My first fall... Frustrating.

Sunday, Feb 7(I'm really late posting this) was not a very good day. It didn't start well in terms of my psychological well-being. I had a rather long, intense UMPA which left me feeling pretty down and out of it. But DASH had invited Foxfire and I over to ride in their arena. And since our pasture was basically a mud pit and will likely continue to be one for quite some time, it was probably going to be the only chance for me to ride Shadowfax for a while. So... I sucked up all my bad feelings and tried to make the best of it.

Shadowfax loaded up in DASH's trailer without even pausing. And even when DA's mare in the next compartment made a fuss, he remained pretty un-fazed. He stood pretty still for being groomed and tacked up, which he doesn't always do. However, once I mounted him and started riding around, he started acting a little antsy. Maybe it was me, maybe it was the weather (the other horses were acting up a bit, too), maybe it was just that he hadn't been ridden in a while. But he kept tossing and ducking his head and trying to go where he wanted instead of listening to me. Because of this, I just walked him. And walked him. And walked him. I walked him around the arena, across the arena, through the heads course, over the trot poles. I just walked and forced him to go where I wanted to go. It wasn't always easy. There were times when I had to stop him. Force him around to face the direction that I wanted to go and really kick him to get him to go where I wanted instead of where he was trying to to go.

But finally, after 30 - 45 minutes, he seemed to settle down and was going where I asked him to without a fuss. I was pretty bored with just walking by that point, so I kicked him up into a trot and started to do some 20 meter trot circles. He was pretty willing to go into a trot at first, but after completing the first circle, he started to slow back into a walk, so I kicked him to keep him trotting. That's when something bad happened. I'm not entirely sure what occurred. All I know is that one moment I was trotting and the next moment I was flying over Shadowfax's outside shoulder. I turned sort of a somersault in the air and landed - HARD - on my tailbone and right hip. It hurt like hell all the way up my back. All I could do was sit there stunned. I still had the reins in my right hand and Shadowfax was pulling against them, but even if I had wanted to, I don't think that I could have let go.

Foxfire didn't see what led up to the fall, but he did see me hit the ground, so he and another friend of SH's came over to try and help. When Foxfire got to me, I handed him Shadowfax's reins. But I still didn't move, it just hurt too bad. I simply sat there repeating, "I hurt my back". Eventually, my brain started working again, and I sat up straighter and then accepted help to stand. I carefully moved my arms, legs and head around. Then tried bending my back in different directions. It hurt, but it didn't seem like anything was broken, just a lot of muscle strain throughout my back. So, after a few minutes to finish calming down and finding ways to deal with the pain. I led Shadowfax back to the mounting block and Foxfire held my stirrup while I mounted.

Shadowfax stood very still and when I asked for a walk, went into a nice even walk. I walked him around for about 10 minutes, then decided that I had made my point of getting back on the horse that threw me, and carefully dismounted so as not to jar my back any further. One of SH's friends helped me untack Shadowfax, and we turned him loose in DASH's fenced yard. I went and lay down on DASH's couch and waited for Foxfire and everyone else to finish riding and socializing. I'd raided DASH's supply of ibuprofen, but I was still in a lot of pain. Not fun.

The next day, I was still in terrible pain all up my back and down my right leg, so I finally made an appointment with the chiropractor that DASH and Foxfire had been recommending even before I took my fall. I really hate going to doctors. I think that most of them are a waste of time and money, but I was hurt enough that I willing to give it a try. And, boy, am I glad I did. Turns out Dr P is actually a caring and COMPETENT doctor. After that first visit, my back was already feeling better, WITHOUT any useless, expensive pills.

I guess I should explain that I have idiosyncratic reactions to a lot of drugs. Most relevant to this situation, most pain meds don't really work for me. Hydrocodone/Vicodin, Tramadol/Ultram and most other pain pills have absolutely no effect that I can discern. Oxycodone/Percocet does reduce the pain, although it doesn't get rid of it entirely, but it also leaves me fuzzy headed and sleepy, and I hate feeling fuzzy headed. I sometimes envy my husband who can take one little Vicodin and be feeling no pain, whereas I can eat pain pills like candy and still hurt. Just another example of how life is not fair. Oh well...

Anyway, Dr P said that I was pretty messed up and that he would have to work through various layers of injury to get me back to normal. For example, that first day while I was laying on my back on his table, he asked me to bend my knees and draw my feet up to my hips and my right leg just wouldn't do it. I kept telling it to move and all it did was lay there and twitch. WEIRD feeling. I'd known that my right leg was hurt. I'd had trouble getting dressed, and I'd had to use my right hand to shift it from the accelerator to the brake as I was driving, but I hadn't realized how bad it was. However, I was now convinced that it wasn't just my back that was injured. Actually, it wasn't my spine that was injured, it was that I had dislocated quite a few ribs. Dr P did his best to put them all back into place and my back did begin to feel better almost immediately.

