Happy Happy Happy!

I have not updated in a while, been pretty busy being unemployed.  I still can't get over the fact that I do not have to leave my house everyday.  I did not get the "work from home" job.  They called and did a phone interview while I was in the middle of doing evening chores.  I guess I should have stopped what I was doing in order to be more professional, but hey, if you call me after 5 pm, chances are I am cleaning stalls, feeding animals, or saddling up.  While it would have been a nice job I think, I'm not too concerned about not getting it.  Of course when financial destitution sets in, that may be a different story.  

Right now I am pretty much just loving life.  I get up early every morning, and throw back one cup of coffee. Then I grab the tractor, clean one pen, switch the horses on the pasture, clean the other pen, and then find one outside chore that needs to be done, and tackle that. Sometimes that chore is riding, sometimes it is something else.  But I try to keep moving until it starts to get hot. Then I move my energy to the inside of the house and tackle a chore inside.  

Once that is all done, I go on line and work on my advertising.  Bonanza Boarding is all over facebook now, and I join new equine groups everyday.  Through that I have gotten my first boarder.  She currently is boarding in Apache Junction, but lives even further out than I do, so was only getting to see her horse a few times a month. She will be bringing her horse in the first of Sept.  She is ten minutes from my house, really wants her horse on more pasture and less hay (which is what I like as well) and is pretty gosh darn laid back from what I can tell.  Plus she knows all the best trails up in the cool country of AZ.  She also is going to try and get one of her friends to come and board here as well.  

I was introduced this week to one of the other ladies who runs a boarding stable in our neighborhood.  She always has a waiting list, and was not happy with her only option to refer people too, so now she says she will refer to me instead.  

I brought in a different equine chiropractor last week. She worked on all the horses.  She does more than just chiro though. She does Electro magnetic pulse therapy, as well as massage.  It was a little expensive but holy cow was it worth it!  She started with Trax, found some really sore spots in his shoulders and in his poll.  She showed me how to stretch him before I work him hard, and explained that it will help with his movement if I am diligent about it.  

Then she worked on Melody.  The pulse machine really shows where their pain issues are, you can see the tissue responding to the pulse.  Or sometimes it is just too intense and the horse will pull away. At that  point she has to turn down the machine and work her way back in.  With Melody we found that she has significant pain in her left hock and right hip.  I knew the hip pain was there, but didn't know about the hock pain. But now I do.  She also had a ton of stuff going on in her ears and her poll.  By time she was done the difference in Mel was astounding.  She was okay with having her ears touched again, and was moving much better. She will need at least 1 more treatment, if not more.  

Next was Killian's turn.  He was not as bad as I thought. He had some vertebra out which she adjusted.  A little bit of stuff in his poll. Most of his was in his tail, but by time she was done she could flip his tail all the way up with out any tension at all.  I have ridden him 2x since then.  He no longer groans when walking so that is progress to me.  

Last but not least was Sassy.  Now you may recall that the last chiro did not want to work on Sassy till we got her feet under control.  Well her feet are better now, but she still couldn't make it around the block before hobbling.  Yet we could not figure out what the reason was behind.  She is in front shoes again, and doing good with that, but I knew it was time to do something more.    She started with pressure points and was blown away by the amount of pain in Sassy's chest area.  So she started with massage and then moved on to the machine.  When she put the machine up on the scar you could see the tissue jumping in response.  She worked on that are for a while. It was tight and the scar appears to have attached itself to the muscle below.  She worked on Sassy for a long time.  She showed a little front knee pain on the left. and left hock pain, but the biggest thing was that shoulder.  When she pulled the machine away you could see the muscle below still twitching. This did not happen on any of the other horses.    Then she did the adjustments and the stretching and then asked if we could take her straight to the round pen.  So we did.  We moved her at a trot, made her kick up to a lope and pretty soon she started reaching out...Sassy I mean.  Pretty soon she realized that it didn't hurt to move and she actually started moving soundly.  My jaw hit the floor.   We let her go back to a trot and when she lowered her head while trotting she was completely sound.  If her head was up you could still see some some tension, but still way better.  

