Cob Jockey

On Wednesday night, Mary came down. Our plan, which we had been building Disco toward for two weeks, was to lunge him over a raised pole with me on his back to get him to (finally) canter under saddle.

"Keep an eye on the weather, there's a very slight chance of severe weather tonight," I told her as she left.

I'm a trained storm spotter with the National Weather Service - the kind of person who reads paragraphs of Forecast Discussion notes from meteorologists twice a day when they update the forecast just for fun. Total weather nerd. So I knew the risk was minimal to low on Wednesday, and I was aware, but not concerned.

Mary and I lunged him without a rider first, then we discussed the game plan as I got on his back. "Okay, you're going to be cuing everything, I'm just holding the lunge line. As you approach the fence, get in two point, put your leg in the canter cue position and use your voice to ask him to canter. If he canters, great, let him keep going as long as he wants, but it probably won't be long. And bring him back to a trot before the next fence if he gets that far. We'll do it a few times on one side and a few times on the other."

With that, I walked him onto the circle. We got exactly half a circle into it when the sirens went off:

I know you can't hear a GIF, but just before I stop him, loud tornado sirens start, Mary asks what I want to do, and I jump off casually saying "Let me look at the radar."

I jumped off and checked the velocity radar scans on my phone. Unlike the usual reflectivity radar that shows precipitation, this type of radar scan shows you whether winds are moving toward or away from the radar site. If they're moving both toward and away from the radar in a specific spot, that's rotation, and it shows up as the confluence of green and red in one spot. If it's strong rotation, that spot lights up brighter and brighter.

During a tornado warning we had had the previous week, I rolled over in bed, checked the velocity radar, saw a weak area of rotation on the other side of the county, and went back to sleep. 

This time, I checked the velocity radar and saw a bright, clear tornado signature heading straight for the barn. "We need to go NOW," I told Mary.

The tornado signature is the confluence of the red and the brightest green color, just down and to the right from the little tornado icon.

We rushed poor Disco into his stall, stripped his tack, left it on the ground, left all the lights on and booked it back to my house to get in the cellar.

When we came out of the cellar a half hour later after the storm had just passed, I stepped onto the front porch and heard the unmistakable roar of a tornado to the east, moving away from us. Like low, continuous thunder that didn't stop.

Yeesh.

During the damage survey the next day, the NWS found that an EF-2 with max winds of 112mph had passed just two miles away from us and was on the ground for 13 continuous miles. No one was hurt, but unfortunately a couple of farm families lost entire (non-animal) barns and grain siloes. How easily that could have been us! 

Red dot is the barn

My night wasn't over, since the power was out, and uh, it didn't look like it would come back anytime soon.

There's a whole row of these things bent over like this one mile from the farm.

The farm is on a well, and it only has about an hour's worth of water in reserve before the pump needs electricity to pull more up. Since we have auto-waterers that only keep a very small amount in the stalls and then fill continuously to add more while a horse drinks, this essentially means we NEED backup power for any outage lasting longer than an hour. 

For that reason, the barn owners put a permanent generator in that runs off a house-sized propane tank that sits off in the woods you can see in the distance below.

It's the beige box in the front landscaping.

My BO has always insisted they've never needed that generator in 18 years, that because they buried all of the power lines to the farm when they built it, power rarely goes out for more than an hour, and he does have a solid backup plan to use the water wagon to trailer some over from his house across the ravine if everything really goes to hell.

But I'm neurotic about horses, water, and climate change, so I insisted on getting the generator running last year, which thanks to Leah's husband and my SO (who both, conveniently, work for a diesel engine company and both, specifically, have a lot of generator experience, just usually more on the datacenter scale than the farm scale), we did exactly that last year.

I was so grateful to hear the roar of that thing Wednesday night and to watch the well pump pressure gauge go up when it needed to.

I started getting targeted advertising for generators two hours after some frantic texts and phone calls to my boarder and my SO as I stumbled through my first time running a generator, because of course I did.

Thankfully, the power came back on after about four hours, so it ended up just being a good test for the generator and for me knowing how to use it. I am so grateful it wasn't worse.

A house near the farm I pass pretty regularly

(Side note: the warning was issued at 8:16pm, and the tornado didn't hit until 8:44pm, giving Mary and I plenty of time to take shelter. Also, the warning polygon shape ended up precisely covering the exact path the tornado ended up taking. All that is to say, the NWS is AWESOME and has made such incredible forecasting advancements in the last 20 years especially, and anyone that wants to defund them is an absolute moron that doesn't understand the good work these people do for honestly pretty low pay given how many lives they save every year. Ahem.)

For the first time in years, our little barn is full again. All thanks to this guy.

He's a 12.2hh Icelandic, which really rounds out our Breeds of the World thing we have going on. We now have an Icey, two Welsh Cobs, a Paint, a Paint/Morgan Cross, an Arabian and a Thoroughbred. Quite an eclectic mix for a boarding barn, and I love it.

