Busy week

I am surprised I managed to ride Fawkes twice (Monday and Friday) this week given how crazy it has been.  Work getting ready for the holidays, us meeting adopters for the foster dog, the insanity of 6 animals in general, etc.  Oh, and J left town to go visit his family so I am single pet mom for the time being.

Gizmo went to his new home this morning, yay!!!

However, I did get to the barn yesterday.  Which brings up the topic of Keratex.  I have been using it as instructed since literally the day his hind shoes came off.  So two whole weeks now.  The first week was daily and now it is twice a week.  To try and maximize the process, I am being super anal.
1. Pick out horse feet, scrape walls
2. Hose horse feet to remove mud and dirt. Listen to horse sigh about the torture.  Get soaked by rebounding water.
3.  Walk horse up and down aisle to squeeze out excess water.
4. Wipe hooves (including sole) dry with a towel and make sure to remove any remaining dirt.  Get hit in the face by tail of horse who is tired of picking up his feet already.
5.  Groom, pet, ignore, or feed treats to horse to let 5ish minutes go by to allow the insane dryness of CO in winter to remove residual moisture. Watch horse complain about not getting enough cookies.
6. Apply Keratex to hoof wall and sole.
7.  Tack up horse and ride.

I am middling impressed.  The Keratex doesn't seem to have done anything about the chipping/flaking below the nail holes on his hinds but on the other hand he hasn't been sore in back so maybe it is working?

Ride was ok, he wasn't spooky at all but he was a bit cranky.  Trainer R said Fawkes had a kind of rough week in terms of attitude.  She has started to be more insistent with him and that leads to temper tantrums and then when she disciplines him in any way, he freaks.  This has been the fine line problem we have had for almost 3 years now.  He is kind of a jerk and then flips his shit when you ask/insist he stop being a jerk.  So we will see if she can push him past that because I am definitely over it!  I feel bad saying he is on some kind of clock but we are really close to our 3 year anniversary (next week) and you can only hit the reset button so many times before calling it.  Anyways, besides getting stuck in canter transitions, it was pretty good ride.  His flat work is improving by leaps and bounds.  Tack got cleaned and conditioned before I left, which is also amazing.

Today Fawkes was getting a massage - more proof that he lives a better life than I do - while I took the dogs on a hike.  In preparation for the backpacking we are planning to do in New Zealand, I decided to do a reasonably hard hike (close to 8 miles, about 3k feet of elevation gain).  And to up the game, I carried 6 liters of water and some other junk to get the pack closeish to 20 pounds.

The hike is up a mountain called South Boulder peak, which had a fire two summers ago.  There is a section called Shadow Canyon which is something like 1800 feet of vertical in a little over a mile.  AKA a giant stone staircase of pain.  At the saddle before the summit, I turned to look back in the direction of the car and randomly caught this shot.

 

It was a rare overcast day in CO and the burned trees seem to make a cool effect with the low lying clouds.  And then, oddly, you can still see Pike's Peak in the far distance - probably 75 miles away.

Maya on the summit with the Indian Peaks in the background.

The dogs had a blast and are both currently passed out.  Not unusual for Jasper but I somehow tired out Maya!  The perpetual motion machine!  Very exciting.  On the descent my knees were very grateful for my hiking poles.  People make fun of hiking poles but I don't think you can hike as much as J and I do over such terrain (and ski and snow shoe and bike and ride horses and sometimes run) and still have functioning joints without help.  At least I couldn't.

Lesson tomorrow morning although I am already kind of sore so let's hope I can get some leg cooperation.