Rainy days and moves

So, now we get to what's going on currently.  Not going to bore you with the non-horsey stuff today, partially because I am too pissed to discuss it in depth.  Long story short, the quest to get my old house ready for rental and actually making money continues to be...problematic.

As for the red-headed wonder, I managed to get her lunged on Monday.  We have not had much luck for the last month two months.  It started with her farrier nicking her frog when he shod her.  He didn't say anything and when we decided she was indeed lame, a vet was at the barn, so I paid $65 to have him put hoof testers on her.  Called the farrier to come out since we thought she had a hot nail.  He gets there and is like "oh yeah, I nicked her, but she wasn't lame or anything then, so I didn't say anything."  Good grief.  This is not my farrier of choice.  He retired, and this is his replacement.  My trainer also uses him, and when he came to see her the following week, he had the retired farrier with him.  Apparently, they both gave him what for, knowing that Violet will not complain when you do something to her, but is very sensitive when it comes to her feet.  I doubt he will make the same mistake.  But that did require a week of epsom salt baths and hoofpacks.  I did develop a hoof care bucket, and learned how to properly tape a diaper to the girls hoof, so that's good.  Everyone thinks it's cute that she uses the newborn diapers on her little dainty feets.

She was fine with the pampering, honestly, although you can't walk away from her with her foot in the bucket, or it will go flying.  She'll stand quiet all day if you are there with her, but go into the tackroom for one little thing and she's done.

We recovered from that only for her to develop hives from the bugs.  They didn't seem to bother her before, and she wasn't running from them or anything, but she was one big bump.  That required a little dex from the trainer and a course of benadryl.  Note to anyone out there, buy it in bulk from Sam's if you can.  800 pills for $6.  Of course, she doesn't mind taking it, because I usually give it to her with some beet pulp and maybe a little handful of her grain and water after we ride.  It's like second dinner!  And for a pony that gets basically a handful of grain twice a day, it's a big treat. (Let's just say she's an easy keeper).  And she gets turned out in her full fly gear, even though it's hot in St Augustine this time of year.  She goes out at night, and it IS September, after all.  Just keep an eye out for funk, are the instructions given to both me and the barn manager.

So cue the rain.  And the rain-rot, of course.  Pull the fly sheet, move the girl indoors, buy lots of rain-rot stuff, including tea tree shampoo and Banixx spray, and treat treat treat.  A little more dex for the discomfort.
At the same time, I'm off to the doctor (now that I've closed on my new house) to have a look at my foot.  Right foot has been bothering me for a while, but now is bothering me when I ride, and that's not ok.  And the left foot is starting to hurt as well.  I regularly end my nights with ice on both feet.  I go to the doctor and end up walking out like this:

Yes, I rebroke a fracture on my left foot compensating for something called a Morton's Neuroma on the right.  Left foot in a boot, right foot treated with a shot of dex.  Interesting that Violet and I were treated with the same stuff within two days of each other.  Boot for a month, and we'll see about the right foot.

So, back to the pony.  I got the rain rot taken care of but mother nature has decided we should be swimming here in Northeast Florida this year.

That far lake is Violet's field.  Needless to say, I can't put the poor rain-rotted pony with notoriously iffy feet out in that.  Three weeks later, we have gotten 9+ inches of rain, and still no sign of stopping.  But she looks good, and always does ok being in a stall.  She does have a small runout, so at least she has the ability to move and isn't stocking up or anything.  And I take her for hand walks when I can't get into the lounging ring.

Can't work in this...

So hand grazing it is.  Shiny pony.

And then the cough develops.  After a week, it's not getting better.  It's actually worse, and she doesn't work out of it.  I know it's because she's inside, but what do I do?  Cue the vet call.  Tells me what I already know, and gives another shot of Dex.  Pony is not allowed to be held inside except for meals.  Hay should be watered.  So out in the soggy mess she goes.  And she is not happy about it.  The princess does not like wet sogginess on her feet.  She stands at the gate and looks at me like "please?"  So now it's been a month and she has had like 6 days I've been able to work her.  Monday, I lunged, intending to just walk, just to see how the cough was.  No cough.  Trot?  No cough.  Canter (just once around)? Cleared her nose, but no cough.  So I think we are past that and now know that she must have better circulation than she gets in the solid wall stalls in the barn.  And it's still raining.  And the ring is still mucky, and they can't get the mower to the dressage ring, so lunging is what we can do.

A decision has been made.  She will go back to the showgrounds with my trainer.  Turns out I will have to have surgery on the right foot in a couple of weeks, which will keep me out of the saddle for a while.  Violet has blown a winter coat, and developed rain rot underneath of it, and her feet are constantly wet.  It will take a couple of weeks of dry to get the property to dry out, and I can hold my stall with a small portion.  Violet will get back into training, and the glorious trainer M loves her and will clip her and take care of her rain-rot, and she will be back with her friends, as will I.  It means only riding once a week, but it's better for her, and it's only for two months.  Hopefully I'll be back on my feet by then.  When I spoke with the boy about it, his response was "Do what you need to do for her.  I knew you were a horse-girl when we were kids, and you are still one now, and I get it."  He also made reference to the fact that I was so unhappy over the weekend because my entire team was at AECs and I wasn't.  It had been planned before he entered the picture that I would go with everyone else, just to groom and support, but finances did not permit that this time.  He knows it's important for me to reconnect with my team.  It's hard being the one that is separated.

