Arena Adventures

So.. This arena thing has taken WAAAAAAYYYYYYY longer than expected. Between rain, fiascos on the material company's end- deaths, equipment failure, other emergencies, fiascos on our end, this is an endless Herculean task. It's STILL NOT DONE. We started this thing in May. MAY!! It is now AUGUST! We do have some stuff done. It's excavated, and 2 loads of dirt have been taken away. Supposedly, it will all be taken away by the end of this week, a bulldozer will have been dropped off, and there will be gravel in its place.

On the other hand, Sherwood's shoes have been removed- if you're not working, we can try to let you be a barefoot pony, too. Andi has been doing so well with it, it would be amazing to just let Sher have the rest of the winter without nails and shoes. By the end of the first week, she was ouchy but not insanely so- like a horse with tender feet, and this continued for a couple weeks, but it seemed to be getting better around week 5/6. And then the farrier couldn't make it to week 8... Andi's feet looked like they direly needed a trim  by then, and Sher's were starting to chip. *Le sigh*

Addendum: September. It is SEPTEMBER, 7 loads have been taken, and... I am losing my shit. *rolls eyes* I now understand why people are like, I hate contractors. They never show up, blah de blah. Yup. I'm there now. Anyone want dirt/ I will deliver by the shovelful if I have to. lmao

On the plus side, we have gotten to burn the brush piles now that we're not in such a high fire-danger time, so the paddocks are starting to get cleaned up. Finally. I was also starting to lose hope about those damned piles, but look!

We also did some box-blading to grade out that high corner and talked to the seed guys about what to plant for erosion control/horse paddock- I want the seed on hand before we go grading the rest because it is storm season and erosion is a very real issue around here! Still waiting to hear back from them, but figure it will be a mix of annual ryegrass and their horse blend.

So... Farrier came 2 weeks ago, and Sher was a bit more ouchy, but as it seemed to only have started within the past couple days and still wasn't like.. lame-lame, farrier thought maybe an abscess, but didn't take any hoof bc she was as short as he'd like. "Keep an eye on it, let me know if she gets any more tender. Let's hold off on putting shoes back on just yet, she's still in the acute adjustment phase."  Okay..

One week later, I come home to find her 3-legged hopping lame, miserable looking, and.. promptly send pictures of this lovely crack at the sole-hoof wall intersection to vet and farrier, and... it takes them 2 days to get back to me. "Soak it over the long weekend, call us Tuesday if no better." Tuesday- no better, possibly worse. Vet's coming out tomorrow for XR, farrier is up to date and on standby for new shoes (bars, pads, God only knows), lovely.

So, the question is- and I've had to ask myself this before: If this is "road founder", which it is starting to seem like it might be, and she can no longer jump/event (I know, getting ahead of myself, but I like to focus my anxiety into planning purposes!), what do we do with her? I caused this. Let's not mince words. I fucking did this to my horse with the vague hope that we could take a shoe break during winters because it is better for them to have a shoe vacation from all that I've read anndddd maybe save $100 bucks every 6 weeks while she's not in work, and.. . I did it with a farrier behind me who everyone raves about, and I have TRIED to manage it appropriately. But.. I did this, it was me.

Okay. Recriminations out of the way- now what? What to do with a horse that goes feral if not in constant aggressive work, and is.. actually rather dangerous to everyone around, if she can't be in constant aggressive work? (Didn't tell you about how she tried to kick me through a wall because I dropped a wrench 200 ft away earlier in August.. too busy babying my hip about it. Womp womp.) If she can't jump anymore, could she... do something else? Cow work, maybe? Reining? Endurance trail...? All of those seem like very tough on feet. I just don't know. I think I'm just hoping this is still something relatively benign.

Gah. I guess we shall wait to see what the vet says, tomorrow. I'll update then. Or maybe in a couple days. I will be post night shift and have to work Fri and Sat.. *rolls eyes* Of course.