After the third visit, Dr P had pretty much convinced me that my tailbone was probably broken so I eventually went to an urgent care facility and got x-rays done. And yes, he was right. My tailbone was broken and is now healing at a slightly different angle than nature intended. The urgent care doctor (not as disagreeable as most) said that since it was just my tailbone, that there really wasn't any reason to try and straighten it out, especially since it had already had a week and a half to start healing in that position. Dr P seemed a little more concerned about my tailbone being out of place, but agreed that there was really nothing to be done about it at this point. I suppose I should have gone and gotten x-rays sooner. Oh well...

While I was at the urgent care facility, I went ahead and had them x-ray my left foot as well. About four and a half weeks earlier, Shadowfax had stepped on it and then a couple of days later Tessla stepped on it in almost the same place. And Tessla didn't just step on and off, he sort of dug in and then slid off the side. It had been bothering me ever since, but I really didn't think that anything was broken and it turned out I was right. No broken bones. However, because of the continuing pain and the numbness in a few of my toes, the urgent care dr said that there was probably tendon and nerve damage, and gave me this stupid plastic boot to wear. It was very awkward to move in, and so, after driving home in it, I took it off and didn't put it back on. The next day was my fourth visit with Dr P and he said that the last thing that I needed with my back and hip injured was a thick rigid boot throwing my body out of alignment. So, no more boot. Yay!

I'd previously told him about my foot being stepped on and now that he knew that there were no broken bones, he felt free to get a little rough in his manipulations. He said that though the bones weren't broken, they were obviously out of alignment and he needed to force them back into alignment so that they could heal properly. It hurt, but at this point I trust him to know what he's doing. (And I do NOT trust many doctors.) I think my toes are a little less numb now. It's hard to say for sure. But my foot still hurts. I guess it will take more than one adjustment to fix it.

So... anyway... that's the story of my first fall as an adult. (I'd fallen off once as a teenager, but I don't think that I was even bruised that time. It was a more controlled fall and I landed and rolled properly so that I wasn't hurt. And no, I didn't really ride when I was younger. I was simply out camping with some friends and hopped on a horse that belonged to one of the other kids and rode around bareback for a bit until the horse decided to jump a ditch and I fell off.) I really wish I knew what happened to make me come off Shadowfax. But since no one else was watching me and I don't have any memory of what led up to me flying over Shadowfax's shoulder, I guess I'll never know. Frustrating.

Purple Fingertips and Running Water

Texas has been unusually cold the past few days. Very unusually cold. Usually, we MAY get one or two days where the temp drops below freezing each winter, well we've now had over a week of temperatures below freezing including several days in a row where the temp never got ABOVE freezing. This is NOT something that we're used to. To begin with all the hose pipes that we use to water our critters froze solid and didn't even thaw out enough during the afternoon to let us fill up the water trough and buckets, so Foxfire and I would have to haul buckets full of water from the master bathroom out to the water trough and watering buckets. It certainly gave me a new appreciation of how people lived before electric pump houses and water on demand from a tap.

Okay, so we'd sort of gotten used to hauling water outside. We didn't like it, but we'd adjusted to doing it. But this morning we discovered that that was no longer an option. The pipes in our pump house had frozen and cracked and once things thawed out a bit, we had water running out of our pump house into our tank. Not the ideal way to fill your tank. And, of course, things finished thawing and cracking wide open right after I'd gotten into the shower and completely wetted down my hair prior to shampooing it. Fortunately, I hadn't actually put any shampoo in yet. I felt the water pressure suddenly drop then taper off to nothing and yelled for Foxfire to check and see what was wrong. He came back in yelling that there was water pouring out of our pump house. He ran out to try and turn the water off. I dried off somewhat, threw on some clothes and a hat (since my hair was wet and I didn't want it to freeze to my head) and went out to help him. Foxfire, not having grown up with a pump house, didn't know that you had to flip the breaker switches to turn the pump off and was frantically turning various faucet heads to try and stop the water. I reached over and, somewhat nervously, since I was standing in water, flipped the breakers. The pump shut down and finally the water stopped coming out.

We looked at the remains of our pipes. One elbow joint was completely broken into two pieces and a length of pipe next to it was badly cracked. We were both a bit stunned and tried to decide what to do. Obviously we could call a plumber and pay a lot of money and he would fix it. It would be very expensive and we didn't know how long it would take a plumber to get to us. I thought, looking at the pipes and thinking about SH who has talked about fixing his own broken pipes before, that maybe it was a simple enough repair that I could do it myself. Unfortunately, Foxfire could not stay and help because he had to go to the memorial service for the very close friend of his that had passed on a few days ago. Fortunately, he had showered before me and somehow the pipes had held together long enough for him to get clean. Apparently, the fates knew that he had to attend the service and arranged that he could make it. I suppose it wasn't as important to the universe at large that I attend. And I admit that I wasn't as close to this person, but I had wanted to be there for Foxfire. Ah well...

