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We Are Flying Solo

December 18, 2014

Horze Enables My Inner Boot Addict & Safety Police All At Once?!

Um, not that kind of grail boot...WTF is that?
AND THERE WAS MATCHING!

I know, I had to take a few deep breaths too...

The Boots & The Blue

A few months ago, I shared my inadvertent discovery of the holy grail of bell boots:  no-turn boots that actually did not turn!  They continue their awesome, although they do live in the "special occasions" pile.  Ok, because I am not motivated enough to yank off the pull-ons Encore lives in...but also because they are so pretty.

Bee-yoo-tee-ful dark blue
In what I believe must be a covert agreement with the NSA, Horze discovered that in my initial "horse equipment acquisition" years, my weak spot of addiction lay smack in the middle of horse boots of every shape & size (geez, 2010 doesn't sound like that long ago, but pardon a moment of silence as I consider how much had not happened yet...).

Speaking of those boots of years past, I still have (& USE), in perfect condition, those Moxie ankle boots, the 5-strap Woofs from the trash can at Waredaca & both the Roma & N.E.W. front boots!

Click = embiggen
It turns out, though, that the beautiful matching shades of the No-Turn Boots & the Lyon Synthetic Gloves existed in a threesome.  I introduce to you the Horze Tendon Boot:  I challenge you to find a colour (there are NINETEEN) that doesn't match your ensemble!!

Naturally, there was only ONE appropriate choice for TFS & I confess I was taken aback a little by how much I liked them.  Both the plastic shell & the neoprene liner were just the right amount softer (mea culpa for that horrific grammar) than the Romas, lending the boot a nicer ability to mold to Encore's legs.  But they still felt sturdy, had strong velcro & stitching, and, erm, did I mention the matching...?

*places reverently in Pretty Boot Storage Basket with matchy bell boots*

Those are totes the trash-can Woofs...
And Safety Too?!

Be still my heart.  Because one pair wasn't enough.

Encore is a bit base-narrow behind, so he sometimes wears a set of Nunn Finer pastern wraps (always when studded, as at left).  However, the outer layer of these started falling off within one week of purchase.  I've continued to use them for several years, as the neoprene is fine.  The velcro is beginning to fail, so I do tape them with every use, so one could say it's becoming a bit of a pain.

Combine my casual lookout for their replacement & my insatiable desire for anything that says, "I AM NOT A DEER NOR CAN YOU CLAIM MY CORPSE RESEMBLED ONE" in our lovely NC Decembers and you get this:

Strappies
The Horze Reflective Leg Straps, which fit nicely on the big boy's pasterns & have a handy built-in "velcro failure backup system" in the nylon strap.  My only trouble was deciding what to do with the end of the strap once fastened.

Keepers are not included, so I'll likely just keep the tape handy.  Much easier to throw a thin strip around the end of the strap & still have insanely bright reflective power!

Alternatively, I may cut the end off entirely, although this does limit one's adjustability somewhat.  I don't have any plans to buy Clydesdales in the near future though...  The plastic buckle itself is a wee bit fiddly, but definitely clamps down tight & we had no rubs on a long, muddy ride through the woods.

Two hooves up!  Although if there is a passing car or a camera flash or a reflection off your sunglasses, you may see them so brightly that you'll walk into trees for the next five minutes.  That could just be me...

I swear upon Solo, pastern reflection from flash not enhanced!!

Not Everyone Is A Grinch

In the spirit of the season, the friendly folks at Horze added this festive helmet cover to the box.  Grinchy-me hesitated at first, but then realized a bright red helmet is yet another great way to stay very, very visible (particularly to folks who make their own seasons...or don't follow any at all)!

Solo's wonderful Minion Erica (thank you for being badass, Erica!) submitted the cover to a grueling ground test:  I think I can see it!


Thank you so much AGAIN to the super-friendly folks at Horze for giving me the opportunity to want even more of their stuff try out their products & share the skeptic's perspective with you!
 

