowly through the day. So I worried, of course, but held off on the vet. Will check in later this afternoon and see what he looks like, and vet out tomorrow if it hasn’t cleared up.

Today has gone downhill: after a plan to get my truck inspected and ready for summer, I have discovered that a) the battery died during the recent cold snaps, and b) I somehow lost the freaking registration after renewing it in January. Why why whyyyyy can’t I keep on top of things this winter? So, back to the drawing board: new copy of the registration tomorrow, will get the trailer updated while I’m there, and hopefully back on track in general. It’ll be my daily driver for the summer, and I hope to do quite a bit more hauling in general, so it needs to be in top shape.

My hand has been alternately aching and stinging all day, as I almost certainly opened the cut up doing chores yesterday. It is supposed to get up to a high of 18 today, but considering at noon it had just edged above zero, I find that unlikely. So I am stuck inside, cleaning and making lists of things to get ready before we have a house full of weekend ski guests and oh man, the apartment is something else after three weeks of me not able to do a whole lot of intensive cleaning.

Sigh. Chop wood, carry water, etc. /whine

ground work · safety · stupid human tricks

What are your barn rules?

Amanda7 Comments

A few nights ago, I had to grab something quickly from inside the barn that I’d forgotten. I was in a hurry, and frustrated that I’d been forgetful, and I had a length of barn aisle to go get it. I sped up and jogged one, two steps.

And then I stopped and went back to a fast walk. I realized in that moment that “no running in the barn” is a rule that has been physically ingrained into me. I cannot take more than one step of jog anywhere near the barn – not even out near turnout, not even on the driveway. Can’t do it. At some impressionable point in my past, an instructor imprinted that rule deeply into my brain.

Then I got to thinking: what other unconscious rules do people have for the barn? What is so anathema to you that you can’t even imagine doing it?

Many of these are rooted in safety and common sense, I’m sure, but there are plenty of other rules I break without thinking about it, especially around Tristan. So why did these stick so firmly?

Here are a few more of mine.

Wearing sandals in the barn. Can’t do it. No way, no how. I get nervous just thinking about it. Tender toes and horse hooves do not mix.

Wear a helmet every time, every ride. I have mounted exactly twice without a helmet in my life and both times within a few strides felt a strange disorientation, like I’d never been on a horse before, or like Tristan had suddenly changed size or shape. It was the absent weight and feel on my head.

Always use gloves to handle horses. I can remember the precise moment I learned this one, and the incredible pain from all the rope burn blisters. Now, I never, ever, ever, EVER hold a rope or a rein that’s attached to a horse bare-handed. NEVER.

stupid human tricks

On Learned Athleticism & Balance

Amanda5 Comments

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to the family fun night at an outdoor skating rink near our house. It’s been open for a few days now – basically they flooded the giant pool and maintained it as it froze – and they celebrated the first Saturday night of its opening with hot dogs, hamburgers, and general merriment. (Vermont!)

I’m no stranger to skating; the boyfriend is a huge hockey fan and has used me to fill in an empty spot on a pickup game roster more than a few times. I grew up in New England, two towns over from Nancy Kerrigan, in the same town that the Bruins have their practice arena, and with more friends than I could count who were competitive figure skaters and hockey players.

It’s never been a focus of mine, though; more like, I have always owned a pair of skates and have enough proficiency to account well for myself, but no finesse or higher skills.

Last night, as we started to skate around, my feet cramped up badly within the skates. It wasn’t the skates, or any of my motions, and it took me a while to really figure it out but when I did it had me thinking for the rest of the night.

In short: I was applying all the body rules that I have drilled into myself while riding to figure skating. Horses are the main focus of my exercise and athletic endeavor these days, and my body has learned to associate being physically challenged with being on a horse.

I was dropping weight into my heels while skating. I was sinking down my spine, through my seatbones, and keeping weight out of my knees. Every time I wobbled or felt out off kilter, my body kicked in every horseback balance reaction it had. Within the first twenty minutes, this had really started adding up, and my feet were a tight mass of pain, as my heels drove deep into the skates but I was light in the balls of my foot, and my toes were nearly pushing against the top of the boot.