So... anyway, I called SH and asked about fixing broken pipes. He asked if they were metal or PVC and sounded relieved when I said PVC. He told me that PVC was easy to fix and gave me detailed instructions on what I needed to do. I thanked him for his advice and went to work. First I used a little hacksaw to cut off the broken pieces, then I brought the broken pieces to Home Depot to make sure I got the right sizes. I bought the stuff I needed and then went home. Unfortunately, the very first thing I tried to do didn't quite work. One of the pieces that needed to be replaced was actually screwed into a metal pipe and there was a specific PVC adapter piece that screwed in on one side and attached to the PVC on the other side. Well, the piece I had wouldn't screw in properly. I thought maybe there are different types of screw threads and I bought one with the wrong type of threads. So I went back to Home Depot. No, there are NOT different types of screw threads, they are all the same. Okay, maybe I simply had a defective piece. Since that particular piece was only about $0.35, I bought two more (just in case there was another defective one) and went back home. Well, guess what... neither of these pieces worked any better. I thought maybe something was gunking up the the threads in the metal pipe, so I used my fingers and a paper towel to clean it out as best I could. I also screwed the broken piece back in and out a few times to make sure nothing was blocking the threads. But, nope, the replacement piece still wouldn't screw in properly. Finally I just wrapped a major amount of silicone tape (the stuff you use to make sure stuff that screws together doesn't leak) around the screw threads and forced it in there. It was sort of crooked, but it seemed like it would work.

I then proceeded to prime, cement and connect the various replacement pipe bits. I got it all together, waited a few minutes while I sort of cleaned up and put away the various tools that I used, then turned the pump back on. The good news is that the pieces that I'd fixed didn't leak. The bad news is that a piece next to the pieces that I had fixed apparently had a hairline crack along its bottom for almost its entire length. I turned the water back off. Looked at what I would have to do to fix that section, sighed a big sigh, cut off the elbow joint that I had just fixed and the entire length of the cracked pipe with the elbow joint at the other end, and went back to Home Depot... again. I brought the cracked piece with me for reference, and the nice man working the plumbing section cut a piece of PVC the exact length that I would need. I'd asked if he would cut it for two reasons. One, it would make it easier to fit in the van, and two, even with the handy dandy PVC cutting tool that the nice man had recommended I buy the first time I went in(much faster than using a hacksaw, especially in confined spaces, and it leaves a cleaner edge), cutting PVC is hard, and it hurt my hand to have to exert so much pressure. I also grabbed a couple of more elbow joints and went home, hoping that this would be my last visit to Home Depot for the day.

I primed, cemented and connected the PVC much faster this time, having by now gotten the hang of it. I waited a bit for things to dry and seal and crossing my fingers and my toes, turned the pump back on. I watched... closely ... to see if any water leaked out anywhere. It was sort of hard to be absolutely sure since the area was soaked and new water wouldn't be immediately obvious, but as far as I could tell nothing was leaking. I kept watching... just to be sure. After a few minutes, I finally relaxed and decided that I had done it right and everything was holding together. I put the new insulation that I bought around the pipes that I fixed, and went inside and turned on the kitchen faucet. Yay!!! Water on demand!!! My fingertips were purple from the PVC primer, but I had running water.

Second trail ride

A few days ago, Foxfire and I went for a second trail ride around the neighborhood. The pasture was (and is) still too muddy for riding, and also, Ziggy seems more accepting of Shadowfax when they are away from the donkeys. Shadowfax did quite well again. Still very looky, but paying more attention to me. There was only one time when he had a little problem. Foxfire had ridden Ziggy fairly far ahead and turned a corner. Once Ziggy was out of sight, Shadowfax got somewhat nervous and started prancing. I tried to calm him back down to a walk, but he wouldn't calm very easily. I tried letting the reins out just a little to let him trot to catch up, but he gathered himself like he was going to go into a canter, so I pulled him back. (I do not want him cantering over asphalt.) I thought about just working through it, but we were coming up on a section of the road that slopes somewhat steeply down to a bridge and I didn't want him to be prancing down that slope. Shadowfax apparently doesn't have much experience with going up and down hills and I was afraid he might lose his balance or something, so I called Foxfire to bring Ziggy back. As soon as Ziggy was back in sight and relatively close, Shadowfax calmed right down and went back to walking.

We finished the ride back in our front yard, and I let Foxfire ride Shadowfax for the first time. He walked, trotted and very briefly cantered him up and down the long side of our property (we live on a corner). Shadow did do a little buck when Foxfire asked him to canter, but otherwise did pretty well. However, I think he really is the kind of horse that would prefer to have just one person riding him. He seems to behave better for me than for either Foxfire or JJ. (JJ said so herself when she went with me to evaluate him before buying him. And she is not the type to say things she doesn't mean.)

