First, I had another and hopefully final surgery on my arm. It was to remove all of the hardware out of my elbow, so all I have left is a plate and some screws in my wrist. It's made a huge difference, before the surgery my arm was in pain every day and I had to be extremely careful about what I did not to make it worse. Now, just over a month after, I have no pain. The only problem is, I'm not allowed to ride or really, work with horses for three months. I have a lot of holes in my arm where the hardware was removed so if I were to fall or anything, my arm is more vulnerable to breaking. So that sucks, it means I basically get to lead the horses and groom them. At least it's something though.
Okay, on to the updates.
Socks
Socks got some fancy new gear from my Christmas money. It was a big deal, I'm crazy about replacing gear. Especially her bridle. My dad gave me her bridle almost ten years ago, and it was the first new piece of tack I'd ever owned and it was the only thing in the barn that didn't get shared among all the horses. It was just Socks' bridle and I was overly attached to it. It was really old though, and falling apart so it was time. She now has a matching bridle and chest strap, with a new pair of leather reins.
This is mostly what's been going on with Socks lately. About a month ago, right after my surgery, we got a call from our barn owners. We're not sure what exactly happened, but the conclusion we've all come to is that she slipped and fell on the ice, slicing her knee open. It's a pretty decent gash, but luckily my barn owners saw it almost right away, and brought her in, cleaned it up and wrapped it. She was on stall rest for a few weeks just to keep her from running around on it, and she's been in a turnout pen now, for the same reasons.
She hasn't had a lame step, which is a relief, we're just being careful so that it can heal properly. She's been enjoying all of the extra attention.
Jimmy
Jimmy's been good, I have to admit he hasn't gotten as much attention this winter as I would have liked. Let's just say he's had a lot of time off, and while I don't think he minded, he seems to enjoy that it's over now. I don't have much to say about him, he's been good to ride. We had him on the lunge line yesterday and he was an idiot. He even bucked, which was a first for him, but he did calm down after a while.
Right now we're just slowly going to bring him back into shape, and hopefully this summer he and I will start seriously working on barrel racing.
Artemis
She's the reason the other two didn't get worked as much this winter. Since finding out I wouldn't be able to ride for three months, my main focus was getting Artemis as far along as I could so she'd be alright for my mom to ride her. She's been absolutely amazing, seriously, she's not your typical two-year-old. She hasn't had a single explosion or freak out.
When she gets scared, she doesn't panic, she might trot a few steps but then she stops. We can walk, trot and lope around the arena with no problems. She's perfect at backing up and stopping. She's learned how to move off of my leg, though I can't say she does it every time. She's really good with other horses in the arena, though she doesn't understand why other horses get to pass her. She's had quite a few chances to explode, like when a rider decided to pass between us and the wall, at a trot, even though Artemis and I had about six inches between us and the wall. All she did was lay her ears back and move over before the 16+ hh horse nearly ran us over.
She's the same height as her mother now, and probably going to grow some more. My mom's been riding her since my surgery and Artemis has been great with her too. She gets ridden about once a week, sometimes twice, with mostly walking, and then a little bit of trotting, and every few rides or so we add in some loping. We're trying to take it slow with her, and give her plenty of time off still.
This summer, once I can ride again, the plan is to get her out in the outdoor arena and then out in the fields for some rides. I'd been hoping to get her out in the hay field this winter, but we had such a bad winter, it was always either too cold or the snow was too deep.
That's all for now, enough with the updates, the next posts will be real, I promise. All of the outdoor pictures were taken earlier this week, and even more snow has fallen since then. This winter is never ending. The weatherman keeps saying the temperature is going to be +10, +12, they've even gone as far as to promise us it'll get up to +17. It hasn't come close, I think the highest it's been is +6, but with the wind, it's been well below 0 every day.
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