. The bigger your game, the bigger the obstacles

Sorry for the absenteeism but I have been on a two week roller coaster ride. You see on July 26 (Thursday) Bob and I took Nickel our seven year old Belgian for a drive. We drove with the "boat (exercise sled with runners) across the street, around the draft horse club down the  lane, and back home. The ride was wonderful , Nickel was Majestic walking and trotting on command, following Bobs lead sporting his full leather harness. When we arrived home we gave Nickel a thank you brushing and retired for the night. The next day Friday, there was allot to do when I arrived home and what I observed of Nickel and Charm was they were resting in front of their fan, in their outside run in. I went about my business, then when Bob arrived home and it was time to feed the horses dinner, that is when we noticed a problem. Nickel did not come to the fence when called, he ALWAYS comes to the fence when called. When Bob went in to get Nickel we discovered he was lame, how could this be? We did a quick and kind of panicked physical and then called a friend, an experienced draft owner to lend an eye. On Saturday Nickel was still lame perhaps more so, we called our Farrier. The Farrier came out and concluded that although he is not a vet , he was confident it was a "thorn bruise". We started a regiment of salt soaks and dyper wraps. In the three days that fallowed we observed little to no progress. As concern grew we began to become more alarmed, we then had the vet out. The vet did the EXACT same exam the farrier had done and  concluded Nickel had a bruise, turned abscess, she thought Nickel was on the mend. We added antibiotics to the soak and wrap routine. As Friday approached we had spoken to no less then a dozen draft horse people and had been given all kinds of advice from "be patient" to "go to emergency medical without delay". On Saturday(three days ago and a week and a day in) we had the emergency Mobile unit out to the farm.The vet found the hoof to still be abscess and the leg to be swollen, she dug at the hoof making a whole to drain the infection out. We changed Nickels diet (took away all grain) and changed (with Merri's teaching) the manor we soak to loads of salt less water, yesterday Nickels abscess drained and Nickel is no longer lame. Thank god. The house is a crazy mess, we are tired and quite over spent but we have our horse, and we have wonderful horse friends. We have lived through another crisis and learned how to better manage abscess hooves. Now I can get back to focusing on our home our farm , and this blog.I very much enjoyed reading this blog post
http://theorganicsister.com/ways-to-love-yourself/
I am looking at ways to refocus my life and attitude. Roller coaster rides can realy play havick.