Letting Go of 10 Years.

As of 3 weeks ago, I am back home at my parents place, awaiting my move-in date of July 1 at the acreage.
I decided to come home 3 weeks prior to starting work to have a chance to see friends, go camping, hiking, etc.
Luckily for me, my trainer, Keith Stewart, offered a spot to keep Bailey and Mesa in exchange for riding and working at his facility until I was able to move them to the new place.
Story time.
Bailey has never been good for getting her teeth floated, and has progressively gotten worse. She was due for a float, so, I took her into my clinic. We always start with max sedation, I'm talking sedation to the point where if she wasn't in the stocks she'd be falling over. She gets sedated, very sedated, UNTIL you go near her mouth. Last time she got floated she had a person twitching each ear and me basically sitting on her head.
So this time, we started out good for about 30 seconds, then all hell broke loose. She reared up, got one front leg over the front of the stocks, got the other front leg over, then proceeded to somehow get her entire fat ass over the stocks, all while she's still hanging from the halter with a speculum in her mouth. End of the float.
To make a long story semi-short, the next day I went to Keith's to start working. He had 3 horses that belonged to a gentleman who is LOADED. I'm talking makes millions. However he is a very green rider. So Keith wanted me to put as many wet saddle blankets on these 3 not-so-green-rider-friendly horses.
The first horse, Emma, has some skeletons in the closet. She's flighty and bracey when you get on her. But once she settles, she is a dream to ride.
So I jokingly said to Keith, (keeping in mind I was still mad at Bailey) "does he want Bailey and I'll keep Emma (laugh out loud)" and his response was "yeah, yes actually that's a great idea, he needs a horse he can trust for his wife and kids".
Hold up. I've had Bailey since she was 3, she turns 13 this year. 10 years is a long time to let go of. I'm sure he saw the look of panic on my face, so he then suggested how about switching horses for the summer. Then decide. It took a while but I decided I was okay with that idea. Firstly, because I love Emma, and she is started in the cutting, and Keith wants me to show her. Second, if Bailey can give some kids confidence than I know it would be a good thing. So, the deal was done, and Bailey left a few days ago. It's not forever, and I'm fairly confident I'll take her back after the summer because well, that's Bailey. She's my heart horse.

Onto Mesa! She had a wolf tooth that needed taking out, and I just wanted to check her teeth as she lost a bit of weight since being in Lacombe. She, as expected, was an angel, and the wolf tooth had fallen out on its own.

Such a good pony!

All the staff love her too, pictured below is Dr. Dillon, a vet at my clinic having fun with her.

Hope everyone is staying safe!

Lastly, some big news. A year and a half ago I lost my almost 15 year old toy poodle to kidney failure. She was laid to rest in my arms February 14, 2019 just 10 days short of her 15th birthday. I could go on and on about sweet Gracie, but I will say she is what made me fall in love with the breed. Smart (in fact, studies have proven poodles to rank #1 in intelligence out of many, many breeds), loyal, and active.

Next week I turn 25. Although the hole in my heart will never be repaired, I hope this black, 8 week old standard poodle will be a bandaid.

I have named her Faith, and she will be coming home this week.

Faith.

Here's to healing a broken heart.

Gracie, my whole heart, Feb. 24 2004-Feb. 14, 2019

Full Circle.

A very late follow-up to my last blog post.
Quick recap; I was debating whether to move down south and ride horses for Gary Gonsalves, OR, move north to work at an equine only clinic.

The decision? Neither! During one of my lesson's with Keith, he mentioned a cutting/working cow horse trainer in Lacombe (about 2.5 hours north of where I live) was looking for help. I made the trip for a quick interview, and left with a job offer. I decided to take it.

So, I packed up myself, Jack, and the two ponies and made the move at the end of March.
Unfortunately, after only two weeks on the job they had to lay me off due to COVID-19. They were however nice enough to offer me to stay with the horses, in exchange for some work around the farm. What I decided to do was work mornings (7am-12pm) in exchange for rent and board.

The nice thing about this arrangement is I get the afternoons free to ride my own horses!

So here's a Mesa update.

I only put a handful of rides on her when I was back home, due to her trying to cut her foot off 3 times. Luckily she is fully fully healed (knock on wood) and I've been able to consistently ride her since I've moved up here (it's nice having two outdoor arenas and one indoor!).

Not so impressed about being put to work!

It's been so nice having both Bailey and Mesa together. Bailey's been 100% sound since being up here! 

My two girls 💓

Mesa has definitely gone through a spring growth spurt. She's starting to look like a horse! I've tried to get videos of her being ridden, but it's hard with no one to film. Here's a short clip I did manage to get. 

Now that I've been up here for a few months, living off the government help, I have decided to move back home and go back to the clinic. I miss being a vet tech, and I also miss working full time.

The good news, is I found an acreage to rent just 4km from work, that is dog AND horse friendly. Also on the property is an outdoor arena and a round pen. It's also just across the highway from the ag society, so riding in the winter will be an easy haul to the indoor arena.

