Rode Miss.  She was a lil fresh but good.

I haven’t been sleeping well at all.  So tonight I’m going to try and get a decent night’s rest.  (i.e.  I’m kicking the dogs out of my bedroom, more specifically, Birdie out of my bed!)  See if that helps.  Also, I have been drinking alot of tea lately and so my sensitivity to caffeine hasn’t helped any.

Countdown to the Office Premiere tomorrow night.  Yay.

Give me a shout out in the comments if you guys are out there, alive and kicking.  I haven’t been keeping in touch lately cause I’ve just been so busy at the barn.

Music Mood: Old school!  Pebbles - Girlfriend -
He’s not worth the misery and pain
Just remember how he would tell you lies
And then pretend that everything is so sweet
Why should you sacrifice
If you’re not satisfied
He’s just a canine runnin’ ’round in heat…

HA!

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A storm passed through so I hurried out after work in order to try and hop on Cook to trot her up and down the hill….

We weren’t out there 5 minutes when the wind was blowing sort of hard and it started to rain. Cook was worked up. She wasn’t trying to be bad but she just can’t control her little body when she starts freaking out. Not to mention, my stirrups were a hole too long. So she kept trying to canter when all I wanted was some trotting. I can’t really give an update on her un-soundness cause we fussed with each other the whole 10 minutes we were out there.

it rained harder and I went in.

That’s ok tho. I still feel good I was able to get her out.

sleepy.

must rest.

Current Music Mood: Billy Joel - An Innocent Man - “Some people run from a possible fight, Some people figure they can never win, And even tho this is a fight I can lose, The accused is an innocent man.”

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Last night, my mom called me and we talked for a good while. I ended up sobbing on the phone but that was ok. If you can’t cry to your mom, who can you cry to?

I have been pretty emotionally stable about this whole Cook situation. People ask about her, or read this blog, and give me the old “wow, that sucks” looks and offers of condolences like she’s dead. I’m pretty good about putting an air of acting like I’m ok, saying that Mere will always have something for me to ride or that I will breed her. (Which always leads to a discussion…-Everyone- has their own stallion in mind they think I should breed Cook to. ) Secondly, because she is older and because she has had problems before, then everyone assumes that I should be ready for the realization that she might never be better and have to be retired.

I will tell you that it doesn’t matter. I’m not ready and I will never be.

But here is the part that bothered me last night.

My mom was asking how Miss went at the Moss and I was bragging on her, telling her how awesome she was, blah blah. And as I heard myself talking, it occurred to me that I really like this horse. How Miss has made the Cook situation easier. I know it sounds stupid to say but that’s the part that upsets me. I don’t want to think or believe that Cook is replace-able. So I cried.

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So here is the update on Cook.

Not been ridden since last Wednesday. She came out of the pasture this morning, FRESH. rearing. bucking, kicking out. I didn’t feel safe walking her on the road, so I walked her in the barn through the babies pasture in case she got away from me. She was sort of acting like an idiot, and that annoys me when she’s hot for no apparent reason, other than she hasn’t been getting worked and the fact she’s TB…. so I yelled at her, which I did NOT feel bad about … just cause ur hurt doesn’t mean u can act like a moron coming in for breakfast.

Later in the afternoon, I got on her and we trotted forever! until my legs (sore from yesterday) could take no more. she was good. we have a program in place for her, so we will see in a week where she is.

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Here is a pic I took early one morning of our TB pasture.  Cook is one of the 3.

Lauren U and I decided to forego JC show and just have some fun at the Moss Foundation. The Moss Foundation is a huge, huge trail riding / cross country area with scary jumps, galloping trails, etc.

Elvis was great, blah, blah, blah. He’s always fine. He’s Mr Trail Horse.

So this was my very first outing on Miss. I cannot put into words on this blog how completely, totally, 110%, estatically happy I am with Miss. She was dern near perfect. It was the best trail ride I have ever been on. The Moss can be intimdating for even a pretty experienced horse with the other riders, horses, roadside, wildlife, streams, trees, etc. Not to mention, there are no 2ft regular jumps. They are either fallen logs (18 inches) or like “10 fallen logs 3 feet high” (that’s a quote from Upton).

