The Big Two-Oh

 Phantom turned 20 years old on Sunday!

How it started:

The ponies celebrated the occasion with a couple of dishes of carrots that were next to a 4' tall unicorn balloon. Phantom, much like me, was far more interested in birthday cake (carrots) than the party decor.

 

 

Cisco, who will always be the life of the party, really liked the unicorn. Maybe he recognized it as one of his brethren. 

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He really wanted to play with Phantom in the arena, but since she is now officially a cranky old lady, she wanted nothing to do with him. It was also still really smokey out so I also didn't want him running around.

Once the cake was eaten and many photos were taken, the ponies went back to the barn so that we could get back to our regular routine.

How it ended:

All the excitement from the party seemed to have gone to Cisco's head. I popped the Flexineb on him and took him outside for a walk while it worked its magic. 

I have no idea what set him off, but we were barely out of the barn when he started calling to someone. Which he continued to do for the next five minutes while I chatted with someone in the parking lot. He was trying real hard to be all big and bad, but it was really hard to take him seriously while he was calling with his squealy whinny that was getting muffled by the nebulizer.

He was an absolute twit to walk, including one time when he thought about scooting off with a snakey neck. I almost went back to the barn to grab a chain lead, but carried on, and he eventually (after many stop and back-ups) he got the message and chilled out.

Phantom came in and picked at her food (totally normal these days). She ate the few alfalfa cubes that I added to her regular ration balancer, and left almost all of the ration balancer. I had to add some oats to it and she ate almost all of it, but not quite. No worries, Cisco would get a second supper.

I took her on our nebulizing walk outside. We took a slightly different path than normal. There suddenly appeared a gopher hole in Phantom's path that I had to make a split decision about - move her out of the way, or, because the hole was only a couple of inches wide, let her continue on the path because she obviously wouldn't be able to stick her foot in that small hole. I chose that one. 

However, I forgot that Phantom will always put her foot into the hole I want her to avoid. 

Sure enough, she stepped onto the hole with a hind leg. The hold must have collapsed, she of course panicked, and in flailing about she stomped on my foot. Hard.

It looks worse than it feels. Still not sure if the nail will survive though.

 

She also managed to scrape about 4 inches of hair off the front of that leg.

Really, it's just a scrape. A two-day old scrape in this pic.

 

 Cue big guilt on my part.

I think she held a bit of a grudge as when I turned her back out she ran away from me and wouldn't let me catch her to put her fly mask back on. 

While this was happening, Cisco was standing at the gate waiting for me to give him the feed dish with the remainder of Phantom's food in it that was on the ground just outside the paddock. His hopes for second dinner were dashed by the goat that always slips through the fence and had eaten everything before I got Phantom's mask on. 

Let's hope Cisco's birthday in July is much less exciting.

The Air Hurts My Face - Summer Edition

Called it.

Although we had a couple of days of rain at the beginning of last week, it wasn't enough to extinguish the wildfires that are burning through much of the northwest part of the province. 

This week, the winds changed, and the smoke from those fires has moved throughout the rest of the province. 

The air quality over the week has been hit or miss, with most mornings being poor but getting better through the day as the wind continued to blow. This weekend, though, it got significantly worse, and settled in.

Friday started off a bit hazy and got worse as the day progressed. By mid-afternoon the haze blocked out the sun, so although the temperature was 27 celsius it felt much cooler. 

The view at the barn on Friday evening.

I woke up in the wee hours of Saturday morning and checked my air quality app. The area was solidly in the purple hazardous zone. And it stayed like that all day. 

Saturday night. 300 is considered hazardous. The horses live a bit north of that 449 in the top right corner.

This is not good for anyone that needs to be outside, human or other creature. 

I'm definitely not regretting that purchase of the Flexineb last year!

Those trees in the background are usually easy to see. 

Here's a Facebook live session where they talk about horses and smoke inhalation. It's probably the best information that I've found so far with some specifics regarding time and treatment.

So far, my horses aren't showing any negative symptoms from the smoke exposure. They live out 24/7. and are pretty chill so don't run around too much to increase their respiration. I'm trying to wet their hay as much as I can, and have added Vitamin E to their diet (if Phantom continues to eat it. We'll see.).

They'll get nebulized with saline every day for a while. At the moment, the only hand walking I'm doing is while nebulizing so that they inhale deeper. Once things start to clear up we will very slowly start our way back to proper exercise again. 

I wore an N95 mask for the couple of hours that I was at the barn on Saturday. It made it bearable to be outside and did a good job of keeping out the ashtray smell. 

We're expecting more rain again early this week, and with that an improvement in the air quality. I fear that it might be up and down for quite a while though and it will be tough to get the horses back into a regular program.

It looks like we're going to have solid lateral work at the walk by the end of summer!

Stretchy

Something that I've changed with my pre-ride routine for Cisco is to use the Surefoot Pads before I hop on. For the last few weeks I've taken the bag that holds a couple of sets of the pads over the arena with us and given Cisco the opportunity to stand on them.

At first, I was hoping to use them as a way to get him to relax in the scary end of the arena, but since that end hasn't really been scary for a while I'm using them in the hopes that he will be more willing to stretch down much earlier under saddle. 

I try to keep it simple - stand on pads all round, then a double stack under each foot, one at a time. Cisco would prefer that he be allowed to stand on them a whole lot longer, but as it adds - 10-15 minutes to my ride I have to end it before he is ready.

