Sunday, October 27
Oct. 28th, 2024 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Good sleep. No pressing need to rush today.
I was worried about Wonder today. She was showing signs of being very "vigilant" and fearful of something in the distance. She gets like this when a moose is around.
I don't think that a moose would go out of it's way to harm a horse, but a lot of horses are desperately afraid of them.
Anyhow, when I went out to do chores, it looked like Wonder hadn't eaten her hay from the last feeding time, and was just rigidly staring off into the distance. I put some tasty special food out for her, and she ate it, but in snatches. She would grab a mouthful and pop her head right back up and stare into the distance again, while normally a horse who is relaxed would just eat calmly with it's head down most of the time.
I was worried about the not eating, even though she seemed okay other than the fear, because horses NEED TO EAT regularly to have fiber always moving through them, or they can develop serious issues.
She was still doing that when I came back from seeing River, and I gave her a bit more special food just to encourage her.
I am happy to say that when I did chores tonight, she was back to her normal self, and relaxed and eating again. I sat with her for a while to make sure she was okay, and she had a relaxed body and was not worried anymore, so that was a big relief.
My husband had a pretty lazy day, which is good for him once in a while. He pretty much spent the entire morning just noodling on the computer, and he did talk to our friend who'd had the heart attack to see how he was doing (okay, I guess).
When I got up he did a bit more mowing with our ride on, in places where the big mower he used a few weeks ago hadn't been able to get low enough to address the rough stumps left by the saplings. I'm not sure he should have used our regular mower for that, but he did anyhow.
Then we went to see River. Thankfully we were not corralled by anyone into having another uncomfortable conversation about gender issues or anything. We had the place to ourselves.
River was breathing well and fairly energetic today, and we did a lot of work on getting him to "stay with me" and keep a good forward pace instead of lagging or stopping, and not slowing down when we changed direction.
We practiced the obstacles that were up in the arena.
The we did some ridden work, which again was about me getting him to trot in a forward way, and hold that pace through changes in direction without me having to keep cuing him. He shouldn't slow down unless I ask for it. He did well with that today.
Then we came home, I had spent some time outside with Wonder, then when I came in we ate and watched some "Justified".
Good sleep. No pressing need to rush today.
I was worried about Wonder today. She was showing signs of being very "vigilant" and fearful of something in the distance. She gets like this when a moose is around.
I don't think that a moose would go out of it's way to harm a horse, but a lot of horses are desperately afraid of them.
Anyhow, when I went out to do chores, it looked like Wonder hadn't eaten her hay from the last feeding time, and was just rigidly staring off into the distance. I put some tasty special food out for her, and she ate it, but in snatches. She would grab a mouthful and pop her head right back up and stare into the distance again, while normally a horse who is relaxed would just eat calmly with it's head down most of the time.
I was worried about the not eating, even though she seemed okay other than the fear, because horses NEED TO EAT regularly to have fiber always moving through them, or they can develop serious issues.
She was still doing that when I came back from seeing River, and I gave her a bit more special food just to encourage her.
I am happy to say that when I did chores tonight, she was back to her normal self, and relaxed and eating again. I sat with her for a while to make sure she was okay, and she had a relaxed body and was not worried anymore, so that was a big relief.
My husband had a pretty lazy day, which is good for him once in a while. He pretty much spent the entire morning just noodling on the computer, and he did talk to our friend who'd had the heart attack to see how he was doing (okay, I guess).
When I got up he did a bit more mowing with our ride on, in places where the big mower he used a few weeks ago hadn't been able to get low enough to address the rough stumps left by the saplings. I'm not sure he should have used our regular mower for that, but he did anyhow.
Then we went to see River. Thankfully we were not corralled by anyone into having another uncomfortable conversation about gender issues or anything. We had the place to ourselves.
River was breathing well and fairly energetic today, and we did a lot of work on getting him to "stay with me" and keep a good forward pace instead of lagging or stopping, and not slowing down when we changed direction.
We practiced the obstacles that were up in the arena.
The we did some ridden work, which again was about me getting him to trot in a forward way, and hold that pace through changes in direction without me having to keep cuing him. He shouldn't slow down unless I ask for it. He did well with that today.
Then we came home, I had spent some time outside with Wonder, then when I came in we ate and watched some "Justified".