I don’t ever comment on any jump heights (look back over previous blogs… I personally don’t blog where I pinned in shows, or height, because frankly height doesn’t matter - Horses have a way of putting you in your place rather quickly.) However, I am giddy so I will have to say that Miss was completely -honest-, forward and very brave (not to take away from Elvis, he was too). I am very proud of myself and Lauren for sucking it up and having courage, even if it took us 10 minutes at each jump, convincing each other that we should do this. (Let’s see if I have a cell phone signal to call 911… and Mere)

I circled Miss around one jump 3 times for her to look at and figure out where to take off - this is what I was reduced to - allowing the horse to take care of me. Miss said ‘Look crybaby! I SEE the jump… what am I? Blind? Just hang on…stop being a weirdo”. (I imagine both Miss and Cook to be VERY sarcastic horses….they have to be in dealing with me).

OH! and the coolest part!! Ok, so we were cantering down a path…. both horses were going very collected and nicely. We came upon a fallen log blocking our path. I was gonna break down Miss to a trot to go over it, but they were going so nicely that I just let her canter over it…. Miss’s ears were perked forward, so she was paying attention… Both Miss and Elvis jumped it at the same time!! We didn’t even break at all. We loved it! That was super fun! I know it might sound corny but hey! I don’t care! FUN!

That was the other thing. Miss and Elvis got along very, very nicely.

Lauren, thanks for everything, especially the encouragement. That was really good for my confidence and my mental state.

My batteries died on the trail (poop!) but here is a pic of Miss at the trailer. I know she kinda looks funny cause she’s standing on a hill….

Current Music Mood: Jewel - Foolish Games. - “This is my heart bleeding before you, this is me on my knees.”

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Today was pretty eventful…. I could prolly fill up 3 pages worth of stuff for a 4 hour part of my day, so I will try and make this as brief as possible, to spare the agony of reading a 100 line post.

I took a half day in the middle of the workday to go help out with the farrier and the vet. We did Fall shots today, which meant that every horse we had needed to be caught, held and stuck. Plus, Fernando was there to also re-look at Cook.

So the farrier part was un-eventful. Loren was entertaining as usual. He said that Miss doesn’t need back shoes as of right now. So that’s good.

I did a first! Basically he had to trim Belle, our baby. I held her. I was a lil nervous cause I had heard that the first time didn’t go so well. (Babies tend to freak out at new things). So the ultra-cool part was that Belle was a lil star. She leaned all her weight on me but that was ok. She has to figure out how to balance on 3 legs.

Then Fernando came. Jen, Mere, Kat and I all pitched in to help Fernando get everyone’s shots done. He said our horses were very well behaved. I guess he has seen all sorts of bad bahavior. We do have pretty well-behaved horses. Only 1 horse didn’t want her shot and only 1 horse didn’t want to be haltered (cause he figured he was getting a shot). Out of 15ish, that’s not bad at all.

OK - now the Cook recap. Let me set the stage. It .. of course… was raining. Sigh. So I tacked up Cook and we went down to the ring. It was sort of like a scene out of a movie ….some race horse movie. Here I am, wet, with Cook… water dripping from the brim of my helmet. I have an audience of Fernando, Mere, Kat and Jen all standing outside the ring, watching Cook go. It just seemed oddly familiar.
I asked her to canter and it showed. She doesn’t want to go forward. She does this pop-up, hop thingy. Free lunged her. She did exhibit it there too. She also raced around, looking every bit the Thoroughbred she is. Man, can that horse run.

Anyways, Fernando does believe there is pain somewhere (obviously) but we can’t pinpoint it without a bone scan. (Because her x rays are clean and her flexions are good, a bone scan would be the only can that would show inflammation). Only place they do the bone scan is NC State where she would have to stay overnight. For non-horse people… that costs alot of $$. Horsey people know about the vet school, and therefore shudder in fear of that vet bill. So I have to talk to Mere privately, talk to my inner circle, do some research on the web and then decide what to do.

