Diamond rings and the barn do not mix.

On Tuesday I wasn't going to ride, but our new boarder Natalie arrived at the barn just as I was finishing up with chores and got her new horse, Comic, all tacked up. I thought, hmmmmm, maybe I will tack Lucy up too! So I did, and we headed over to the indoor together and hopped on our horses. I let Lucy walk for a very long time, letting her stretch, then collecting her, then letting her stretch again. She felt so supple, and was responding to my inside leg nicely instead of leaning on it.

I picked up a little trot and she was a very good girl, so we moved onto the canter. She was great, especially to the right. I just love her.

I went home, made dinner, spent some time on the computer, and went to bed. Yesterday morning, I got up and went through my normal morning routine, but then could not find my wedding rings anywhere. I searched the whole house as fast as I could, looked in my car, and looked in/around my desk at work. No sign of them! Finally I called Kenny and broke the news to him. He asked me the age-old question: "When do you last remember seeing them?" I stared at him blankly. I had no idea!

I am horrible about taking them off without really thinking about what I am doing. I leave them laying around all the time. I am notorious for taking them off at the barn when I'm going to ride because they pinch my ring finger when I'm holding the reins. I was petrified that I had taken them off at the barn before my ride on Tuesday, put them in my jean pocket or jacket, and that they had fallen out somewhere at the barn.

After work yesterday, I zoomed to the barn and started searching. I looked through the whole barn, sifted through Lucy's bedding in case they had fallen out in her stall, looked in the barn driveway (which, of course, is rock/gravel), walked down the path to the indoor, and then did the famous zig-zag pattern through the whole indoor, scanning the footing as I walked.

NO SIGN OF THEM.

I contemplated the possibility that they had fallen out in the stall, she had eaten them, and they were going to be pooped out in her paddock. I was about ready to panic.

I found a friend who could hook me up with a metal detector so I decided to wait until I had the chance to search with that, especially in the indoor since the footing is so fluffy that it could easily cover up the rings if a horse walked close to where they fell. She wasn't going to be able to get me the detector until tonight (Thursday) or Friday at the earliest, though, so I resigned myself to being ringless and went home.

Once home, I was pretty cold from being out at the barn searching, so I went to my closet and pulled out a hot pink zip-up hoodie. I happened to be wearing it the night my rings went missing, too, and although I searched through my jean pockets, jacket pockets, pants I wore to bed (and even peeled back the sheets to see if they fell out of my pj pants pocket when I was sleeping!!), I forgot that I had put the sweatshirt on and so I didn't check it.

Well, in the pocket of the sweatshirt were my two rings, safe and sound. I must have taken them off when I was sitting at my computer, and slipped them into the pocket.

I felt so relieved and happy (and STUPID!) but I am just so glad they aren't lost.

To end this happy story, here is a photo of Lucy and her new lookalike boyfriend Comic Book ("Comic"), obviously having a dance-off:

photo by Maddy

never a dull moment, but there's a very dull achy pain...

Lucy is quite lame. I took her out for a trail ride yesterday, which lasted only 5 minutes because it started to rain and she was like, oh hell no. That will have to be a battle for another day, I think.

We didn't even go faster than a walk on this five minute trail ride. When we returned to the barn, I took her in the indoor and trotted her around and she was very clearly ouchy on her right side. I am terrible at figuring out if it's hind end or front end lameness but maybe after work I can get some video for you all to pick apart. I gave her some bute and applied liniment to all four legs. This morning she seemed a lot better but not sound. Hopefully she tweaked something or stepped on a rock on the trails and it will blow over quickly.

She has also got a cut on her RH coronet band and it was looking ok until last night, when it looked very much like it was developing proud flesh. Umm, so not cool, Lucy. What happened was that she was being led out to her paddock late last week when she spooked at something dumb and nicked her RH with her LH hoof. It was a small cut and I cleaned it out when I got to the barn and didn't think anything of it. It seemed to be healing well and then on Sunday she re-opened it and it got a bit uglier (but nothing that required veterinary attention, still all very superficial). On Monday it looked like it was starting to scab over again and I cleaned it out well. Then yesterday it looked very puffy and granular:

I scrubbed the crap out of it and went home and posted that photo on FB and got about 15 different opinions on how to treat it (including but not limited to: Furazone is good! Furazone is bad! Corona is good! Corona is bad! Wonder Dust is good! Wonder Dust is bad!). I ended up emailing the photo to my vet because I was more confused than ever, and while he hasn't gotten back to me yet, a vet that I have on my FB friends list commented on the photo and gave me his advice.

SO.

This morning I went out to the barn before work to check on her and discovered that she is still lame but not as bad as she was yesterday. I was trying to be quick at the barn to get to work at a reasonable time, so I walked out to her paddock with a bunch of carrots, surgical scrub, betadine, and a clean sponge. I put her halter on and held her leadrope in my left hand (since she doesn't tie) and crouched down by her injured leg to have a good look. Seeing that it looked much better, I steadied myself with one knee down on the ground and poured the scrubbing solution on her leg and went to town. About three seconds later, she got me right in the forehead with her LH fetlock. I didn't have any time to react or get out of the way before she got me. I heard the impact echo in my head. OUCH!

I fell over and cried like a baby in the middle of her paddock while she stood there and gave me weird looks like, "what the hell is your problem?". Truthfully I do not think she was trying to kick me in the head. It was really more of a "you're annoying me and I want to brush you out of the way" as if I were a fly. I am pretty sure that if she really wanted to kick me, she would have used her RH and she would have aimed better and gotten me with her actual foot.

So kids, here's what we learned today:

1. do not attempt to hold the horses head while you're tending to its back end
2. do not kneel down EVER - it is almost impossible to get up and out of the way in time
3. if the horse is sensitive, have a helper pick up a front foot so that it cannot easily kick out with a back foot
4. keep a good distance away from the hind legs
5. wear a helmet to protect your head
6. do not attempt to play vet out in the paddock...this is what the cleaner barn is for.

Durrrrrr.