So I'll go out today with the mind to do some more lunging.  Or maybe I'll just finish my clip job of her legs.  Because it's supposed to rain again this afternoon...

Welcome to my (non) horsey life

Yesterday, I posted about my horsey life.  Today, I'd like to take a moment to introduce the non-horsey part of my life.

The human players:

Myself:  40+ year old professional accountant "of a certain size" (read that as not the typical rider physique).  I have lived primarily in Florida; Jacksonville for the last 24 years.  I put myself through college, getting a degree in Finance and working in that for 10 years before going back to school to get my Masters in Accounting.  When you have an accounting degree, what do you do?  You work as a public accountant (auditor) of course.  I spent 5 years living out of hotels, traveling around the country.  The schedule killed the long-term relationship I was in.  I suddenly found myself living in my own little house, with nothing to keep me going other than work, and a cat that was more independent than she should be.  I had to make a decision: become a work-a-holic or find something else to do.  Work-a-holic I am not.  I am willing to do what needs to be done, but I wanted an identity that wasn't "auditor extraordinaire".  What else could I do...  I know, I'll take riding lessons!  I rode as a kid, had a pony in the backyard, showed some and loved it.  I was a pretty good pony jock back then, thinking of myself as more functional as a rider than pretty, but I always enjoyed it.  But now?  Well, truth be told, I was fat.  I needed something I could do as a "life sport" that would get me out of the house and away from the computer at least a part of the weekend.  So I chose to go back to what I knew and chose riding.  After that, I switched from audit to internal audit at a shipping company.  Within a year, I was promoted to Financial Reporting Manager, and that's where I am now.  I write exciting financial statements for about 14 different companies, consolidated and otherwise, US and abroad, and I act as the ledger police, which makes me the most popular person in the building (not).  I have a busy season that coincides with the Florida horse show season, so I don't get to do much of that.  I used to play softball on Sundays, but have had some medical setbacks that make that difficult for me right now.  

The boy:  The boy and I met 30 years ago at a youth retreat.

I was the older woman, being in 9th grade.  He was still in middle school, but he thought I was cute, and that was good. He lived in Pensacola, I lived in Gainesville. We kept in touch a little all through high school, would meet up occasionally at youth group events, but nothing big, at least not to me.  In college, after I broke up with my high-school sweetheart, and before I met up with the long-term relationship that didn't make it through my audit career, he looked me up after a short stint in the Navy.  He wanted to settle down, I wanted to enjoy college and being in a greek organization.  He lived in Tampa, I lived in Jacksonville.  He proposed, but would not wait until after I finished college, and would not move to Jacksonville, so we went our separate ways.  It was brief, but pleasant.  I didn't think about him again.  Until this March.  He looked me up on Facebook.  We started talking.  Within a week, he confessed that he went to every church event he could to try to catch up with me, that he never forgot about me, always thought of me as his, and was still in love with me.  I, of course, told him he was nuts.  He backed off, it took me 3 days to decide that what I have been doing the last 8 years since my last relationship broke off didn't work, and to give him a shot, since my heart was telling me he is a good man.  So I did.  To my mother's consternation, we are now engaged, have bought a new house and are renting out my old one, and he is on a seemingly never ending job search.  We are trying to figure out how this whole partnership thing is supposed to work, and how we are going to fit his 3 kids in, along with my horse stuff, but under everything is a current of love.  I do love this man.  And he totally understands the horse thing. Before we even got into this, we had a conversation in which he told me that he knew that horses were part of me, that they always had been, even when I wasn't actively riding, and that he didn't expect, nor did he WANT that to change.  After he met the "ladies" from the barn and got his first look at an event, he said it was obviously even more important that I continue to ride, and that he would love to come and jump judge with me or watch me show.  He has a weekly standing appointment at the barn with me, where he stands and talks to the horses through their barn doors, plays on his phone and watches me work. Is there any wonder why I love him?

So that is the story of me. My life right now is made up entirely with moving into our new house, work, pony and boy.

My Secret Garden?

I have no delusions.  I do not expect anyone to be interested in my ramblings.  But it makes me feel better to write, and it seems that maybe putting it out there in the ether is just as useful as writing it in a journal no one will ever read.

I decided to do this after stalking reading several people's blogs.  In particular, theowlsapprove, which is totally badass.  After reading that one, I actually did something I never do, and wrote to the author.  Her response?  Do you have a blog?  Nope.  No idea why not.  I think the pony and our journey together is a pretty cool one.  Someone might be interested.

I intend to use this blog to tell off my exploits with my partners of the four-legged and two-legged variety.  Mostly the four-legged kind, though, because I am a horse-girl.  Always will be.  I am one that can talk about nothing other than the exploits of my pony, because really, who wants to hear about writing financial statements, and audits?

