Seeking Advice.

About a year ago I moved to an acreage near the next town to the north of where I live now, to be closer to work. I had Bailey with me, and we had a good set up. Lots of grass, lots of dirt corrals to keep her off of grass, and a HUGE outdoor arena.
In December of 2018 I moved back here, onto another nice acreage, again, to be closer to work (I had started my current job in August).

Where the blue dot is, is my house. The buildings in the middle have since been removed. So, I literally have all this land available to me. 

But, here's the catch:

I'll zoom out a little more.....

The acreage I live on, is essentially in the middle of town. Why has the town not taken over the land you might wonder? Well, I live in what us locals call "The Superman House". The house was featured in the 1980 Superman II. Therefore, it is actually considered a historic site.

Although I've been here for around 6 months now, I still have Bailey (and now Mesa) boarded about 10 minutes from town. The reason being, is that the fence needs repair, and let me tell you it's a lot of fence!

The flood of 2013 wiped out the house that used to be in the centre of the field (the house/buildings in the middle of the first picture). They had a lovely set up and actually had a few horses there for as long as I can remember. However, since then there has been no livestock, so the fence line has suffered.

Now, I don't NEED all of this grass for 2 horses, so, here is what I'm thinking.

I'd build new fence (instead of repairing the ENTIRE fence line around the property), whether it be wire or electric, and have a small corral for them to come into at night, as it is quite nerve-wracking having horses "in town". Where the red scribbles are, I wouldn't touch, as I wouldn't be able to see the horses in that area.

What do you guys think? Do any of you have a better idea(s) as to the set up I could potentially build? It's a blank slate! 

I'll leave you with what I'm currently dealing with on Mesa.. But that story is for another day. Sigh.

Midnight Mesa.

Buffalo, Meat Horses and Paints.

It's CRAZY at the clinic right now. I'm glad Mesa is only 2 and there is no rush to get her going, because right now time is limited. My plan is to continue with her groundwork until her 3 year old year, then get her really going under saddle. Shirley's colts have an incredible foundation, a foundation that was put to the test yesterday with Mesa's first trim with my farrier.

As you can see she was super worried (not). She wasn't sure about having her front foot extended onto the foot stand, but got over that rather quickly. She is quite toed out in the front, which I hadn't noticed until a few days ago. Luckily her legs are straight as an arrow, so with time and regular foot work we should be able to get the feet facing in the right direction again.

Today I was out doing some floats and vaccines with the vet. The client had a beautiful sorrel overo gelding, with a bald face and two blue eyes. Shy, but took the two IM (intramuscular) vaccines rather well. The strangles vaccine, however, goes up the nose, and he was having NONE of that. A trick I learned for this, is having someone put hay in their face. Horses don't complain when delicious food is tickling their nose! So, I then sneak the long end of the syringe in with the hay and with one quick squirt, vaccine is administered.

The owner was telling me that she got this gelding from a farm that had buffalo, meat horses, and paints. Their "brand" on the horses that weren't going for meat, was slitting the top of their left nostril.

I don't blame him for being a little "nose shy"!

This has been a long week already, and it's only Wednesday. I'll again end this post, with some goings on at work.

Dog vs. Tractor.

Two hypothermic lambs being warmed up with
IV fluids and a heat lamp.

Not work related, but Jack's face is pretty much how I feel
about this week! Is it Friday yet??

Small Town, Big Drama.

Mesa has been home for a few days and is settling in well with her new herd of two geldings. She is with Banjo, and a roan named Willy.
Its funny; Willy immediately claimed her as "his" mare. Won't let Banjo near her! In turn, Mesa definitely has the confidence to push Banjo around.
Her freeze brand turned out perfect! She is now repping the Diamond Lazy H brand. Can't wait until its fully healed, the white hairs that grow in will really look sharp on her dark coat.

