I've washed my hands four times

And they still smell like thrush. Oh and I took a shower so they smell like thrush and shampoo.

Today so I thought was going to be a relatively event-less day. I really only had one thing planned that had a certain time. I felt like I had nothing to do and like usual when I feel like I have nothing to do I get swamped with more stuff than I should be able to do.

I was eating breakfast and puttering around when a friend called me. He had some horses that were in dire need of a trim and correcting. After a brief conversation I made plans on short notice to trim some horses later that day.

I cleaned out the rest of the calf barn which needs to be done by hand. I cleaned it maybe a week before I went to Oklahoma. Straw was added mostly every day so horses weren't lying or standing on soaked bedding and there is enough ventilation and stall dry added that it isn't a problem to go a few weeks. Well let me tell you about 14 weeks of two horses pooping (Sheba and Indigo) turned out to be a bit much.
When I was in Oklahoma I think I cleaned one stall in total. This meant when it came time to clean the shed I was totally out of stall cleaning shape. Sure I could wrestle and shoe a large horse but cleaning stalls just killed me. My old shoulder injury of the torn rotator cuff started throbbing. I admit I only got 2/3 of the shed done and quit and I've never quit. So today I finished it with the help of the broom eating horse, Indigo who seems to still have her taste for corn brooms.
The wind here is unreal. The back barn door blew off and the wind took the aluminum shovel right out of my hands! The good thing about wind is it will dry up the really crazy amount of rain that has occurred here. Who thinks I should go back to 95 and dry in Oklahoma? Meee!!

After finishing the shed I brought the spotty horse in to work on her feet a bit more. She was ouchy a little bit still but her soles are exfoliating more. A little visitor came to brush and sit on Indigo before I was on my way to my new job. Yep another job.

Right before I went to Oklahoma I got a phone call from the head instructor of our local therapeutic riding center. They just got a lot of money and a biiiiig government grant to build a new facility since their old one was being built up around just outside the city. I never handed in my resume, they hand picked me.

Long story short I came in a couple days and they hired me, part time for now but before long they said it will likely be full time. I am going to get my NARHA certification and teach riding and hopefully driving lessons. No one else in this county can compare to the program they run of over 200 students! So in August I will go to get certified which I am pumped about. They said if I take an apprenticeship for shoeing they will hire me on as a farrier when I come back to do all their horses feet.

After I was done there helping with lessons and tacking up horses I scooted over to trim some badly balanced feet. Ever seen thrush squirt out of a horses sole before? For the life of your fingers and nose I hope none of you ever do. It smells AWFUL! Hopefully the horses will be on a more regular trimming schedule this time. No pictures, it was too dark and rainy. Soon though.

It seems everything is falling in place, but the anti thrush stink soap.

This is a good reason...

To come home.

Just as I am reconsidering my trip back to Canada from Oklahoma because of the cool temperatures, still naked tress and mud, mud, mud, I hopped on the spotty horses back.

