What did you do today?

[Nanno]

Well, I do my best! Unfortunately Dusty is a little lame today. It looks like the bottoms of her hooves (especially the right one) are a little tender. I've got a x-country event coming up Saturday so I'm hoping I can get them feeling better before then. We've had so much rain this year our ground is soft and her hooves hasn't formed as big of calluses as usual. Looks like I'll be soaking her feet in hot water and epsom salts for the next few days and riding in hoof boots. She's not very lame so I think a bit of light riding will do her good as long as I use the boots.

[Nanno]

So I haven't been around much lately because I've been super busy with goats (Phil and I just got home from Beulah where we did goat cart rides for the kids at the annual Arts and Crafts festival), and especially horses this summer. I've gotten back into jumping, I'm starting a 3-year-old, and I'm doing team sorting and a lot of trail riding this year. I don't usually talk about my horse adventures on a goat forum, but I think some of you might get a kick out of this. I'm hosting an obstacle competition on August 21st and I decided to go with an Indiana Jones theme. I've got five obstacles inspired by the first movie and five obstacles inspired by the third movie. I'm having a blast building obstacles. In fact, I've got to go work on them some more this afternoon, but I thought I'd share these images first.
   

The "Open Division" course map:
   

The course descriptions are peppered with quotes from the movies, and I'll have Indiana Jones music playing over the loudspeakers. My favorite obstacle is the one with the giant ball. You pick up the golden skull from the barrel and it's attached to a string that pulls a lever and releases a giant ball that rolls down a track. Here's a video my husband took of the first simple prototype I made to see if my lever idea worked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8w0QopXIEg

I removed the soccer ball cover and am currently in the process of painting the ball grey. Phil turned a big cardboard box into an Ark of the Covenant yesterday and I'll paint it gold and put a smoke machine in it. I've got a pile of rubber snakes and some homemade rattles for my "snake pit". The last obstacle is the funniest. I dressed up this inflatable doll to look like Sean Connery. You have to stop your horse at a table, choose one of a dozen or so goblets, fill it with water, and pour it on the mannequin.

So that's what I've been up to lately. I can't wait to set up this course and see how it rides!

[Charlie Horse]

What. No chilled monkey brains, eyeball soup, and snake suprise?

[Nanno]

So here's the obstacle course as ridden in practice the night before the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkoGFSVXt-8&t=47m25s

And as ridden the morning of when there were noisy children playing on the hillside above the arena. Pepperjack was not very happy about them and was pretty distracted during the first five obstacles as a result! Still, I'm very proud of him. He's only three years old, has been ridden very inconsistently, and was one of the only horses that whole day who actually walked over those tires in the second half.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkoGFSVXt-8&t=32m40s

[Nanno]

So I finally got around to editing the video of my obstacle challenge practice ride and adding music. I'm not a very good video editor, but I did my best. I love how Finn marches around supervising the entire time. 

[blackie's maiden]

That is really good. I never saw the sand-filled tires used before. That is a great idea for.teaching careful footing

[blackie's maiden]

This a this week rather than a today report. Monday, trip 80 miles one way to our goat vet. Sprite has a swollen knee. Time for Mischief to lose his family jewels. So had to be there by 10 am and could not pick up until after Mischief came out of sedative, about their closing time. So we had to kill a whole day therr. Finally got home,.turned them loose and got food.ready cor everyone for that night. After dark, Speedy Gonzales, my small A.D.H.D. horse didn't show up for supper. Robert saw blood all over gates, some bloody puddles on ground and the horze trough was red. We broke out the mule.and combex the pazture. No Speedy. We.decixed to have one more.search. loser to the barn and therr he was, blood all over front legs, even back legs. After looking at his.legs.we found the source of the bleeding was his nose. A slit, very very deep and almost running from nostril to upper lip,.maybe only about 3/4 inch keeping the two from joining the slit. No vets available. Today no better. One on vacation, other out all day on farm calls. Well, one on vacation has someone filling in on emergencies calls. So we must make another vet call, 40 one way. Then we have a follow up on a barn.kitty we got "free". So far due to fact he was ill, "free" took about $158 out of the bank account. Then the four new barn kitties all lose family jewels and.get shots somewhere in all this. And Friday, i have to take my Old.Goat, Robert, to the doctor. Hard to.say which set of medical bills costing uz the most, human or animal.

[Charlie Horse]

Yeah that sounds like my year. I've had several big animal issues. Nothing stresses me like having an animal that needs a vet but its Friday night!

[Nanno]

I'm sorry you guys have had so much animal trouble! Facial wounds bleed a LOT, but are usually not too serious. It may be too late to stitch. I've had excellent results using Wonder Dust. It dries and disinfects the wound. I puff it in twice/day until the thing scabs over. Pepperjack cut his face last spring when my mom and I were in Bandera. From the amount of blood on his neck, chest, legs, and pooling on the ground you'd think someone had gone at him with a chainsaw! But it was just this tiny, shallow prick about 1/2 inch long where the two veins meet just above the cheekbone. It took 45 minutes to stop the bleeding. Then he rubbed his face on his knee 10 minutes later and it started right up again. It took almost half an hour to stop it the second time. At that point I hosed him off real quick, threw the saddle and bridle on and said, "Let's ride before he itches this darn thing open again!"

Best of luck healing humans and animals! I hope you get a breathing spell for a while!

[blackie's maiden]

Home now. Drive and w a it time, 7 hours at vet. Emergency vet last night canceled on us so we had to take to our goat vet some 80 miles one way. Another near $500 two days in a row. They had to reopen wound by shaving off some tissue to sew connection. Vet feels they got good connection. Could not have let it heal way it was. Deep canyon between nose/mouth would have been perfect place for debris and infections. Now i have to get vaseline or neosporin on 2x a day. He is really headshy now. Woe is me!