ups and downs on Friday

While the horses were finishing their feed tubs this morning, I invited the pony to join me in the arena. He looked interested until I started trotting down center line, and he decided to leave the open gate just in case I got more serious about him joining me. A little bit of a down.

But Rafer Johnson came in and stopped by the mounting block, waiting, just like he might if he were tacked up and I was getting ready to mount.  I walked over and sat down on the block, and told him I'm sorry I'm too big to ride him, because I bet it would be a very nice ride.

Instead, we had one of Rafer's "love bug" sessions, where he lays his head in my lap, on my shoulder, and in my hand, and puts his very quiet eye by mine so we can gaze as he gets his neck and ear and face scratches.

That was definitely an up. I moved on after a little while to let Keil Bay out. Keil rubbed his nose across my hand and headed out to the water trough, and as I put his feed tub out to be licked and then rinsed, I noticed my hand was covered (well, not totally) with bright red blood!

I followed Keil Bay out to the back field, where I quickly realized he had blood inside his nostril. It wasn't dripping out - it was up in the curved area - but each time I wiped, blood came back. I walked up to the barn, mostly to give myself time to think. When something isn't right with Keil Bay, I get more upset than when something is off with the other horses. Which, if you know how upset I get about *them* means I'm pretty upset when Keil Bay has any problem at all.

I decided to check out his stall, in the manger where he'd eaten breakfast, and look at the feed tub to see if I could find any blood. There wasn't any, but I realized when looking at his tub (it's one of those meant to be put into the corner of a stall) that as much as he tends to bang it around when done eating, inside the manger, that edge might have poked up into his nostril and scratched him.

So I went back out to the field and sure enough, when I wiped his nostril out again, a clotted string of blood came out and when I angled him toward the sunshine I could see the white scratch. Whew!

Fortunately I did not take the time to come inside and start googling nosebleeds in horses - there is no telling where a little information and my imagination might have taken me.

That was a down and then a very sharp up.

I had some business chores that needed to be done today and although they weren't truly terrible it was a down to have to do them on such a beautiful day. So, a mild dip down again.

This afternoon was mostly up. I took a look at the full muck barrow, decided to HELL with chores, and proceeded to groom and ride Keil Bay. We had a very nice ride, with him very much in front of my leg, and although we mostly did walk and "big walk," the little bit of trotting we did was truly lovely. We did some shoulder-in, turns on forehands and haunches, and broke all that up with very big, stretchy walks across the diagonals.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I love Keil Bay. He is absolutely and without question the horse for me. And that is the biggest up of all.