I rode her but not before doing her feet. I mentioned about her feet being a mess, well they were and still are not correct. When I left she had lovely concave feet with good toe callouses for a barefoot horse. Her frogs were big, healthy and she was sound without shoes on, not even ouchy over big gravel.
I came home and before I even picked her feet out I noticed she was off just leading her into the barn. I picked her feet and to my horror I found flares in all directions, medial-lateral balance completely off and soles that had appeared to pancake completely without any exfoliation. She was tiptoeing around on flat ground.
I got to work right away and found the complete polar opposite of Oklahoma "granite" feet; swamp feet. Her feet were picked frequently wile I was gone and she had 12 weeks to be a horse and not be worked. She did not have thrush but her soles mainly concerned me when it came to her being very tender footed. There was too much sole pressure on her circumflex artery.
I knifed and knifed and knifed and nipped and rasped as much as I dared for one day, making her feet somewhat more concave. Her soles hadn't so much as thought of exfoliating with the wet Canadian winter and spring we seem to be having. With some luck since I have been home and trimmed her (Thursday the 21st) I noticed yesterday that her soles have started to exfoliate again and her frogs almost overnight have expanded. Concavity is starting to come back to her feet.
Because Indigo is a little toed out, as a very alarming number of horses are due to them never getting trimmed as foals (topic for an upcoming future post), she needs balancing more often than other horses. Her feet were trimmed wile I was gone and I am thankful for that but I should have paid for another time because though 6-8 weeks is what farriers gripe about, most barefoot horses need to be maintained and balanced which means more frequent trimming intervals. This goes a long way towards your horses limbs well being, especially a horse you plan to use regularly. You can let them go 8,10, 12+ weeks but by the time your farrier comes by and has to hack off a ton of hoof on one side, heel or toe because your horse isn't balanced, the horses limbs will suffer the sudden change. Tendons tighten and loosen, ligaments are strained and muscles thrown out of whack. From what I have seen in the horse hoof world now that I have been more educated is that not a lot of farriers put thought into medial, lateral balance, no matter how well they can put a shoe on. I wish more owners seen it. Before I went to school I seen it but never paid any mind to it. So do your hoofcare provider a favor and look at your horses feet regularly and note any changes.

The day after I got home I trimmed Indigo and went for a quick bareback ride across the alfalfa field. She was ouchy even on the soft ground but obviously not feeling bad enough to pass up a good ol toss of her head, hump of her back and a launch off all fours into the air in an attempt to land me on my butt in the soggy field when a van went by making a startling noise. Silly spotty horse, you just keep thinking I don't know your tricks by now. Try again.

As I mentioned her feet are looking much better just after a few days so I hopped on her again. Before I even got to the driveway the spotted pill made an attempt to trot off. I don't think so. She was tender on the gravel but the soft grass sparked something in her as she gathered herself up and tried to slowly jog her way into getting away with murder.

If I had come back just to ride this horse it would have been worth it. I rode quite the bit in Oklahoma but nothing is quite like this little DIRTY

FILTHY HORSE!!!

Ok, seriously Indigo I had to deal with enough S^&% head paint horses in Oklahoma. Giving yourself a mudero coat pattern is so not necessary.

Real funny.

Can't someone make the weather go back to 95 and dry already? I would really fancy an afternoon ride wearing a tank top right now.

All pictures in this post by Sarah

Home

This is so not fair... So not fair.
The day I left Oklahoma I could have been in shorts and a tank top but I had to shoe ponies so jeans it was. Safety sandals don't work as well as they claim anyway.

I got my diploma, sweaty in a t-shirt.
So much has happened at school.

I spent a few days in Missouri with a certain cowboy.

"Hey, whatcha doin' over there with that camera?"

"Are you taking my picture?"

Why yes, yes I am. Hold still the lighting isn't that good.

"Fine"

I spent a few days wandering around seeing the lovely country and rolling hills before traveling back home where the trees are still naked.

Back home it is so strange. I go away a few times a year usually for a few days or a week or so but never three months. I go away for a week and it's like new buildings go up overnight, people get married or move away. I am gone for three months and it's like time never touched this town. Everything in the barn is in it's place (minus a few barn cats), the horses were muddy and happy to see me. Indigo nickered her way over the moment I yelled out. It's like time stopped just for me to go to school and now has resumed in a tidal wave of people needing my help, horses needing to be ridden and job offers.
I plan on taking an apprenticeship. I have a few offers here in Canada and a couple in the US, some close, others far.
So far I have been trimming. I am going to pick up an anvil next week and can work in the local homestead's coal forge whenever. I inherited a bunch of useful hammers that were my grandfathers. I wish I would have known about their existence before school it would have saved me oh...$300 or so.

