Serene Sunday

Let me out!

 

I'm soo cute, you have to let me out of the arena!

Sand and Sores

So tired today....

 

In Dani's new place....well since May, the ground is pretty hard.  I finally went and got two truck loads, aka 6,400 lbs of sand to put in her stall.  It is much cushier!!!  This sand is what they use in arenas, good stuff and less dusty than the silt layer that feels like it's over concrete that's in there now.

 

 

My hubby had just gotten in late last night and then is leaving 5am Sunday so it was just me working on the stall.  Steve travels a lot for work so when he has these quick turn arounds where he doesn't get a full weekend it really sucks.

 

I still had a good day and got several inches in Dani's stall.  Hopefully the extra cushion will alleviate the issues she's had with her hock.  She's been getting sores on her hock.  Poor baby.  It's been getting better with Corona (not the beer!) ointment, hopefully the extra dirt will help.

 

Kit Carson Riding Club also had a bunch of people at the grounds to make a showing for a Gazette reporter to promote the club.  Some people were out there running barrels and doing pole bending.  It was a lot of fun and I got to just walk Dani around and get her used to the activity.  I'm still getting used to my western saddle.  I also rode her closer and closer to a horse cart that had lots of flappy things on it, we just did lots of changes of directions and I let her look at it.  For the limited exposure she has had she did well. 

 

I feel accomplished having given her a bedding substrate for her stall.  She eats hay out of a bin and same with her food, plus I have her on sand clear because the dirt is sandy here anyways.  I think this should do the trick for her hocks.  I hate seeing ouchies on my baby!  Hope all is well with your alls horse worlds!!

 

Western Saddles

In between graduations, visits from family, fires, flash floods and visits from friends I've worked on getting my western saddle ready to ride for me.  I purchased stirrup rotators so that my stirrups are at a 90 degree angle to the fenders.  I noticed with the normal way western stirrups are there is just too much torque on my knees. The rotators added about 4 inches to my fenders and therefore even on the last hole the leathers were still too long.  

I brought my saddle into the Pikes Peak Saddlery in Black Forest.  To get the fenders adjusted for me and to also have some D rings attached would cost about $69.  Awesome.  A week later I could pick up the saddle.  I was very happy with that.

 I got my saddle back and wasn't sure what had been done but the fenders were able to be shortened though on one side it's on the last hole and the other can be shortened even more.  Not sure what is up with that I think I just need to work with it and condition the leather some more on the fenders.  I guess if I need to I can bring it back but I don’t want to keep paying him money if it wasn’t done right the first time!  It felt a bit short for me so I'll try my next ride on a lower hole...perhaps I need to add a hole in between if it's too long??? 

The stirrup rotators don't accommodate all the strapping so you can see in the picture below what I have to do with the one strap. I don't get it.  At least with the stirrup hobble I can keep it all tight but if I shorten my fenders too much there isn't enough room for the hobbles.  Western saddles are so complicated! 

I'm still trying to find a good pad too.  The one I have been using looks like a bath mat and is a bit long for Dani's back.  I just got a barrel pad and it's so HEAVY!  It also just barely fits under the saddle too!  Starting to feel like Goldilocks in my quest for a perfect saddle pad.  It's really thick and not sure how much that will change the saddle fit.  I also can’t push the pad up right where her wither are, I’m assuming you do that with Western saddles just like English.  Ugh.  Tack just irritates me sometimes!

Spencer and Dani

So long before the fire...gosh that seems forever ago...I brought my little Jack Russel to hang out with Dani.  He met the two paints across the fence and was really good not barking at them too much.  He just kinda chilled.

Dani was her usual self with the boys, lifting her tail and making a disgusting mess of her backside!!!

 

But then she was a sweetie and said hello....

 

 

She later moved on to grazing the "weeds" in the arena with her friends.

 

 

I don't know what Spencer was thinking this whole time with this 900 pound beast above him but he had a good time chillin with the big dogs.

 

Talk about a third wheel though!!!

Serene Sunday

WOW.  This has been a calm Sunday.  Still busy but not like my life has been lately.