So, everything is coming full circle. In 2 weeks I'll make the move back home. I'm looking forward to getting back into the work routine, and even more excited to have both horses in my back yard.

Okay, but look how grown up she looks!

Mesa.

I'm just going to start off by saying warning, possible coarse language.

Before I get into what happened today, I'm going to start with work. I have been presented an opportunity to work about 4 hours north from where I am now at an equine only vet clinic. I have a working interview this Monday.

Which leads me to today. Since Mesa tried to cut her foot off again in October, I haven't done anything with her since. She is all healed up, and I figured for my 5th ride back on her I should probably climb on in a safe, controlled environment. What better place than Keith Stewart's, where I put my first couple of rides on her!

In a few posts back there is a picture of my trailer; it is a two horse straight load. Usually when I haul Bailey places I don't saddle her before hand, because she doesn't fit with the saddle on. Mesa however, is nice and tiny. Since it was raining, I figured I might as well saddle her at home and haul her with it on so I didn't have to saddle her in the rain.

Saddled her up, no problem. Loaded her in the trailer, no problem. I climb in my truck, when there is a big commotion coming from the trailer. I figured I better check it out. I open the door, and there is Mesa, laying on her side, underneath the centre divider, just looking at me like "what?". My first though is "what in the actual f**k". Luckily with just a pull of a pin I can release the divider and swing it one way. I did that, gave her a tap and she stood right up. No panicking, no darting out of the trailer, just looks at me again like "nothing happened, you saw nothing". So I close the divider and the doors and off we go, also thinking that it's not going to be fun loading her after our lesson.

Once we got to Keith's we went right to work on groundwork for about an hour. She was feeling quite fresh to say the least! Once she was soft on the lead Keith turned her out in the arena and sent her around.

Once she was ready I climbed up. Not 5 steps in she was feeling herself and hogged up a bit, but got over that pretty quick! We worked on transitions (which she is getting better at picking up the lope without some butt tapping!) stopping, backing, etc. Keith then had us track the flag. Although she wasn't sure about it at first, she caught on quite fast and seemed to enjoy it, I wish I had someone there who could video!

Keith was on a 3 year old as well, and brought out the buffalo. Although she had a few freak outs, I stayed on and by the end she was following the buffalo rather than trying to jump out of the arena (lol).

Then when it was time to go, I opened up the trailer door and she jumped right in no problem. She is SO quiet.

Now for my life confusion. I have a great job opportunity lined up working at the equine only clinic, but then Keith gave me the opportunity to go down south to Texas to work with big cutting horse trainers. So now I feel like my life is one big ball of confusion. I have a phone interview with a trainer tomorrow, so we'll see what they have to say/offer.

Sometimes I wish I could see the future. What is the best decision? Do I stay where I am now? Do I stay in the same career but stay in Canada? Or do I completely change career paths and move to a different country. Ah!

2020.

Okay one of my goals for 2020 is to be better at blogging!

LOTS has happened since my last post, I don't know where to start.

How about work things.
We are amidst an expansion/renovation at the clinic. So, things are crowded, busy, LOUD.

Our surgery suite in December!

At this point the expansion is pretty much complete - now they have started on the inside renovations!
Although most horse related things are slowed right up for the winter, I did go out to the Tim Horton's Kids Camp to float some horses teeth. You may remember from a post further back, Dunny was my second 4-H horse. When my friends family got out of horses, they gave him to the camp. I was so surprised and happy to see him STILL there, and going strong at almost 30 years old!!

Dunny and I when I was in Grade 9!

Dunny enjoying his retirement at almost 30 years old.

Alright now lets move on to MESA, my oh-so-frustrating 800lb toddler.
I moved her across the road to where I board Bailey, simply so I wasn't going between two places, and could have both horses together.

Well, it wasn't 2 days after I moved her there she went into her first heat. OH MY GOSH did she have it rough... This heat lasted over 2 weeks. Her legs were scalded from pissing so much..
BUT, in the midst of this I still got a couple rides on her, and she didn't put a foot wrong, even in her hormonal state.. haha.

However, it didn't make it easy for her to integrate into the herd. Her big brother, Kai, is boss. He put the run on her, and put the run on her hard. One day I got a text with a picture of a bent panel, with the assumption it had something to do with Mesa and Kai. When I went out that evening, I was greeted with this.

Yes. She did it AGAIN. Third time's the charm right?! My level of frustration was through the roof. You can kind of see on her left leg, she also lacerated the back of her fetlock. Loaded her up, brought her to the clinic and sedated her to do a good clip and clean.

This happened at the end of October, and we are (for the third time) pretty much healed up again. She is now fully integrated into the herd and doing well.

She did need to get a blankey in preparation for Alberta's -45C Winter!

Bailey is struggling to stay 100% sound this winter, so I haven't been riding her either.

As for me, I had to move back into my parents house as my lease was up at the Superman house, and the town decided to not allow the horses.

Here's hoping things start coming together in 2020!