I trimmed Indigo's feet yesterday. She was trimmed wile I was gone but the winter was not kind on her feet and she was ouchy on them as I led her into the barn. When I left she had lovely, concave, healthy feet with big frogs. When I came home I found her soles had splatted, frog's had shrunk in size and the medial (inside) sides were sky high on her fronts and the lateral (outsides) were sky high on the hinds as well as the quarters on both front feet strait instead of nice and round. There was nothing level about them and lots of flares. However it was so nice to be able to take my hoof knife and nippers to a sole and not have to chip at a foot like it was made of granite (AKA: Oklahoma feet). They are going to take a few trims to correct. I am thinking the really wet winter was to blame for the soles and contraction. Only time will tell.

Everyone missed me. I have been getting call after call and e-mail after e-mail from everybody and their dog. Just when I think I am getting a vacation from school the real work starts. Anybody need a trim?

Have you ever been elbow deep in a horse before?

It's ok, most people don't know how to answer that question the first time I ask.
But here's the appropriate answer.
Here I find the kind of friendship and laughter that makes you double over and gasp for air. When someone asks what was so funny you are laughing too hard to make a complete sentence.
(Just for reference, that's a really big syringe because we were floating teeth. Boys...)

I live happy, laugh lots and ride bitless often. In a tank top, every afternoon but when I have to do laundry. Be jealous of the tank top.

Me on my one instructors horse, Tanner. I put him in my bridle instead of his curb bit with tight chain. He is loving it.

But I have decided I could never live in Oklahoma.
Why? Well for whatever reason my allergies have exploded the whole time I have been here. My nose is doomed to be a constant waterfall. I itch and scratch and sneeze and cough over everything and anything.

Other than that I do enjoy it here. The weather, the horse owners... ok some of the horse owners and some horses (see some horse owners). I would like to add yet again, if your farrier suggests a certain amount of time to get your horses feet done in, take that hint. After trimming and shoeing countless hooves that have been left because "there's still some wear left in the shoes" or "he was out on pasture all winter and wasn't being used" just doesn't cut it. There is a reason for the horses well being and the well being of ourselves (hands, tools, back etc.) and why we suggest a certain time you get them trimmed or shod. /endrant

Only a few more weeks until I head back to ol' Canadaland. I hear a lot of people and a horses miss me.

Sunday stills: Canine companions

I managed to find a fast enough internet connection to get a photo or two up this weekend for Sunday stills.

You'll remember this little devil from a few posts back. Hes grown in size a little.
Unfortunately he had to go home with his owner to Montana.

Fortunately I painted his toenails a sparkly shade of teal before he left.

Shenanigans

Being a farrier can be hard work.
When it is 70 degrees out and your in a tank top in front and beside several burning forges. Or your horse is a spoiled brat because the owner doesn't believe in handling it's feet.

I know, the rest of you guys are buried in snow or sloshing around in rain and mud.

Bummer because right now I am sitting in the shade in a tank top enjoying this nice weather. Just got back from riding my instructors horse, bitless I might add. I was sweating wearing a tank top and his saddle pads were wet.
Just gotta rub it in.

Working with horses feet is hard work. I don't ever get up in the morning and say "today I don't want to shoe a horse or trim some feet" I love doing this, I should have done this a long time ago. My hands scream out, "Please don't hit me with a hammer or catch my fingertips on nails or squash them between something totally irrelevant to horses" that happens a lot. Murphy's law.


But in all it's a little bit of a rodeo around here. Being one of four girls in a barn full of 30 or so guys you gotta cowgirl up and roll with the punches, or hammer heads on various parts of ones hands, hooves to the backside etc.

You gotta have a little fun.

Sometimes at a cute furry ponies expense. For the record both of my feet were planted on the ground. No backs were swayed in the taking of this picture.


I apologize cute furry mini. At least your lamanitic feets are back looking somewhat normal again.
yup, white mini's. I am moving up the horse ladder. Indigo would be jealous though I think she prefers rolling around in the mud I hear we have going on back home.