 

Starting in May I went out for my step daughters high school graduation, then came back and my brother was here with his family visiting...while we were dealing with a Hepatitis A outbreak at work.  Right after he left the Black Forest Fire erupted and I was activated for the Emergency Operations Center with my fellow Public Health EP Peeps.  That was a couple weeks worth of crazy time working 15 hours a day at least.  My boss is amazing and tries to spread the work amongst our team so we don't get over worked. 

 

After the fire and when a lot of the recovery efforts were winding down a preplanned "stay-cation" occurred with my friend Marie coming out from Houston to hang for a week.  It was great to just chill and she didn't mind that my house was still essentially a wreck since I hadn't had time to clean in about a month!

 

 

I promise to get back to blogging now that life will hopefully give me a bit of a breather.  I have several blogs in the "queue" that I will post even though the events occurred WAY before the fire.  I will also hopefully get some good ride time in since I haven't in soooo long!  Life is good and Dani is good so crazy, busy times aside all is good and well.

 

I also have some serious blog READING to do since I haven't kept up on everyone else's blogs!!!  :-(

 

My Voluntary Evacuation of Dani

As to my horse voluntary evacuation....The mandatory evacuation zone is 3 miles away, the pre-evacuation is only 2 miles away and the information I had was the winds could shift south (which they did last night a little). I made the decision to move my horse even though she was just outside the evacuation area for many reasons...

1) She's a difficult loader and I wanted the time needed to get her moved without road closures and without crazy traffic

2) My job is emergency preparedness and I am activated for this fire...being distracted with every new update and being worried how it would affect my love was getting in the way of me DOING my job;

3) Smoke is pretty bad where she was at, it is everywhere but I feel better now that she is out east towards Calhan and well out of harms way! Thank you Laurie for taking her in for my peace of mind. Now I can get down and dirty with the response. I appreciate every one's concern but there are many (included many friends) in really dire circumstances and my heart breaks for them....

My job is Emergency Preparedness and Response for Public Health. As I was activated for the Black Forest Fire my life has suddenly full of activities, meetings and Emergency Operations. It sounds exciting but it’s not, I deal with the coordination portion of a response….aka the paperwork.

I couldn’t easily leave my job to take time to move Dani if she were suddenly in a pre-evac or evacuation area. I don’t have a trailer and I didn’t even have my truck that week! Steve had left the Sunday before the fire leaving from DIA to fly to what ever job he was going to. We decided he should take the truck since I rack up more miles piddling around town.

Critters of all sizes called KCRC their temporary home

The fire started on Tuesday June 11. On June 12th I received information about the winds changing and felt that uneasiness in my stomach and the beginnings of panic. How could I expect GG and her husband to transport my horse if we need to evacuate KCRC? I needed to get this done and get it done fast. My boss was understanding as I had a near panic attack trying to figure out a plan with my limited resources and with my guilt that having Dani near the fire would prevent my mind from being able to focus on my job.

I took off for KCRC, called GG’s husband to see if he could take me out to Laurie’s. I’d already discussed this with Laurie and she was more than happy to take Dani in, Uschi’s horses were already there. Very quickly the fire moved from where it started to the west of Black Forest regional Park and headed towards Falcon. Uschi’s house was in the pathway so she got her horses out before being told by authorities. A lot of horse owners weren’t so lucky or couldn’t get home….this is the unfortunate thing I had to deal with in the aftermath at the EOC, lots of dead large animals. I’m not going to get into that as I sit here writing and shudder a little inside.

Dani's barn is just about at the bottom of the map below the blue area.  VERY CLOSE!

GG’s husband and even GG the night before were not too concerned about the fire. The smoke near KCRC was intense even if we weren’t in the evacuation area. I may have received many looks from people as I was evacuating my horse FROM KCRC when they were evacuating horses TO KCRC but I just knew I couldn’t have the worry in the back of my mind. Every wind shift or forecast would send my mind to my horse first and not to what I needed to do to get nursing homes evacuated or get medical supplies to the Red Cross. I was in a different position compared with the general public.

