Happy New Year!

I tried to post on Christmas but I am only now discovering that it never published. Oops.

My computer is also a mess and hardly works these days. I'm actually writing this on my iPhone because I gave up waiting for it to load on my computer.

This is usually the time of year where everyone talks about all their accomplishments from last year and their goals for the new year.

I'm not going to do that. Due to many unforeseen circumstances, I have very few horse accomplishments this past year and for the same reasons, I'm not going to make horse related goals for the new year.

That being said, Walker is doing fantastic. If nothing else, this last year has taught me the importance of time. We are at a point where we think Walker might make a full recovery in the spring. He will never be 100% but he is going to be pretty close. 

This time six months ago, I didn't even know what his life expectancy would be. No one thought that he would ever really be comfortable even with bute.

This past week, he threw a shoe. With the combination of the cold ground and his bad feet, we fully anticipated keeping him stalled and on bute. Instead, he stayed out and never went lame at all, even though the farrier couldn't come out for a few days.

He is happier than ever. He is the king of his little herd of three and he is treated like a God both by the other horses and by my barn owner. She now even changes his halter regularly so that it can match his blanket.  In her words, "we wouldn't want him to clash."

It doesn't get much better than that, folks.

Not to mention that he has probably put on 100 pounds. We're working on that last part, but needless to say, he loves it.

So I did not become a fantastic rider this past year. Guess what? I'm not a superstar. But I did improve the life of a well-deserving creature, and I will continue to make that my goal for the new year.

Happy New Year everyone!