Monday, September 24, 2012

Going public.

Not horse related but it's related to my life.
Today I launched my photography business's facebook page. For anyone who knows me personally will know how nervous I was about going public but I took the plunge and it is now out there!

Here is the link if you are curious.facebook.com/karikayphotography



This was the logo I decided on. I actually kind of just threw it together in about 5 minutes. And then after I published it I thought "hey that actually had some kind of meaning" So my subconsious wanted it to be horse related.  The color an yellowish/orange was similar to the color of my very first horse and the namesake of this blog "good time to review". He was a palamino that was a goldish orange in the summer. and the pine tree, well obviously a tribute to Piney as well as a tribute to my upbringing in northern, NORTHERN Manitoba. So there you have it. My not horse related logo that ended up being horse related. :-)



 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

2 months.



 
Today marks the 2 month anniversary that I let Piney go. Some days are easier than others. I find that if I don’t think too much about it my day will be easier. But then some days something will come up and remind me of him. Like when I was going through my tack the other day I grabbed a piece and set it aside because I wanted to try it out on Piney. Then I realized how foolish that was. Last week I went out to Big Iron, which is a HUGE farm show out at the fairgrounds in Fargo, that showcases all the newest farm equipment, technology and all other things farm related. I work for a farm so I went to do some research, even though If I really wanted to see the newest technology in farm equipment I would head on out to the shop and have a look around. But we went into one of the buildings that the new John Deere equipment. They had all the equipment in one of the arenas and had the dirt covered up with big fluffy pine shavings. My heart sank. I used to love the smell of fresh pine shavings but now when I see them and smell them I think of this.

This was the last picture I have of Piney. I have no idea why I took it, but I probably did because I thought that he would bounce back and I’d have a picture as a reminder of the time I almost lost him. I was going through my phone pictures last week and I saw this. I didn’t know if I should keep it or not. I decided that I should. It was part of our story and journey. Which is why I posted it here.
 

The funny thing is that sometimes when I look at Pistol I see Piney. Pistol has warmed up considerably to me, but he still isn’t at Piney’s level of “love all the people!”  He wants to love people but he still has some lingering trust issues. They are fading with time and I hope he realizes that I love him and won’t hurt him.
Pistol is such a sweet horse, and he's got alot of the same qualities I loved in Piney. Like the fact that he isn't bothered when there is a ton of stuff going on around him. Especially when I feed him and not only do the cats try to help him finish his food, but the dogs do too.  Or when the cats rub up against his hind legs and he doesn't flinch. The same action causes Duke to blow up and bolt across the pasture. He doesn't realize that the 2 pound cat is not a huge tiger trying to attack him. Pistol knows that fly spray is helping him and he doesn't "forget" every single time I bring it out like his buddy Duke. I swear I sprayed that horse once a day and Duke still thought that the fly spray was trying to kill him.
I like riding Pistol, but as I said I still have a bit of fear that I try to leave back at home when I take him out. Obviously he is recovering from his hoof isues and I haven't ridden in a while. But I need to remember that I am a good rider, and he is a good horse. Even if he pulls some crap when we get back home to the driveway. That is something we can work on and I wouldn't put a beginner on him until that is figured out. But he's a good horse and he is fun to ride because he is actually going somewhere when he walks, Piney was the slowest horse in the world. I wish more people could have ridden him so they could experience what the laziest horse in the world felt like. 
Piney really was my once in a lifetime horse. But it's time to make new memories with new horses.
 

Friday, September 7, 2012

I don't need to buy this horse.


Years ago I had the most beautiful palomino in the entire world. Seriously, he was the perfect color, had the right amount of chrome and a beautiful wide blaze. I had him temporarily boarded at a barn, as I waited for a family that was going to free lease him at their farm, to pick him up. Well that never happened. I got a phone call on December 19th saying “your horse is dead.” Heart stopping, gut wrenching, awful phone call. The owner of the barn called and said that he was fine the night before, and that when they got there in the morning he was dead. I suspect something was up and there was many things they weren’t telling me. Especially when he said “yeah we’ve had 5-6 die here in the past couple years. If one more dies I will pay to have an autopsy on it to see what is going on”. Not what you want to hear and not something you think to ask when boarding a horse at a new stable. But it should be. I was so grief stricken that I never got an autopsy done. I should have, but I couldn’t bring myself to have it done. Idiot, because know I will never know.

