Silver Lining

So, I was putting on my socks this morning (a longer than usual process with one wrist in a splint) and I realized having not done the long run on Sunday may have saved my toenails. They are still pretty black, but I am thinking they may not actually fall off this round, which they have done many times in the past. Toenails....wrist, not sure about that trade-off, but I'll take what I can get.

Did it again

And this is not the Britney song! I managed to break my wrist again, this time falling off a school horse during a lesson, pretty damned embarrassing. Also, annoying, but luckily, not particularly painful. The plan is for surgery Friday, then about 6 weeks of pt to get back to full function. Decided to go ahead and try to do the rnraz.com 1/2 marathon on the 18th. Stay tuned for an update on how that goes. I'm willing to walk it if need be. Luckily Keebler is attended to.

The year ends

I'm failing as a blogger. 3 months weren't supposed to pass. Keebler is well and is down in Alabama at Debi Crowley's Cotton Meadows Farm (www.cottonmeadowsfarm.com). I'm sure he wonders why he is in dressage boot camp, but is enjoying lots of turn out and the warmer weather. Meanwhile, I've been riding Del. It is a lot of fun doing dressage on such an easy horse.

Shanyn Fiske bought the lovely mare Greta, so we're looking forward to seeing them out eventing in 2009.

In October, I took the final exam for the TD's license. Due to odd timing, my application won't be reviewed by the committee until April, so I'll be doing some other things in the interim. Look for (more regular) posts about the goings on.

In November, I spent a weekend down in Florida at the Ocala event. Lots of fun, and got to spend some time with Andre and Hilda as well as lessons on Isabelle and Helari, too very nice young mares down at Ashmore.

December was the end of teaching, a quick trip to Santa Fe and a slightly longer trip to California where we did cookie party 22! Then visited Ojai and had a wonderful dinner with new friends Tanya Bentley and her husband Alex at Upstairs2. We highly recommend this restaurant if you are in L.A.

There was also very sad news. John Pryor, one of our great trauma surgeons here at Penn was killed in Iraq on Christmas. It has been a long time since I've lost someone and then it was AIDS, the killer of my times. I'm just too young to have had friends in Vietnam and old enough that most of my friends are too old for the more recent wars, but trauma surgeons are needed in battle and are making remarkable strides to saving lives. John knew how needed his skills were and chose to serve with a forward team. http://www.drjohnpryor.com/index.html

Plantation's First CIC

I volunteered Friday and Saturday, scribing for the CIC**/CIC*** and then being a stopping point person on the cross country. The weather was perfect. There were a bunch of falls, but no one seriously hurt and all in all a great weekend. The weekend ran more like a USEF event than like FEI, but that was kind of nice. There were some issues that were fine given the weather we had (no ice at XC finish, limited water brought out for fence judges), but I'm sure they would have figured it out if it had been hotter. Phillip Dutton, Leslie Law, Susie Beale, Sally Cousins (and I'm sure others) all took a spill at some point. Which just goes to show *everyone* falls off.

Sunday, I took a lesson on Greta, a lovely mare recently come to Susie from the show ring. She was a lot of fun, as was being back on a horse in general. With Keebler still recovering, I haven't gotten in much riding, but should probably take advantage to ride some different horses. Also, hit the elliptical and enjoyed the good weekend for Philadelphia sports (other than the Cowboys win over Green Bay last night)

Progress slow - so are the reports

Keebler is still at New Bolton. He is better, but not well. His feet are still sore and we are waiting for the radiographic results to see whether there are any laminitis related foot changes. We are also waiting for the IFA results to know how likely Potomac Horse Fever is. Luckily, he is feeling better and eating well.

In which Keebler is a sick pony

Got a call from Susie Wednesday evening that Keebler had a fever. Didn't think much of it, as despite horrifying blood counts in early January, he recovered quickly from a similar fever. Tom came out, took blood, put him on banamine, tucaprim, and gentycin. No improvement, so this morning he went off to New Bolton. He is still eating and all, but fever remains and he is weaker and generally "punky" The New Bolton folks are doing an abdominal ultrasound to confirm suggestion of GI involvement, but they don't seem to have any clearer notion of what is going on that does Tom (our fabulous vet). Hopefully, he will rally whether or not they figure out what is going on. We all know he is a tough little bugger - yeah for those Appy characteristics.

And this after his great performance at the dressage schooling show. It was one of those shows where you pick the test, so we did Eventing Training Test A once and Test B twice. He got 42 on the first two tests and 40 on the third with a judge who does both dressage and the recognized events as well. His best dressage scores ever! So, maybe having to be a dressage pony made him feel ill....

Totally remiss

Yes, I have been totally remiss. Keebler incurred his first training level jumping fault. He zig-zagged enough to lead the fence judge to call it re-presentation at Fair Hill. Still, the weather was perfect and he was relatively good in dressage, getting a 44, his best score at training level thus far. This past weekend, I spent two days volunteering and 4 days apprenticing at Wayne DuPage horse trials. Got to stay with Katie Lindsay and meet Gobi the blogging dachshund in person (or would that be dogson) http://www.aecatlamplight.org/Blog/blog.htm. Lovely weather through the entire week in Chicagoland. Cyndi was announcing and Nancy scoring, so felt like old home week. Very nice friends of the organizers, Noreen and Paul fed the whole gang of officials two evenings, bbq at their home and dinner at Foxfire (very nice restaurant should you find yourself in the Western suburbs of Chicago). Back home for the week, due to Florida flight being cancelled for hurricane Fay (have rescheduled for the Ocala CCI, so you will get an actual Florida chronicle again in November). Dressage show coming up this weekend. Weather remains great.