Two days, three states

Rufus update -

Lovely boy - horrible background

As you cans see, he's not at all sore on it, and it can't be too painful, as he relaxes completely while we doctor. But he does have a nice bump.

With salve

Okay, not great pictures. Too much shadow, but you can kind of get the idea. We've been hosing with cold water and then salving. I think the proud flesh is pretty much gone, so tomorrow I'll probably just hose it and then let it be.

I ran T down to the airport in Omaha on Saturday. He's flying out to bring the kids back for the rest of the summer :)

We had a bit of time free once we got down there, so we drove over to the new walking bridge spanning the Missouri between Nebraska and Iowa. The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge is a 3,000 ft suspension bridge (you can feel it flex and sway when you're standing on it) connecting Omaha and Council Bluffs. You can check out a webcam here. It's easy to find - right down by Eppley field, the Omaha airport.

Major suspension

Nebraska side

Missouri River - Party Boat Central

Standing in two states

Iowa side

That's all that's new from here at the moment. But more riding updates soon.

Short feet!

All the ponies have new manicures, and all of them were good. This farrier is great - very careful, excellent with the horses. On time.

I'm not sure exactly why J didn't keep using her except that she's always so busy. But if I can keep her coming, I'll be thrilled. She's promised to put us on the calendar for 6 weeks from now, so I'm crossing my fingers.

And, she trims up north too. She gave me the name of someone up there that I can contact if I decide to take Sunny up with me. :) :) :)

We were going to ride tonight, but it's looking really nasty, weather-wise, so I think we'll raincheck until morning. It will also give the boys a chance to get accustomed to their new feet. But we'll go back in a bit and put some more ointment on Rufus. Turns out the scrape on his back leg is forming proud flesh, so we now have some bright blue stuff that goes on the spot once a day. It gets wiped off and reapplied once a day with Vaseline around it to keep the salve off the surrounding skin.

Pictures - they'll be icky, but I'll get some tonight when we go out.

What a week

It's Thursday. Amazing.

So today we spent cleaning my new apartment and taking care of all the lease signing details. Such fun. They agreed that I could move things in before the first of the month as long as we were willing to do the cleaning. It wasn't (thank goodness) really icky dirty, just normal, sitting empty, moved out of dirt to be scrubbed off.

On to horse things - we rode for about 2 1/2 hours last night, covering 7 1/2-8 miles. Hot, but worth it. Sunny pointed out a skunk, several pheasants and a couple of deer. We were trotting along quite nicely when he slammed on the brakes and snorted at a large rock. It wasn't until the grass next to the rock started wiggling that I realized he was alerting at a critter and not worried at all about the rock. Hooray! Skunks in the bushes are valid objects of interest. Rocks? Not so much.

We gave Mr. Stripey some room, and he obligingly waddled off along the fenceline without raising his tail in our direction.

Other than that? He'll pick up a right lead straight line, but doesn't like the left. Not a surprise. But I did ask for and get some nice pace changes within the trot, and we lead, followed, and rode middle, left & right without any problem. All in all, a good ride, and we'll go again to tomorrow evening, hopefully.

Good news!

I am (almost) employed again. I start on July 6th. A bit of commuting will be in order, so time for riding may be scarce, but I'm looking on the bright side - when time gets tight, I always schedule better. So look out Sunny & Rufus!

Meet Rufus

I promised pictures...

We rode for about two hours again tonight. It was sticky hot, or depending on who you talked to, sultry, muggy, humid, sweaty, damp.... You get the idea.

Post-ride - Sunny's the one eating

We ponied Rufus (the Red) down to the farm and back aagain via the back of the truck. He follows quite happily. T sits on the tailgate, and holds the leadrope, and I drive verrry slowly. It's less than a mile.
As soon as we passed the tree grove Rufus hollered and the whole herd came running to see what was up. As you can see, Sunny was terribly excited. Rufus wasn't much more so.

Since it was 88' in the shade, we mainly walked. The ponies were happy enough to do so. Thankfully the mosquitoes stayed away, as there was almost no breeze.

Anyway, it's late, so bedtime for me.