Long time, no sea

I have been MIA for a week and I apologize. We bought a house in June, but only just last week got the keys. We spent the weekend remodeling, didn't finish, but at least got to a point where we could move in. I had next to no time to go to visit Little Love, but thankfully Melissa stepped in! I did visit Lilo here and there, but just briefly to say hello.

Once our furniture and boxes were in the house, we still had to clean up at the rental we had been staying at, pack up all that stuff and haul it over. As I was driving the last load over to our new house at 8 pm on Tuesday, the barn owner called. I knew instantly that she didn't have good news. I was right. Her daughter, who had been doing the "evening barn" had called in panic: Little Love had a really swollen front leg.

Of all days, THIS was not a good day for my horse to get injured. I was stressed out, hadn't eaten, sat down or had as much as a drink of water since morning. But, I told the barn owner I would be there as soon as I could. I drove to our house, unloaded part of the car (the part with the groceries in it, my family was starving) and rushed to the barn with completely irrational thoughts racing through my head (did I mention I was stressed out and exhausted :-).

Luckily the reality was much better than all the scenarios I had been envisioning during the drive to the barn. Little Love's left front was swollen from knee down. She was quite muddy, but after some rinsing and scrubbing, I was able to locate the source of all this; she had a cut on her shin. It wasn't very big, but it was extremely sore. I suspect she had been kicked. I cooled it with cold water, scrubbed it with Betadine soap and applied an antibiotic cream. Little Love was not happy, she hates this sort of stuff. Apparently she hadn't even let the barn owner's daughter pick her hooves, she had been so out of sorts over the sore leg.

So,as if I had nothing else to do, I am now going to the barn twice a day to clean out the small wound and dress it to prevent infection. I'm also walking her to keep the swelling down. I'm starting to suspect Little Love arranged this so I would make time to go to the barn, LOL. At this rate all the boxes in my house will be opened and emptied by Christmas! Jokes aside, she is doing much better. At first it seemed like nothing much was changing (for better or for worse) but tonight the swelling had gone down significantly. So hopefully we avoided a big infection, yet again.

The interesting thing is that on Tuesday, when I was completely stressed out and absolutely and utterly scattered because of the move, the moment I entered Little Love's stall to see her leg infinite peace entered my being. It was as if there weren't 150 unopened boxes in my house, as if I wasn't starving, tired, wet (did I mention it was pouring?) and at the end of my rope. Even when she is hurt, my horse manages to somehow bring Zen to every moment I spend with her. I left the barn that evening late, but completely calm and centered and feeling like the luckiest person on earth.