A Whole Lot Of Crap

I'm trying to get packed for Arizona and all I have to say is....I have a whole lot of crap!!!

Laughs!!!

I know, I know....It will get better. It will get to the point where I am not packing everything but the kitchen sink. But at the moment, that's what it feels like I am doing. There is quite a bit of it that will stay in AZ, it's just getting it rounded up, loaded up and hauled down there.

The last of the horses got worked on by the vet after we got home from the NFR;

After having The Big Bay's hocks injected, he improved tremendously...but it had become apparent, watching him travel that he was also having problems in stifles, his right stifle in particular. He still traveled 'off' over the topline. So I had the vet go ahead and inject his stifles. I dunno. I sort of feel like I have gone from being not-particularly 'pro injection' to having the vet stick everything, but I am at a loss at how else to get this horse sound enough to become s.o.m.e.t.h.i.n.g....anything really. This is pretty much it for the big horse. The vet and I discussed the fact that some horses just don't hold up, even when they are not being over-used and if I cannot get the big guy to the point where he is usable, I'll probably have to make a very tough call. I hate the thought because he has become an increasingly sweet horse, so I decided that if there is a chance, then injections in the joints are better than a shot of the pink juice. For whatever reason, this horse has no tolerance for pain, so for him to overcome his problems, I've got to go a lot farther to remove every ounce of it from his body so he can start using his brain.

Little John also got his knee worked on. He had a soft bubble on his knee when I bought him and we popped x-rays to make sure his knee wasn't damaged. The knee is fine, but the bubble hasn't gone away. I forget what the vet called it, but in essence he had a sealed fluid pocket. The vet drained it, injected cortizone to dry up the pocket and we bandaged the leg snuggly to help the 2 inner membranes to seal down. Hopefully it works. The bubble is nothing more than a cosmetic blemish, but I figured Little John is too young and too nice of a horse to go through life with a blob on his knee, if he didn't have to. If the inner membranes do not seal back together and the bubble comes back, I'll just leave it. There is another procedure, but it sounded rather gross and requires a long healing period. I don't see any need to go that far for a cosmetic blemish. He's not a halter horse and hopefully he'll be moving too fast for anyone to notice. LOL

I was hopeful that Shooter's wound would be completely healed by the time we got back to Arizona, but the cold weather put a damper on the healing process, so it's not completely closed up yet. I talked to the vet and he believed that at this point in time, exercise would be good for Shooter, so I turned the big brat out to pasture. Shooter has some stiffness over that left hip from hitching his leg for so long and exercise will help free that up and get the blood circulating to the lower leg again and promote some healing. Luckily, Shooter is such a low-energy horse that even after being cooped up for so long, he just trotted around, flagged his tail a little and then settle down to eat...With Moon!

Go figure...the only horse Moon can't chase off of his pile of hay is his little brother. LOL.

Moon is going great. I felt so bad for him after I had him injected and worried I had done the wrong thing. He was sore for a lot longer than the vet thought he would be, but he came out of it and is traveling better than I can remember for a long while. No more kinked tail, no more hiking his hocks. He looks pretty spry. I'm excited. As long as I run Moon, he will probably need to continue the stifle injections, but I was told they seem to last longer than the hock injections, so he will probably only need them once or twice a year. The hock injections were done to promote the fusing process in his already partially fused hocks, so the hope is, that the fusing completes this time and Moon will never need hock injections again. Worst case scenario, he may need it done one more time, but after that, he should be golden.

Everybody else is going great. Little Belle is wound up like an 8-day clock...can't wait to get back to work with her, Beretta is happy, happy, happy to be home, Buddy is gaining weight (even in the cold we have had) and Frenchy is growing a baby belly. In a way, I regret having to take her to Arizona, but it will do her good to continue to get handled and hopefully she continues to get friendlier. I still want to get her going under saddle again and see what she's like, but I may or may not compete on her. I know what kind of babies she produces and maybe that is good enough.

Time to get back to loading stuff in the trailer. In the morning all I want to do is load horses and head south. :-)