Since that day I have ponied her behind Killian through the neighborhood twice.  Both times she has made the entire trip without hobbling, with out hardly even a misstep.  She is getting better each time.  This is not a gimmick, this is the first real honest to goodness progress I have seen in 2.5 years.  I rode her down to A's house who watched her move as we came up the road. She confirmed that I am not seeing things, or imagining soundness because I want it so badly. She says it is a noticeable difference. Sassy can't wait to get out the front gate now and go exploring. I mean she has always enjoyed it, but she is really loving it now. I can't wait to take her out to the desert and then in another few weeks I will start her back on light riding.  

So here's the thing. The pulse therapy is not the cure all.  But what it was, was the final missing piece of the puzzle.  She has been in pain for so long, its all she knew.  Her muscles were so tense, the skin at the scar was attached to the muscle restricting movement, and if it was tearing at all while I was forcing her to move, it hurt even more.  I got rid of the hoof pain, but had to get rid of the body pain as well.  She is not completely healed yet. I still see her short step sometimes, and until we get moving she walks like she is sore, but once we get moving she gets more and more sound with each step.  I am really really excited! 

The saddle shop plan is coming along slowly.  I kind of set that on the side burner for just a bit, as I have some things to finish to get ready for boarders.  But yesterday I was given a tip on where to go to buy good saddles cheap in order to really boost my inventory, and still be able to sell at a fair price. This will require me going out of state, but actually I think that is better as I find it is hard to buy a saddle off of the tack for sale pages on facebook, and then turn around and try to re-advertise it on the same page. Bringing in some new product will be good.  I also have a great connection now for buying new riggings at a fantastic price.  As a consumer I hate buying a saddle and then having to go buy all new riggings because what is on there is crap.  So my goal is for every saddle I sell to have new riggings, good stirrups, and to be clean and shiny and ready to go.  I think it ads to the value of the saddle, and mostly I want a reputation of selling a quality product.  Since there are no real saddle shops in my direct vicinity I think that once I get the shop set up and get my inventory rolling, I will do pretty well at that.  However, right now my shop is still cluttered with the remnants of TC's tools and such, from before he built his shop.  

In other news, I sold off both my vehicles.  I even sold my old Dodge which I loved.  It was hard to do, but a guy came along and offered me more than it was worth so I took it.  Then I sold my little yellow Nissan truck, which was the worst impulse buy I have ever made. I paid $8500 for it, put a bunch of money into it, and then sold it for a mere $6900 and was lucky to get that.   So with all that cash, of course my first instinct was to go buy another horse. But I didn't.  Instead I figured out exactly how much I needed to pay off all my debts, and then took the rest and went and bought another truck.  

I ended up buying the exact same model dodge that I had just sold.  This one is 2 years older, but has less miles on it, is an automatic (which is taking some getting used too) has airbags on the rear suspension, has a 3" straight exhaust on it, a nicer interior, and runs like a raped ape! Oh and it is a pretty color of green!  The down side is when we got it home we found a major oil leak.  The bright side to that, is where most people would think that is a major issue, I have a dodge diesel expert who was able to look at it and say, "Oh simple fix, its leaking from the accessory drive. We just need that seal kit."  I walked to the box of stuff I took out of my old dodge, reached in and pulled out a package containing the exact seal kit we need.  So I won't be driving it much until it gets fixed, but that is ok. I have plenty of other vehicles at my disposal.  

Someone told me the other day that I must be on the right track. She said I have not sounded this happy since she met me.  I am happy.  I'm not going to let my self worry about money. I will be more frugal of course, but I believe today that if I keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep trying to make good decisions, like paying stuff off rather than getting deeper into debt, and working hard at home, everything will be okay.  

It seems to me I had more to talk about, like farriers, and emergency night rides on Trax and stuff like that, but now I need to get dressed and head into town with TC.  I will post some videos soon of Sassy.  I really can't wait to show you all how well she is moving.