Health

Salsa prefers to stand outside in the attached paddock rather than inside his stall, despite the freezing sleeting depressing rain that even Kresege sought shelter from. But he’s more relaxed now too and last night I blew his mind by holding carrots through the window above the manger and through the bars on the stall door, which he had to stretch his nose up to reach.  He isn’t tall enough to see through the windows so the sounds of activity in the barn must be disconcerting, but now that he knows these openings could dispense treats at any time, well, barn life isn’t that bad.

Rocky is even better this morning than he was yesterday, standing steady and even on all four feet. (Though why I woke up at 6am on a Saturday is beyond me. ) I’m hopeful that the flip side of his extreme ability to fight anesthesia is a rapid and uncomplicated healing process.

Erin called me last night to point out that I had done my standing wraps backwards, sigh, so during the rewrapping I showed her the sutures and we felt (gently) around the surgery site. No abnormal swelling, bruising, redness, or heat. She commented on how mellow Rocky was being and I laughed. “Yeah, he’s on bute. This is the stoned horse that I visited four times and fell in love with and purchased, remember?” We’ve been having fun speculating on how he will be in a couple of months, when all of this is behind us and he has regained strength, balance, and coordination.

Which reminds me.

I know for sure that I would not have had the strength — physical and otherwise — to hold Rocky down and get through the unexpected complications had I not been working out with my wellness trainer Pete for the past two months. We work on connecting the body and breath to stay grounded and on improving balance and coordination in addition to strength, flexiblity, and mindfulness. He comes to my house, which removes all excuses to avoid the exercise, and when the weather warms up we’re going to do our sessions outside where the horses can watch.

I’ve just built a website for Pete in exchange for a few extra sessions, as he is new in the area and needing to build up his client base. I am sharing it here because if you are anywhere in the Nevada County area or planning to visit me any time soon, and you ride horses, this is probably the most complementary type of workout you can do. (Also, if I can help him get a steady client base, I can be sure that he won’t have to move somewhere else, and I can continue to study with him.)

Innerfit combines elements of Pilates/core training, yoga, calisthenics, interval, physical therapy, balance, centering — basically everything we need to improve our own fluidity and harmony as our horses’ partners. He hasn’t been on a horse since one pony ride as a child, though he passenged in carts with a neighbor back in Indiana. I told him (threatened him?) that I would have him get on Rocky this summer so he can feel all the horse movement and learn what it is the human needs to do in our body to meld with the equine body.

Innerfit Personal Wellness Training with Pete Niehaus

He’s steady on his feet and is already casting about for things to make mischief with. Such as pushing his slo-feed hay bag through the stall window and pretending he doesn’t know how to reach out and bring it back in. (He does. I’ve seen him do it.) Licking my hair and nibbling the hood of my coat while I’m setting out my medical supplies: sterile bandage, vet wrap, pillow wrap, standing wrap. And picking up the foot I’m changing bandages on, then setting it down as soon as I adjust to bandaging while up, then picking up after I’ve readjusted. (I told him firmly that he was going to get a smack, and then he held still, and after I rewrapped the leg, I gave him a resounding kiss on the cheekbone. Smack!)

It took an hour to get all the bandaging and vet wrap off of the two front legs, as the vet wrapped them so thoroughly I had to rip, tear, and yank little strips off at a time. But the sutures look good, a little bruisy maybe, but no worse than I look when I’ve had to be sewn together. I wrapped both hind legs as well to give him support as he’s on stall rest until Wednesday and boy does he look sharp. The store only had red so I was forced outside my rut of hunter green, and it’s snazzy. Also red will provide a nice warm healing energy.

Salsa has settled in to his stall and paddock now, and will come up and stretch his nose up to touch my hand when I put my arm through the stall window. He’ll get some one-on-one time on Saturday and then we have our first Parelli Savvy Students Gold Country playdate here on Sunday. He’ll be my playpony for that.

Back to normal around here? Normal is as normal does.