So far, he's been a joy to have around. He eats almost nothing, is sensible in group turnout, and he makes me "Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" every time I see him. 

The addition of his owner also means that each of us are only taking 2-3 feeding/turnout shifts per week. Since I've done as much as 7 and averaged 4 over the years, this feels like heaven. I feed this morning, then I feed on Wednesday this week, and I don't feed again until the following Monday. What?

Introductions were done over the top strand electric fence, and Leah's Pyro was the only one that got shocked, surprise surprise.

I put him on the other side of Disco from Connor, and I wasn't sure how that was going to go. Disco's a chill guy, but a gelding he's never met before sharing a wall (solid at the bottom but bars all the way across at the top) with him could have been asking a lot.

But not only did they share a wall the first night, they gave themselves a whole ass window and had each others heads hanging into their stalls, and they were both fine.

I had tried to pre-empt this with twine the first night before I could run out to get more pipe clamps, but Disco was one step ahead of me

More than fine, actually, as I often find them hanging out next to each other even after I fixed their pipes to where Disco can't knock them out anymore (his favorite activity since he was a baby). So, I guess that was good practice for my stallion being in show stabling someday.

With that, we are well and truly full, not the pretend full I always say that we are so that I get some breathing room on screening applicants (a trick I learned from my previous trainer that I have to say is genius, especially when you're running a co-op, which not every owner or horse will be a good fit for). Seven horses, five people.

New guy grazing with his friend? Pyro

We woke up on one Sunday in February to a relatively unexpected snowfall. And I literally read my local NWS meteorologists Forecast Discussion twice a day when they release a new forecast package, so if it surprised me, that should tell you something.

NO.

DOUBLE NO.

It was nasty, wet, heavy stuff and late enough in the winter that it was truly unwelcome. Every bit of winter that happens after the first 60 degree day, which had happened the week before, feels SO much worse than before!

But it wasn't all bad. Our BO's daughter, the one that originally designed the facility, was visiting from Florida, and it was her birthday. So there was only one thing to do.

Disco had never been outside the arena with me, had never been in the back field, had never gone on a hack with another horse, had never had the dogs running loose around him for a ride, it was my first ride with no blocks, blah blah blah.

Connor also went on the buckle, but no one is surprised about that.

Disco was a little quick in the beginning, but in a way that felt good and solidified my desire to do nothing but trail riding with him as soon as the trails are firm enough to not leave hoofprints. If he doesn't like to move out, he's not going to learn that in the indoor.

Really, he was perfect. A nice, flat footed walk, and not an ounce of concern from me about whether he'd be good or not. And we did keep it to the walk - the ground wasn't totally frozen, and it was really too soft to be out there, but what's a couple of hoofprints in the land the BO's daughter built in exchange for a snowy birthday trail ride for someone that never sees snow anymore? I wasn't going to be precious about it.

 

Couldn't get him to look enthusiastic for his portrait, but I promise he enjoyed the ride.

And, as always, it gives me so much joy to see Connor making someone else happy. My unpleasant feelings toward the snow melted away as the BO's daughter and I chatted away and her joy at getting a snowy birthday ride bubbled over. It was such a perfect morning.

Good boy, Con

While doing groundwork with Disco the other night, I was struck by how different my perception of him is today vs what it would have been five years ago. Before Kate's hippie Dressage and after Kate's hippie Dressage.

Disco is a slow twitch kind of guy. I have never seen him spook, never seen him make a quick cut sideways. Nothing intimidates him, and it feels like it takes things a while to get from his brain to his feet.

Finally getting somewhere with ground tying. By the way, we were under a Wind Advisory for 40+mph gusts at the time, and the indoor sounded like it was going to blow apart. Good pony.

I, on the other hand, am fast twitch. I do everything fast. I grew up running fast. I used to get in trouble for doing my school work too fast. I have spent the last decade being told to slow certain movements down in order to go faster and lift more weight in CrossFit. Connor is fast twitch, and so are my dogs, who feel joined at the fast twitch brain to me (well...one of them does).

The slowest of all the slow twitch brains, and we love him for it.

On the one hand, sometimes I wonder if this makes Disco and I incompatible. On the other hand, Kate has given me the tools, thought processes and introspection needed to see him for what he is and meet him where he is. To develop sensitivity and reactivity instead of diminish them.

Take backing in hand, for instance. Kate teaches that you need to give the horse four seconds between picking up the knot underneath their halter to where you start to apply a feather light pressure on the bridge of the nose, because that's how long it takes the brain to process that new stimulus.

Flicking his ears back and forth between paying attention to me for his next cue as we did groundwork at the mounting block, and to the sounds of PM chores and dog chaos in the barn aisle

Fast twitch me wants him to back the second I think I want him to back, the same joined-at-the-brain feeling I get from Meatloaf and from Connor. Is it not disobedience if he doesn't? Is it not training the wrong thing if I don't expect an immediate response? I often apply too much pressure too quickly as a result, and he feels slow and dull to me.

