A Grand Overreaction

FIRST let me tell you that L over at Viva Carlos hit 1500 posts because she's a blogging bad ass and is holding a contest, so zip over there to enter! Just a few days left! I'm just hanging out here with my just-over-500 posts and feeling only slightly overwhelmed by the idea of hitting quadruple digits.

Baby horse coming in for the carrots 

On Monday I went to see TC!

I didn't go see him on my normal Friday because it seemed a little obsessive to go see him right away after I spent a bunch of time with him last week at the vet clinic. I'm trying not to be that owner even though I probably definitely already am. I bet most owners don't drive an hour and a half (one way) out every week just to give their horse carrots.

But Monday rolled around and I had time so quickly headed out. Man is the drive to the central valley on Monday afternoon completely miserable! I ended up taking the back road through the hills, which saved me apparently 45 minutes of traffic, yikes. I still managed to have time to stop by the fruit stand for carrots (and my new obsession: honey sticks) before seeing TC.

Starting to smile

TC began trotting on Monday. He gets to do 2 minutes per day. He also started his magnesium, and it was hot, and he had eaten a lot of his food, so he was really quiet. Not sure what of that caused the quietness, but I'm going to assume that it's the magnesium I'm spending money on. Even though it was very likely everything else.

We did our normal carrot eating and grooming routine that is becoming something I look forward to way too much. I get sort of desperate for pony time with my own pony. Brushing off other peoples' horses to ride is more of a chore. Everything was going well until I saw his leg, and my mood deflated. It looked bigger than the other one. Sigh. I touched it and it didn't seem warm or anything, but I swear there was a difference. I ran through increasingly crazy thoughts faster than I could take a deep breath and calm myself down:

- it's hot, Rico's injuries always get bigger when it's hot
- he started trotting, maybe we're expecting this
- maybe he played in his stall
- maybe he played in the walker
- maybe he smacked it in the walker
- maybe he's broken forever
- maybe he's not really a horse but a carrot eating machine

Insert carrots here

I sort of freaked out but tried to keep myself all together. Deep breaths. It's okay, it's not like it's enormous, just a tiny bit bigger, it's not like this is a sign of the lameness apocalypse. Horses don't have to have beautifully clean legs to be sound, some horses are sound with ugly legs and some horses with pretty legs are lame forever.

I finished brushing him and fed him all his carrots. He remained super polite the whole time and very in tune with me. I only lost his mind once when he startled and actually almost ran me over. Do not trust the baby horse. Do not lean under his belly to obsessively stare at his legs. It was a bit of a close call.

As I was walking out, I stopped to chat with the owners. I mentioned his leg and tried to play it cool. Yeah it looks a bit puffy but I dunno, he started trotting and it's hot and... the owners looked concerned so they offered to come see it. They could probably see the crazy on my face.

He walked in the stall and TC was glad to have visitors again. He picked up his leg and squished it. Squished the other one. Ran hands down both to check for heat.

And then he takes it a little far... 

Yep, it was nothing.

But last time I thought something was nothing, he had a suspensory injury. So I can't keep it out of my head. Luckily, like the insane person I am, I'm free on Friday to go again.