Holiday and pony report
May. 30th, 2006 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziIt's the obligatory post holiday update. Yay!
Holiday-wise, I didn't do anything special. The limited number of barbeque grills in the complex and their distance from my apartment meant I didn't even consider grilling any kind of holiday dinner.
Saturday morning I went bed shopping. It's kind of amusing how self conscious people, including me, get when laying on bare mattresses in stores. I've no problem with dozing in chairs in waiting rooms, airports, or other public places, but there's just something weird about laying on a bed in a store. I guess it's because it's not a normal sleep/bedroom environment or something. Anyway, I finally made a decision and will have a new bed arriving on Friday. Annoyingly, I couldn't even specify a preference as to morning vs afternoon delivery and won't find out the estimated delivery time til around 8 Friday morning. Ugh. I figure I'll come into work at 7 as usual and either go home then come back if it's going to be the morning or just go home early and stay there if it's afternoon.
Since the new mattress is a pillowtop, all the current queen sheets I have aren't going to be deep enough. I did some quick shopping around after leaving the bed place so that I'd have one set to use on Friday night. It wasn't easy. Finding a sheet set that was deep, not in some weird color/pattern, or with a low thread count of like 2, AND which didn't cost a fortune was a bit of a challenge. I finally found a set on sale. I'll do some more extensive shopping later since I want more than one set and also because the one I got is white. I prefer something in an actual color for sheets.
Sunday definitely wasn't a typical one at the barn. The trail rides all went fine, and the mucking and other routine stuff was business as usual. The difference started when I got there, though. Don said he was going to leave early, just after the 2nd ride went out, to head out to his boat so he could motor down to meet his brother at some marina. That itself is unusual, since Don only does something like that a couple times a year. It just meant that I'd be handling the money for the 3rd trail ride and taking care of some office stuff and locking up at the end of the day. No biggie. I'd get home a little later than usual but the only issue that might cause would be me missing my usual slot in the weekly MC raid in Warcraft.
So the third ride went off without a hitch and when it returned we did all the usual untacking and stuff and took those horses out back to turn out in the pasture. As usual, the horses that didn't work Sunday or that weren't being used in the 3rd ride were already in the upper dirt pasture. I went to open the gate to let 'em onto the grass. That's where the day really deviated from the norm.
As the horses came through the gate into the lower pasture, Irina noticed Nugget had blood on the inside of his left foreleg and that his muzzle was pinkish. Fortunately he and his buddy Doc stopped just past the gate to graze. I went over and led him by the mane toward the front pasture gate and Irina went and got a bucket and such so we could clean it up. We figured it wouldn't be anything big (minor cuts can bleed a lot and can look worse than they are), so while Irina sponged off Nugget's leg I went to grab some blue to put on it. Returning and seeing the leg cleaned up, it was obvious that it wasn't as minor as we thought. He had a cut on the inside of his left foreleg at the knee. It was kind of an inverted V right on the joint. The edges were straight and clean, not ragged, implying (to me at least) that he'd gotten his leg into something like the fence and cut it. You couldn't see bone, but there was some white connective tissue/membrane type stuff visible. Throwing a halter and lead onto Nugget we led him out of the pasture and onto the grassy strip next to the barn.
Anyway, it was more than just a simple job of cleaning it up and letting him go. It looked like it was going to need stitches. With Don over an hour's drive away by that point, we called his wife, Lynn, who was at home 20 minutes away. She came out and agreed with our assessment and called the vet. Turns out he was on another urgent call to a horse north of there but would come down afterwards. In the mean time he said to put some Betadine on it since we hadn't yet. to that point, we'd just been irrigating the area around the cut to keep it clean and cool and keep any swelling down.
With the other school horses turned out for the night, a place for Nugget on the boarder side of the barn was going to be needed. Unfortunately, the only empty standing stall has a broken door, so I moved poor Hobbes to a standing stall and cleaned his stall out for Nugget to stay in temporarily. I hate leaving Hobbes in that standing stall, but he's done it before and Nugget needs a box stall since he's injured.
I ended up leaving around 6:20 or so, a good 2 hours later than I normally leave the barn. The vet hadn't arrived yet, but Lynn and Bev (one of the trail guides) said there wasn't really any reason for all of us to stay.
Throughout it all, Nugget was calm and easygoing and didn't fuss about anything. He was more interested in grazing or trying to eat leaves from a tree than about the stuff we were doing to his leg. Nugget is usually kind of a goofball, so his behavior Sunday was a pleasant surprise. We were really lucky that the cut was where it was and that he'd rubbed his nose on it. Otherwise it might have gone unnoticed until Monday when the horses were brought back in.
Sunday night, yesterday, and even today, I've been feeling the effects of half-squatting beside nugget running water around that wound. My hips, knees and lower back are all kind of complaining. Gads, I'm getting old.
Monday was pretty uneventful. I slept in as best I could, though Katie woke me often. I guess she was either trying to be helpful since I was in bed later than usual or she was miffed that I hadn't gotten up and paid attention to her. Once up, I did some minor cleaning, lazed around a bit, and played some Warcraft off and on. I haven't heard any update on Nugget yet. I'm assuming he's not going to be working for a long time while that leg heals. The location of the cut will probably cause it to get pulled open as he gets up or lays down in the stall, meaning it will take a long time to heal, just like Dan's old leg injury.