Anyways the same phone call that they told me my horse was dead the owner told me that they had plenty of horses for sale and they would be willing to work with me on payments if I found one I liked. He called me a few times telling me about horses they had for sale. I, being a very polite person, always declined in the nicest possible way. I think I said that I’d maybe come on out and have a look at some of them. One of the horses he thought would be perfect for me was a Swedish Warmblood qarterhorse mix filly. She was a yearling, but he thought that he could have someone at his barn help me train her (at a discounted rate of course). The price he offered her to me at was $2500. Now I’m not excellent at pricing horses but I thought that seemed a bit much. The next year she was offered for sale as a 2 year old at $1500 and then $1000. This summer I saw her for sale (from a different owner) at the beginning of the summer for $500 OBO. She is currently $300 OBO.

I really don’t know why I keep going back and looking at her sale picture. The price is right, but firstly it’s a mare. Secondly she is only 14.3hh and I would more than likely look REDICULOUS on her. And thirdly she isn’t broke, she’s had the saddle on, and has had weight put on but never ridden.  And LASTLY she is red. I don’t want more red horses.

Here is a picture of her when she was for sale before
 

And here are some videos from before.
 
 

Pics of her now on her sale ad.

 

 

I really don’t know why I keep going back to her. I’m sure conformationally she is a wreck. If she was even one hand taller I would be more serious about going to check her out. But  I need to keep telling myself. She is too small, she is too small, she is red, it’s a SHE, I don’t need another horse right now. I don’t need a LITTLE horse right now. I don’t need a little red horse right now that isn’t broke.  BUT I did know her mother and her father. Both were super, super sweet horses. I don't need a little red horse...I don' t need a little red horse.
Her ad was reposted today, so I hope someone swoops her up this weekend, because I HATE seeing her ad and wondering about her!!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

yesterday was bad but ended well!


Yesterday I was about to give up on ever owning horses. Yesterday I was worried that I’d have to make the same decision with Pistol that I made with Piney just a few short months ago. Yesterday was an awful day that thankfully ended well.

We had noticed that Pistol was lame on his left hind before we went to my husband’s hometown on this weekend. He is and older horse so we figured that maybe he just strained himself, or was sore from kicking at flies. (Nothing works for keeping flies off of him! NOTHING!) So I wanted to give him a day or two and see what he looked like. When we got back, he was worse. Like way, way worse. He was not putting any pressure on it, he had heat and swelling up in his stifle, he was hopping around on three legs and he wasn’t moving very far or very much. He was creaky and cracky sounding and it just didn’t look good. So I called the vet first thing yesterday and the vet came out in a couple of hours. It was a new vet that I hadn’t used before, but I have to say that of all the vets that I’ve had come out and look at my horses he is my favorite. I like when vets can make you laugh especially when you are freaking the f out.

He looked at Pistol and asked some questions like if Pistol and Duke get along and how long he’d been limping. He took a look and started feeling around his stifle area and said that it felt very, very strange.  He also said he’d never seen or felt anything like it before. Awesome.  He also said that he had been dealing with strange things lately. Like the camels at the zoo he was working with. He’d never worked with camels before but they had him out there to look at them. But X-rays were needed to figure this out. He thought that maybe the patella had slipped, or that maybe there was a fracture. He couldn’t be sure until he got the x-rays back. He was very interested in what was going on so he said he was going to shoot 5-6 x-rays but would only charge us for 2.  He said he tried to get the portable x-ray machine and bring it out to the farm, but someone had already booked it for a pre-purchase exam. I laughed and said “what the heck is a pre purchase exam?” Because obviously I’ve never had one done on any of my horses.  He gave us the okay to  trailer Pistol to the clinic and we could get some better answers there.

