I could show you more pictures of beautiful blue sky and my handsome boys getting ready to go ride like this one:
But, alas. I do not. It's just been one of those weekends, I guess.
D and I hauled down to Quemado Lake, NM, to do a new-to-us ride, Ride the Divide, up in the scenic Gila National Forest. We got a good early start on Friday a.m., and were planning to ride Saturday and Sunday with the boys. When we got in on Friday around lunchtime, we got camp set up and tacked the boys up to take an easy jaunt out the first bit of the trail we'd be riding on Saturday a.m. We don't do anything fast or fancy - we just walk to get the trailer stiffness out and take a look at the trail.
The boys both quieted down as soon as they saw the ribbons - they are smart and knew exactly why we were there. We rode up to the first trail junction and then turned around to head back to camp. We were walking quietly along, looking at the scenery, when Bhen turned his head to look at something (not in a spooky way, just to see what he could see in the woods), and caught his toe on a rock in the road, and took a major tumble down to his knees. His left front was only lightly scraped up, but his right knee was bleeding badly from several places.
We walked the boys back into camp, and using bottled water, I tried to get the worst of the dirt irrigated out. It really didn't look good. At ALL. So I applied ice packs and got the bleeding stopped, irrigated out the wound again, packed it with antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it. The race vet said he didn't think it could be sutured, but there was no way I was going to take Bhen out for 50 miles on that leg either.
Saturday a.m., we loaded back up at early o'clock, and hauled back home. I called our absolutely stellar vet (who I love, but frankly? We have seen FAR too much of him this year) and had him on alert to come by in the afternoon to take a look at the leg for me. When he got there, he got Bhen sedated, and wound up cutting off the skin flap that was still hanging off (it wasn't salvageable), irrigated out the wound, injected some local anesthetic into it, plus some antibiotics, and got it all closed (it was a 3-pronged burst laceration) with 7 staples. Hopefully staples can come out in 10 days to 2 weeks, but we are being only cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to go to our next ride in June. The main thing is that (as of today's bandage change), it looks really pretty good. The laceration edges have pulled together. There was only minimal seepage and that's all dried, and the swelling has gone down a lot too (so I am hopeful we had no bony involvement).
Here's my boy being very good about his leg bandage, which I'm sure is hot and itchy.
So, you know.... being insane, and having 2 now unscheduled days off, D and I finished the barn for the boys (except for the roofline cap and the trim), and ran fence line. That was the (very limited) silver lining amongst all this mess.
The original pasture fence ran out perpendicular to the left-hand opening of the barn you see above. We bumped it out to allow the boys access to the barn (obviously), and then ran it another 30 feet or so out from the barn, and across to tie into the existing fence. We still have more cactus to clear to give them all of the planned extra 40 feet, but they are brutal right now in terms of thorns, so we'll wait until their growing season is over.
The new pasture almost doubles their space, plus, they now have shade from about 9:30 a.m. on during the entire day, and protection from the storms. A double bonus, since we need to keep Bhen's bandages dry. It's supposed to be very hot here over the next week, so we were really glad today to see them both move right into the shade after breakfast and not venture out really until dinnertime. They celebrated their good fortune with a little mutual grooming.
Totally not the weekend we had planned, but on the other hand, the boys love their new barn and I know D and I both feel better we can get them in out of the sun and heat and afternoon thunderstorms when we need to. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Big Bhen heals up quickly!
All for now.....
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