End of April, 2011

For the rest of April the healing progressed fairly smoothly. Suki continued to have supervised turnout and lunging. The students volunteered to hang out with Suki when she was turned out, ready to yell at her if she tried to roll!

Fortunately, Suki is not one of those really quick drop and roll horses. A lot of thought goes into the best possible location. Then there is the slow descent to the knees, down to the belly and over onto her side. This is accompanied by very loud groaning. Some have compared it to the falling of a large Redwood tree. Something tells me that Miss Suki would NOT like to be compared to a tree! AND, she usually decides to roll too close to the fence for my comfort, so when I see that I stop her! Of course a nice deep muddy spot is ideal as well. An entire 5 acre field can be filled with grass and one patch of mud. You can guess where my princess chooses to roll, I'm sure! Aaah, I guess that's how it is for most horses though. As many people have pointed out, women use mud packs on their skin, so maybe the horses have the right idea! My big complaint is the layer of dirt that covers me when I am finished grooming away the dried mud! As you might suspect, Suki does not like to be vacuumed....Nikki on the other hand LOVES it! Nikki isn't usually as big of a mud ball as Suki is, but where Suki is very neat in her stall, keeping all of her business in the back, Nikki is a bit of a pig. She actually uses manure as a pillow....nothing like caked, dried manure on your horses head! One time she actually pinned her ears at me when I told her that she stunk! I'm pretty sure she knew EXACTLY what I was saying! Maybe she'll outgrow it?? The fly sheet with the pontoons was returned to us so the Team tried to use that for turnout. It did keep Suki from rolling all the way over onto her back, but would shift quite a bit when she stood up again. So back it went for additional straps and tweaking. The graft was really beginning to look good as new skin filled in the area between the plugs, which became less defined as time progressed. There would still be the occasional over night indiscretion which resulted in a little rubbing and bleeding, but nothing too damaging. Dr. Fugaro was hesitant to send Suki home at that point because he wanted to continue to monitor the site a bit longer. In addition, going home meant unsupervised turnout, or no turnout except when someone could spend the time watching her. That would probably not work at the barn where Suki was boarding, so she remained at Centenary for a bit longer. April 26, 2011

Nikki would be coming home the first weekend in May. I had found a great barn in Oley, with an indoor arena and excellent care. The turnout was nice and there was a large outdoor ring as well. It was a hunter barn, but Nikki would get ridden twice a week over fences as Heather and I had discussed. Of course there would be jumps set up in both arenas, but at Nikki's age and level of training I could easily work around them. I would not be picking up both girls on the same day this time. I felt that it would be better to get Nikki settled in at her new barn (and me as well) while just focusing on one horse. Suki would be returning to the barn that we had left and I was familiar with the routine there so it would be an easy transition. I had concerns about bringing Suki home because of the importance of the follow up care. Everyone had been working so hard so it was really important to properly care for the wound site. The care would be intense again for awhile, but Lori had said that she would help me. I sometimes felt as though I was taking advantage of people, but tried to show my gratitude as much as I could. I appreciated all of the help and support more than I could ever say in a lifetime. January 19, 2012 Last night I didn't have time to do Suki's full grooming and spa treatment. Michael is away and I had to pick up Isaiah from school. He is certainly getting better about listening at the barn, but it was cold, so my plan was just to check Suki's blankets to be sure she was warm enough. Of course she was COVERED in mud! But she would have to stay that way for the night. Isaiah came into the stall with me and she snuffled his head, then tried to suck a candy cane out of his hand! Tonight I will have quite a job ahead of me. Suki won't mind though. We will have our quality time just as I did with Nikki earlier. Also, the new blog format won't let me separate my paragraphs....so I apologize for the run on, non paragraphs. As I write it, the paragraphs are here, but when I publish it they are not....uggh!