What did you do this weekend?

Saturday I updated Arabee's barefoot trim. Her new Renegade hoof boots are on order (please get here soon!) and I wanted her feet to be in tip top shape before trying them on. I took another set of pictures, since I hadn't done that in a while. Sorry about the snow - it makes it hard to really see (but I didn't order it!) Her feet looked a little weird especially from the bottom since they'd been soaking in the snow since Tuesday night (more or less).

All 4 from the front:

Her hind feet:

She's got some purple bruising right on her hairline at each of the outside edges of her hoof bulb - I am guessing she is overreaching? I guess the Renegades will help protect her, otherwise it looks like I'd need to look into putting on some bell boots. Also, I think this picture shows the concavity pretty well - they really are more impressive in real life, though!

Compare these to this photo taken in August just before I started trimming her myself. It had probably been about 10 weeks since the last visit from our farrier on this one:

After that first trim I've updated her trim every 2 weeks, 3 weeks at the max. That puncture on her right front has grown out, and I think they look great.

Today it got up in the upper-middle 40's and sunny! We had a good start on a thaw, and I just couldn't help but ride! Yesterday after I trimmed her feet, Arabee followed me around like.....is that all I get to do today?? So she was great today, but we only went about 10-15 minutes.

We still have a lot of packed snow turned to ice on our driveway, and with the little thaw we're having, Matt decided to put the disk blade on the little Massey tractor and cut the ice a bit - this coming week it's supposed to freeze back up again. His dad came back by with a scraper blade on the deere 4450, and scraped what Matt broke up off the drive. Hopefully this will help keep things less treacherous! Anyway, this relates to the horse because as Matt fired up the tractor, I slipped off Arabee, and she and I walked behind them for about 20 minutes.....SCRAPING, and turning, and metal blade occasionally hitting rock.....this was a good experience for Arabee. It didn't hurt her, and I think that she'll be better able to handle a tractor next time she sees it.

We've got friends coming over later, we'll do the chores outside, come in for sub sandwiches, meat/bean/cheese dip, veggies, brownies, and check out the Superbowl. I'm not even sure what teams are playing...but I always enjoy the commercials.

**A NOTE: As I was doing the morning chores, I think I might have solved the mystery of Arabee's bruised Coronet band. It bothered me that she had the bruises, especially since I hadn't ridden in over a week, so any interference she was doing was really troubling because she would have done it on her own.

Here's what I think happened: Last week we received a generous helping of snow, followed by a thick layer of ice, and then several more inches of snow. As they walk through the snow (very slooowly) each footfall crunches through the partly melted snow, and then punches through the hard ice layer and drops a couple more inches through the snow underneath. Her hoof would only be making a small hoof-size hole, and if she wasn't very careful, she could easily be hitting her coronet on the ice and bruising it. So, I am relieved, because I really believe as soon as the snow melts away, her bruising will heal away. Hurry up and melt, Please!