Over the Back of a Horse

Chiron always greets visitors by looking in the car window

The horse chiropractor came out this week.  Yes, horses have chiropractors.  After all, the work of horses is carrying people on their backs.  Jorgen, our Gotland pony, in particular needs help twice a year.  A stud until age three, he was in some sort of fight or accident, blowing out his knee, giving him TMJ, and a back that goes out easily.  Twice a year, he'll start squealing to pressure on his back.  The chiropractor comes out, does his thing, and Jorgen is good for another six months.

Traveling horse practitioners are always good for news about the neighborhood and interesting stories.  I told Gary about the time that I almost put myself out with horse tranquilizer.   Likely, according to Gary, I was indeed experiencing symptoms from absorbing some of it through my skin.  He illustrated his point, of course, with a story.

Once, he was assisting a vet with a horse that had ripped off it's eyelid.  Because of the delicate nature of the surgery, the horse had to be very sedated, and as they prepared to inject the horse, it jerked and the needle went into the palm of a teen that was helping to hold the horse.  The boy began to feel dizzy, and before the boy could be led outside to the grass for a softer fall, he went down and laid there on the concrete barn floor, passed out cold.

The vet and Gary shook their heads, and continued to work on the horse, knowing from experience that the boy would be fine and wake up soon.   The boy's mother, however, entered the scene before that happened and began wailing and gnashing of teeth and talking about calling 911.   Gary and the vet assured her that the boy was fine, and indeed, came to just as the horse surgery was completed.  I suppose I am with the boy's mother, I'm not so sure I would have trusted that the anesthesia could have been slept off with no ill effects.

Many friends are made over the backs of horses.   Other friends looked strangely one day at Ladina and I as we discussed the terribly uncomfortable feeling of having gotten hay in your bra, and how, as uncomfortable as that was, hay in your underwear (from pushing round bales off the wagon) was even worse.   What a good friend you are, I told her, that we can share that experience!

Notes:
Harvested oregano and catnip from the garden, and need to harvest the rhubarb.   Not another thing planted, though dh tilled it.

The grass here is so lush and moist from the rain that when cutting it, it becomes slippery and the mower likes to spin it's wheels in it.