The Next Phase

It is now summer! Finals week is past and I attended graduation this last Friday, where I had to say farewells to several friends. I will be taking one summer course so that I can graduate at the end of the fall semester, but that does not start until the middle of July, which means I have close to two months free of schooling.

Well... I signed up for two low-intensity courses on Coursera.org. One starts next week and another starts the week after. I guess there is no such thing as escaping new things to learn, but I'm not sure I really  mind.

This summer has little on the calender so far. There is the World Expo - American Taekwondo Association that I will be attending in early July for competition. I also have my 20th birthday in July - that sounds scary!  O.o

I am attempting to search for a job that will help me pay for school and prepare for both a planned trip to Europe next spring and the big move to university (with Lady!) next summer. Landing a decent job seems to be rather difficult, however.

LINK

On the equine front, we have had a little good news. Lady is still tender, but not outright sore or anything. I am keeping her on grass for the moment as I simply cannot justify taking her off of it as it does not seem natural to me. So for now, both horses stay on pasture, which is now much shorter and not so rich anyways.

Instead of one bucket a day, I decided to divide her feed into two smaller meals. I only give her soaked timothy/alfalfa cubes mixed with a bit of oats, and only enough to mix her supplements in and make her happy. She is getting her regular supplements in the morning along with epsom salts and aloe vera (this week only). In the evening, she'll get her apple cider vineger, garlic, vitamin C, vitamin E (when I get it), and some extra comfrey, nettle and willow. I also plan to have activated charcoal on hand if she takes a turn for the worst and I'm offering her Himalayan salt and kelp daily.

Since she is doing better again, the best thing I feel I can do for her is keep her in light exercise. Right now, that is going to be at least 20 or 30 minutes of hand walking and trotting. She will also get a small amount of walking on gravel every day, and depending on how she continues to feel, I'll start going back to our regular work.

Hopefully, we can have a ride before this week is over.  *fingers crossed!*

The Mountain

Poor, muddy, and not-so-happy horsie.....

So the trimmer was out today and Lady is definitely laminitic, probably chronic. She was also quite certain that we had an episode of founder pretty recently, which would definitely explain the last week.

<lots of sad faces>

I have not had a vet out to look at her, but since I won't get as close to conventional vet medicine as a single minute dose of Bute anymore, there doesn't seem to be much point. I'll get a diagnosis at best, and spend way too much money, at worst.

So, there won't be any magical, fast cures happening, but we will get through this one too.

Since Lady now has a set of 4 lovely manicured feet, I plan to keep my tools close at hand so that those hooves stay pretty and don't grow out too far. I cannot use nippers on her feet because she has thick and rock-hard hoof wall and I'm just not strong enough.

I don't completely agree with the practice of pulling laminitic horses off of grass because it just doesn't seem right or natural. Limiting grass intake is another matter, and I probably will do that by taking both the girls into the small paddocks for 8-10/12 hours per day. We'll see.

Exercise is going to be another part of recovery, as well as lots of herbal and vitamin/mineral supplementing.

Fingers crossed that the plan in my head works out and we are back to regular work again soon.