Lunge

My first day yesterday went great! I filled out paperwork, had a more thorough tour of the facility, met the rest of the employees, and sat down with my supervisor to go over sample reports. Then she turned me loose with a few of my own.

Many of the reports are already in some sort of format on the hard drive but a few of them are complicated and require re-wording to coordinate with the lab results in my hands.

The day went by fairly quick which is good since my head felt like it was going to explode at the end of the day with the influx of information!

And I was just working on the easy reports yesterday.

After work, all I could think of was seeing Limerick. As soon as I walked into the barn and breathed that sweet horse scent in, I had completely forgotten about my day.

I groomed Limerick well as always. I notice she has gained a little weight; looks like all the hay I'm giving her at the end of the day is helping. She gets around nine flakes of hay a day, which is almost a whole bale! Three flakes in the morning and six in the evening to last her throughout the night.

I've also started adding a handful of grain to her beet pulp to slowly prepare her gut for the third meal in the evening.

I decided to lunge her to monitor her progress with the lameness. She started out a little stiff but within a few seconds she spooked at something just outside the arena door. She flung her head into the air, dug into the arena and cantered around, her forelock flying over her ears, until I told her to stop.

I had to tell her to stop! Normally it is impossible to get her to canter these days, much less have to tell her to stop! After her canter, she trotted around quite loose and limber, legs moving forward well.

I think a detected a little stiffness but it's so hard for me to tell these days; my eyes are so accustomed to seeing lameness that I'm not sure what is normal anymore!

When we were done, I gave Lim a big hug and kissed the side of her neck. Needless to say, I was all smiles when we left the arena.

I'm going to try riding her bareback today!