Latest Conditioning Rides

I've got some catching up to do!  Here are some pictures from a ride earlier in August.  I took Zephyr out barefoot, thinking he’d do fine, but the local trails are just SOOO rocky.  We had to walk most of the way.  I vowed not to go on those trails again without Gloves!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, I did a fresh ‘mini trim’ in preparation for putting on the new Gloves that Garrett sent with the prototype gaiters. I still think his toes are longer than they were, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to make them shorter without having to pare out dead sole.  I think I need to call the farrier for some help.  (Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I was starting to lose daylight.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know what’s going on here, there’s been a slit in his hoof wall since July.  It’s immediately above where the Glove/Glue-on stops on his hoof wall, but I don’t know how the boot could have caused it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First time I’ve ever seen bot eggs before.  (Got them off with a hoof knife the next day.)

The Gloves went on a little hard with the Power Straps already in place, but for the first one I took the strap off (left the T-nuts in), fitted the boot, walked him around a bit, and screwed the strap on.  Worked great.  The other three boots I was able to just muscle on and then have him walk around.

Here they are (with Zephyr standing very strangely):

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left my property on my woods trail, which has two stream crossings, both with mossy-rock bottoms.  The first stream has a steep uphill right afterward.  This video is from the second crossing, though... I didn’t think to take my camera out for the first one!  If you listen you can hear the squelching sound after we cross.

As soon as I got out onto the paved road I was stunned to see a pair of horsey ears emerging over the crown of the hill in front of me!  We never meet other riders.  As we approached each other I realized it was my new neighbor Laurie from down the road; she’s had her 7yo unregistered gelding for about a month, and we’d only met once but had hoped to get together soon to ride.  She wasn’t on a schedule so I shanghaied her and off we went to do one of my short loops.  It’s plenty rocky, hilly, and there are usually lots of puddles and mud.  Here’s one of the rockiest sections... we started trotting as soon as I put the camera away.

I kept trying to find mud so I could do a new “mudding” demo video, but we’ve had such dry weather for the month of August that even though we got 2” of rain on Saturday we didn’t have any mud on this trail.  Here’s my old mudding video... I think I posted it before but I’m not sure.  You can HEAR the mud!

Here’s Zephyr (left) with his new buddy Chief, and a head-shot of Chief.  Laurie thinks he’s Arab/Morgan.  I can see it, can you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning when I turned Zephyr out in the field, he grazed for a minute and then ran off to look for Rocky and Peyton.  Unfortunately he didn’t find them, they’re still at their owners’ house!  Makes for nice video and pictures, though, and at least there’s still a cow or two out there to chase around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: easyboot gloves

Refitting Gloves/Glue-Ons

On Sunday 8/16, I was horrified to see damage and bruising on the hairless part of the skin on Zephyr’s heels on his hind feet.  I couldn’t take pictures that night, but this is what they looked like the next morning.  I applied Equine Relief as soon as I saw the damage, and it looked SOOO much better in the morning!  Instead of raw soft skin, it looked like a nice dry/hard frog.  That’s what you see in the pictures below.  I couldn’t even see any bruising, even though it was obvious the night before.

I have no idea what caused it, it appeared overnight when he was spending his days hanging out with his cow/horse friends in the pasture down the road.  His last glue-ons were removed two weeks ago (on 8/2), otherwise I would have suspected the heels of the boots had been too tight.

Please forgive/ignore the mud on the bottom of his hooves that makes them look wonky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EasyCare was about to send me a set of the new EasyBoot Gloves with the prototype gaiters, and I needed to double-check sizes.  He’s been wearing size 1s on his hind feet, but due to the bruising/damage I was considering whether he should bump up to 1.5s instead.  So on 8/19 I trimmed his hind feet in preparation for a fresh fitting.

Here’s both hooves after their trim.  I’m still relatively new at this, so feedback from knowledgeable professionals is welcome!  Looking at these pictures though, YES, I can see that his toes are creeping forward; it’s especially obvious on the left hind.

LEFT HIND: Farrier trim on left (photo taken in early June), and my trim on right (I’ve been trimming him since the June photos).

