One Chill Horse

My horse people will totally get this, the rest of you will think I'm a crazy nutbar! Today is Tuesday, I saw my horse on Saturday and I will see him tomorrow and all I freakin want to do is go to the barn!!! Saturday to Wednesday is soooooooo long!!!! I love spending time out there! I love hanging with my horse! I love seeing my barn friends, seeing the other horses, sneaking treats to all my favs and I love riding!! When I'm not at the barn, I'm thinking about the barn. I think about all the things my horse and I need to work on, I look forward to all the silly things he will do when I see him, I look forward to hearing him nicker, to giving him treats, to conquering new skills, there is just so much always going on! The funny part is my barn friends are also doing the same thing, we are all pining away for our ponies while we toil away at our adult lives. I have to say of all the social groups I have been in, of all the friend circles I have encountered, I h...

I don't know if it's the weather or what but communication has been spotty this week, at best. I think I have raised an eyebrow at least a dozen times this week when someone asked a question I already answered in the email they just responded to, but also seems to have bled over to horsey time. Don't you hate when adulting follows you around like a dryer sheet stuck in your pants....la sigh.... So Pistol was 100% a Pistol this week. He was throwing around Mustang, I'm gonna F You Up Postures to his pasture mates and then 10 seconds later making huge detours to avoid the actual bully in the pen. He was trying to walk off when I was getting in the saddle (his usual trick is to take a big step backwards, so going forward instead is new and equally annoying), he was pretending he was steering the ship and that he got to do what he wanted, go the speed he wanted and eat when he wanted - all of this is a lie and he knows better. Then when I told him politely 'No'...

We in the horse world talk a lot about how horses change lives in positive ways, and I could write a book on the subject and still only scratch the surface! Instead of writing a book, I will try to just share some thoughts I have had this week on how my horse has changed my life. 1. Pain Management - Some of you know and some of you don't, I suffer from chronic back and neck pain and as we all know, back pain leads to pain in other places, so sometimes it's just all over pain.  The super cool thing is though, when I ride regularly, I don't hurt. Like as in for the first time in my memory I have been pain free!!! It is super duper awesome and something nothing else I ever tried did for me (and believe me I tried a LOT of things).  I was reminded of it this week, because with our break in riding, due to Pistol's colic, my neck has been screaming at me for attention. I had forgotten how much it simply sucks to have neck pain 24/7 and I don't even know how I managed ...

So I got to learn what a Christmas Miracle is this year. It did not look like I expected, or like the movies portray. There was no heavenly visitors, no Santa with twinkly eyes, there was a team of hard working people doing all they could to save a life. Christmas Day 2019, Pistol, in all his gastric glory, decided now would be a great time for a little colic fun.  The dreaded C word in horse life, COLIC! Such a simple thing, a little upset tummy, a little back up in the pipes, for humans there's a billion easy remedies and a slew of medical options, for horses not so much. To those that don't know, colic is a 50/50 phone call, you have to immediately face the very real possibility that these are the last hours with your beloved horse. For Pistol, things turned out well. We were fortunate enough to have a great support team to get us to the medical care that was needed and fortunate enough to be able to cope with the cost associated with the whole process. Christmas day...