Anyway, that's all for now. Foxfire lost a very close friend today and I'm trying to help him deal with the pain. Right now, he's sitting next to me on his computer chatting with other friends, so I figured I would simply write a short post so that I had a reason to sit next to him. I hope that I can give him what he needs.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve started out very nicely. SH offered to trailer our horses over to their arena so that he and Foxfire could practice their jousting and I could ride Shadowfax around. Unfortunately, it was very windy. VERY WINDY! A front was coming through and all the horses were a little antsy. I had to ask for Foxfire's help in bridling Shadowfax. I think part of the problem is simply that the bit is longer than my hand and parts of it dangle over the edges so I have trouble holding it properly to put it in Shadowfax's mouth. I'll have to work on that. However, he stood still while I was mounting, and once I was in the saddle he did very well. Even with the intense wind. DA wasn't there because she had to work, so I had a little more room to ride around without running into anyone. I did a bit more trotting than I did previously, but I still didn't canter him simply because it was so windy and even though he was behaving well, he was still just a little antsy.

I did however, practice on the "heads course" that is set up semi-permanently in part of DASH's arena. It's sort of like Western pole-bending in that you have to weave in and out of the poles. But when you run the heads course you have a "sword"(not a real sword) in your hand and there are "heads"(not real heads, of course) on the poles that you try to whack with your sword as you go past. I didn't have a sword (and didn't want one at this point) so I just practiced weaving in and out of the poles at a walk. I would only go down the course once or twice then go back to riding around doing other things because I didn't want Shadowfax to figure the course out and do it automatically. Why not? Because guiding him through it was good practice for me to learn how to give more subtle and accurate direction cues. However, even without doing it a number of times in a row, Shadowfax still seemed to get the idea of what we were trying to do and I eventually had to do a lot less work to steer him through the course at a walk. Of course, maybe my steering was improving as well. That would be nice.

Eventually, after I had done some trotting around in the dressage area of the arena, I decided to try trotting the heads course. The first time I tried it, I missed a turn and went around two poles in a row instead of weaving between each one. I went back to riding around the arena, did a little more trotting around the dressage area, then gave it another go. That time I did it properly! I made every turn even at the trot. It wasn't a very fast trot and I had to push Shadowfax to keep him in a trot for the last pole, but I did it! I did a little more general riding. Watched Foxfire and SH practicing some different jousting stuff, then tried it again. I did it again! It wasn't just a fluke. And this time, I didn't have to push Shadowfax to keep him in a trot. Unfortunately, the boys were focusing on their own stuff and didn't see me either time. Oh well. I know that I did it.

Sadly, after bringing the horses home, the rest of the evening didn't go so well. It wasn't the fireworks. When people near our house starting shooting off fireworks, we went outside to check on the horses and they didn't even seem to notice the bangs. They would occasionally twitch their ears, but that was it. So that was good. However, later in the evening, while Foxfire and I were having our own little private party, we heard a crash from the pasture area. By the time Foxfire had gotten his clothes on and run outside, all he saw were some drunk idiots climbing back over the back fence into the woods by the creek while the horses and donkeys were running around frantically. I made it out shortly after him and heard the idiots thrashing around in the brush, but didn't see them. I ran back inside and grabbed a pocketful of treats then came back out and called the horses and donkeys over and gave them treats. They calmed down pretty well. At least they weren't running frantically around anymore, but they were still very nervous and kept looking toward the creek where we would still hear the occasional noise of drunk idiots trying to get through the brush. A couple of them made it back to the fence and tried to climb back over into the pasture. I ran toward them and yelled that they had better stay out of the pasture or they would get hurt. They stopped trying to climb the fence and Foxfire yelled at them to get off of our property. Some idiot yelled that they weren't on our property since they were outside the fence and Foxfire yelled back that our property extends to the middle of the creek. They shut up and we could hear them making their way back through the brush towards our neighbors' house.

The neighbors were, of course, having a huge out of control party. Our neighbors are actually very nice and in a way, it wasn't them having the party. They were out of town, but their older daughter who does not live with them was house-sitting or something and had decided to throw a wild party. I stayed with the critters while Foxfire walked around the perimeter of the fence to check for damage. It was good thing he did, because he discovered that someone had obviously scared one of our horses badly enough to make him crash through the front gate into the front yard. The chain holding the gate closed was broken and that gate itself was bent badly out of shape and would no longer close properly. Fortunately, whichever horse had crashed through had obviously come back into the pasture. And even when looking over them closely by flashlight, neither Foxfire nor I could find any scrapes or cuts to indicate which horse did it. Neither horse seemed to be in any pain, and since there were no longer people thrashing around in the brush near the fence, they were considerably calmer. We left them in the area near the barn and Foxfire and I managed to force the gate sort of back into position. We had some chain and a double snap in the garage and I made a temporary fix to hold the gate closed.

