Fatigue.
I get it. September 30th will be the two year anniversary of my senior horse’s stifle injury. Things seem to be going the right way now, but there’s still the daily “is he sound today?” added to the usual “how’s he breathing?” and “how’s his eye today?” and late summer “how much food can I convince him to eat?” and ramping up concerns about mud fever and cellulitis potential this fall. It’s draining.
The thing about seniors, and injured horses, and partial self care is that it’s so easy to add one more thing to all the things we’re doing. We really need to stop and think about those things and consider stopping or changing how they’re done. Some things we start doing ourselves to be sure they’re done, and to monitor the horse’s response, and our subconscious sticks a “must do myself” label on that thing. For ever. Some things expand to fill the time available and/or suck the energy right out of us.
Thinking about what we’re doing, when, how. often, etc can allow small changes that can help. I started riding my lease horse before doing my senior’s abscess care and suddenly had time and energy for both. I was setting up my senior’s meds tonight before bringing him in and realized that I could do it after because I let him eat first just in case the meds put him off eating. I am riding him before the other horses now because I don’t know how much longer we’ll have and I want to take advantage! of what time we do have. I didn’t pick out his paddock today because by the time I finished riding it was dark. It won’t take that much longer to pick two days worth than it does one. I stopped and fed my lease horse at the paddock on my way home instead of bringing him in or walking the feed out and back.
Little changes can help, if you can find the energy to assess. Which is easier said than done when you’re suffering fatigue.
By the way - ride in the dark. Your horse can see better than you can, and you’re not doing concentrated work, so ride. Get a headlamp if you need light, or an LED breastplate, or a couple of LED lights from the dollar store and strap them on a neck strap. Grab some of those reflective straps that self wrap around wrists and put them on the outside branch of your stirrups. Get yourself a reflective vest. Get Velcro reflective arm bands and put them on your horse’s cannons. All this stuff can be found at the dollar store.
If your barn has an outdoor ring. or a dedicated paddock you can ride in put up a work light or a bunch of solar patio/garden stake lights around it. You’ll be surprised at how little light you actually need.
The moon will be waxing half full in a week and gives a lot of light. This is the perfect time to introduce night riding. Personally I love it and have been doing it for over 30 years. Even The Carnivorous Mouse Incident didn’t stop me twenty something years ago. The first time I used a light of any kind was fall 2021.
Riding, even just long, slow distance conditioning can be a big boost.
And if what you need today, right now, is just sympathetic listeners you’ve got that too. I hear you and I sympathize with you. It is a lot to deal with and it seems like there’s no end to it.
You can go back to the offered, potentially helpful ideas when you’re ready for that.
while battling motivation, weather, and other outside factors.
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