April Fool’s!
This has been my life.
On Saturday, I trailered Ro out for a lesson. We ran through Training 1, 2, and 3 just to see. I wasn’t sure what we were going to see, but that was kind of the point.
Each ride got better.
We really ought to practice stringing movements together more often. Or even just once in a while. Any number bigger than “never” would be good, actually.
We need to ride in a real arena more often, where we can ride accurate figures at recognized sizes.
The dressage arena at that barn is set up within a larger arena using cones. It’s not unlike what you would see at a show. Ro and I managed to eliminate ourselves about 6,000 times per test by running outside, over, or through various cones. I secretly suspect she has a cone killing instinct. Or that she thinks the object of this goofy riding is to knock down as many cones as you can, as quickly as you can.
Everyone ignored our inability to ride inside the cones. This is not a show; it’s a lesson. And once we start working on stringing things together more often and riding accurate figures once in a while, we’ll fix the riding inside the cones thing naturally. Unless Ro really does have a deep-seated killer instinct when it comes to cones. I’m not sure what we’ll do then.
We return home.
Monday, she’s a bit snotty. I have been waiting for this shoe to drop ever since her last sinus infection. It’s hard to say what caused it - trailering? The pollen that was sheeting off the trees so heavily on Sunday that it looked like alien green rain?
I call the vet because 1) after our last round of sinus infection fun, I want to nip this in the bud. Before he starts talking about putting a drainage hole in her sinus. And 2) Ro and I are supposed to move barns on Saturday. While I know and my vet knows that this is allergies or a sinus infection and not contagious, walking into a new barn with an obviously snotty horse is not the way to make friends.
The vet comes out and proposes a treatment that does not involve drainage holes, so we proceed. He draws bloodwork so I can reassure my new barn manager that we’re reasonably healthy. Don’t mind the snot; look at the white blood cell count!
Wednesday we do round 2 of the treatment. She is still perky and healthy, no signs of upper respiratory or any other illness. We continue to think allergies.
Wednesday night, I have her checked by the chiropractor. No adjustment needed. Sweet.
Thursday, I get a heads-up text that she’s a bit off her feed. I make it out to the barn and she looks like something the cat drug in. Which is kind of impressive, given the size ratio of Ro to the barn cats.
I lunge her to get her moving, and she perks up a little. She’s got a small temp for the first time all week. Her nose is not quite the Niagra Falls of snot, but it’s thinking about it. I give her Banamine and put her up for the night. I’ll reevaluate in the morning and discuss with the vet then.
The next morning, she looks good as gold and eats her breakfast with relish. And by the next morning, I mean today. Friday. April Fool’s.
Because I am good at being paranoid, I leave a note for the morning feeder to call me. She does a visual check of her condition for me, and I’m reassured. Maybe Thursday was an anomaly? My paranoia wins out. I ask my friend to take her temp at lunch.
103.
My friend can’t believe it and retakes it. 102.8. I suppose that’s better, right?
I call the vet. I hope I get to see the new truck I’m buying him some day.
He puts me last on the list for the day, mostly because my boss, while understanding, would like me to pretend to work sometime this week.
When I make it out to the barn, I go check on Ro. I’m expecting a repeat of Thursday.
She nickers at me, ears pricked, bright eyed, snot-less. I give her the stink eye and pull out my thermometer.
Temp down to near normal range.
I give her the stink eye again. The vet’s coming out to see a horse with a 103 temp, and I am going to show him a horse who looks better than she has all week.
I am convinced this whole thing, and today’s temperature spike in particular, was Ro’s idea of a great April Fool’s joke.
The vet arrives and we discuss. There is nothing to see here. We decide to ride it out and see what happens over the weekend; if she spikes again or goes off her feed again, we’ll reevaluate at that time. Otherwise, he’ll be back for the final treatment on Monday and she will hopefully be good to go by then.
Of course, “by then” is already past the date I’m supposed to be moving out of Barn A and into Barn B.
Fortunately, I’m on good terms with my current barn owner, so we can stay as long as we need. We’re not unhappy with this barn—I’ll bring Ro back if she can’t adjust to the new barn—but the new barn has large grass paddocks and a covered ring. Ro covets the paddocks, although she doesn’t know it yet, and I covet the ring. We’re going to try it out and see how it works. Well, we’ll try it out as soon as I can bring her over without having to sneak her in during the dead of night and hide her from other boarders.
The vet heads off. Ro and I head off to lunge—she needs to move and keep things draining.
Thursday she lunged like a dying freight train. Today, she floats along, showing off just how much reach she can have in her stride when she wants to. She’s impeccably obedient. I’m not sure if I should strangle her or hug her.
My current barn manager thinks Ro is trying to tell me that she doesn’t want to change barns. She could be right. But those grass paddocks…
So, we’ll see. If she continues to improve, we may move as soon as Monday.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t post all this as it was happening, the answer is… in addition to all of this going on… on Monday my internet died. Of course, since I had no internet, I did not know the number to call for support. Whoops.
Fortunately, I have a “self help” tool on my computer. I am not very impressed with my self help tool, since it tells me daily that it can’t update its files. If it can’t keep itself running, how is it supposed to help my internet problems?
But somewhere in the self-help tool there must be a phone number. I wrangle with it for thirty minutes until it decides it can’t call home on its own and I might have to do it instead. Reluctantly, it gives me a phone number.
I call. I get a robot who wants to repeat all the tests the self-help tool made me do. The robot refuses to let me speak to an operator.
Half an hour later, the robot decides it can’t talk to my modem. It advises me to find the diagram that shows how to hook up my cables, hook them up, and call it back.
That’s right, folks: an hour of automated support from AT&T, and I’m told to check a diagram for how to hook up my cables. It doesn’t even give me the diagram, it just vaguely references it as one that came with the modem.
I considered briefly that the robot could be right. Maybe Onyx rewired the modem while I was browsing the web, and that’s why everything died on me without warning. I kind of doubt it, though, and start tossing words at the robot to see if it recognizes any of them. It appears that most of them were outside its vocabulary, but eventually it says (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Oh, you want to speak to a real person? Why didn’t you say so?”
I hate the robot.
When I finally have a tech on the line, he starts repeating the tests the self-help tool and the robot tried. I let him. The poor guy has a script he has to run through, and it’s not his fault. He concludes that I need to set up an appointment with a technician.
Now, remember, this is on Monday, after the vet has been out to see Ro, and he’s proposed a series of treatments. I know I have to take time off on Wednesday for the vet, and I may be taking time off on Friday (at the time, we weren’t sure if the last treatment would be Friday or Monday). As I said: my boss is understanding, but I have to show up sometimes if I want a paycheck. Work is also tricky right now. I defer scheduling the appointment until I can talk to my boss.
Ultimately, the appointment gets scheduled for next Tuesday.
Technically I don’t have internet right now, but I borrowed a wireless thingy to get some work done tonight. And then some catch up.
Consider yourself caught up. If you feel exhausted, you aren’t the only one.
Let’s hope the weekend is better.