Around the arena and down the lane

Sorry to leave you post-less for so long! I'm still horsing around, I just haven't had any extra time or mental energy to post about it.

Larry:
I haven't been over to ride Larry at his fine facility again (see second sentence above). He gets excellent care and regular exercise, so I'm not worried about him.

Lance:
Like I said on my Boulderneigh blog, Lance is feeling much better, which makes my heart sing. After getting his immune system calmed down with dexamethasone injections, we're maintaining him with twice-a-day oral prednisolone. Being able to breathe makes him much more biddable; imagine that!

We were enjoying some ballroom dancing in the arena last Thursday afternoon when the sky starting changing colors. We left the arena at a trot and headed up our lane to catch an unobstructed view of a glorious sunset.

Yesterday afternoon we caught a break in the rain again and ventured through the woods. We had gone out once before at dusk and ran into unusually wet conditions; I wanted to see what was going on with better light.

The woods are in sad shape. Besides much of the track turning into a shallow stream (it has been a very wet month), a lot of mature trees have fallen over. Ivy is overtaking many other trees, which will weaken and eventually topple as well.

Anyway and however.... When I tried to ride late this afternoon, Lance was incredibly sluggish, coughed quite a bit, and was breathing different than his back-to-normal respirations. Needless to say, I didn't torture him very long. I forgot to give him his meds last night; I suppose his heaves could be that barely controlled. :-/

Shasta:

Taken last week; today we got rained on.

Wait – who? Ha! This nice little Paint mare belongs to my new student. Today was the fourth Sunday in a row that her mom has hauled her in from their home an hour away for a lesson. She's entered in our ODS chapter's league show next Sunday; it will be both the student's and the horse's first dressage show. So I will be going to Bears Above the Ground – to coach and volunteer, just not to compete.