Sleepy eyes

I rolled into the barn driveway slowly. Everyone was turned in, it was well past sunset and very dark. No one around.

I hopped out of my car and walked to the barn entrance.

'Sorry, guys...' I said as I flicked the aisle light on. Squinty eyed heads popped out over their stall doors and looked at me. Some expectant, others obviously were disturbed from their rest. I approached Gators door. He was the squintiest and groggiest looking of them all! It was rather cute. He sleepily nuzzled me. I put on his halter and led him out to inspect his hock where he was kicked. The swelling was down from earlier in the day, still not too much heat and the one inch long cut was looking okay.

He was sleepy enough he didn't even try fighting or graze all that much for hosing. To be honest if someone woke me up and turned a hose on me I'd be pretty pissed. He's a good boy.

Needless to say, I didn't get to try out the saddle yet. He did get shod but now I'm nursing a swollen hock. Hoping it's just some bruising and the swelling will continue to subside. He's only slightly off on it if that so that's good and there's not too terrible much heat in it so the Bute is controlling the inflammation pretty well.

I'm pretty over nursing kick wounds to be quite frank. My stoic horse takes it all pretty well but I don't find it to be fair to him to continue to sort things out in a herd. Especially that keeps swelling with more horses. We shall see... and hopefully post another day sooner than later about our first ride in the new saddle. Though I'm very picky about him being 100% before I hop back on so it might be a bit. Send him healing thoughts and wish us luck...