Reunited With Tobiano Brumby!

When I was on vacation I was having fun but I was really starting to miss my brumby. When I am sitting on her back in my Big Horn saddle, it is as comfortable to me as being on the couch at home. So I miss that greatly. Don't get me wrong--I love vacation. I just wish I could take Lilly with me.

Because Lilly had her special syntheic hoof on, she was taken out of her usual pasture and put in the hillside with the cow and the alpaca. The hillside is drier and better for Lilly's synthetic hoof. The bummer about the hillside pasture is that she's not with the other horses. So when I went to see her after not seeing her for two weeks, she was really happy to see me, her new herdmate. The first time I walked up this hill to get her, I felt like I was going to fall head over teakettle. It is steeper than it looks in this photo! Plus, I honestly thought a few times that the cow was going to poke me with her pokey horns!

This is what was on Lilly's foot when I went on vacation: Perfect Hoof Wear. It was pretty good, but while I was at the beach, Bill tried another company's version of hoof filler. Unfortunately, I do not know the name.

But this is what it looks like. I couldn't get a good picture of the new stuff. But you can see it here...sort of.

The day I came back frm vacation, Bill and his wife left for Maine for one week. Christine and her husband were gone too--in the Canadian Rockies. That meant I was on my own with my brumby and any issues that might raise their scary heads. The first night, with Lilly crying to be back with her equine herd, and the steep hillside I was clumsily scrambling over, and the fear that when I did get on her she might want to gallop and buck (or so I thought), I had a moment of severe nervousness. I thought: What am I going to do without Bill? This is a disaster! It only lasted a minute. After all, I could always call Bill on the phone and disturb his restful trip in Maine, couldn't I? And wasn't I fully capable of handling my own brumby? Yes, no need to panic. It was going to be just fine. (Although I did end up calling Bill in Maine that very night...)

Perhaps the worst part of the week sans Bill were the flies. They were terrible. Then on Wednesday night I noticed Lilly's bionic hoof was starting to peel away from her foot. By Thursday when I arrived, the synthetic hoof was gone with the wind. (I immediately texted Bill: Lils fake hoof is gone!) Lilly, luckily, did not seem to mind. She came running down the hillside to me, nickering, her little foot looking short and stumpy. (Oh snap!) When Bill did get back to the farm on Saturday afternoon, I was really glad to see him. You can see here in the picture, he was right to work on making a new hoof for Lilly. Poor Bill. Not even back 12 hours and he is sweating in the barn once again for my brumby. In this picture, Bill is squeezing out the new hoof which starts as a thick, hot and oozy liquid.

That looks like a mushroom! This stuff hardens fast. But not fast enough for Lilly. She ruined the first one by pulling her foot away before the mushroom was ready. So this is attempt number 2.

Once it sets, it is really very hard and hooflike. So it can be rasped like a real hoof!

Overall, my brumby was so good through all of the hoof care.

And there is the finished hoof! Perfecto!! Thank you, Bill!

Once Lilly had her new hoof on, we took her down to the ring for some walking. No barrel racing, nothing crazy. We wanted to make sure her feet were OK. Plus, I hadn't been on her in a whole month! This is my friend Whitney who drove out to meet Lilly and have a nice afternoon at the farm. Whitney grew up in California riding horses so when she got on Lilly she said it felt like old times.

Lilly was so good. No surprises.

One more update: Remember when I was having problems with Lilly's Renegades? One of the cords ripped through the material as we were plowing through some mud on the trail. After some conversations with renegade, they had me send them back so they could repair the boot that had failed. I just got them back and the repair looks solid! Soon Lilly and I will back on the trail. Because these boots were made for walkin.'