I was hoping to spend more time with her yesterday after work, but my little town had some big problems.
I went over to my parents place to pick up Jack (my dog), but no one was home. I called my dad who is in Edmonton to see if he knew where everyone was. As I was driving down the street to head over to the dog park to see if they were there, I said to my dad "haha there is a police car blocking our street!" my dad jokingly replied "what did you do!".
5 minutes later I returned back to my parents house only to find TONS of police cars surrounding the area, the SWAT team and their tank, and a helicopter circling above.
Turns out a high speed chase from Calgary ended up in my neighborhood. The suspects crashed down my parents back alley, and broke into a house a few doors down.

What I saw driving back to my parents house.

We locked the doors and stayed put until the ordeal was finished a few hours later, when the suspect agreed to the negotiations. Luckily, the family who lives in the house he broke into were not home when he did. Lots of excitement for our small rural town! Here is the link to the news story: https://www.westernwheel.com/article/high-river-standoff-ends-in-arrest-20190508

Between the snow and rain the last couple of days (yay moisture!) the ground is pretty gross. So today I just spent some time with Mesa grooming her. She is a lovely, lovely mare.

Love her big beautiful eyes!

Mane! 

Work is busy as always, so I'll close this post with some workplace captures.

Molly (front) tagged along with her sister Bella
for moral support!

Semen testing; see the sperm just to the right of center?
Double headed sperm (head defect) looks like a heart!

She's Home!

After ALMOST another weather delay, I was up at 5:30 this morning to make the trip to pick up Miss Mesa.

Roads were slick for the first hour, but soon cleared up once we got to the Crowsnest Pass.

I sure do miss the mountains. I was born in northern BC, but have been in Alberta for the last 19 years.

As we traveled further south, the skies became blue and the higher the temperature rose. Once it got to 10 degrees we got out to stretch our legs and enjoy the warmth!

After 5ish hours we arrived at Shirley's place, and got to meet the new baby Eli. So cute! I already can't wait for him to grow up.

We visited her mares (it felt like meeting someone famous after seeing pictures all the time!) and I caught Mesa. Well, I don't know if it was excitement or lack of motion in my still numb finger, but I haltered her and promptly tied it the wrong way (insert eyeroll, Shirley was actually the one to correct my halter fastening around 4 or 5 years ago!). 

Luckily for Mesa (and me!), we were hauling one of her friends back to Alberta with us which helped immensely in her stress level.

Notice, the incorrectly tied halter! Blonde moment!

They both traveled GREAT. Even when we made stops there was no fuss in the trailer.

Tomorrow Mesa will be freeze branded with Shirley's brand, and her traveling partner will be off to her destination with her owner. For tonight they will get a feel for the Albertan air and fill their bellies.

Happy horses.

Sutures.

Remember the filly I mentioned in my previous post with entropion? Unfortunately the problems for this filly, who is now named "Rue", were not over.
I got a text from the owner a day or two after my initial visit, saying one side of her face was swollen so bad her tongue was sticking out.

You can see the discharge due to her entropion.

This angle you can really see the swelling.

After consulting with the vet, we opted to monitor for the evening as she was still able to suck. Was it a bug bite? Did she get kicked? By the next morning the swelling had subsided, so we kept the appointment for the next week to fix her eye.

Today we went out to attempt to fix her eye. Upon arriving, we noticed that although her face was completely back to normal, her tongue was still hanging out of her mouth.

Little horse tongue!

Time will tell if this is the result of trauma to her head, since it hangs out 24/7. 

Otherwise, the procedure was a success. Initially, the plan was to inject saline under the eye, however once the doctor got a closer look, it was more severe than we originally thought. So, lidocaine was injected under the eye and sutures were placed to bring the eyelid down to a proper position.

Sorry for the blurry after picture!

She was sedated for the procedure, so her tongue really got relaxed!

Rue and I were matching in the suture department, thanks to an incident involving an avocado (it's okay to laugh). Since I live so close to work, I always go home for lunch. I had just created the most perfect sandwich, and was going to finish it off with some fresh avocado.
Well, unfortunately that finishing touch cost me a half a day of work, 6.5 hours in the hospital and 5 stitches.

Don't worry; nurses, doctors and other patients made sure I knew how to correctly pit an avocado before I finally went home! ;)