Dear thumbnail...

I really liked you on my left thumb.
I tried to make you look better because I rasped you a couple times a few weeks ago. That is the reason for the dark purple nail polish and sparkles.
But today you decided to put and end to your resilience.
I was trying to be nice and help a second week student with a problem I had on the weekend.
It involved a horses foot.
It also involved the owner leaving the shoes on for about four months which caused the hoof to look like a duck's foot and the shoe to break off leaving broken off nails. Note to readers: When your farrier recommends 6-8 weeks for re-shoeing LISTEN!! It'll make your horse last longer and your poor farriers job easier.
Anyway, with my hoof knife I was helping dig this nail out and the horse jerked.
The day before at the end of class I sharpened my hoof knife on the big sharpener and DAMN was it sharp.
It was sharp right into my left thumb nail. I didn't notice at first I thought I just caught my cuticle until another classmate shrieked because I was bleeding all over my boots.
I would show photo's but it's pretty nasty.
I also never realized I had a thumb until I split it in two with my knife. Every time I hit it off something or hit it with my hammer (which never happened until today just for the record) I am reminded of why human nails are not cloven because one piece of nail lodging itself under the other F*&^%$^# HURTS!!!

Farriery: not for the faint of heart, afraid of blood, weak of knees and or back.

A visitor

Every day at least once, sometimes twice this certain little boy comes to visit me.

He knows there's bacon, leftovers and lunch meat.
Who wouldn't come around for bacon?


He usually forgets to wipe his feet before he comes in but that's ok; I don't usually remember to take my boots off either.

But back to the main issue in hand: Ham.
Who really could resist this puppy face?

"SNARF"
Ok, maybe my fingers could.

The main issue is that he hides dog biscuits and eats the real meat.

He hides the biscuits in my t-shirts and under my bed and in my shoes but I continue to feed him dog biscuits anyway. I think I like the sense of wonder, wonder when I am going to step on one and have smashed up dog biscuit bits to sweep.

Then he gives me this face and I have the urge to feed him more ham.


But school is going good other than this week was a rough week. Everyone had the flu. It was horrible. I am still coughing and hacking my lungs up. Mostly everyone is feeling better now after we drug butt through the week. Sitting here in a tank top is nice, but I can't help but sorta miss the snow, mostly because it's where my horses are. On nice weather days like this here there's nothing more that I would like to do but go on a nice long relaxing ride.

Week three. Pictures.

So the talk about me wanting a cute little ass (read donkey) to drive and such went around the barn. There are no lack of jokes so my instructor bill (screw you Bill) gave me the littlest, cutest ass to trim.

I picked up one foot on this Jack, held by Josh who came all the way from New Zealand. He went right on his hind legs and started striking, AKA flailing with little thumb sized, accurately placed hooves in all directions.
Naturally I knocked him over.

He was only a bit past my knee.
I called upon Josh to come sit on him to stop his flailing and handed another classmate my camera for evidence of the day. There was a lot of laughing and even more cussing from other students called upon to trim the other mini's in the background.

I got him done.


Then I hear this commotion behind me and see Jim trying to trim the Jack's mom. She was also going in all directions and climbing walls.

How many men does it take to trim one spotted ass up to their knees? Lets count.
One.

Two.

Umm.... Help please?

Four. I mean, I think the donkey is in there someplace.
No mini donkeys were harmed in the trimming of the hooves.

Then for the awwwww factor. Me holding a 6 month old Mini foal I trimmed today. It barely weighed 30 pounds.Well thats all for now. Still alive and kicking, or is that getting kicked? I miss visiting all your blogs, maybe I'll be on more regularly after class once the snow melts more here. Woo hoo 70 degrees here I come!

Dear blogary...

I never thought I would say this but unreliable Xplornet is better than no-net. Sorry I have not been around as much but that requires me sitting in the office. I do not like sitting in the office because the office lady is a big...we won't go there. Sitting outside at this point is a little...chilly.

