Festive_Felicitations
Well-Known Member
It was the Easter Hols and Beau and Felicity had big plans, they were going down to Canberra to stay with Vanessa, Heidi and Maggie.
Harry had been invited to stay with Aunt J's (aka mum's), and it was an early start to catch the 6:30am trailer
Harry didn't even have time to eat breakfast before having to run for the trailer, catching it just in time
Harry: I do think that there was time for breakfast before we left...
Beau and Harry had a great fun for two days before Beau had to start packing for his big trip (Canberra is 380km from Sydney - 3.75hrs drive). Luckily Jinx was on hand to supervise the packing:
Verdict: Jolly good!
After a very uneventful trip no flat tyres, no break downs, no ove heating or embarssingly runinng out of fuel (car gaugue is questionable) we arrived in sunny Canberra!
On the road:
I wasn't driving and taking photos, honest! Your honour!
Much to Beau's relief their were no queer goings-on as the dreaded 'D'-words (donkeys) were not in sight, though not out of mind
(history - last time I took him down we put him next to them, not thinking, and he was terrified and stressed about 10kg off in the first night and stressed for the next 10 days, also started to snow in November when a chap had just got his sumer coat!!! )
Anyway Beau thought going somewhere new, with a nice big field and two ladies all to himself to flirt with was highly exciting and great fun and he spent a lot of time stomping round his field 18hh+, snorting and generally being an idiot
However he was great to ride as he was totally hyper & phsyced up, really forward and the back end was fully engaged and pushing - yay!
We did some jolly good extended trots up hills, legged it round all the green-ways, hooned over the XC fences at the local PC in pairs with V (friend) & Heidi (horse), ran away from some steers, stared at some sheep. And best of all had sun while it poured at home!
Staring:
With his g/f Maggie, this was obviously the only blade of grass in the 2 acre field...
On the look out for D-words
Sunbathing:
There were also lots of ham sandwiches, home-made fruit cake, easter eggs, lashings of lemonade and scones, jam and jugs of cream
On the way home we (ok I) decided to stop at Silverhills HT as it seemed like a fitting end to an smashing week and was running training rounds and a comp. Unfortunatly I think the long trailer ride (3hrs) to arrive at yet another new place blew his brain as he was a total idiot, prat, sterotypical brainless TB/WB...
Did the 65cm as we were bored of waiting and he was very good jumped everything and we won ? I declared myself HC as I'd just beaten a bunch of 10yr olds on evil ponis
However this seemed to wake him up becasue when I went in to do my 85cm schooling round he was unrideable. Not listening, certainly not looking at the fences with the result that we did sliding halts into some jumped others like they were 1m, flattened one SJ and stopped dead 2m out from another and when ever I grumbled at him put in rodeo style bucks Much to everyones amusement and my embaressment.
Brown Brainless Beau with his Brown trailer:
I dont know if anyone else has had the feeling where you know your horse is upset as he feels all jittery under you and telling him off will just make him worse, but you'll be totally ignored if your nice?
My second round I just went in and selectively jumped the XC fences he was looking at whether they were 65cm, 85cm or 95cm.
When I got back to the trailer I realised that I had a TOTALLY flat tyre and was parked on muddy grass on a slope, and the jack was buried - oh goody gumdrops. I'm going to admit that I gave into stereotypes and called the NRMA (roadside assitance)
No charge from them but it was $220 to replace the tyre as it was ruined, apparently I'd driven quite a distance on it and not noticed
Now the reason I've been so slow to post (apart from using up all my internet watching Badmington and Kentucky on FEI TV)
On Thursday last week Beau ate some Green Cestrum (http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/pests-weeds/weeds/profiles/green-cestrum) and has been very ill, and I didn't want to jinx his recovery by posting and saying 'he's getting better' before I was 100% certain.
Down the back of his field there was a tree that the farrier had said he thought was toxic, it wasn't in flower at the time so I gave up trying to ID it and we just fenced it off with electric tape so that he couldn't eat any just incase.
Last Thur he was very ill - appearing totally spaced out (honestly looked stoned), not eating or drinking, & shoving his head into trees/bushes. At first we thought he was coming down with a cold and had a head ache, but the Vet thought it sounded more like poisioning. Digging through the hay he'd left looking for weeds we noticed he'd grazed the long grass growing under the wire & near the fenced off tree.
As it is/was now in flower I dug out my plant guide and hit google, and combined with the farriers help identified the tree as:
'Green Cestrum' It is very very toxic to all stock. Small amounts kill.
I dont know if they have it in the UK but I suggest you find out and keep and eye out for it.
As far as we know he didn't actually eat any of the bush as it is fenced off just some of the long grass underneath it that had dead leaves on it and he was very ill and still isn't right. From what the District vet has said he'd be dead if had eaten any of the actual plant.
So now we are just taking it easy, waiting till he starts scoffing his food again with enthusiasum which we will take as a sign that his liver has recovered. He is very cheerful and eating hay but won't touch his hard feed (unheard of!).
So that is Beau's Big Adventure. A bit more eventful in places than it needed to be, but overall fun
Ok so I lied about the macaroons, but it feels like there should have been some.
