One-handed

I have been totally housebound and pretty helpless (thanks to my husband the animals are getting fed), and I still don't know what's wrong with me. Apparently shoulders aren't that interesting to doctors, even when the pain is excruciating and not responsive to pain meds. BUT! Dr. Google gave me a solution that has helped tremendously, so if you ever injure your shoulder and the doctor hands you a simple sling, ask for this instead:

The sling supports your elbow and leaves your shoulder all wibbly-wobbly, while this wrap holds the shoulder in place and reduces pain almost immediately.

I plan to bother my doctor some more on Monday. Of course this happened on a holiday week.

I also figured out how to halter a horse one-handed. Luckily I have tons of extra rope around, because a halter wouldn't do. I took a roughly 20-22ft rope, made a loop in one end, and used a "come along hitch." I don't know if Steve Edwards invented it - probably not - but he uses it a lot in his donkey and mule training.  It's easy to do one-handed as long as your critter is sweet and wonderful like mine;) This video shows it pretty well:

Unlike my photo of fluffy Juniper, which doesn't show it at all:

I took a stroll around the pasture and even ventured out with Halla and took her to visit Sawyer. Much better today! Previously I could barely walk across my tiny house.

I already have some ideas on bridling and saddling one-handed, but since I can hardly stand to ride in the car, I don't think I'll be riding a horse just yet.

I'm off to my super exciting life. Nap #1 for today. Enjoy your weekend!

Alrighty Then

I'm going to get my complaining over with first. What am I, 80 years old? Seriously, I want to be done being injured or in pain, please. My shoulder is in so much pain it's almost made me puke or pass out a couple times. I couldn't sleep due to the throbbing, awful pain. I didn't even do anything to it! I did do a lot of mowing on the riding mower one day. But it didnt hurt at all until it started getting progressively worse the next day. Went to the doctor yesterday, they gave me a powerful anti-inflammatory shot which I didn't think worked until it wore off. Yowza. Today I'm going to insist on imaging. After I go to work, because of course we're short staffed this week.

I mowed a path around part of the property so I can walk in the evening without getting run over. Plus, it's prettier than walking on the road.

Miss Juniper is, as always, difficult to photograph. I have to walk away quickly and hope I can get far enough away to click a pic while she follows. You'll have to take my word for it. She's the prettiest donkey ever.

We went for a nice ride on Sunday. Happily, John likes to clear trail and I had a saw. I've been riding around these branches and this downed tree for years.

Halla showed me something interesting again. She decided she wanted to go home and was really pulling back for the trailer, but I kept her on course with some effort. When I didn't give in she started looking for an excuse to spook. Interesting. She did do a little spook, I didn't get buffaloed by it, we continued for a bit and then looped back as planned, not too much later. I think that was a good ride. We rode past her bad behavior but not too far past her tired point (this was a pretty short ride and she didn't sweat much at all). She's a good girl but she doesn't have much work ethic. :)

This one though. He is bad. He has an interesting bracelet. I knew better than to leave that type of feed pan in there with him, but had a mental lapse.

And then there's Winston, who will cuddle any way he can. We were playing cards (a Western shoot-em-up game called Bang!, super fun) and he just wedged himself in there for a stand-up seat-back cuddle.

I'm off to work. Happy Thanksgiving!

Old Times

I'm going through the old photos on my computer. Whoa, what a job. I take a LOT of pictures. Originally I was going to delete all the ones that aren't worth keeping but I found myself just looking for the best ones. Here are a few fun ones that were probably on the old, pre-Tonka blog, which has been deleted. I'm pretty sure nobody has even been around long enough to remember that blog. Horse Tales. Or Horse Tails. See, I don't even remember what it was called.

Here's my sister on Levi, her girls on Dyno and Sox, and Katia on Coda. I was probably riding Soxy, our good old appy mare.

Our boys. :)

My oldest niece on Sox again.

My younger niece winning a blue ribbon on Coda. He was so proud in the show ring!

He'd been a show horse his entire life and was dumped at the auction when he got old and skinny. Luckily a kind woman who couldn't really afford him picked him up and I bought him from her. He finished his life with our kids.

My brother in law in front with my nephew and his nephew, my nieces, a friend of the family, and my sister. What fun!

This (below) was a big trail challenge that covered miles on a big ranch. My horse had a narcoleptic episode and knocked down the electric fence in the middle of the night and let a bunch of horses loose. Lovely to wake up to galloping hooves in the darkness and try to quickly get your feet into cold, stiff boots. They didn't get far though. Then it rained all day the next day. It was fun, though!

A ladies ride. We were going to do them regularly. I don't think that happened. Or if it did, I didn't go.

Boy, I sure miss all of those horses. Soxy, Danni, Coda, Levi, Sox. They were family, and they were good to us. All gone now. I guess they made room for more horses in our hearts. I'm glad to have the memories.

And check out what Duncan is up to!

Random Photos

Callie cuteness

Sawyer looking good

See the duck? She's got hiding skillz.

Thinking about one of these...

Love this!

And this

Thought my daughter would love this, but she has her eye on a different one. I love music stores, even though I don't aspire to play anymore.

Yucky weather is setting in. We did ride Monday to try to help someone find a lost horse after a wind storm. Horse was eventually found, we hauled her back to her home. Didn't actually end up needing the horses as it turned out, but it was good to get in the saddle in weather we normally wouldn't ride in. It should have felt good to help out, but I'll just say some people just aren't my type. I'm glad the horse was OK.

On a related note, I'd love to join the sherriff's posse and do some search and rescue. They have their meetings late on weeknights way out in the boonies. It's a little weird. I'll have to wait until I have more free time.