After we had things as secure as we could make them. I went inside and tried to call our neighbor to complain and hopefully persuade them to calm the party down and make sure none of their guests invaded our property and scared our horses anymore. I thought about calling the police, but they had been very good neighbors up until this point, so I wanted to try talking to them first. However, their phone was apparently disconnected, so I walked over to their front door instead. As I was walking toward their house, the cops started showing up, and I admit, I was VERY GLAD that someone had called them. At the front door, they originally refused to open the door because they had seen the cops flashing lights, but when I banged on the door and yelled that I was their neighbor and needed to talk to them, the daughter finally opened the door. She admitted that her parents weren't there and about then, the cops stepped up and asked me to move so that they could take care of things. I left it in their hands and went back to stand with Foxfire in the freezing cold to help keep the critters calm and guard them from any other drunks.

Very slowly, the cops managed to get rid of most of the people from the party. Anytime anyone even came close to our fence, I would shine the flashlight at them and tell them to keep back. Most people were actually pretty nice about it and apologized and wished us a happy new year. The few jerks who yelled obscenities at us were approached by the police and taken away. Yay police!!! I had earlier told the police about the horses being freaked out and asked them to avoid using their sirens if possible and they actually didn't for the most part. I suppose they had to every once in a while to get rid of the real trouble-makers. Anyway, Foxfire and I stayed out most of the night guarding the critters. Once in a while one of us would go inside to warm up, but we didn't go to bed until almost all the cars that had been parked along the road (and in our yard) were gone. The ones that were left probably belonged to those who had been arrested or were too drunk to drive and had gotten rides with others. Finally about 5 AM, we felt comfortable enough to go inside. We left all of the outside lights on.

The next day while I was in the yard communing with the horses, the neighbors' daughter and her boyfriend came over to the fence and apologized. I believe it was sincere. But I will definitely be talking to her parents when they are back in town, and if we can't fix the gate, I will be asking her (or more likely her parents) to pay to replace it.

But all the critters seem to be fine. Even in the daylight, we couldn't find any cuts, scrapes or signs of injury. One of the horses is probably bruised, but there is no way to tell which one. No one seems to be in any pain and everyone is calm. So everything worked out okay, but needless to say, Foxfire and I were VERY UPSET. What a horrible way to begin the new year.

Riding in the GA Memorial arena

Yesterday, our friend SH kindly offered to trailer Ziggy and Shadowfax over to his and DA's place (DA and SH are married and I've decided to refer to them jointly as DASH) so that we could ride in their arena. SH and Foxfire practiced tilting at the quintain while DA practiced some dressage and I just rode around getting used to my new horse.

A picture of the GA Memorial Arena from the day of its dedication. It's sort of an "L" shaped arena with a full length dressage arena on the long leg of the "L" and a short dressage arena on the short leg of the "L". It usually also has various SCA stuff set up in it.

Shadowfax was pretty mellow about the whole experience. When we first got there, I led him around to let him meet the other horses and most importantly the llama. Some horses have totally freaked about the llama. Shadowfax just sort of did a horsey version of a double take then wandered over to sniff noses with the other horses who were much friendlier than Ziggy was when they first met, and apparently much more interesting than the llama. Then SH let his dog, Archie out. Archie went zipping past Shadowfax and Shadowfax didn't even seem to notice. When Archie started chasing the guineas around and they started making a fuss, Shadowfax looked over to see what the fuss was about then went back to grazing. However, at one point when I was hand-grazing him while waiting for a spot to tie up so I could groom and tack Shadowfax, something in the grass spooked him. He just suddenly jumped and sort of twisted sideways, then stared at a spot in the grass for a second. I quickly led him away from that area, although he had already calmed down and started looking for more grass. I have no idea what spooked him. I certainly didn't see anything. But even as he spooked, he sort of twisted sideways so that he didn't run into me, so that was good.

Once Foxfire had finished grooming and tacking up Ziggy, I took his spot at the trailer. Here Shadowfax sort of disappointed me. He simply wouldn't stand still while I was grooming him. He didn't try to run off, he just kept shifting from side to side and looking around and stuff. I suppose I can't blame him too much. He was in a new place with lots of new horses and other animals running around. But it was a bit frustrating. He was, however, a perfect gentleman when it came time to pick out his hooves. For that, he stood still. Yay!!!

