Whirlwind Weekend

This is how Hemie feels about hand-walking.
At least the weather was nice.

My goodness, just when I was getting blog-writers block, the universe delivers much to discuss. Unfortunately not all of it is good.

Firstly, worms. Hemie's fecals tested positive. Again. This is starting to become a real health concern and I'm doing more research on what this could mean for his overall health and what to do about it.

Laurie is getting back into coaching now that her shoulder is healing well following the surgery in November. She came out on Saturday morning and it was wonderful to see her and catch up.

Unfortunately Hemie and I didn't get to have a lesson as both of his hind legs were stocked up starting Friday evening. The swelling decreased with multiple repeat sets of 20-minute cold hosing and 20-minute walking, but of course I was still quite concerned since this is the first time he's had any leg issues like this.

Most of my weekend.

Luckily I had a vet appointment set up for Saturday afternoon for shots. While I was able to have our vet check out Hemie's legs and discuss the worm situation, we ended up rescheduling vaccinations since there's a small virus going around my barn. Turns out several other horses had both hind legs stock up, with minimal heat, and one's vet concluded it was a virus. It goes away within a few days. Given Hemie's significant improvement through cold-hosing and exercise, my vet thought his issue was more likely caused by physical damage rather than a virus, but better safe than sorry.

Throughout the weekend I was able to spend some time with Karen of Not So Speedy Dressage (formerly Bakersfield Dressage) - together we crashed a fabulous barn party Friday night, and I audited 3 of her 4 sessions with Dr. Christian Schacht. I didn't get as much Christmas shopping done as I'd liked, but I did get lots of excellent dressage pointers, exercises, and inspiration. So there's that.

Karen on Speedy G, with Dr. Schacht looking on.

More to come soon, but for now I'm thankful for a low-key Monday!