Friday of last week, barn time. I gave the pony a manly war braid thing to get his mane pulled up off his neck because it's so long and thick.
Saturday, found out there's a lady who boards her horses at the small horse farm around the corner. She does Very Reasonably Priced Lessons, as in VERY reasonably priced. Score!
Sunday, laundry.
Monday, picked up trash along the fence line at the small horse farm around the corner and spoke with the lady who does reasonably priced lessons and handed out carrot bites. Score!
Tuesday, went to small show barn and had some social time with some of the show horses. With the heat being as bad as it is, grooming is more of a challenge than when it's cooler, so I only managed to get one horse groomed well before I needed to leave to run some errands and pick up Football Monkey. Still a score.
Today, well, what can I say about today? It was strange. Some of the people I know online have had metsters they knew who died earlier this week. It fucking sucks. I fucking hate it for them. This disease fucking wrecks lives. I also had to ponder an NCBI release of information regarding HER2+ and HER2- cancers. Evidently, there isn't long term tracking done, so the statistics are fucked regarding how those like me are actually doing long term. I also found out that regarding mets, what is of most concern for me is the potential of mets to my liver and brain for twelve fucking years. Twelve. And yes, that's going according to the statistics presented. (Where people pull the "magic" five years out of their asses as a "safety" zone regarding HER2 cancers, I have no fucking clue, but it pisses me off. I want to print this shit out and put it under my onc's nose and tell him I'm not stupid and that I don't appreciate not being told about this stuff. To be fair, he's not the one who was such a dill hole to me when I did chemo, but at the same time, I'll never really trust him because he's a doctor and he probably is under the grossly mistaken impression/opinion that I was already "informed" about this stuff when I was in chemo, which I was not.)
This is a lovely post about the Mythical Cancer Warrior. The phrase, "Mythical Cancer Warrior" reminds me of the typical over done trope (perspective) about cancer by the non-cancer civilians. I greatly appreciated reading this post and wanted to share it here, since my readership seems to have picked up.
I Can Pretend by the Cancer Curmudgeon and the reality of this shit. She so articulately states what so many of us are thinking/encountering at any give time when dealing with the shit storm that cancer is.
And here's how a Molecular Biologist explains how THC kills cancer. Gosh, you'd think using something like that to cure cancer without fucking up people's lives and wrecking their health would be, oh, I don't know, criminal, or something. JS
In spite of the heat, today definitely falls into the category of amazing barn time. While I managed to groom only one horse, I had the amazing experience of being on the receiving end of not one, but two hugs from two different horses. If any of you readers are familiar with the body language of horses, you'll know that their noses are super personal space for them. They explore with their noses. I eat peppermints like a fiend anytime I'm around horses and once they are interested in me, I'll exhale slowly from my mouth and let them smell the peppermint. (Yes, horses like peppermints. I have yet to have this fail me.)
My action is rewarded with perky happy forward ears and great interest in whatever it is I'm going to do--comb, brush, and/or braid. I visited with one horse who I wasn't going to groom today and was standing outside his stall. He had poked his head out of the stall to say hi to me, so I started scratching his neck. He straightened it and leaned, so I kept scratching and moved to the other side. He leaned on me, so I reached up around both sides of his neck as high as I could get and managed to find his happy spot on his poll, up on his neck on behind his ears. If he was a cat, he would have gone into hyper purring mode. He rested his head on my shoulder, the full weight of it and even pulled me a bit closer. This is like a horse hug, for lack of a better way to put it. I felt so privileged to have gotten that sort of acknowledgement from him. (And for continuity's sake; Score!)
I moved along to the leggy bay mare and brushed her, worked on tidying up her wild mane, and didn't even mess with her tail. I need to work on stepping up my game on the mane and tail detangler. The winter/spring formula is NOT going to work during the summer. I'm thinking aloe pureed with distilled water, white vinegar, and a couple of other things should potentially work.
There was one horse I hadn't worked on last week or earlier this week, so I tackled sorting out his mane and getting him groomed. He leaned into the brush when I was brushing his neck, so I started scratching his neck in the same place, up on the poll. That elicited a very soft, relaxed snort and he closed his eyes. He sighed and leaned some more, so I went in for the ne plus ultra. Both arms around the neck, scratching his poll, and I managed to be rewarded in the same manner. The full head weight relaxed on my shoulder and that slight pull with the head to move me a little closer to him. Score!
I exited the stall and closed the door. Then I asked him if he remembered "pretty neck" and he responded with arching his neck to show me that he did. I told him he was a good, smart boy and was so pleasantly surprised because I hadn't asked him for "pretty neck" for several months. He accidentally learned it back in the winter in maybe five minutes with no treats involved other than verbal praise and me petting his forehead as a reward for his effort.
Horses are amazing animals. They are intelligent and it's so easy to understand why they are exceptional for therapy.