Ten things I have learned at horse shoeing school in the first two weeks:

1. Not every horse is out to kick you in the teeth, but some might try.

The horses that come into this school are of three varieties.
1) The owner is cheap. Considering the people who bring their horses here are paying $25 per shoe. These horses usually come in groups owned by one person and they are working horses. They are quiet and don't mind the noise and commotion.
2) They have a bind trust this school is considered the best in the world. Students are here from all over the world. I guess if it is some sort of important horse they trust the instructors to help the students not totally lame their horse.
3) The horse has been rejected by their normal farrier because it's probably going to kick you in the teeth no matter what you try.

2. If the metal is not red-hot in colour it does not mean it is still not red-hot.
Just for the record I have not tested this theory. I am the only one in the barn who does not have a metal burn.
After watching a fellow student catch a falling shoe that had been sitting on his anvil
a couple minutes I decided juggling hot shoes was not going on my resume.

3. I miss my horses. I miss driving and riding and feeding and grooming and cleaning stalls.
The days go by real fast here though because I get up early and take care of all sorts of horses feet all day. Then I eat dinner, watch one of the few channels that are not Spanish, go back to the forge to make more things out of metal then sleep someplace in there.
Rinse, repeat.
I've also had several freaky dreams about trimming a horses hoof and the hoof kept growing and I kept trimming and I wasn't getting anywhere.

4. When it snows in Oklahoma (read 5-10 inches) the whole state shuts down. Schools, restaurants, banks, stores, gas stations you name it, it's closed. But we still have to shoe horses.
This "blizzard of 2011" apparently was worse than the blizzard of 2009. I went from sitting
in my tank top under a tree to -12 and snow in 24 hours. We have to keep the taps dripping in
my trailer (AKA girls dorm) or they might freeze. They also sent us a propane heater but since our trailer is usually a toasty 75 we haven't used it.

5. Come with a backbone or learn real quick to grow one. Luckily I had one. I think there's about
17 other classmates of the male variety. Most fancy themselves cowboys.
The horses made real quick work sorting the ones who are horsemen and those who are not, out.

6. I like having my own room, bathroom and fridge. However when I was a kid I wanted a bunk bed. I never got a bunk bed. The first time my face met with the bottom of the top bunk I decided bunk beds are not that much fun, unless you make blanket forts.

7. DO NOT HARASS THE GOPHERS! Or are they prarie dogs? Sage rats? Giant moles? Who cares they make mounds EVERYWHERE! One guy from Quebec (there's 4 other Canadians here) and some other guys were poking at one that came above ground. It tried to crawl up the Quebec kids boot. Whatever devine wisdom he had escaped him and he tried to pick it up. It bit right through his fingernail and he flailed, with the rodent still attached to his finger. He screamed and flapped several times before it let go and started tossing dirt like a backhoe back underground.

8. I love Oklahoma. Theres so many cowboys, good food, horses, horses, horses and wonderful people.
However compared to Canada everything has more fat, bigger sizes, more sugar, more salt and more preservatives. A small here at McDonalds is a large back home, I kid you not.
I want to live here minus all the sugar. Someone bring me my horses.

9. My one instructor is a cow whisperer. He can make any noise a cow can make and the cows believe him. He moo's they reply, even dead asleep in the field.

10. Almost two weeks ago I still wanted a miniature horse.
Then I trimmed some.
One was foundered and required a hacksaw before hoof knife or nippers.
He was all sorts of backyard breeding and was of course, a stallion.
At one point three people tackled studly to keep him from kicking or gnawing someones face off.
The others conformation could have been mistaken for a goat.
It was also as wild as a march hare. I literally had to tackle it in the stall to halter it and only two steps into leading it to the barn it planted it's little rear on the ground like a sitting dog.
I still want a cute little ass... By that I mean donkey.