quietann

My favorite of the day -- at the end of cross-country:


( more back here )

I now have written clearance from my doctor to ride, yay! And I had a 30 minute session of pool PT with almost no soreness afterwards, though the therapist did pick up on the weird way my left side works, or doesn't.

Talked to goddessfarmer. Minnie is feeling better, but it's pretty clear that this year's hock injection has not restored her to soundness :( I will have a short ride on her tomorrow, but how much she can be worked is still up in the air. Also up in the air is how she'll deal with the cold once it really sets in. She's *old*. We talked a little about alternatives should Minnie not be available. I dread the process of finding a good barn where I could half-lease a horse, and hope that it won't get to that for a few more years. I am fretting, oh yes I am.

So I had my PT evaluation today. Of course, *time* is the most important thing to heal me, that and not doing any more stupid stuff to aggravate it. The PT woman was not thrilled about my continued riding, but she got that it's important for my head. So I am at walk only, do not lead horses for long distances, and be careful/ask for help when grooming.

I think this may be the first time in my life where I have *minimized* the impact of an injury because I could not stand to stop doing something. Odd.

So I will have twice a week pool therapy sessions for a couple of weeks, and then re-evaluate. The therapist said to expect about 6 weeks of PT.

really should be "butt update."

I finally went to see my doctor about my injury, because it's just not getting any better. He poked and prodded me, found the ouchy spots, watched me walk and didn't like the amount of wobble. So off to Xrays and he will call me when he has them. I *may* have cracked my pelvis or left "sit bone." It's more likely a deep bone bruise, and he will set me up for PT.

Ouch.

Notes on this:

Riding should probably be walk only and maybe a little cantering. Sitting trot w/o stirrups is fine on a smooth horse like Bearito. Posting trot only if it's not painful. No jumping! The gentle motion of a horse's walk is helpful. (This means walking Minnie on Monday, because she is rather bouncy. Given how long she's been off work, pushing her wouldn't be good, anyway.)

Watch sitting and driving positions. I tend to fold my left leg under, and it's painful to get out of that position. Especially when driving my car, which is a stick shift, I need to keep the left foot just by the clutch at all times.

Mornings are the worst; I may try sleeping in the other bed tonight, because it has a squishier mattress.

Keep taking ibuprofen but try to cut back a bit.

The mother of a possible Unauthorized Raspberry Picker came by today with a nice container of tasty raspberries. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, as opposed to the "My Child Wouldn't" or "What Do You Expect; The Berries Were There for the Picking" school of parenting.

Also, I heard from Tina and she wants me to stay with Bearito and the Monday lesson, but not push to do the bigger jumps until my balance is better. This is fine with me; I may need to look for another lesson barn sometime next year though, if I want to go a lot further with the jumping. But in the meantime, getting to ride the Cute Pony is just fine...

Took some Big Drugs to kill pain and help me sleep, going to bed now. Feeling better about the riding... need to talk to Tina when I am feeling brave. Current hope is to ride Trump on Thursday *at a walk* and let his big swinging butt do some physical therapy on me... (I swear that horse, from the rear, reminds me exactly of a very sexy woman shashaying down the street...)

We had a good ride today. It was very humid, so no one really felt like working hard, but we practiced some of the wibbly bits in the dressage tests, mostly downward transitions. Minnie was a bit jiggy at first, but showed me that she's capable of using herself well. Once again, no martingale, and almost no head tossing (and what there was may well have been caused by a horsefly.) I still would not try to jump her or ride her outside without it, but she's being a very good girl. I still need to convince her that shortening the reins does not mean "Go faster!" until I tell her to.

Came home, crashed, went and rescued madbodger from an interminable Arisia meeting for a bit, dinner out with him and some Arisia folks -- or partial dinner, because he had a flight to catch, and I took him to the airport. It seems he may be up here more often, which is a good thing :)

I am healing, but sore. I did squick a few people with the cuts and bruises on my arm last night :) People tended to assume that I'd been *riding* Minnie when it happened, but no, I was leading her. Or she was leading me. Most of the bad things that have happened to me when I am around horses have not happened when I have been riding them, BTW. I have found that with this particular injury, the best place for me is up and about, not sitting or resting. The mornings after have hurt like hell.

