While all of you were being brutally honest about your trials and tribulations with your horses, yours truely was slinking around in dark corners, thinking to herself, I'll talk about this problem later. I bet those guys out west will have some great advice. I'll just tell them about tomorrow. What am I talking about. The nightmare of weaning Jolie. Or as the husband says, "My you have interesting horses. Who knew horses behaved like this.
So here we go. When Jolie came back from New Bolton, I decided to be proactive and take the weaning bull by the horns. I scheduled for Kitt to go to a really wonderful trainer, to be taught western dressage. So Kitt was supposed to go off property in mid November. In the beginning of November I contacted the trainer to set up the removal of the mommie horse, only to be told she had the great, good fortune to be able to train a wonderful young stallion. So could I wait until January. "Sure," I said, "why not."
Now we fast forward to late November and Kitt is acting like Jolie is plucking her very last nerve. So the barn owner and I discussed it and we decided to move Kitt in with the other horses in the far field, where she would not be able to see Jolie. The day came. We led Kitt out. She walked away and didn't look back. Being incredibly naive about this process we gave each other the high five and thought, "my this was easy. What's all the whoo hahh about weaning. This is a piece of cake."
One weak later, we found out what all the whoo hah was about. Kitt had had her vacation and wanted back. Her way of demonstrating her displeasure with her new living arrangements was to go on a hunger strike. After three days of her not eating, your's truely caved and put her back. After all January wasn't that far off.
Fast forward to January. Guess who's still at the trainer's barn? The stallion that's who. So Kitt can't go there. We asked every barn owner we knew if they'd take Kitt for awhile and there wasn't anybody who could. I also asked all of my experienced horse breeding friends and they said to just wait it out. If she gets hungry enough, she'll eat. They obviously don't know Kitt.
In late February, we decide to try again. She lasted for two and a half weeks. She did not eat for most the last week and did not drink for the last day. She was so weak and out of it, that I decide to put her back. My equine vet was furious. Kitt was skin and bones. Her pulse was weak and her heartbeat erratic. Just about at the time I decided that Jolie would probably be nursing when she was ten, the trainer said she could take Kitt in early April. So instead of being taught western dressage, she was frantically trying to find ways to fatten her up and get her healthy enough to be ridden at all. She stayed there almost two months. And for almost two months, yours truely was shuttling between two barns.
So now I have Kitt back home, gaining weight, and acting extremely jealous if I spend one minute with Jolie. And to make matters worse, the hospital system I work for has decided to play 52 card pick up, blending hospitals together and closing some. In short I have 8 plus hours of high stress chaos and work and now that it's 100+ degrees, my horse activities consist of hosing down horses and franticaly applying fly spray. There's no time for anything. But I promise to try and be a bit better moving forward.
Oh yes, I had a lymes flair up. It was just lovely. Anyway, I'd like to leave you with my favorite shots from this chaotic time
Have a great 4th of July and I do promise to be better.
PS: PicMonkey is basically Picnik. It does some things well, but if you want to take it to the next level. you are going to have to learn PS.
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