Chocolate or cold steak and roast veg for reading
Harry had been invited to stay with Aunt J's (aka mum's), and it was an early start to catch the 6:30am trailer
Harry didn't even have time to eat breakfast before having to run for the trailer, catching it just in time
Harry: I do think that there was time for breakfast before we left...
Beau and Harry had a great fun for two days before Beau had to start packing for his big trip (Canberra is 380km from Sydney - 3.75hrs drive). Luckily Jinx was on hand to supervise the packing:
Verdict: Jolly good!
After a very uneventful trip no flat tyres, no break downs, no ove heating or embarssingly runinng out of fuel (car gaugue is questionable) we arrived in sunny Canberra!
On the road:
I wasn't driving and taking photos, honest! Your honour!
Much to Beau's relief their were no queer goings-on as the dreaded 'D'-words (donkeys) were not in sight, though not out of mind
(history - last time I took him down we put him next to them, not thinking, and he was terrified and stressed about 10kg off in the first night and stressed for the next 10 days, also started to snow in November when a chap had just got his sumer coat!!! )
Anyway Beau thought going somewhere new, with a nice big field and two ladies all to himself to flirt with was highly exciting and great fun and he spent a lot of time stomping round his field 18hh+, snorting and generally being an idiot
However he was great to ride as he was totally hyper & phsyced up, really forward and the back end was fully engaged and pushing - yay!
We did some jolly good extended trots up hills, legged it round all the green-ways, hooned over the XC fences at the local PC in pairs with V (friend) & Heidi (horse), ran away from some steers, stared at some sheep. And best of all had sun while it poured at home!
Staring:
With his g/f Maggie, this was obviously the only blade of grass in the 2 acre field...
On the look out for D-words
Sunbathing:
There were also lots of ham sandwiches, home-made fruit cake, easter eggs, lashings of lemonade and scones, jam and jugs of cream
On the way home we (ok I) decided to stop at Silverhills HT as it seemed like a fitting end to an smashing week and was running training rounds and a comp. Unfortunatly I think the long trailer ride (3hrs) to arrive at yet another new place blew his brain as he was a total idiot, prat, sterotypical brainless TB/WB...
Did the 65cm as we were bored of waiting and he was very good jumped everything and we won
? I declared myself HC as I'd just beaten a bunch of 10yr olds on evil ponis However this seemed to wake him up becasue when I went in to do my 85cm schooling round he was unrideable. Not listening, certainly not looking at the fences with the result that we did sliding halts into some jumped others like they were 1m, flattened one SJ and stopped dead 2m out from another and when ever I grumbled at him put in rodeo style bucks
Much to everyones amusement and my embaressment.Brown Brainless Beau with his Brown trailer:
I dont know if anyone else has had the feeling where you know your horse is upset as he feels all jittery under you and telling him off will just make him worse, but you'll be totally ignored if your nice?
My second round I just went in and selectively jumped the XC fences he was looking at whether they were 65cm, 85cm or 95cm.
When I got back to the trailer I realised that I had a TOTALLY flat tyre and was parked on muddy grass on a slope, and the jack was buried - oh goody gumdrops. I'm going to admit that I gave into stereotypes and called the NRMA (roadside assitance)
No charge from them but it was $220 to replace the tyre as it was ruined, apparently I'd driven quite a distance on it and not noticed
Now the reason I've been so slow to post (apart from using up all my internet watching Badmington and Kentucky on FEI TV)
On Thursday last week Beau ate some Green Cestrum (http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/pests-weeds/weeds/profiles/green-cestrum) and has been very ill, and I didn't want to jinx his recovery by posting and saying 'he's getting better' before I was 100% certain.
Down the back of his field there was a tree that the farrier had said he thought was toxic, it wasn't in flower at the time so I gave up trying to ID it and we just fenced it off with electric tape so that he couldn't eat any just incase.
Last Thur he was very ill - appearing totally spaced out (honestly looked stoned), not eating or drinking, & shoving his head into trees/bushes. At first we thought he was coming down with a cold and had a head ache, but the Vet thought it sounded more like poisioning. Digging through the hay he'd left looking for weeds we noticed he'd grazed the long grass growing under the wire & near the fenced off tree.
As it is/was now in flower I dug out my plant guide and hit google, and combined with the farriers help identified the tree as:
'Green Cestrum' It is very very toxic to all stock. Small amounts kill.
I dont know if they have it in the UK but I suggest you find out and keep and eye out for it.
As far as we know he didn't actually eat any of the bush as it is fenced off just some of the long grass underneath it that had dead leaves on it and he was very ill and still isn't right. From what the District vet has said he'd be dead if had eaten any of the actual plant.
So now we are just taking it easy, waiting till he starts scoffing his food again with enthusiasum which we will take as a sign that his liver has recovered. He is very cheerful and eating hay but won't touch his hard feed (unheard of!).
So that is Beau's Big Adventure. A bit more eventful in places than it needed to be, but overall fun
Ok so I lied about the macaroons, but it feels like there should have been some.
Chocolate or cold steak and roast veg for reading