Once I got him tacked up and led him out to the arena, we had one bad moment when he started walking off when I was only halfway into the saddle. I managed to pull myself the rest of the way into the saddle as he was walking and then made him stop for a moment as I settled myself in. Again, I blame it on the excitement of all the other horses already running around and doing stuff in the arena, but it is something that we need to work on. Simply giving him more experience will probably help. Once I was in the saddle, he did really well. When I asked for a walk, I got a walk, when I asked for more energetic walk, I got a more energetic walk. When I asked for trot, I got trot. When I asked for stop, he stopped. And he went where I asked him to go. I didn't ask him to canter for a couple of reasons. First, the footing was a lot deeper than he was used to and I could sort of feel him struggling just a little bit with it. (He is rather out of shape. As am I.) And second, there were a couple of guys cantering around with really long lances, hitting this shield thing that would make a loud bang then spin around with this bag of sand swinging out on the other end.

An illustration of a quintain.

Shadowfax barely even noticed it, as far as I could tell. The main problem was just staying out of the other riders's ways when they began their runs at the quintain. I was also trying to stay out of DA's way who was actually working on some dressage stuff, since I wasn't actually trying to do any "real" riding. Mainly, I was just working on bonding with my new horse, letting each of us get used to each others signals and responses, exposing Shadowfax to some new experiences, and just spending some time in the saddle. When the guys were taking a break from running at the quintain, I led Shadowfax up to it. He just looked at it for a second then tried to lick the sand bag. He likes to lick things. He licks the sides of his stall after he's done eating. Every once in a while he'll chew on the wood, but mainly he just licks it. He also licks the donkeys. Well, he licks Tessla, the other two tend to move away, but Tessla will just stand there letting Shadowfax lick him. Strange.

After we were done riding, Shadowfax was much calmer while I was untacking him. However, when I was almost done, he starting backing away from the trailer and standing at the very end of the lead. I'd urge him forward and he'd take a few steps forward, then he'd back up again. I couldn't figure it out at the time, but in retrospect, it was when Foxfire had led Ziggy into the area. I think Shadowfax was worried about being trapped against the trailer if Ziggy went after him. I wish I'd figured it out at the time and spared my poor horse the anxiety, but I'll know better next time. BTW, Ziggy is gradually becoming more tolerant of Shadowfax, but they are still a long way away from being buddies.

I also figured out, too late,(or rather DA figured it out,) that we were loading Shadowfax in DASH's slant load trailer in a way he wasn't used to. When the previous owner had kindly trailered him to my house, she used a straight load trailer with an escape door. So I'd led Shadowfax in and gone out the escape door. I thought that was the only way he knew how to to trailer. So when we went to load Shadowfax in DASH's trailer I tried to lead him in through the rather narrow entrance of the slant load, and he wouldn't go in. Someone had to give just a tiny push to his rear to get him to follow me in. After we loaded him the second time to bring him back to our house, we finally guessed that he was probably used to the "point and shoot" method of being loaded into a slant load. That me standing in the doorway, trying to lead him in just confused him. Next time we trailer with DASH, I'll stand to the side, toss the lead over his neck, pat him on his rump and see if he goes in on his own. I'm betting he will.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day, and I really appreciate DASH inviting us over and trailering our horses for us.

First ride at home

Okay, I'm behind on my posts again. It's the holidays. Everything's chaotic. As you can see in the title, I was finally able to ride my new horse at home. But first I want to give a brief summary of the past few days. Basically, because of Ziggy's animosity towards Shadowfax, the only way that I've been able to spend any time with my horse was to go out into the field wait until the donkeys came over and Ziggy chased Shadowfax away, then walk into the goat pen with the donkeys following me, then walk out of the goat pen locking the donkeys in. Ziggy would stay by the goat pen and I could go halter my horse and lead him into the backyard area and groom him and love on him. Even in the backyard, which is fenced off from the rest of the pasture, Shadowfax still kept a watchful eye on Ziggy. Because of this I wasn't willing to risk trying to ride Shadowfax alone.

On either Monday or Tuesday, Foxfire came home from work for a couple of hours around 2pm.(They let him out for a few hours because they were going to keep him till midnight that day.) And with Foxfire haltering and leading Ziggy, we managed to take Ziggy and Shadowfax for a walk in-hand around the neighborhood. Outside of the pasture, Ziggy was more tolerant of Shadowfax, but he still wasn't ready to accept him as a herd mate. However, when we would pause and let them sniff noses, all Ziggy did was pin his ears, no snapping and no dramatics. That was hopeful. Of course, once we turned them loose back in the pasture, Ziggy went all herd-protector again. Not nearly as dramatic as the first time, but he still wouldn't let Shadowfax anywhere near the donkeys.

And then of course, the past couple of days have been Christmas eve and Christmas day and with all the family obligations and stuff, there just wasn't much time to spend with the horses.

But finally, today, Foxfire is off work, Ziggy has continued to mellow towards Shadowfax to the point that they can now eat off of the same round bale -- as long as they are on opposite sides -- and Foxfire and I decided to try and take both horses on a trail ride around the neighborhood.