December 9, 2014

Tuesday Tack Tips: Revitalizing Tired Fleece

My fluff haz no protective force field??
Whether synthetic or manufactured by sheep, fleece-lined boots, saddle pads, even bedroom slippers suffer much the same trend as I do:

Problem

Over time, pressure & perspiration cause loss of fluffiness, burrs & sticks can get tangled in seams & fabric, and embedded dirt just gives an overall impression of dinginess.

While my own condition barely registers on the Give-A-Shit Meter, your fleece, assigned the important task of cushioning, cooling (if it's the real thing), & caressing your horse's sensitive skin, deserves far better!

Fortunately for both of us, the solution (for the fleece's condition, at any rate) is simple, quick, & nearly foolproof (I'm not going to say I have NEVER scraped myself with...any object that fits in my hand).

Top: Teh Fluff Lives Again!  Bottom:  Iz Next...
Observe -->

And you're done!  For those who particularly love grooming, now you even get to groom your horse's outfits!!

Simple Solution

In the photo, all I've done with these Dover Pro Sport boots I borrowed for Encore & his new game of "How Many Of My Own Legs Can I Kick During Playtime?"

*insert owner disapproval here*

...is a short soak & pre-wash on 'gentle' in my garage-sale washing machine (Remember when you put the clothes in FROM THE TOP?  And they only came in white?  The horrors I somehow manage to navigate daily...).

After a brief air-dry, I dug out my wire dog-grooming brush that I'm fairly certain is old enough to vote (and I'm almost as certain you can find at your local Dollar Tree,if you don't have one lying around)...and I spent a whopping three minutes brushing the top boot's fleece & velcro.  You can see how much grit is gone, especially if you click to embiggen, compared to its as-yet-un-groomed mate below it.

In addition, the loft is restored & Encore's legs are now wrapped in the revived soft fluffiness of his own personal leg-clouds.  Or weird analogy of your choice.

Hey, I've just spent 10 hours in December hunting inch-long rare fish in swampy ditches full of sticks & 10 degree-C water.  You get what you get...

What are you waiting for??  GO FIND FLUFF IN NEED!

I believe these come pre-fluffed...

November 30, 2014

Haircuts & Happiness

Tractor w Drag
It IS satisfying, though...
Yep, that’s what passes for excitement around here – unless you really want to hear how gratifying it is to drag a 3-acre pasture.  The satisfaction of decimating every little poop pile…

*ahem*

Sorry, where was I?  Oh yes, a brief update, aka “weird things that horse people find thrilling.”

Haircuts!

Saturday found me bound & determined, with a set of T-84 blades in hand, on my most beloved AGC2's (dang, they used to be a lot cheaper AND I got a #10 blade included) & a can of Cool Care at the ready.  I truly hate that sweated, matty winter girth-hair.

It's a start -- my clip jobs are generally piecemeal works over the course of weeks, heh.

*not sure why these photos are showing up blurry, but if you click to embiggen, they will sharpify, sigh*

Solo Nov 2014 Clip 002 (Small)
Oh no, she haz teh clipperz...
Encore Nov 2014 Clip
Relax, bro, I feel pretty...

Happiness

Even simpler.  Work & the other 500 aforementioned sources of stress have left me with little energy to climb on horses.  We won’t discuss why this picture does not include liver chestnut ears.  But bliss is the perfect word for Solo & I with a small piece of the world all to ourselves:

30 Nov 14
In riding a horse, we borrow freedom.
-Helen Thompson, author, b. 1943

November 26, 2014

Join The Horse Blog Community Gift Exchange & Take A Live Equine Blog Tour!

Sorry for that bit on the left, the interwebz made me do it... 

BUT -- Fun Holiday Things To Share

If you missed it on our Twit/FB inanity, Fly On Over is hosting the 2nd Annual Equestrian Blogger Gift Exchange (I will not hide my fury that I missed out last year) -- and your sign-up is due this Friday, Nov. 28th!!

http://flyonovereq.com/second-annual-gift-exchange/
DO IT NOW!
Not Only The Fun Of Gift-Giving But...MOAR PONEH PICTURES!