Holiday-wise, I didn't do anything special. The limited number of barbeque grills in the complex and their distance from my apartment meant I didn't even consider grilling any kind of holiday dinner.
Saturday morning I went bed shopping. It's kind of amusing how self conscious people, including me, get when laying on bare mattresses in stores. I've no problem with dozing in chairs in waiting rooms, airports, or other public places, but there's just something weird about laying on a bed in a store. I guess it's because it's not a normal sleep/bedroom environment or something. Anyway, I finally made a decision and will have a new bed arriving on Friday. Annoyingly, I couldn't even specify a preference as to morning vs afternoon delivery and won't find out the estimated delivery time til around 8 Friday morning. Ugh. I figure I'll come into work at 7 as usual and either go home then come back if it's going to be the morning or just go home early and stay there if it's afternoon.
Since the new mattress is a pillowtop, all the current queen sheets I have aren't going to be deep enough. I did some quick shopping around after leaving the bed place so that I'd have one set to use on Friday night. It wasn't easy. Finding a sheet set that was deep, not in some weird color/pattern, or with a low thread count of like 2, AND which didn't cost a fortune was a bit of a challenge. I finally found a set on sale. I'll do some more extensive shopping later since I want more than one set and also because the one I got is white. I prefer something in an actual color for sheets.
Sunday definitely wasn't a typical one at the barn. The trail rides all went fine, and the mucking and other routine stuff was business as usual. The difference started when I got there, though. Don said he was going to leave early, just after the 2nd ride went out, to head out to his boat so he could motor down to meet his brother at some marina. That itself is unusual, since Don only does something like that a couple times a year. It just meant that I'd be handling the money for the 3rd trail ride and taking care of some office stuff and locking up at the end of the day. No biggie. I'd get home a little later than usual but the only issue that might cause would be me missing my usual slot in the weekly MC raid in Warcraft.
So the third ride went off without a hitch and when it returned we did all the usual untacking and stuff and took those horses out back to turn out in the pasture. As usual, the horses that didn't work Sunday or that weren't being used in the 3rd ride were already in the upper dirt pasture. I went to open the gate to let 'em onto the grass. That's where the day really deviated from the norm.
As the horses came through the gate into the lower pasture, Irina noticed Nugget had blood on the inside of his left foreleg and that his muzzle was pinkish. Fortunately he and his buddy Doc stopped just past the gate to graze. I went over and led him by the mane toward the front pasture gate and Irina went and got a bucket and such so we could clean it up. We figured it wouldn't be anything big (minor cuts can bleed a lot and can look worse than they are), so while Irina sponged off Nugget's leg I went to grab some blue to put on it. Returning and seeing the leg cleaned up, it was obvious that it wasn't as minor as we thought. He had a cut on the inside of his left foreleg at the knee. It was kind of an inverted V right on the joint. The edges were straight and clean, not ragged, implying (to me at least) that he'd gotten his leg into something like the fence and cut it. You couldn't see bone, but there was some white connective tissue/membrane type stuff visible. Throwing a halter and lead onto Nugget we led him out of the pasture and onto the grassy strip next to the barn.
Anyway, it was more than just a simple job of cleaning it up and letting him go. It looked like it was going to need stitches. With Don over an hour's drive away by that point, we called his wife, Lynn, who was at home 20 minutes away. She came out and agreed with our assessment and called the vet. Turns out he was on another urgent call to a horse north of there but would come down afterwards. In the mean time he said to put some Betadine on it since we hadn't yet. to that point, we'd just been irrigating the area around the cut to keep it clean and cool and keep any swelling down.
With the other school horses turned out for the night, a place for Nugget on the boarder side of the barn was going to be needed. Unfortunately, the only empty standing stall has a broken door, so I moved poor Hobbes to a standing stall and cleaned his stall out for Nugget to stay in temporarily. I hate leaving Hobbes in that standing stall, but he's done it before and Nugget needs a box stall since he's injured.
I ended up leaving around 6:20 or so, a good 2 hours later than I normally leave the barn. The vet hadn't arrived yet, but Lynn and Bev (one of the trail guides) said there wasn't really any reason for all of us to stay.
Throughout it all, Nugget was calm and easygoing and didn't fuss about anything. He was more interested in grazing or trying to eat leaves from a tree than about the stuff we were doing to his leg. Nugget is usually kind of a goofball, so his behavior Sunday was a pleasant surprise. We were really lucky that the cut was where it was and that he'd rubbed his nose on it. Otherwise it might have gone unnoticed until Monday when the horses were brought back in.
Sunday night, yesterday, and even today, I've been feeling the effects of half-squatting beside nugget running water around that wound. My hips, knees and lower back are all kind of complaining. Gads, I'm getting old.
Monday was pretty uneventful. I slept in as best I could, though Katie woke me often. I guess she was either trying to be helpful since I was in bed later than usual or she was miffed that I hadn't gotten up and paid attention to her. Once up, I did some minor cleaning, lazed around a bit, and played some Warcraft off and on. I haven't heard any update on Nugget yet. I'm assuming he's not going to be working for a long time while that leg heals. The location of the cut will probably cause it to get pulled open as he gets up or lays down in the stall, meaning it will take a long time to heal, just like Dan's old leg injury.