It went great! Outside of the pasture, without the donkeys around, Ziggy was actually quite tolerant of Shadowfax. He didn't even pin his ears that I noticed. And although Shadowfax was quite looky. He paid attention to me and didn't spook at anything. Cars went by and he barely looked at them. Screaming kids playing ball in their yard, he just flicked an ear at. Even a bunch of teenagers riding around on ATV's didn't bother him. He looked, but that was it. The only time he had a noticeable reaction to anything was when a big dog ran barking along the fence at him. His gait became a bit uneven as he tried to keep an eye and/or an ear toward the dog. He didn't try to stop or bolt or even go in another direction. His gaits just became a little uneven while we were passing the dog. Considering that Shadowfax has had little, if any, trail riding experience outside of a pasture, he did extremely well.

It's finally beginning to sink in that I actually have my own horse. Grooming him, picking out his feet (Did I mention how GOOD he is about having his feet worked with!!!), saddling him and bridling him all on my own, then riding him around the neighborhood has started making it real to me. It's still not completely real. That may take a while. I never, NEVER, believed that I might actually end up with a dapple gray Andalusian, which has been my dream horse since I first saw one of those Spanish Riding School shows in junior high. (And yes, it was the Andalusians that I was drawn to, NOT the Lipizzaners.)

Unfortunately, I still don't have any pictures, because Foxfire was busy riding Ziggy. But sooner or later, I WILL get a picture of me riding my new horse.

I GOT A HORSE!!! I GOT A HORSE!!! I GOT A HORSE!!!

After searching for over a year, I actually found and was able to buy (barely) my dream horse. He's an eight year old, 16.2 hand, dapple gray Andalusian gelding.

JJ kindly agreed to give Shadowfax a test ride when I asked for her opinion before buying him. I didn't have anyone to take pictures when I was riding him, but JJ said that I looked good on him.

I can't believe that I actually found an Andalusian that I could afford that was healthy, sound and sane. He even has dressage training. Okay, he doesn't have the best conformation, and he has a little arthritis in his hocks, and yes, he is young to already have arthritic changes. But he is still sound enough for what I want to do according to the vet, and should remain that way for many years with proper maintenance. He is also still somewhat inexperienced since after being started under saddle and ridden for a couple of years, he was then put out to pasture and had nothing done with him for about two years. But after being back under saddle for only a little over a month, he was easy and comfortable for me to ride. He's a little lazy, but that might get better with more consistent riding. I didn't have any trouble getting him to trot and canter, though I did have a little trouble keeping him cantering. But just a little extra push with my outside leg and inside hip kept him going. Considering that I'm still learning how to canter myself and that I am just coming back from several months off of riding because of my surgery, it's a pretty good sign that I was able to ride him that easily.

His registered name is Mi Romeo, but neither Foxfire nor I really wanted to call him Romeo so I was trying to come up with another name for him. I was out in the pasture with him and suddenly realized that I had just called him Shadow. So I asked, "Is Shadow your name?" and he walked toward me. Of course any time he hears my voice, he walks toward me(Yes, he already comes to me any time I go out in the pasture. He really WAS meant for me.) But Foxfire liked the name Shadow, so we tentatively started calling him Shadow. However, we already have a cat named Shadow and I also wanted a name with a little more distinction for my horse, so after thinking about it for a while, I decided that I would call him Shadowfax. I know it's a bit presumptuous to name him after Gandalf's stallion in Lord of the Rings, but he is an Andalusian, which is the breed of horse they used for Shadowfax in the movie. And it just seems like the right name for him.

I admit that I'm still a little nervous about having spent so much on a horse. But even though he is not perfect (no horse is), I think he is the right horse for me. I'm still sort of getting used to the idea of having my own horse. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. Maybe once I get a chance to ride him here it will finally sink in. I haven't been able to ride him at home yet because my husband's very mild mannered horse, Ziggy, has turned into a fire-breathing herd protector. Ziggy will not let Shadowfax anywhere near HIS donkeys. The problem is the donkeys (and Ziggy to some extent) are used to coming up to me anytime I go into the pasture in order to get petted and scritched. So anytime I go out in the pasture to try and spend time with Shadowfax, the donkeys and Ziggy come over and chase Shadowfax away. I can't put Ziggy in his stall because when we tried to do that, Ziggy went absolutely balistic and started charging his stall door. We were afraid that he'd hurt himself (and destroy the stall) so we had to let him out.