Ok, I'll confess, I do not quite know what a live blog tour is yet, but that didn't stop me from signing up!  If you have a blog to share or otherwise want to participate, the amazing Kristen from If The Saddle Fits has posted a signup in (a FB group that is growing rapidly) Blogging From The Barn.  You can also click the image for a direct link. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CWAHjyrq6oBQYyLbevHjnAbP5jciQJB_fbLvXCzmmlQ/viewform?c=0&w=1
She even makes it so pretty...
It could happen...
I've already discovered a couple of great new-to-me blogs, including the lovely, crisp design of Hand Gallop (warning: may scar your memories of My Little Ponies temporarily...) & this hilarious contribution from The Maggie Memoirs (who also gets mad props for eventing her painted Mustang/Arab, way to be part of the 'I refuse to be conventional' club, yeah!!!!).  Watch out, the latter may cause moisture to explode out of your face onto your keyboard.

November 23, 2014

Misleading Marketing Madness: Lesson 1 – Horses Are Not Earthworms

*Disclaimer: you can thank insomnia for this one...and hold it responsible for any level of insanity*
 
That’s right, horse owners & consumers, YOU, are being lied to.

By a myriad of companies who’ve hired scores of marketers with the primary goal, naturally, of maximizing profit, as a proper business should (one of many reasons I work in the still-flawed, but significantly different section of the public sector I do).

I know, fetch your smelling salts & contain your tears of shock:  an advertiser LIED to you?  Say it isn’t so…  *do we have a sarcastic font yet?*

Oooo, Oooo, Who's In Trouble?

So inconvenient...
No names.  And certainly not a blanket indictment of all.  Just basic science & physiological realities that, er, clash with some not-so-realistic ad copy.  Anecdotes, psychosomatic responses, & non-causative results all create bias in our conclusions every day, even if only subconsciously.  Science exists to investigate WITHOUT bias, preferably in a standardized & repeatable fashion, & then to inform & educate. 

GOOD science, though, stands out from its slimier cousin (in our business, the latter is named ‘The Biostitute):  it is unafraid to say, “I was wrong.  Let’s re-examine…”

Which is a perfect place to add:  if I do mis-speak (it could happen…in theory…or even *gasp* reality), I absolutely welcome further education!!

So many haystacks, where to begin?

Encore shows Wyvern Oaks' jenj where things go IN!
How About Hydration?

Here’s a concept whose basics are easily grasped by most sentient adults.  The simple requirement of a mammal (in the instance of our beloved money pits) to somehow replace water lost through sweat/evaporation & urination (& your occasional drooler).  What goes out, must come in.  Fail = die.

Seems a clearcut equation, made even easier by the fact that for most purposes, horses only have one “in” port (we’ll leave out IV fluids) known as the drinking hole, or mouth (no one likes that feeling when water goes down the air hole…).

Well, according to some manufacturers, we can kiss that limitation goodbye!  I can’t decide whether to be aghasted (thank you, COTH) by their clear ignorance or disregard of 8th grade science, or impressed by their sheer audacity in assuming their clientele is either incredibly gullible or incredibly uneducated.

Solo wears the decidedly NOT majykal
The Majykal Hydrating Fabric

One fabric, when sewn into the shape of a $9 ear bonnet, claims to “increase H2O hydration.”  (In this context, is there a type of hydration that DOESN’T involved H2O?  Yes, redundancy bothers me.  I hate repeating things.  See what I did there?  Yeah, I crack myself up)

Simultaneously, this mystical fabric is “breathable,” i.e. capable of releasing not only moisture, but “toxins,” as sweat evaporates.
  1. Commit, oh Majykal Bonnet – you cannot simultaneously inject moisture into Dobbin’s head AND let it out.  That’s like trying to hold water in a bucket made out of a basketball net.
  2. This may surprise you, but horses are not earthworms or amphibians.  They cannot absorb water or breathe through their skin.  Otherwise they’d drown every time it rained, which would result in a massive increase in turnout sheet prices!
  3. Mammalian bodies process “toxins” using three large & valuable organs, the liver & two kidneys.  There is no skin filtering, sorry, & even if there was, what do you even mean?  Are you claiming to suck things out of my horse's head?  Filter "horse brain pollutants" before they harm the ozone?  What purpose would this imaginary power serve?
Hydration’s Relationship With That Cardiovascular Stuff