The solution was to skate correctly: put weight more into the balls of my feet and be lighter in my heel, be comfortable with balancing on the edge of the skate, bend my knees more, and tip my center of balance further forward over my knees, rather than my heels.

It was really hard. My body had learned and adapted to a certain instinct and it didn’t want to let go of that hard-won skill. I’ve never been the wildly athletic person whose body is flexible and poised and can tackle anything. I’m not exactly unathletic, either (except in the matter of hand-eye coordination, sigh), but I function best when I’m applying myself to one particular path, and disciplining my body for that.

Eventually, I repositioned myself, and my feet stopped cramping up, and motion came much more smoothly. We stayed for about an hour and the last 45 minutes were much easier than the first 15.

Have you ever tried another sport and found your riding instincts working against you?

conditioning · stupid human tricks

Pushing Too Hard

Amanda4 Comments

One of the most popular posts I’ve ever written on this blog was called “When to push, and when to back off.” It’s something I struggle with still.

Saturday night, I pushed too hard. It started out really, really well: he warmed up well, and was responding nicely. We were moving forward, through the walk and into the trot to work. My intention was something of a conditioning ride: not really hard dressage work, but more like trot sets.

So we had a long walk warmup, and then we trotted on a loose rein for a bit, and then I picked up the reins. I didn’t do anything but work on my own hand position and just basically take hold of the reins. I got a feel of the bit but didn’t specifically ask for anything with it. I worked on keeping him straight through his whole body, paying careful attention to his haunches. As he got more forward and loose, he started to reach forward into the bridle himself. Historically, he has to be coaxed and teased into reaching for the bit at all, so behaving like a normal horse – ie, get him straight and forward and he will go into the bridle – is awesome.

We took a walk break, and then picked back up with a few minutes of trotting and then 2.5 minutes of cantering. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But a couple of factors made it a poor decision on my part. First, it was significantly warmer than it has been: in the mid-30s rather than low teens. Second, he was already gunning more forward than he typically is, and his canter reflected that. Third, I had started him on his right lead canter, which is his stronger lead.

He was puffing a bit after the canter, but recovered in a few minutes, and then I compounded my poor decision. I thought since we had worked his right lead, we had to work his left, which is where he really needs more work. So we repeated the exercise to the left: 2.5 minutes of trot, 2.5 minutes of canter. At 2 minutes into the canter he started blowing hard with every stride, so I pulled him up.

And then we walked. And walked. And walked. He was panting in a way I’ve never heard him do before – short, quick gulps. After 3 minutes of walking, I stopped him and pulled his saddle, then got on him bareback. After 3 minutes of that, I slid off him and walked. He slowly, slowly, slowly took longer and deeper breaths, and at about the 8 minute mark it started to resolve into a normal breathing pattern.

He was never in any other obvious kind of distress: pulse was fast but ok, he was moving easily (not even overly tired-appearing), he wasn’t sweating more than a hint of dampness, and he was alert and nosed me for treats when I paused him occasionally. When he was breathing mostly normally again – a bit elevated but nothing that set off alarm bells for me – I brought him back to his stall and he took a small drink of water and happily dug into his hay, then begged for his grain (which had been pulled before we started riding).

I felt like something you’d scrape off a boot. I paced, and paced, and put away all his tack and checked him every time I walked past his stall, and then I found a half-dozen odd organizing jobs around the barn and kept checking on him, and then I sat in my car for 30 minutes and Googled “horse panting after exercise” on my phone and texted Hannah for reassurance. Finally, well over an hour after I had put him back in his stall, he was still looking totally fine, I went home. I fretted the rest of the night, and woke up the next morning at 6:30 and watched the clock in agony until I knew that the morning feed person would have laid eyes on him and called me if there was anything wrong.

Sunday, he was fine; he even got his massage. J. said he was clearly fatigued but not sore anywhere, and that he’d actually begun building back muscle tone. He needs more weight again, and he still needs a lot more muscle, but the overall quality of what he is adding is good and there’s clearly just a bit more along his back.

