A daily dose of philosophical food for your noodle!
A daily dose of philosophical food for your noodle! |
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 | Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 9:14:09 mst
Comment ID: #1 Name: Amy E-mail: mossoffa(at)gmail.com URL: http://www.amymossoff.com She is beautiful! | |
| Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 12:28:52 mst
Comment ID: #2 Name: Mike Hardy E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu "Do (someone) a solid" is a locution I'd never seen before and I didn't know what it meant. Google reports that this blog is not the only place it has appeared, and "Urban Dictionary" defines it. Not so many years ago I'd have posted a query to alt.usage.english and waited for replies. I'm starting to suspect that undergraduates are too young to remember when Richard Nixon was president; the next hurdle will be those who don't know that Google (founded in 1998) is brand-new. | |
| Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 19:33:57 mst
Comment ID: #3 Name: Col. Hogan E-mail: wgrantham(at)msn.com URL: http://www.colhogan.blogspot.com Congratulations for having helped Tara recover--and probably for adding years to her life. | |
| Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 22:04:48 mst
Comment ID: #4 Name: Richard E-mail: rbramwell(at)sympatico.ca How wonderful is that? My 'heart' goes out to you for Tara's fortune. Ride her all you can. Then, keep Tara in pasture so long as she is comfortable and happy. Tara is not some small source of delight. | |
| Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 22:28:48 mst
Comment ID: #5 Name: Diana Hsieh E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog Richard: Um... Huh? Your comment perplexes me greatly, as it seems to have little to do with the actual living, breathing, eating, pooping creature that occupies my pasture. She is appreciated and beloved by me for her willing service to my ends, but she is not a piece of art, nor an eternal obligation for me. She is a service animal, albeit one with many virtues. In particular, Tara is a temperamental but talented horse. So she is often willing to do as I ask, but she is occasionally an annoyance and sometimes even dangerously flighty. As much as I feel for her, I would not wax poetic over her -- or over any other horse -- as you seem inclined to do. | |
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Over the past few years, I've struggled to keep Tara sound enough to ride. She is pretty old at 26, and she was ridden hard as a polo pony in her youth. Consequently, she has various arthritic ailments. This fall, for example, she developed problems in her stifles that I was able to fix with a higher-protein diet, exercise, hind shoes and pads, and bute. (The stifle is the knee-like joint high on the hind leg.) The diet and exercise helped her put on much-needed muscle, while the hind shoes elevated the heels for a better joint angle. The bute -- think aspirin for horses -- decreased the inflammation in the joint. 
Happily, a few weeks ago, I was delighted to see that she was trotting normally in the pasture. So I trotted her out in the ring a bit, and she was still fine. (Sometimes a horse will look sound in the pasture due to excitement about something. So one has to do a controlled test.) Her back was still a bit sore, but nothing like it had been. So I scheduled an appointment with the vet, so that he could take a look, to see what might be done next. However, by the time he came on Friday, her back was basically completely fine: we could not get her to flinch. He was pretty surprised, I think. He said that I could and should start riding her again -- lots of walking and bending, then some trotting. Basically, I'll need to start her very slow and gently.
E-mail Diana Hsieh
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