It's a bit hard to see, but he's standing on a doubled set of pads under his left front here. 

It is working though! At a walk he is stretching right down on a loose rein, and is much more willing to do so at a trot. 

Walk

Trot

Canter (which had moments where he felt like a reining horse but didn't look that way in the video)

We're in the building stage - building strength and fitness. When he's not strong, Cisco's very wiggly and crooked. So, although we're not doing a ton at the moment, I've been adding some simple but difficult things, like transitions in shoulder-fore. counter-canter, and upping the lateral work. Nothing crazy, just lots of small moments that will hopefully build up.

Lots of cookies for trying hard.

Now, I just need to try to ride consistently! 

Too Close For Comfort

Shit's getting real.

We've had record-breaking temperatures this week. July temperatures in the first week of May.

The fires that were about an hour and a half away from my area? They're now happening really close to home. 

This evening a barn that I used to board at was evacuated. They're 30 minutes from me. That area has a lot of stables in it, not to mention people that have horses in their backyards. The county is one of the most-highly horse populated areas in the country. 

Thankfully, due to the incredible horse community in this area, they were able to evacuate 60 horses in two hours. Other barns are on standby, clear for the moment but ready to go should the winds change. The Facebook groups are full of people ready to head out with their trailers to pick up horses or other livestock or offering a place to bring them to.

The area that my horses are in has so far been spared. There was one fire in the county this evening but it was quickly brought under control. 

That doesn't mean that the situation won't quickly change though. So I'm going into disaster preparation mode.

My Saturday will be spent prepping the trailer to be ready to head out as soon as I can hook up. I'm filling every haynet I own full of hay (we feed off of roundbales, so there are no squares that I can load up). I'll make sure that I have enough water buckets and feed tubs for two horses. The spare leather halters that I've had at home to be conditioned are going into the trailer which will save time going into my tackbox if needed. My spare trailer key is in my tackbox; should I not be able to get there fast enough but someone else can with a truck I can direct them to grab the key. The hitch will be in the trailer instead of with the truck for the same reason. 

I don't know if I have pictures that will be suitable for identification purposes, so I'll take some and make sure I include those little markings that only an owner would know about.

The biggest thing that's going to get resolved this week is Cisco's reluctance to load. It's going to get sorted out. I promise that he will be jumping on the trailer by next weekend. He may not get ridden all week, but he's going to be able to load.

I have no idea if the barn owner has an emergency plan in place. I've downloaded all the apps from the province and the county so that I hopefully get notifications, but I don't know how soon notifications are issued. I want to be informed at the first sign of potential concern, not when we are given a mandatory 30 minute evacuation notice. I'll hound her about what we can make work for everyone. 

I very much hope that all of these plans will be for naught. They are forecasting a bit of rain for the weekend, but it's going to take quite a drenching before the fire risk is significantly reduced. At the very least, I'm going to finally make sure that Cisco becomes reliable about trailering!

Burning Up

You know how we keep hearing about how some parts of North America have gotten so much rain that there's been a bunch of floods this spring?

Well, in my neck of the woods, we are the complete opposite.

We've barely had any precipitation this year. Everything is brown and tinder dry.

The perfect conditions for wildfires.

Things are getting kinda scary. Over the last two days, there have been a multitude of emergency warnings screaming from our phones with notices of mandatory evacuations for towns about an hour west/northwest of the big city. That's too close for comfort - I know people in those areas. In fact, the lady that I rode with yesterday got a call from a sibling that her brother's house had just burned down. Shortly after that was when the first mandatory evacuation notice came through, and I wonder if he was in that area. 

There was a grass fire on my end of the city last week, that forced the evacuation of some newer houses on the edge of the subdivision. Thankfully, everything was contained and I don't think there was any property damage. 

That same day, there was another grass fire along the highway that I take to the barn. I saw the scorched earth, and it looks like it must have been quickly controlled. 

It's been windy, dry, and this week the temperatures are rising to high-20's (Celsius, that is). The situation is not going to get better. 

At this point, the wind has been blowing to the west, so our air quality has not been affected. The prevailing wind in this area is from the northwest, so once that kicks in and brings in all that smoke it could cause some issues. 

Because it's been so dry this year, some of the horses that are prone to some respiratory issues are already showing some problems.

I started Cisco and Phantom on an anti-histamine at the beginning of April to see if that made a difference. The vet recommended trying hydroxyzine over cetirizine - it's cheaper and can be given once a day versus twice a day. 

Cisco has been good about gobbling it down in his regular food. Phantom has not. She's smart and has held out for the apple sauce application, which she still won't eat and I have to syringe it into her. She happily sucks on the syringe, but I think that because it smells different she won't touch it otherwise.

I think it's helping them? It's hard to say at this point. Phantom has had a couple of days when she sounded a bit snuffly so she's had some dex nebulized on those days. I need to track it and see if that is linked to the odd day that I don't make it out to give them the antihistamine. 

The plan is to start regularly nebulizing them with saline to try to reduce any issues related to the dryness and likely upcoming poor air quality. I did it with both horses tonight, and it's gonna suck up a bunch of extra time at the barn, so yeah, that's going to be great.

All the grass fires in the area and a change in wind are bringing in the smoke.

Their workload will be affected by the air quality. When the air quality sucks, they don't get ridden (unlike some other horses at the barn).

It could be a really long summer. Fingers crossed that it's a wet one!