The party was fun, there were people to talk with and I was really OK with the crowd, mostly because unlike the Hot Foods party, which is held in February, this one had plenty of room outside. goddessfarmer was relieved to see me up and about. I don't think I realized just how scary it was to watch me hit the ground. I was not only up and about; I had spent several hours at the Groton House horse trials earlier in the day, watching people gallop their horses through a long and difficult cross-country course.

Then we had madbodger as an overnight guest (and not nearly enough time to cuddle him), and went back to the aftermath of the party this afternoon, and then took him to the airport.

She's baling hay today (literally), a *very* labor-intensive project, and she's short-handed, but nonetheless she took the time to help me and Minnie get up to the indoor ring, and brought us back later. Yes, the field where J was tedding the hay is just down the hill, but she did *not* have to accommodate me.

So... for the first time in I don't know how long, I actually rode *by myself* today. The barn manager was around, but busy for the most part. Minnie was *really* good. We worked for 40 minutes and stayed mostly at the walk on account of the heat, but got in a few short trots and a canter in each direction. She was very "snatchy" of the bit when she got tired and I probably let her walk too much with her head and neck stretched down. But, she had her ears pricked and her hocks under her and was a happy horse being ridden. Afterwards, I hosed her down and turned her out to graze for a bit, and cleaned tack and talked with someone who has her horses at the barn for the summer (and is very impressed with the standard of care at the barn, BTW!)

And I now know just how silly Minnie gets when she's taken away from Trumpie. She banged around in the trailer and whinnied most of the way to the barn, and then did the same when we took her away from her barn pals. She managed to work herself into quite a sweat before I ever got on her, just from separation anxiety. And the whole time we were riding, she kept up a "call and response" of whinnying with other horses in the barn.

We took Minnie back home and I did a few chores for J because she was so busy, and then I came home.

The poor girl forgets that she is 24, not 4. We rode today, a short lesson in the newly-mown hay field where J and her daughter have set up a jump course. Minnie was jiggy, mostly because of the flies. But she also honestly thought she was there to jump, and I had to convince her otherwise. Picking up a trot about 20 feet diagonally from one of the jumps, she definitely wanted to *canter* and go that way, but she did listen enough to *trot* and go a different way, not impeded by jumps, instead. We did a lot of transitions, halfway around the large circle at a walk and then halfway at a trot or canter. At the canter, I managed to keep her at a reasonable pace even when she wanted to go. I feel like much less of a passenger these days, though I feel badly about yanking too much on Minnie's mouth when slowing down.

(The jumps are just the size I was used to when I quit riding, or perhaps a little smaller. And perhaps someday I will be able to ride a course like this again!)

Then J put a pole on the ground for us to go over. This is the first baby step towards actually jumping. Minnie was good walking over it, but then we went to trot over it, and she made it into a jump, which meant cantering several strides before it and then actually *jumping* over this little pole on the ground. After the most egregious example of this, I made her walk over it the next time, which according to J was the right thing to do. Only when she was tired did she stop jumping it and just go over it normally.

Things I need to work on: not looking down when approaching said pole on the ground (or when trying to slow down Minnie), keeping better contact on the horse with my calves, more seat work, figure out if I do need to go back to putting a brace on my right ankle when I ride.

After that, J took Trumpie back from her daughter, who had been jumping him, and we rode down the hill to see if one of the other hay fields is dry enough to be mown. This was amusing at first, because we rode by several of the paddocks and at the first few, whatever horse was in it came galloping down to say hi to Minnie and Trump. Unfortunately just as we turned to go back up to the barn, Minnie spooked, and just as we got back, J figured out that she'd lost a shoe (which wsa what had made her spook.) So I got off and untacked Minnie, hosed her off and let her eat grass while J and Trumpie went back and found the shoe.

I cleaned tack while J and her daughter showered and took them to the train station, went to the Post Office and now I'm home.