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!