Where to Start?

Let's see...we ended with the Estes saga a couple of weeks ago (maybe), and when we left off, I'd had the chiro out to crank on her and get her sorted out.

After her back was aligned, she was moving better, but still not "right".  She was walking like she was really footsore, so I took a peek at her feetsies.  Being barefoot, we usually just let their feet be.  We have our fabulous farrier come up at the beginning of the season, trim them up, and that's it.  I tossed around some ideas with Mrs Mom, but in the end called up our farrier.  I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. 

And all I can say about that is Thank God! I thought that her sole was overgrowing her hoof wall and wanted to cut back the sole.  Turns out the sole was fine, but the hoof wall was lacking.  Our farrier said that it happens sometimes when it's been dry and the ground is hard.  It's not been overly dry, but the ground has been hard and was wearing away the hoof wall.  Her Highness digging with her club foot didn't help either.

I know it was hard for our farrier to say these words to me, "I think shoes would be good".  He knows how much we love our horses being barefoot.  Love that they're easy keepers.  But one of the reasons I love him so much (besides his absolutely adorable family that we finally got to meet and besides the fact he came up on his day off) is that he ALWAYS has the horse's health and comfort in mind.  He's been working on Estes' feetsies since before I bought her, and his dad was her farrier before that.  There's some history there, which I appreciate.

When those words left his mouth, I knew I had to do it.  He wouldn't have made the suggestion off-hand.  Even though I love her being barefoot, I'm not so hard-core that I wouldn't even entertain the suggestion.  Rather than shoe all four hooves, we went with just shoes on the fronts.

Which we had to borrow from the livery. 

Knowing we were barefooters, our farrier didn't think to bring any of his shoeing stuff.  Luckily, Compass' horses are always in need of shoes and she had what we needed.

Within an hour after getting her shiny new shoes, Her Highness was feeling much better.  I hopped on her in the pen, which might not have been the best idea, as she had a bad case of the zoomies (that's a Mrs Mom-ism).  She trotted along the fenceline and then came to an abrupt stop, which just about unseated me.  Then she trotted along the next fenceline and I prepared for another quick stop.  But, nooooo, she decided to execute a beautiful 90 degree turn.  And just about unseated me.  At that point, I decided it was about time for me to leave her alone or I was going to embarrass myself.