If the bone scan showed something, then we could inject her … or not… problem is there is no promise it would fix anything. It’s sort of poking around, hoping you get the right area. It’s also a question of… how far do I want to make her ridable for my own benefit? She is not in pain being a regular horse. It’s riding her at the canter where she shows lameness.

I don’t know. Fernando mentioned the “B” word - Broodmare. I used to be completely, completely opposed to that - I was NOT breeding Cook. But being around our farm babies and going through FIVE, wow!, with Mere now… I’m more open to that. I have learned a ton, ton, ton under Mere and so now it doesn’t seem so far fetched. I didn’t think I had the knowledge to raise a baby but eh, I do. What I don’t know, I can learn.

All the things that are going through my mind right now….

Again, I do love this. Cook raced around and around the ring, breathing heavily, a lil spazzed out. When Fernando saw enough, I just called to her, went up to her and put the reins back on. She comes right back to me.

I love you, girl. We will figure out what to do.

tired so this will be short. long day tomorrow. farrier + vet. taking a half day in the middle of the day to deal with it all.

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Gonna go get JT’s album tomorrow. Sigh. He’s way hot.  Let me know if you have it and what you think about it.

I got no sleep last night.

Great.

I will be cranky all day.

relaxing tonight. staying home.

you know, its’ really hard for me to give up a night at the barn. I often call Mere (sometimes more than once) if I am not coming to the barn to check on Cook’s daily activities. It’s also not un-common for Mere to leave me messages with progress reports.

C: What’s Cook doing?

M: um, Cook is in her stall, sleeping.

2 hours later.

C: What’s Cook doing?

M: eating. dunking her grain in her water bucket.

It’s so weird. I worry alot about Cook when I don’t see her everyday. The reason I think it borders on weird is because it’s like I irrationally believe that she’s fragile and can’t care for herself. Like she’s a kid playing on the playground. She needs supervision. My friend Kathy is moving her horse behind her house, which is an awesome thing… and my dream. But honestly, it’s prolly in Cook’s best interest not to be behind my house because quite frankly, I don’t think I would ever leave her alone.
Sometimes I get so worked up, I will just drive out there cause it calms me for the night to see her. I will admit there has been times on the weekends where I have even seen her that morning and I still want to see her that night. Mere takes excellent, excellent care of her and I KNOW she’s taking care of, but I just always like seeing her. I want her very very badly to be back under saddle. I really miss her. I have had a great time being on other horses and for that, I am grateful. My riding has improved ten-fold. But it really does choke me up to think about not being back on Cook.
Wow, I just realized I have written a terribly long blog about my obsession with Cook. Like none of you people can tell this already. This whole fricking site is dedicated to her! Sorry to those who fell asleep during this post.

Know how many tylenol / advil I have taken today?

So yeah, I’m sore.  My back hurts.  Well, no surprise there.  I think I strained a neck muscle too.  Actually my whole body hurts.  This isn’t all related to the fall.  I think it’s a combination of fatigue, strained muscles, riding every day (or near every day), fall, age.

Right now, my ailments are as follows:  strained neck muscle, sore left shoulder, strained right bicep, bruised lower back (how’s this for irony… I’m damaged across my tattoo that says ‘courage’), strained left calf muscle, puncture wound on my shin, 3 bruised toes (where a horse ABBY) stepped on my foot… and a partridge in a pear tree.

See, here is a good example where I need someone to baby me.  Or send me a present.  I like presents.  A get well present!  My happiness can be bought!

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So today, I rode Miss.  Mere helped me with flying lead changes.  I should have worked a lil harder but I was feeling like complete crap.  We accomplished what we set out to tho, so it was good.  Miss was awesome (of course).   I jumped just a few jumps (just to get the flying changes).  Both Ash W. and Mere said I looked fine over the jumps, so that was reassuring.  Mere said I have to work on sitting UP between and after the jumps.  Kevin says the same thing.  Ugh.  I think its’ habit (and maybe laziness.)  Or maybe my back is broken.  Maybe all of the above.

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Cook is good as usual.  She’s sweet.  She is off until Fernando comes back on Wednesday.  I observed her in the pasture looking not-so-sound.  So she’s out of work.  I might walk her around tomorrow.

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Hope everyone has a good week.