making the switch

think i'm committing the switch to wordpress, guys. it's more streamlined, and suits me better. i hope you'll follow me on over to:

funaufderautobahn.wordpress.com

TGIF, amirite?

you guys! all your sweet comments have made me feel so good about joining the blogging club! thanks so much! and thanks, especially, to amchance for the shoutout. maybe one day we'll be at the barn at the same time and meet in person!

what a week! i arrived home on monday evening to find my sweet kitteh three-legged lame. never thought i'd say that about one of my at-home animals, but there it is. we immediately rushed to the emergency vet--i was pretty convinced he'd been hit by a car. words cannot convey how much i love my kittehs, and this one in particular has really stolen my heart. i was beside myself as i waited to learn what was going on. 

the vet was fairly sure he'd gotten stuck in something and dislocated his ankle (and maybe fractured a bone or two) trying to get unstuck. this was somewhat a relief until they rolled out surgery (pins, plates, etc.) as the solution. hello, million dollar kitteh! 

the hubs and i left him at the vet to get splinted and returned to pick up this unbelievable vision in pink:

there may be a bit of distortion from the camera angle, but not much. that giant splint was nearly as long as he is! (the ER vet was convinced that my he was really a she!?!)

the ER vet couldn't do the surgery (note to self, find another ER vet), so my poor buddy had to endure the pink indignity for two days. he tripped on pain killers most of the time and only suffered in that he wouldn't use the litter box and grew a very full bladder.

we took him to the specialist on wednesday, to learn that he had indeed fractured his tibia and required some hardware to stabilize the break and dislocation. poor buddy. the vet assured us she'd give him a "sportier splint" more befitting his masculinity and more maneuverable in the box.

we picked him up yesterday and practically had to wrestle him from the vet techs. he's such a love bug. they said he never stopped purring at them.  god, i love this kitteh.

here he is at home last night. first thing he did when i took him out of his carrier was beeline to his food. his little butt is bald, but he's getting around like a champ. he used the box this morning, which was my biggest worry. what relief. it's currently 3:30, and i cannot wait to get home and snorgle him.

so, it's been a heck of a week at the cat house. sleep has been hard to come by, and worry has been high. two good lessons so far this week have helped my sanity, for sure. but those early mornings haven't helped with the sleeping. tonight i plan to eat my weight in brisket and get in bed at 9. two more rides tomorrow, and i'll report on the riding front. and, i need to post my tack swap stuffs, too.

i am easily trained

this morning's dressage lesson solidified for me that my horse has me wrapped around his little finger (er, hoof, as it were).  he used to overbend to the inside and tokyo drift with his hind end, so i learned to create a wall with my outside rein and leg and give the inside. i grew so accustomed to blocking the drift that i couldn't even begin to consider that our new counterbending issue might stem from applying too much outside rein and not enough inside leg/rein. i am clearly still learning how to process how my four limbs impact his body!

the mental game is the hardest for me. like i said in my intro post, i am feeling in a rut. this morning's lesson was so great, though, that hopefully it's not permanent.

i am inspired by riding rainbow's post, the no-riding blues, to pick up a few of the sport psychology books she mentioned, especially those by jane savoie. my trainer, lisa, has also mentioned the talent code, so i should probably pick that one up, too. i love adding to my equestrian library. in fact, as a book editor, i fantasize about reissuing all the great out-of-print riding books, and encouraging a new generation of riders to read and write. maybe i should get on that.

in the meantime, here's a teaser for what i have to contribute to facebook pony's tack swap:
brand new ariat westchester boots ($150), size 7, full calf, regular height

i also have a set of black nunn finer rubber reins (the pimply ones); a waterford boucher, size 5.25/5.5; a full cheek dr. bristol, size 5; and, maybe a few other things. i hope to post pictures and prices of these additional items this week!

autobahn

autobahn came into my life in april, 2013, about two weeks after i verbalized that i wanted to look for a horse to event and two weeks after i got married. auto was a very special--albeit completely unplanned--wedding gift. in thanks, i named him autobahn after the hubs's favorite kraftwerk song. i discovered, once he was fit enough to ride, that it fits him. 

he needed me as much as i needed him. 

all i know about auto's life before me is second hand from the therapy program where he had been dumped. he was called prince. he was given up because he "had a buck." and he had been starved.

it had never been my intention to rescue a horse, but i couldn't leave him behind. not only did he need me, i have an unhealthy attraction to projects. i had the best intentions (and romantic notions) of rehabbing him and uncovering a diamond in the rough. little did i know that he was almost entirely green (no wonder he "had a buck!") and that i was mostly unprepared for such a project.

we're still polishing the diamond, and i still sometimes wonder if i've bitten off more than i can chew. but i've committed and recommitted to him countless times in the last fifteen months. we've overcome (hopefully) low-grade EPM and sore SIs/injections and we're working through his countless evasions and my utter ignorance of dressage.

he's my bubba, there's no doubt about it, and we're together for good reason. 

nice to meet you. are you in a rut, too?

i'm in a real riding rut these days. maybe it's the heat of these central texas dog days? maybe it's that i ride a green horse and i feel like our progress is stalled? maybe a blog will help?

i've had auf der autobahn saved for a while so maybe i'll finally put it to good use. in any case, starting the blog will allow me to contribute to amanda's blog hop/tack swap, for which i have a ton of goodies to share. i've also been lurking on so many equestrian blogs lately that i feel like i should at least have a URL to call my own.

hi, nice to meet you!

i'll leave you, for now, with a picture of the blog's namesake, autobahn, jumping me out of the tack on a recent trip to pine hill. he can jump the moon, but just try to get him to canter on the left lead, bend, or free his shoulders. he's my bubba, though. fingers crossed we'll get through it.