Foxfire and I have tried several different things to get Ziggy to accept Shadowfax. It's not like we just turned everyone loose in the pasture together. When we brought Shadowfax home, we had Ziggy in his stall and the donkeys and goats in the goat pen. We led Shadowfax around the property and let him see and smell everything. (BTW, Shadowfax behaved very well throughout everything. He was curious and looking around, but not nervous or aggressive.) Then I led Shadowfax up to Ziggy's stall to let them sniff noses. And that's when the drama began. Ziggy took one sniff then snapped at Shadowfax. Shadowfax naturally stepped back, but that's all he did. He didn't snap back or get excited, he just got out of reach of Ziggy. I waited a few seconds and let Ziggy just look at Shadowfax and when he seemed calmer, I led Shadowfax up to him again. Again Ziggy snapped at him. So I decided to leave Ziggy alone for a bit and led Shadowfax over to the goat pen and let him sniff noses with the donkeys through the fence. Tessla, of course, immediately came over and said, "Hi". After seeing Tessla interacting safely with the big gray horse, Kanny and eventually Marie came over and they all sniffed noses. Shadowfax actually seemed to like the donkeys. Maybe he just appreciated that they weren't pinning their ears and snapping at him.

When Shadowfax seemed to lose interest in sniffing the donkeys, I let him wander around a bit on his own. I was still holding his lead rope, but I let him go where he wanted to. He soon found the water trough and took a long drink. After that I decided to try Ziggy again. Same result. Foxfire thought that maybe Ziggy would be friendlier if he weren't stuck in his stall, so I led Shadowfax a good distance away, and Foxfire haltered Ziggy and led him out. We carefully led the two horses closer to let them sniff noses again. This time Ziggy not only snapped at Shadowfax, he reared up a little and sort of thrashed his front hooves at him, accidentally racking Foxfire in the process. Foxfire was okay, just not real happy. Shadowfax remained surprisingly calm and just stepped back out of reach. Foxfire backed Ziggy up and I kept Shadowfax at a bit of a distance and we just let the horses look at each other for a while. Then very carefully we again let them get closer. Again Ziggy displayed very aggressive behavior. Ziggy wasn't actually biting or kicking Shadowfax, but he was putting on one hell of a threat display. We, Foxfire, the previous owner, her trainer and I, finally decided that the two horses would have to just work it out themselves. So I took Shadowfax to one end of the pasture and Foxfire took Ziggy to the other end and we turned them loose.

Shadowfax immediately trotted towards Ziggy who was standing by the goat pen with the donkeys in it. Ziggy charged at Shadowfax and chased him away. As soon as Shadowfax was a good distance away from the donkeys in the goat pen, Ziggy stopped chasing him and went back to the donkeys. This pattern repeated itself several times during which we figured out that Ziggy apparently saw Shadowfax as a threat to his herd (the donkeys). Poor Shadowfax just wanted to join the herd, but Ziggy absolutely refused to let him near. Since Ziggy was behaving so aggressively, we decided to just leave the donkeys and the goats in the pen for a while and see if in a few hours things had calmed down. Watching Ziggy behaving so aggressively was actually pretty frightening. He'd always been such a non-dominant horse before, but now his behavior was really scary. I'll repeat that neither Ziggy when he was attacking nor Shadowfax when he defended himself actually bit or kicked the other horse. It was just a lot of really aggressive display. But even though no one was actually getting hurt. It was distressing to watch.

Unfortunately, even hours later, Ziggy was still chasing Shadowfax away from the goat pen any time he came near. However, both horses were completely lathered and probably exhausted, and the chases were getting shorter and less intense, so we decided to try feeding everyone since it was about time for their evening meal. Shadowfax was quite willing to go into his new stall to get fed and enthusiastically gobbled up his grain. Ziggy had to be haltered and led into his stall and after taking only a few bites started pacing his stall, pinning his ears at Shadowfax in the stall next to him, snaking his head around the stall wall and snapping at Shadowfax. He even started charging his stall gate. At this point, because we were afraid that Ziggy would hurt himself, we had to let him out of his stall. He ran over and checked on the donkeys, then started charging at Shadowfax's stall. Foxfire and I would clap and yell at him and make him turn away, but it was still frightening Shadowfax. For the first time, Shadowfax started displaying nervous behavior. Completely understandably. Foxfire managed to chase Ziggy far enough off so that I could let Shadowfax out of his stall. Once Shadowfax was out of his stall he calmed down. However, Ziggy would still chase him away any time he came near his little herd. Poor Shadowfax.

Once it got completely dark, things seemed to settle down a bit. Every once in a while, Shadowfax would ease up toward the herd and Ziggy would chase him away, but things weren't nearly as dramatic. Since Ziggy hadn't finished his grain which is a very bad thing because he has a history of ulcers, I led Shadowfax into the goat pen and stayed with him so that Foxfire could bring Ziggy's feed bucket to where he was standing with the donkeys and encourage him to eat. Ziggy eventually finished most of his grain, and I let Shadowfax back out. Foxfire and I finally got our own dinner and settled down to watch some tv. But we would go outside every once in a while to check on everyone. Ziggy still wouldn't let Shadowfax join his herd, but at least there were no more big dramatic chases.

Anyway, that was the first day of having my new horse. Which was Sunday, by the way, I'm a little behind in posting this entry. I'll try to post what went on on Monday and today either later tonight or more likely tomorrow.