 

 

 

 

 

 

RIGHT HIND: Farrier trim on left, my trim on right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s his right hind hoof in a size 1.  The left-hand photo is the original version of the Glove, in June after the farrier removed his shoes and trimmed him, and the right-hand photo is the new thick-toe Glove.  (I realize his hair looks brown in the new photo, but it was just the lighting and the dirty leg!)  I don’t know if his hoof got bigger in addition to the toe getting longer, or if the thicker-toe version is also less stretchy, but it definitely fits differently.  His hoof doesn’t go all the way in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the same hoof in a size 1.5.  Again... farrier trim photo is on the left. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last photo... right front hoof... wish there was more concavity, but I suspect there may be a lot of dead sole there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My conclusion... it’s clear that his hooves are all a little longer than they were when I first did the fit kit.  I keep trying to get the hoof wall even with the sole, but when I do, he’s really ouchy on any kind of rocks or pebbles.  He may just need some hoof wall!  I’ll continue to take pictures and compare them as I go along.

I thought this was supposed to be a SCENIC railroad?

My husband and I went for a ride on a local “scenic railroad”, accompanied by my new coworker Debbie and her husband Kevin.  We started with lunch at Ralph’s Cafe right around the corner... yummy! Excellent food, excellent atmosphere, and good prices.  That was honestly the best part of the day!

When we arrived at the historic railroad station, this is what we saw.  The engine looked nice but the converted boxcar and the exterior of the coach were in sad, sad shape!  The front of the building was ok but the back was in need of some help.   Hopefully this is a good year for donations...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We sat around in the back yard for a bit, on the only available seating... some “rail bikes” that they use for 4 mile (round trip) excursions on a set of closed tracks.  It was in the 90s and sunny, with high humidity, so after a few minutes I started to feel a little sick and had to move to the shade.  That meant sitting on the platform and leaning back against the building, because there were no benches.

When the conductor called All Aboard, which we were actually a bit surprised he bothered with given that there were only 10 passengers, we optimistically opted for seats in the boxcar so that we could have a good view of the scenery.  Here’s Deb and Kevin, aren’t they cute in their matching shirts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

At every road crossing, this guy had to drive ahead in his little red pick-up truck to stop traffic for us.  Not much traffic in this part of Maine, but it’s the law.  It was fun to watch him run to his truck and speed off, trying hard to make it to the next crossing before us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the engine was right next to us, each road crossing was LOUD.

Remember I mentioned this was a “scenic” railroad?  Well, mostly the scenery was just trees.  Since I was feeling a little sick from the heat, and a little more sick from the motion of the train, watching the trees go by wasn’t a high point of my day.  It seems to make motion sickness worse.  This was actually the only pretty scenery on the whole trip, which lasted somewhere around 1.5 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got to the turn around point, we saw that it wasn’t another station (as we’d thought), it was just a short section of siding track where the engine could disconnect and go around next to us to get to the other end of the train.  Not sure why they didn’t just drive back by pushing the train instead of pulling it, especially since the engine had driven in reverse the whole way.

On the way back, I walked up to the coach to see what that was like.  I wish I’d ridden there the whole way; it was a much smoother ride and with all the windows open it was surprisingly cool.  Still no scenery though!

Anyway... that was our day.  Pretty sure we won’t bother going back!

Trim Photos

I trimmed Zephyr’s hooves before riding last Sunday; these pictures are from after I got back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pasture Living

Zephyr has been enjoying his time in Gary’s cow field, just down the road from our house.  I’ve been leaving him out there unless we’re expecting heavy rain or a thunderstorm.  He has two other horses and 6-10 cows for company.  Every night, even if he’s going to stay out there, I bring grain for him and the other two horses.  They see my headlamp as I walk towards the field along the road.  It took a few days for them to figure it out, but now I think they watch for me.  Sometimes Zephyr comes running all by himself and it takes Rocky and Peyton a few minutes to figure out what’s going on.  It sure is nice not to have to tromp all the way across the field to get him!

Wednesday night, even though the weather was nice, Zephyr followed me back to the gate and very clearly asked me to bring him home.  (Last night, though, no such request.)  Funny boy.

Here’s a series of videos from the Thursday morning when I brought him back.

Larry, Moe, and Curly... all the shades of brown!