Gathering up the threads

Now that I am back from traveling and recovered from my jet lag and Odin seems to be feeling better after his fence incident (chiro comes Tuesday as final confirmation), it is time for us to get back into the swing of things.  Find a rhythm and start progressing.  I am mentally trying to pull together observations of our current state and make sense of it.

I found a horse to ride in Stuttgart

He continues to fill out, I am going to have to go from my 46" girth to my 48".  And I swear he grew another inch taller.

One of my goals for the next few months is to get rid of the giant muscle on the bottom of his neck and get some on the top.  We will see how that goes.

Thursday night I rode him and he was a hot mess. I didn't find out until later that he wasn't in turn out that day like he was supposed to be and R has been keeping him at short walk/trot sessions so he was just acting out of high energy but at the time all I knew was that he was a freak show.  Spooking at everything, unfocused and when I threw him on the longe line he bucked so high all I could think was, shit, I hope he never does that under saddle.

Guess his back is feeling better.

He was swapping leads all over the place and that night I gave him his first estrogen shot in months.  I have about 4 months worth in stock because I was tired of the inconsistency of it, so hopefully that is helpful.  My vet said that after the first month I should go to shots every other week for a couple months and then maybe every 3 weeks, then if he is still good, do monthly.

I bought a tiny bit of chocolate in Belgium

Friday I rode him again, in the heat of the afternoon and after he was longed by R that morning.  He was back to his old calm self and I even let him canter around a couple laps.  He swapped leads during the downward transition but otherwise felt good.

I got his fly sheet back from the repair place, so that is one thing that took me forever to get taken care of but is now done.  I give it a week before he destroys it again.  He was also donated a jolly ball which he enjoys quite a lot.  Especially kicking it out of his pen so I can go find it.

His ground manners have gone all backwards.  All of a sudden he is leading like a gentleman (not trying to drag me to grass) but in cross ties he is dancing and impatient, even while being groomed.  No plan there yet, but if he doesn't settle on his own, I guess we will have a boot camp or something.

Saturday we did a short lesson and it went well, as out of shape as I am at the moment - I lose fitness insanely fast - but Odin found a new habit to try with nose flipping.  R is having none of that and I expect it to pass as quickly as many other things have.

Today we went on a fairly long trail ride.  He is still weirded out by changes in ground color and texture but a guy started a LOUD weed whacker right next to him and he didn't care.  He is becoming a pretty good trail horse in company, we haven't tried much solo yet.

It has been nice to be able to go to the barn several days in a row and re-connect with him after so much traveling and inconsistency.  Besides a quick getaway with Jon to the mountains next weekend, I have 4 straight weeks in town and I hope we can use that time effectively.