So why call this My Secret Garden?  That is my girl's show name.  Her barn name is Violet.  Other names include, but are not limited to, Her-Pony-Ness, Cheeky, the Red Headed Wonder, Herself and the Princess.

Me and Violet Apr 2014

Violet's name came from where I got her.  She was a flower hidden in the back up a muddy paddock, picked on, abandoned and unloved.  And 3.  She is my sanity, my friend, my partner.  She is where I go when I need comfort.  She was apparently supposed to be a big splashy paint.  Not so much.  She was alternately called Petunia, Lavender, Rose and Violet.  Violet stuck.  She was sweet, just wanting to be loved.  The first time I rode her, my trainer did not tell me how old she was.  I never would have gotten on her and ridden her next to a very busy road if I had known she was only 3.  You could almost hear her calling in her little girl voice "hey guys, wait up for me" as her little pony legs work double time.  See, she, like her mother, is not blessed with height.  Short and round.  She does measure as a top-of-the-line large pony.  When I purchased her, the thought was I would get her pony card and let one of the kids at the barn I was at free lease her and show her in the pony hunters while I moved on to something bigger and better trained.  Unfortunately, our trainer died before that could happen, and we had to move barns.  For the first year and a half after I bought her, she lived about 2 hours away from me.  I moved her closer (45 minutes), ending up at a barn that had an eventer for a trainer.  Violet had bad feet, and acted like exactly what she was, a 5 year old, red headed pony mare who had been "trained" by students.  After she dumped me going over a cross rail at our new home, I just didn't ride.  I gave her time off.  The trainer at that barn came back from spending the summer with Karen O'Conner (yes, that Karen O'Conner.  Not afraid of name dropping), and I started taking lessons from her.  At the walk.  I was timid.  Violet was a spicy red-head, and I had spent the summer before buying her laying in the dirt in front of fences with another horse.  It took about 2 months before we started trotting.  It took almost 2 years before I was somewhat comfortable at canter.  Violet is a pony.  Her stride is not overly long (read that, pony strides are short and feel really FAST).  It took my going to a clinic with Will Coleman, where I was riding with the 10 year-old kids, to get over myself and realize my pony had never done ANYTHING to cause me to be afraid of her.  I remember when that light-bulb went off.  After that, we started clicking along.

Walk trot crossrails 8/2011

We went from walk-trot crossrails to 2'6" jumper courses in a year.  We did our first cross country schooling.  I was part of a great team of about 7 adult amateur riders, led by our wonderful trainer.  We moved barns due to footing issues to a place with an indoor.  No more issues with footing.  It was further away, but I was guaranteed to ride when I got there.  I put Violet into full training.  She settled and got better and better.  We did more schooling.  We went to schooling shows.  We won classes!  We did our first dressage tests, and finally got brave enough to try tadpole at a schooling show.  The first time was not good.  Violet has something against this one particular pony-eating 2' red coop.  I had a lot of trouble getting her over and was disqualified.  But after letting the next rider pass me, the organizers allowed me to keep going and I did get over all of the fences.  The next time, we finished on our dressage score and ended up in second!  It became apparent that 2' was boring to the red-headed one, and we were schooling beginner novice and some novice.  I decided to let my trainer take her to BN the first time.  When she got done she just looked at me and shook her head and said, "I need to do more.  She's really green."  She did another two I believe.  I tried to school her cross country, but three times in a row, I fell off.  One of those times at that same damned red coop.  Then we had to moved unexpectedly from where we were located.  The only place that could take all 7 of the horses and a trainer basically overnight was the place where we show.  Unfortunately, it's 2 hours away.  But it had cross country.  She stayed in full training, because I could only ride on the weekends.  I am finally in a place where I had the ability to ride more often, and have the tools to keep her going, so I moved her the closest she has ever been to me, only 30 minutes away.  Thanks to my job, I am able to take off early 2 days a week, and my trainer is nice enough to drive to me to give me lessons.  When she isn't taking all her other students to shows, that is.  And when it's not wet.  It was all going really well, and I was able to keep Violet's fitness level up through riding and lunging.  Then she had an incident with the farrier that kept me off for a couple of weeks.  Then she started having a reaction to the bugs.  Then she developed a raging case of rain rot.  Now, the farm is so far under water that we kept her inside for three weeks, and she developed some kind of reactive airway issue that causes her to cough.  She is to be outside all the time, so the rain rot that I worked so hard to get rid of is back, and her feet are water logged.  And she hates it.  HATES it!  There is a reason she is called the princess.

Don't I look like I should be pampered?

She is my girl.  I can't stand it.  And we have another week of wet coming.  I am contemplating moving her back to my trainer, even just for a month, so she can dry out.  I can't really afford it, but I can't have her feet fall off, either.  So in the meantime, I go and dry her off, treat her fungus, slather her in Desitin, and give her treats.  My not so high maintenance pony that stayed inside has suddenly become the extremely high maintenance pony that lives outside.

So that's where the name comes from.  Violet is now 10, and we are struggling to figure out what we are supposed to do next.  I don't know if we will ever really event.  But as long as she is happy, and we are continuing to figure it out together, it's good.  This is my "life-sport", so we have plenty of time to figure it out.