Further product claims of this type assert that a more hydrated horse will have “increased oxygen levels & rate of circulation,” which we are generally programmed into equating with MOAR BETTER HEALING & PERFORMANCE.  Alas, while I do envy the marketers’ salary, I cannot let sleeping lies…lie?

No sweating here, mom, er...
Performing muscles do require that blood, infused with oxygen by the horse’s massive lungs, is pumped quickly through the body to deliver its precious energy food.  In addition, blood heated by a hard-working horse must circulate faster to small blood vessels close to the surface of the skin, so body core temperature does not reach dangerous levels.

At the same time, that blood loses some of its liquid component to sweat:  a minus because this will reduce the volume of blood & increase its viscosity (thickness, think cold molasses), but a plus in that evaporating sweat will help keep that core temperature out of the red zone during exercise.

Two important changes occur here: 
  1. The horse has had a subtraction from his overall fluid levels, thanks to this evaporation (the well-known road to dehydration).
  2. He also now has thicker blood, which is harder to push through vessels, further complicated by the spleen’s programmed red blood cell (RBC; mixed in stored plasma, just like the glycogen we talked about previously) dump in response to the body’s “HEY! We need some O2 over here!” demand.  
When your human spleen takes a dump (poop jokes never stop being funny), you get about a 10% RBC boost.  Dobbin’s spleen, just like his colon, is a mite bigger than yours, so he gets a 50% boost.  Which sounds great until you put it under your trusty microscope & discover that approximately 75% of that dump consists of old, stiff RBCs (it happens to the best of us).

You guessed it:  that bumps blood viscosity even higher.  That significant human/equine difference is what makes them more susceptible to rapid-onset dehydration complications.  Now you’re stuck in a negative feedback loop where the more blood volume muscles & organs demand, the faster that volume is decreased.

So…Is There ANY Connection Between Hydration & Oxygenation? 

Let’s go back to those claims about oxygen & circulation.  Even if he does snort some water up his nose, the horse still cannot increase oxygen levels in his blood through rehydration.  He can only do that by inhalation (ok for horses, not for US Heads of State, apparently).  His heart can only pump so much blood per minute around his lungs & then out to his body.  You can’t make his heart volume any larger with water either, nor will it make the organ beat any faster.

Therefore, unless someone’s invented an Equine Camelback so he can take a sip mid-gallop, it is impossible for a horse to regain fluids while he’s working.  Even if he could, this would have no impact on the oxygen levels in his blood.

Which bring us to what you already knew:  the critical importance of (a) giving your horse ample opportunities to drink and (b) conditioning him well before asking him to perform at a competition or other maximum level of exertion.

Iz fit.  Bring it.
Dehydration IS related to reductions in available blood plasma, which occurs in part due to fluid loss.  The bucket of clean water is the no-brainer.

Fitness Is More Than Muscle

This is why it is also vital that your training is more thoughtful than 3,000 20-metre circles.

Building your horse’s cardiovascular fitness tends to
  1. Increase the volume of blood his heart can pump with each beat, so fewer beats are required for performance, which means a lower heart rate at peak exertion. 
  2. He can also build more capillaries within muscles &...
  3. More mitochondria (read: energy makers in muscle cells), both of which enable more efficient use of received oxygen.  
As a result, you’ve built a horse who can send more oxygen-rich blood through his entire body, with less cardiac strain, & increased energy production efficiency.

Now THAT, my friends, is how it’s done.  For the total cost of…$0.  I even saved you the effort of Google-typing. 

Drinking filter fabric…puh-lease…

The truth doesn't hurt.  For long.