So, lesson learned. I still feel wretched, and I can still hear perfectly his quick huffs of breath, but he’ll be ok. And I’ll be much more careful in his conditioning rides going forward. He’s showing me he’s older in all these small ways, and I need to pay more careful attention.

blanketing · stupid human tricks · winter

Best Laid Plans

Amanda2 Comments

Yesterday was going to be so straightforward: a quick meeting at work (on my day off), followed by a short bareback hack in the new snow, followed by a productive afternoon cleaning the apartment and working on Christmas baking.

That began unraveling with the meeting, which ran long, and then turned into a second, longer meeting, during which I lost my voice several times despite sipping tea constantly.

Then I headed to the barn and found that my idiot pony had shredded his midweight sheet. He only wears it when it’s below zero, which unfortunately means he’s been wearing it a lot lately. Best theory is that he laid down in the night and upon getting up again tangled a hind leg in the surcingle, and ripped the buckle clean away from the sheet, along with a nice rip along the seam. It was torn in such a way that it couldn’t be stitched up easily and quickly by a conventional sewing machine.

No way is the average sewing machine going to punch
through that buckle.

I did get my hack in, though, down and around all the summer paddocks, and it was a beautiful crisp day. The snow was still so new it was clinging to the trees, and the air was clear and thin all the way to the mountains. We forged through fresh drifts and Tristan was happy and cheerful, though not thrilled to be working so hard on a restful walk.

Uncle Tristan babysitting.

Yak or pony?

Can you spot the bridle path?
Yeah, neither can I.

Looking toward the Monroe Skyline,
with Mad River Glen and Sugarbush
ski areas anchoring the ends.

After the hack we fitted him for a borrowed blanket from the barn, because it was due to start dropping in temperature as the sun went down and go as low as -10 up at the barn. It was that cold the night before and when the barn staff took his blanket off in the morning to go outside, apparently he shivered a bit until his coat was roughed up.

So of course now I am questioning myself and wondering if he should be blanketed more; if perhaps the threshold is no longer 0 but 10, and if I should get a stable blanket to add underneath his midweight, and aaahhh. He’s just not holding warmth as he used to, and he went into the winter with less weight than I wanted.

Winter legs – this was AFTER a good brushing.

In his borrowed blanket for the night.

After I left the barn, I stopped by a sewing and alterations store, and showed them the blanket. They said they could definitely fix it, and described a plan of action that made a lot of sense and would reinforce the area going forward. The only catch: even though it was really in good shape for a blanket, it would still need to be cleaned before they would accept it.

Cue a frantic dash to the laundromat, a high capacity washer, and the discovery that the washer had not gone through a proper spin cycle, leaving the blanket dripping wet, and the office at the laundromat had closed at 2pm – 10 minutes before I discovered the problem. Of course. I squeezed it out as best I could and put it in the dryer and stopped it every few minutes to rearrange the blanket so the wettest bits were on the outside. Eventually it got dry enough and I dropped it back at the sewing store.
I then returned home and made a batch of cookies for a work cookie swap, wrapped presents with Lawrence of Arabia in the background, and halfway through realized my cheeks and forehead were much warmer than they ought to be and I was dizzy and a bit disoriented. Great. Perfect way to end the day.

This morning:

So no barn for me tonight! Hope pony stayed warm in his borrowed blanket…

stupid human tricks

Owwwwww

AmandaLeave a comment

We went hiking yesterday, and a few miles of up and down in the woods later realized that we were not going to reach the summit of the mountain as we had intended: the trails were poorly marked, confusing, and boot-suckingly muddy. So we picked a nice spot and had a snack and then hiked back down.

On the way down, I put a foot on a mossy log and whomp, flat out in the mud and on top of the log. Mostly fine – a bit banged up – except for the abrasion burn/impact point square on my ass that broke through the skin and turned lovely colors.

I was a bit stiff and sore for chores this morning, but mostly fine and warmed up out of it, until I sat on my horse. And discovered that ow, my seatbones are not ok after all. So we had a relatively short ride, most if it focused on FORWARD, DAMN IT, HORSE.

Not thrilled with our unsupervised canter, but some of the trot work ended up rather nice and we were certainly going forward by the end of it.

Now, to sit on soft things and crochet and wait for the crockpot potato soup to finish.