I told them they could fill my stall while I was gone and we’d arrange when I would return with Dani so I wouldn't displace an evacuee. My pitch fork and some buckets were put to use as well. At the peak of evacuations KCRC housed about 75 animals, mostly equines but they had many llamas, ducks, chickens and goats. The club had volunteers, many evacuees, that were helping feed horses and going into the evacuation areas to rescue horses. They weren’t the only group that was doing this but they put forth a huge effort to help the animals in the forest. It was great to hear amidst some of the more somber news we often received in the EOC.

Dani at Lauries.  I gave her a good grooming and did some
groundwork in the arena when I visited

Anyhow, we loaded Dani up in the trailer. I did ground work first. Tried to get her on once. She stepped on and then immediately off. I worked her really hard and then tried again. After a couple more tries I had GG’s hubby close the door and then we were set to get on the road. I was happy the experience was only 15 minutes. We still need more training but I didn’t feel it was the time and place for that.

When we got to Lauries GG’s hubby suggested that we have Dani reload once and unload again. That was a bad idea. In the new location Dani was very distracted and I didn’t have much space to get her working. There was a tree and cinder blocks by a water run off that prevented me from being aggressive enough for fear of her taking a wrong step (I should have just said, nah)…therefore Dani didn’t want to get back on trailer. My energy was wearing, I was hungry and dehydrated. I needed to stop at a positive note with a small win for myself. Laurie gave me a few suggestions and then I quit at Dani leaning into the trailer calmly. Darn, I should have just left well enough alone. I need to do more trailer training, especially backing out slowly but with access to GG’s trailer I can work on that and I may even look at buying my own sooner (aka finance it) after my helpless feeling during this fire.

Rio

Dani went into the field with Orchid and Rio, Ushi’s pretty horses. A couple squeals and then they were friends. I felt major relief wash over me as we drove away back to KCRC. That was mixed with the determination to get going with my work as I watched the smoke cloud grow bigger; it was headed to Falcon like a run away train.

Since Dani’s been at Lauries I only got to see her on Sunday. I’ve been working really long days, to 9 or 10 most nights. It’s been fast paced but we’ve all tried to keep up and support the first responders. This week on June 20th, I had K go get Dani and work with her on loading. She had just recently come back from the training academy and was starting her own horse training business. I was happy to pay her and between the busy work in the EOC we got a contract filled out and signed. It was confirmed that Dani was back home at 10:30am!! I’d gone out early this morning to get her stall ready with fresh water and hay. I can’t wait to see her!!!

Orchid

Things are winding down at the EOC and we are beginning to get into the recovery process.  I have my regular job to catch up on and then we have tons of paperwork and After Action conferences to conduct and reports to write.  In total the fire burned 14,280 acres, destroyed 509 homes, 28 damaged, and killed 2 people.  It spread very fast that first day, I am relieved that there weren't more deaths though many animals did perish.  I'm so happy to be able to go to the barn and hug my horse.  Uschi's home is standing but I don't think the fire came very close, there may be a lot of burn around her.  At least she and her family are safe, and her home and memories in tact.  I thought last year we witnessed the most destructive fire in Colorado but this one has surpassed Waldo Canyon.  I would have never imagined....

Stay safe and make plans for your horses, include your neighbors and friends in your plans too!

Quick update

I moved Dani. She is fine, I am fine. The response is time consuming. Lots of work. I am having K move Dani back to KCRC tomorrow. I am still actively engaged in the EOC but 95% containment gor the fire. Now its just the long term recovery. I will post more when I can. 

FYI fast dry liquid paper...doesnt dry fast enough!!!!

Too Close for Comfort

Just when I thought my life was calming down and I could get out to the barn to play more with Dani the Black Forest fire erupted.  Right now the southern evacuation road is 3 miles north of where Dani is!!  I know several friends who have already evacuated their horses and family.  I'm hoping they can get this under control and hope that it doesn't head south.  There are already a lot of horses evacuated TO Kit Carson and Dani is very excited with her donkey neighbors.  Oh my goodness.  I am also activated for my job.  I may not be able to post but I will try to keep you posted on our happenings.

Serene Sunday

Scratching her rear.   Mmmmm that feels good!!

I promise to post asap. Been very busy the last couple weeks. I will get ya'll updated!!!

Serene Sunday