Heather Hamel's Blog, page 18

Horse Videos

While trying to promote Kobi’s book - thank you to everyone who’s bought and read it – I have been asked to include some pictures of the actual horses doing some of the things we did in the story.

While looking for pictures, I came across some video’s…our home movies of the horses…so I will be sharing them over the next few weeks (links to the videos will be available on my website as well)

I tried to figure out the best way to do it – I figured chronological would be best in case someone was reading it now, I didn’t want to ruin anything! And for those who have read it, now you can reflect back.

This first couple of videos are of Jake. He won so many hearts and since he came into our lives before Kobi started showing – it seems fitting to start with the big guy. I’m not really sure at this point which videos actually came first, but thought I’d share Jake’s before/after body clipping today.

Please feel free to share these with others and I’d love to hear your comments!

Now…Jake:

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Published on February 15, 2014 13:16

Be Present

I read a great book this week: Rise of the Machines by Kristen Lamb and it opened my eyes to the value of being present and available in my own life.

What’s kinda funny is the intent of this book to help authors navigate the digital world, including social media (which isn’t my strongest area) and I need all the help I can get with promoting. What I took from this book was so much more.

It opened my eyes at the need to be present in my life. I need to stop multi-tasking as much (especially when it comes to technology), stop trying to find short cuts, and be present and available – for those I’m chatting with on Twitter and Facebook as well as those actual humans I interact with on a daily basis.

With this in the forefront of my mind for the last few days, I was present when I noticed Kobi acting ‘off’ last night. It wasn’t anything drastic, but as I pulled down the driveway I saw he held his head lower than normal. When I brought him in to the barn for dinner, he wasn’t playful and couldn’t seem to find a stance that was comfortable for him to eat. I took his temperature and noticed he was running a low-grade fever as well. gain, nothing serious, but enough strange things for me to notice since I was actually paying attention.

Two days ago Kobi and Sugar had a booster to their rabies shot due to rumors of a rabid raccoon in the area. I know Kobi always has reactions to his vaccines, so I believed it was just due to this but flew into full-blown panic mode all the same and treated his symptoms for colic: mineral oil, bute, no hay, checked hourly for gut sounds, and investigated his poop.

By bedtime, he was acting much more his normal mustang self. Now I’m not sure if it simply was a reaction to his vaccines or if he was trying to colic, but feel that by being present and noticing the signs of him being ‘off’ and his colicky symptoms that I prevented a major equine catastrophe.

Lessons learned: Be present and know thy horse!