dancinghorse | One fine day, with Forklift (Reply)

I swear I'm working harder since I handed in the last book than I did while I was killing deadlines left and right.

Today was about Excavations--office and guestroom, hall closet (which was full of author copies), and storage shed. Much much excavating happened. And much much much hauling of book boxes, and labeling of book boxes, and shelving of book boxes. Tomorrow is Street Fair day, but Sunday I'll finish the office and guestroom project, sort the boxes that are left and clean and get the office closet ready for the new shelving system. Also, finish shoveling out the second half of the guestroom closet. And clean the guestroom and get it ready for the winter onslaught.

Very dramatic and adventurous, all of that--but it sure is nice to be able to find all the comp copies of my books. They were buried in closets everywhere. And I have an office floor. And I know where all my old mss. are, ditto all the old photos. Gratifyingly enough, all of this has resulted in much more space in the shed--there will be a big load for the trash guy this week.

Amid all this, Curt the Wonder Shoer appeared to shoe the boys and trim the Girlz. Pook has a Foot Crisis which we've been aware of for a while--collapsing quarters in front (too many hormones, too much front end), which have led to infection of the white line. This resulted in a very expensive excavation and rebuilding, which I had hoped I could avoid until I get paid for the book I handed in three months ago, but it was not to be. Pooka now has very expensive new feet--and major changes in his stowage. He is not to get his feet wet. This, after last weekend's deluge, is not easy to accomplish. It means confining him to his paddock and rearranging all the other horses, because in order to maintain a buffer zone and keep him out of the wet spots, plus make sure everybody gets to eat dinner separately and get individual shares of supplements, I've had to play a serious shell game. IF Gaudia doesn't go through the last bit of tape fencing and visit dad, we should be OK. She's where Capria usually is, Carrma and Ephiny are as usual, Camilla where Gaudia usually is, keed in the arena, and Capria in the stallion barn. The crew can all go out in the arena at bedtime, though Pook may not be too happy about that.

I hope he settles down. He's had a lot of changes in routine in the past couple of days.

Curt did note that I'm very lucky. Pook is the only one with any sort of problem feet. His kids seem to have inherited the Camilla/Carrma spectrum of feet, i.e. Absolutely Perfect (Camilla's feet are Incredible, and Ephiny's are headed in that direction), and he was OK until he got hormones and grew The Neck. Apparently Lipp stallions do need some help in the front-feet department for this reason--there was even a study in the early Nineties, examining the (very positive) effects of biotin on the Vienna stallions. The description of their feet was very similar to what Pook has. Curt's theory is that the mares develop the full hormone cocktail later and don't grow The Neck, and their feet have time to get big and round and perfect. The boys are still in baby feet when the hormones hit and the muscle and bone start to load on. (Next stallion, I'll talk to the vet about biotin supplementation before the hormones hit.)

The plan is to get his quarters sorted out, then he should be just fine. He has great back feet and good hoof quality in general.

Meanwhile, he's in jail until the place dries out completely, which will make riding him in the arena interesting. Lots of foot-cleaning and Kopertoxing is in our future.

Oh well. The Girlz and Carrma don't even have shoes, they have Perfect Feet, and keed and Capria, who are shod, just keep on going, except for keed's occasional bouts of recreational shoe-pulling.

I think you could say I had a full day. I even got in a longe with Capria, who was happy to get some work. And did some thinking about odd things--like, McCaffrey's sexual politics.