Avoiding the scary chickens today? Why yes, yes I did avoid the scary chickens. Score!
Saturday, found out there's a lady who boards her horses at the small horse farm around the corner. She does Very Reasonably Priced Lessons, as in VERY reasonably priced. Score!
Sunday, laundry.
Monday, picked up trash along the fence line at the small horse farm around the corner and spoke with the lady who does reasonably priced lessons and handed out carrot bites. Score!
Tuesday, went to small show barn and had some social time with some of the show horses. With the heat being as bad as it is, grooming is more of a challenge than when it's cooler, so I only managed to get one horse groomed well before I needed to leave to run some errands and pick up Football Monkey. Still a score.
Today, well, what can I say about today? It was strange. Some of the people I know online have had metsters they knew who died earlier this week. It fucking sucks. I fucking hate it for them. This disease fucking wrecks lives. I also had to ponder an NCBI release of information regarding HER2+ and HER2- cancers. Evidently, there isn't long term tracking done, so the statistics are fucked regarding how those like me are actually doing long term. I also found out that regarding mets, what is of most concern for me is the potential of mets to my liver and brain for twelve fucking years. Twelve. And yes, that's going according to the statistics presented. (Where people pull the "magic" five years out of their asses as a "safety" zone regarding HER2 cancers, I have no fucking clue, but it pisses me off. I want to print this shit out and put it under my onc's nose and tell him I'm not stupid and that I don't appreciate not being told about this stuff. To be fair, he's not the one who was such a dill hole to me when I did chemo, but at the same time, I'll never really trust him because he's a doctor and he probably is under the grossly mistaken impression/opinion that I was already "informed" about this stuff when I was in chemo, which I was not.)
This is a lovely post about the Mythical Cancer Warrior. The phrase, "Mythical Cancer Warrior" reminds me of the typical over done trope (perspective) about cancer by the non-cancer civilians. I greatly appreciated reading this post and wanted to share it here, since my readership seems to have picked up.
I Can Pretend by the Cancer Curmudgeon and the reality of this shit. She so articulately states what so many of us are thinking/encountering at any give time when dealing with the shit storm that cancer is.
And here's how a Molecular Biologist explains how THC kills cancer. Gosh, you'd think using something like that to cure cancer without fucking up people's lives and wrecking their health would be, oh, I don't know, criminal, or something. JS
In spite of the heat, today definitely falls into the category of amazing barn time. While I managed to groom only one horse, I had the amazing experience of being on the receiving end of not one, but two hugs from two different horses. If any of you readers are familiar with the body language of horses, you'll know that their noses are super personal space for them. They explore with their noses. I eat peppermints like a fiend anytime I'm around horses and once they are interested in me, I'll exhale slowly from my mouth and let them smell the peppermint. (Yes, horses like peppermints. I have yet to have this fail me.)
My action is rewarded with perky happy forward ears and great interest in whatever it is I'm going to do--comb, brush, and/or braid. I visited with one horse who I wasn't going to groom today and was standing outside his stall. He had poked his head out of the stall to say hi to me, so I started scratching his neck. He straightened it and leaned, so I kept scratching and moved to the other side. He leaned on me, so I reached up around both sides of his neck as high as I could get and managed to find his happy spot on his poll, up on his neck on behind his ears. If he was a cat, he would have gone into hyper purring mode. He rested his head on my shoulder, the full weight of it and even pulled me a bit closer. This is like a horse hug, for lack of a better way to put it. I felt so privileged to have gotten that sort of acknowledgement from him. (And for continuity's sake; Score!)
I moved along to the leggy bay mare and brushed her, worked on tidying up her wild mane, and didn't even mess with her tail. I need to work on stepping up my game on the mane and tail detangler. The winter/spring formula is NOT going to work during the summer. I'm thinking aloe pureed with distilled water, white vinegar, and a couple of other things should potentially work.
There was one horse I hadn't worked on last week or earlier this week, so I tackled sorting out his mane and getting him groomed. He leaned into the brush when I was brushing his neck, so I started scratching his neck in the same place, up on the poll. That elicited a very soft, relaxed snort and he closed his eyes. He sighed and leaned some more, so I went in for the ne plus ultra. Both arms around the neck, scratching his poll, and I managed to be rewarded in the same manner. The full head weight relaxed on my shoulder and that slight pull with the head to move me a little closer to him. Score!
I exited the stall and closed the door. Then I asked him if he remembered "pretty neck" and he responded with arching his neck to show me that he did. I told him he was a good, smart boy and was so pleasantly surprised because I hadn't asked him for "pretty neck" for several months. He accidentally learned it back in the winter in maybe five minutes with no treats involved other than verbal praise and me petting his forehead as a reward for his effort.
Horses are amazing animals. They are intelligent and it's so easy to understand why they are exceptional for therapy.
Avoiding the scary chickens today? Why yes, yes I did avoid the scary chickens. Score!
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