This is hard

Mick and I took Poko to the vet last week. She has been having unusual episodes where she momentarily loses her balance, she can't stay on her feet, or she can't walk a straight line. She seems to lose focus, and in one episode I actually wondered if she were blind. The news is not good. Our vet says she is having seizures. Most likely, at her age, they are caused by a brain tumor. I knew it was coming. She is 12 and aging quickly. While searching for a picture of her to post with this entry, I was struck by how much older she looks now than she does in the picture I chose which was just taken in 2009. Now that it is upon us, I just feel so sad.

Apparently we would need a CT scan and/or an MRI to confirm the diagnosis. The vet seemed to be pretty certain that the diagnosis would be confirmed. I guess in 3/4 of the tumors found treatment does nothing to change the eventual outcome. So, we brought her home, and we will spend time with her and love on her until we see signs that it is getting worse. When that time comes, we will go with her to the vet's office and comfort her and pet her and speak softly to her until she is gone. I will not let her linger and suffer.

Blogger Award

Many thanks to Annette from http://www.newsfromaspenmeadows/ for this Stylish Blogger Award





There are 4 duties I must perform to receive this award


1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award


7 things about myself

1. It took me a long long time to figure out how to get this award transferred into this blog.
Once I had it figured out it was embarrassingly easy.
2. I've been married to the same man for almost 32 years.
3. I read constantly.
4. I would like to visit Alaska someday.
5. I am a lifetime member of weight watchers.
6. I'm not fond of cooking but love to make homemade soup.
7. I love a good Belgium beer

I am suppose to post 15 recently discovered bloggers. Not everyone may meet the criteria of recently discovered, but they are blogs I return to again and again, and I tried to stay somewhat recent.

1. AK Pony Girl's Riding Log
2. A Thousand Pounds of Fragile Horse
3. A Year With Horses
4. dogsnhorses
5. For The Love Of A Horse
6. Mustang Diaries
7. Notes From The Squirrel Nest
8. Cheyenne Chronicles
9. Postcards From Arizona
10. Rocking Seven Mile Ranch
11. The 7MSN Ranch
12. The Blog of Becky: How Not to Live Your Life
13. Writing and Riding
14. What Was I Thinking
15. DVMs Wife

Winter doldrums

I have had the "after the holidays blues" these past few weeks. I couldn't seem to summon the energy to do much of anything; not riding, or cleaning, or writing. All I've done is sit in front of the television and eat or read. So keeping that in mind, Saturday was a bit of a godsend. The Oregon Dressage Society has had a clinic planned for quite some time. It was about the changes in the 2011 dressage tests. I had been planning to go, and thankfully I managed to get myself out of bed and leave the house by 6:30 a.m. I spent the entire day at Devonwood. There were over 200 people there for this clinic. We had a lecture and demo riders. We went over the tests all the way through 4th level test 3. It was just what I needed to help jumpstart me for the new year.

I came home and spent the evening making sure all of my memberships needed for showing were in order. Sarah is going to show Bay, and I wanted to be sure we were ready with the information needed for the entry forms. I signed Baythoven up for the awards programs I was interested in too.

Now what I need is to get myself out and ride Boo. He's been neglected for just a little over a week. Along with neglecting Boo, I've been neglecting myself. Time to get back into the swing of things. The holidays are over. Spring will be here soon. I am looking forward to those 2 weeks in February where the sun shines and the crocus and forsythia start blooming. Shortly thereafter those true harbingers of spring, the daffodils, will appear. In the meantime I am going to try to fool myself in to believing it's even closer than it is. I'll buy flowers and bring them home. I'll get outside into the natural light as much as possible. I'll force myself to exercise so that I can have all those wonderful feel good hormones circulating...and most important of all...I will ride. READY SET GO!!!

Sunday Stills

GO DUCKS!!!!

First lesson of the new year.

I had a lesson with Tracey on Thursday. We continued to work on connection and forward. We are adding in controlling Boo's tempo more efficiently. When I ask for forward with any kind of assertiveness he tends to go from zero to sixty, and when I ask him to slow down a bit he goes from sixty to zero. I end up getting thrown off balance. In the lesson I started trying to be conscious of using my tummy muscles to hold myself up in the saddle during the transitions. I'm going to work on forward, connection, using my tummy muscles during transitions of any kind, and regulating the tempo until my next lesson.

We are doing much better on connection. There is not a doubt in my mind that I am the lion's share of the problem here. If I can get more fit and more consistent things will continue to improve. Tracey does want me to apply my calf in the aids more consistently. She doesn't like it when I use the back of my leg for cues. She said it makes my leg to unstable, and then it's as if I am constantly nagging him with my lower leg. She's told me this before, and I recognize the truth of it. That is why I did away with my spurs about a month or so ago. I didn't think it was fair to use spurs when my leg was unstable. I was really only using the spurs for more forward and quite frankly I've found I don't really need them for that.

I did have some knee pain in this last lesson. I need to work on turning my leg in from my hip and not my knee. I definitely need to become more independent in all my body parts. Is that even possible at my age? Guess we're going to find out.

Surprise Video

When I posted pictures of the fun day on New Years Day I said there weren't any pictures of the DH and I, but today I received this video that I had'nt realized existed. It shows the DH and I getting beat big time by the barn owners daughter and her buckskin Libby.

New Years Day

Spent the better part of today at the barn. Our ODS (Oregon Dressage Society) chapter sponsored a "fun day" there. We had a judge for our Ride-A-Test, a potluck, and games on horseback after the potluck. We started at 11:00 and ended at about 4:00. I took my camera, but I wasn't very happy with the pictures I got. I really need a lens with better aperture if I want to take pictures inside a barn. Still here are some shots that turned out okay. There aren't any of the DH on horseback as we were both riding at the same time. I did manage to get a friend to take one of us together at the beginning of the day and I'll put that on here too. Happy New Year everybody! Hope your day was as enjoyable as ours.