I we got Pistol loaded into the trailer, but it took a bit longer than usual. At times like that I am thankful that our trailer has a ramp. Getting him in there was easier because of it. I am also thankful that he trailers so well. We got him settled in and it’s off we went. We live about 15 miles from the vet so it’s pretty nice. When we got to the vet he unloaded quietly and for the most part as easy as he could. Even with a horse tied to a trailer FLIPPING OUT. The horse was climbing onto the trailer’s steps and fenders. I have no idea who would let their horse freak out like that. But not my place to judge I guess. We got him inside the clinic. And the vet started feeling around and said “it looks like it’s fixed itself”. Ummm what? So all it took was a trailer ride? He had another vet come over and take a look. That vet was the one who worked on Piney when he was last there. She is a specialist in horses gastro systems as well as their legs. She said that things didn’t feel so incrediably weird but they were weird. But more than likely his strange conformation had something to do with it. They took a few x-rays and found out that nothing was wrong. Which was a relief but then they took x-rays of his hoof. Sure enough we found the problem. An abscess caused by a nail puncture. Obviously when he said that I feel like a big ass. But he said I could sweep the farm for nails, every single day for years and it still could have happened, It’s just the luck of the draw. He had the same problem when he lived on his grandpas farm. So he cleaned up the foot, and got the abscess to spew puss all over. The vet did have to block his foot and twitch him while the did that. But other than that he got a big gold star for being a great patient. The vet tech said that most horses need to be tranqued when they get x-rayed even when they are as lame as Pistol was. He just stood there like a champ in a strange and unfamiliar place while they poked and prodded him. When the vet was finishing up the vet said that we had a pretty great horse on our hands. I like hearing that. It’s the third time I’ve had someone tell me that about him.
We soaked him in warm water and Epsom salts, and then they put a baby diaper duct tape boot on him. Which is still think is pretty funny. That a vet’s office uses baby diapers to wrap a horses foot. Like there is nothing else that has been invented specifically for that purpose. I’m sure there is, but it just seems funny to me. By the time he was soaked and booted up he was feeling 10 times better. He was even walking on his foot. It was such a relief to be bringing home a loaded trailer. I was pretty sure that we were going to be bringing an empty trailer home with us. I know that sounds extreme for something like a hoof abscess, but if you would have seen him yesterday morning, you would probably have the same thoughts as I did. He looked like he had broken something up in his knee/hip. The fact that he was 3 legged and hopping mixed with some Google induced hypochondriac thinking I was not thinking positively. We had to look deeply into the issue and even though Pistol was a fantastic horse he is old. If he had popped something out of socket and it was going to be a reoccurring event was that something we wanted to put him through often? If he was going to be in pain all the time, was that any type of life for a horse? I am just glad that it was something easily fixable. The vet sent us on our merry way with instructions and a great big smile. We asked if we had to do anything special like put him on stall rest, because we do have stalls, but they are currently a tack room and a feed room. We told him that our horses are on pasture 24/7 and he said that is the absolute best life for a horse. Which if you would have asked me a few years ago I would have fought you to the death that having a horse stalled at night was the best life for a horse.  

By the time we got home Pistol was doing even better. Which is such a relief! I’ve never been so happy to see a horse walk on all 4 hooves!

So I am one happy horse mama. The bill was huge but not as huge as I thought it was going to be. I just have to start stepping up my photography gigs to start paying for these beasts! Which luckally I have been lucky enough to be hired by a few different people lately. I’m loving it, but it’s keeping me busy!

 

Oh and one more funny story from yesterday my cats totally freaked out the vet tech. She said she would see one nearby and then it would disappear, and she’d see it further away almost instantly and that kept happening. She couldn’t figure it out, until near the end when they were getting ready to leave and she saw all three in the same spot at the same time. She thought she was going crazy. It was pretty funny.