But.

If I take a deep breath and slow my brain down, slow my hands down, I notice that he just needs a second or two after my hand touches the knot, and then he backs at the lightest touch. Wait a second, that's not slow, nor dull. That's him responding in exactly the time frame Kate says he should need, as a horse.

Lead changes clearly make sense to him!

Now I should say, this is for things that are not yet automatic responses for him. For new things, I have to give him space to process and an appropriate level of escalating pressure. Once a thing IS automatic, for the most part he responds immediately and with such a soft aid. He's desperate to work and to give me the right answer almost robotically once he learns something new. 

You can see the moment when fast-twitch Connor decides he's had enough of Disco being in the lead, speeds up and cuts him off to remind him who's in charge (Connor is still, for now, very much in charge of their field).

It struck me that without Kate, I would have made this horse dull. 

I would have asked too loudly and too quickly to ever give him a chance to learn subtlety, and he would have shut down and got resentful. He may still, I don't know, I'm not an expert horse trainer and I do expect to make mistakes with him. But Kate has at least given me a chance to meet him where he is and to see him for what he is.

It's kind of cheating to practice ground tying when he's absolutely exhausted after running around like an idiot with Connor before his lesson, but hey, seize the day right? PC: Leah

It's been A Month around here. Specifically, it's been February, the worst month of the year. February has no redeeming qualities for me. Every year I tell myself that this will be the February I just say f*** it and take a long weekend to somewhere warm just to remind myself there are places in the world that are green, warm, bright, and not filled with seasonal depression. And so far that has never happened. But one day!

In the meantime, we've almost made it.

But not before one last surprise snowfall that took over a week to melt, because of course it did.

Disco jumped right on the "February sucks" train by needing to see not one, but two, equine veterinary medicine professionals with mystery ailments last week.

During a cold snap when I was feeding extra night hay last week, I found Disco shivering at a cold temp, but one he normally handles well without a blanket. He was also trying to roll, but in a weird "throw my body against the wall, slide down it and just lay there" kind of way. 

I thought maybe colic and gave him banamine and electrolytes, in addition to putting the heaviest blanket I have on him. Within 30 minutes, he was acting totally normal, bright eyed and eating. So I went to bed.

The next morning, though, he was back to again displaying a sad pain face, looking miserable, and trying to roll (but still passing manure just fine). This time I also temped him, and found a 105.6F temperature! I gave him more banamine and called the vet. By the time the vet arrived a couple hours later, the banamine had only brought it down to 104F. 

(By the way, he politely chose to get sick on President's Day, which I had off from work. So that was nice of him.)

The vet wasn't sure what was going on, but gave him a banamine shot, a shot of antibiotics, and tubed him "just to be safe even though I don't think it's colic." By 6 hours later, his fever was down to 101, and that was the last of it. He was totally normal from there on out. 

After the vet visit, Disco slept most of the afternoon and Connor just stood watch next to him all day. It was adorable.

A few days later, Disco saw my dentist. He had just been done in Canada 7 months earlier, but anytime I start riding one that's new to me, I want to KNOW that they're physically okay with what I'm asking of them. Plus at not quite four, he's at an age where teeth change often. And it was a good thing I did.

Her winter teeth doing outfit totally looks like scuba gear.

Poor baby Disco had a line of ulcers down the left side of his cheek. To me, it looked like someone had taken a green/blue pen and drawn a line and some squiggles all the way down the inside of his cheek. While they weren't actively bleeding, they certainly still looked painful.

Disco is a much less sloppy drunk than Connor, but this particular pose must run in the family.

Now, my dentist is a DVM that just does teeth and bodywork. She used to be full-service, but went the specialty route, I'm sure trying to maintain a better quality of life for herself (no emergencies). She's spent the last five years studying to get, and finally last month got, her International Association of Equine Dentistry certification, which is quite challenging to get from what I understand. 

All that is to say - she is very, very good when it comes to dentistry, and she was stumped as to what caused these. He didn't have them at his last dental in Canada, and while he had a few points here and there, there was nothing that would have obviously caused that much trauma.

This is only part of the documentation you receive every time you get a dental from her.

She asked about his hay, but sort of half-heartedly, because if it was the hay, she would have expected to see trauma on the other cheek also, or on any of the other horses she did at our farm that day, and she didn't. So in the end, we got the teeth to where we know they're good and not causing any problems, and scheduled another dental in six months.

Since then, he has clearly been feeling better. He's demonstrating just a tiny bit of attitude on the ground that he didn't have before, and under saddle he was much more willing to move forward and to give on the left side. I feel bad that I didn't do this sooner, but I'm grateful that I've ridden him as lightly as I have this winter while that was going on inside his mouth.

AND WITH THAT, can we PLEASE knock it off with the vet bills for a little while, Disco!