Heat Warnings, Bad Air, Olympics and Mailing Lists

With temperatures projected in the low 90s today and poor air quality, I was up before 6 am feeding and watering my herd. Then I did a quick check of my flower pots for water, had breakfast, started some laundry and then began working horses.

I've been trying to get my horses conditioned for my upcoming open house. But with the temperatures like this, I decided to skip free lunging the youngsters this morning and focus on the riding horses instead. So I headed down the road to Angie and Richard's to ride three of my Arabian horses. I figured if I could get them ridden before noon, I could hold up in my air conditioned house and avoid having problems with the heat.

Tomorrow, I will reverse the order and give the riding horses the day off. Hopefully get the younger horses all lunged before noon even though the temperatures are expected to be cooler. That difference is only a few degrees and it will still be way too hot for me to be outside working on getting this place in order. I hate to say it, but I would really appreciate some cooler temperatures and maybe even a little rain.

Because I have suffered heat stroke before, my system just will not tolerate the heat. I have so much to do here but just didn't dare risk getting sick forcing my self to work past my limits. Instead, I spent the afternoon inside watching the Olympics..........well, that is after I took a 4 hour nap.

I've always loved the Olympics. There's something about listening about others struggles in pursuing their dreams that inspires me to keep pursuing mine. This summer's Olympics has been particularly inspiring for me. I can't help but be intrigued by the story of a kid with ADHD who overcomes it all to win more gold medals at a single Olympics than any other human. Then the "aged" woman swimmer and the the "aged" woman marathon runner who are out there past their "prime" showing the world how it's done.

In between the Olympics drama, we got the new mailing list program installed on Lindsay's laptop (since my computer has decided it's got way too many pictures on it to have much room for useful information! lol) so that she could begin inputting the data for my labels for invitations to my open house. I've always been able to get labels done by my club before, but since no one has updated that list for a couple of years, it's probably better that I build my own.

I'm also trying to figure out how to send email invitations. I don't know if I need a particular program to design an email but hopefully I'll get it figured out soon. If this weather continues, I should have the time inside to get something done..........that's provided no more horses get hurt...........but then that's another story.

If the rate they're going this last couple of days keeps up, every horse in my barn will be lame by the time the annual open house arrives. Andy is still recuperating, of course, and when I changed his bandage I picked off a scab and he began bleeding profusely. That makes me nervous.

Then poor Trouble decided that I was a troll or something when I went to catch him up from lunging in the round pen. He slammed into the panels and banged himself up. Besides cuts and scrapes on his face, he has several cuts on one hind leg and is now lame.

The next thing to happen was Reflection figured out how to open his stall door and went visiting about the farm. Somewhere along the way, he cut himself up on his left front pastern. It's right smack in the middle of the joint. He has a old wound there from a couple of years ago that left an ugly scar. I doubt that this new wound will heal much better so I didn't call the vet. I couldn't see the point in paying $300 for stitches that won't hold. That puts Reflection on the walking wounded list as well.

We did manage to get through the day without any new additions to that list. Hopefully, we're through this stint with self injury. All I can say is that manuka honey is going to get a real test.

Speaking of tests, I haven't been able to locate any of the original white Crest to use on all the other scrapes and dings this herd is sporting. Anyone have any ideas where I might locate some of it? I sure would like the opportunity to give it a try before my open house.

Other than that is was just another "typical" day (what a joke that is) at the Arabian horse farm. I'll get back to posting more on the photo shoot tomorrow.