Winter for a day

[glenatron]

There was a day of proper winter, like we used to have when I was small. I even got to ride on a toboggan. It doesn't get much winterier than that.

I also remembered how bad my car is at going up slippery slopes. I remembered this on the steep corner of the road up to ponies, where I lost purchase and started sliding backwards with my wheels spinning merrily. In the end I gave up on getting up that hill and went around to another back road that although even more snowy was a bit less steep so I could get to the path that leads to the bottom of the ponies field.

This was especially good because no-one had walked on that path previously, so I got to put the first footprints on it. Very exciting!


It really was proper snow for a bit.

Another opportunity to use branches to create something a bit abstract- how could I not go for that?

Shortly after this a witch offered me turkish delight in exchange for betraying all my friends. Seemed like a pretty good deal.

The reason ponies look so sceptical would be because people are using the fenced off side of the field for tobogganing. I had a go too. It was very fast and then I fell off and got loads of snow down my neck, which is pretty much how tobogganing is supposed to be.


The next day the snow had mostly melted and, from what I could tell, the ponies' electric fence had exploded. Some of the fence posts were shattered into many pieces, others seemed to have been flipped 6-10 metres from the fence line. The tape itself was lying in a long loop on the ground pretty much to the main gate of the field. No idea what happened, but we're guessing that the combination of snow with white fence posts and white electric tape probably resulted in one of the boys spooking and running straight through it. Judging by how trashed things were they must have got tangled and dragged it around for quite a while. They both seemed alright, although Othello was a little jumpy, so hopefully no harm done, but fairly crazy.

Joe still seems a bit off-colour so we've got the vet coming out on Tuesday to take a look at him.

Comments

[evil-c.livejournal.com]

Lovely photos! By the time I got to the ponies to take photos the snow had melted in the fields but was this in the farm yard.

I hope Joe is ok. I get the feeling Piceur is a bit off colour at the moment. Asher doesn't think so but I do. Not sure if I should go back up later and check on her or leave her until tomorrow. Its obviously not anything serious or she would have been very different today.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

The problem with "a bit off-colour" is that is' quite hard to express to the vet.

[maluse.livejournal.com]

My vet understand tat when I call and say "something's not right, dont know what it is though" that I am always right and they find out whats wrong in the end. You need to train your vet and explain to them you are the person who sees the horse every day and knows the horse better than anyone else. Out of the 3 vats at the practice we use 1 of them is new so needs training, the other woman isnt quite trained up yet and I have to insist upon her coming out to the ponies and the other one, he knows if I call at 9pm on a Sunday night and say I think something is wrong but I dont knwo what he knows to come out straight away and never tells me to wait until Monday morning. The 2 previous vets were trained up too. You have to train them though! You have to have a vet who is willing to swallow their pride and ego that their job gives them and they have to accept that sometimes you will know more than them not medically, but you do KNOW your horse better than any vet can.

C. evil_c hijacking Asher's account

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

We have to train them that living barefoot won't lead to a life of lameness ( you know, like it does for all those wild horses that manage somehow to get by unshod ) and that no, we simply can't put Joe on box rest (he gets horribly claustrophobic and will climb out of stables given the chance, far from theraputic) but once they can follow that we can usually find workable compromises. Or if they can't follow that we change vets- we're with Walmsleys (http://www.liphookequinehosp.co.uk/), so they have more than enough equine vets for us to switch if necessary.