Tails From Provence

More Preparations

MC rang me the other day to see if I thought it would be a good idea to take the horses off to the nearby Ecuries de Mane to practise a few things there. Specifically, a passerelle, or footbridge.

Great idea! Practising off-site is always a good thing to do. We arranged to leave at 9am on Friday. Quieto needed some preventative maintenance first, though.

One of the issues I’ve witnessed firsthand with barefoot horses is that if something becomes lodged in the white line, it can very quickly work its way up inside the hoof wall. Aero has a little hole on his left front hoof which I am watching closely. I clean it out every day and I’m keeping the hoof wall rasped very low just there so that there is nothing to trap and hold a foreign body. Quieto has had a problem with his front left for a couple of months now, although he hasn’t had a moment’s lameness. MC has diligently kept it neat and rasped back, but the last time the farrier came, he shook his head and excavated further up the foot until he found a single juniper needle, lodged waaaaaay up there. And I do mean waaaaaaay up there :

MC was really worried about him. He hasn’t got the best feet in the world anyway – he came to her with laminitis. She’s been using his hoof boots all the time recently, because of the crack (crack just doesn’t seem like a big enough word, does it?!). So when Eric the farrier suggested that she ask Mr Endurance (he’s a farrier as well as being a serious endurance rider) to have a look at it, she was relieved to get a second opinion.

Mr Endurance said it was no problem and it hadn’t penetrated the sensitive structures of the hoof, but he would fill it with resin, which will hold it together and gradually grow out with the hoof.

Filling the crack/hole/crevasse/chasm/gorge with resin :

The resin sets in a minute – or less in warm weather – so he quickly wrapped it with cling film.

and set the hoof on the ground while it hardened.

He needed to add a little more at the toe, this time with a piece of card underneath.

The piece of card will help define the underneath surface of the ‘patch.’

Then a bit of rasping to shape the hoof…

…and Quieto looks very relieved that it’s all over.

We loaded up Team Pimayon after that and arrived at the Ecuries de Mane soon after. I was pretty sure the passerelle would not be a problem for Flurry. After all, he crossed this on Le Big Trek :

I was right. A bunch of wooden planks set at ground level were not a problem, although taking a photo of him standing on them was not easy!

We popped all the horses over a variety of obstacles – logs, barrels, a bridge shaped filler – and then we played with the water tray. They all walked onto it and practised standing still, as Spirit is demonstrating here :

Then they all had a go at jumping over it. Although in Flurry’s case, it was more like stomping over it than jumping it. It’s a good job it’s made of durable rubber, not plastic, or there would be hoof-sized holes all over it!

A good morning’s work, and well worth doing. Passerelles will worry no one next weekend.

Tags: equifeel practice, treating a hoof crack

Preparations

I just read back over my old posts and I realised I never actually said whether I had decided to go to the Equifeel National Championships or not. Well, surprise surprise, I decided to go.

Only thing was, I still had to register my trailer here. Have I mentioned that I am a World Class Procrastinator? No? Well, if there’s ever a World Championship held for putting things on the long finger, I’ll be there. And I’ll expect to finish in the medals.

I did make a start on the trailer registration way back in April. I filled out a sheaf of paperwork and trotted off to the DRIRE office – they look after environmental issues and registering trailers, apparently. And they set me a couple of tasks to complete before my paperwork would be accepted. I won’t go into details, but I will, at some stage, write up a guide to registering a trailer in France. All of those currently on the internet are out of date…

Finally, by the middle of June, everything was done. And this is where the procrastination set in. Between visitors and being a bit sick and what have you, I didn’t make it back to the DRIRE office with my paperwork until July 7th. And the first appointment I could get for its Contrôle Technique (inspection) in the whole Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region (and that’s a BIG region) was Wednesday July 16th. And we’re leaving on Weds July 23rd.

“Cutting it a bit fine” doesn’t even cover it. If there were any issues with the Contrôle Technique, I’d be stuffed. If there was a delay in getting the registration certificate back from the Prefecture, I’d be stuffed. As it happened, there was an issue with the Contrôle Technique. A technical issue, not a mechanical issue. I’m not going to go into details, but basically I had to get the trailer weighed again. But the Nice Man who was handling my case said that I could email the weigh tickets to him.

So I duly had the trailer weighed again, photographed the tickets and sent them winging their way through the ether, with a politely beseeching email (composed by Alexandrine) attached. The email also said that if there was a problem could he please contact me ASAP so I could try to get something done about it.

Silly me. I expected an email acknowledging receipt. Nope. Nada. Rien.

MC has been just as worried about the whole thing as me (I’m transporting Quieto) so she offered to ring the Nice Man this afternoon. Unfortunately, when she rang the number I’d been given, she was told he’s only there for three hours a week. She rang the main number for DRIRE, to learn that they only accept calls Mon-Thurs, between 9am and noon.

Oh dear. We did have a fall-back option, though. I can take their heavy, forty-year old, bare-bones trailer instead of my very lightweight, modern, comfortable one. Poor horses, it’s a long trip… I started researching local companies that rent trailers, made a few calls to try and find out how much it would set us back. No answer anywhere, so I sent off a few email queries.

Then my phone rang. I thought it was a call from one of the trailer hire companies. No! Quelle surprise! It was the Nice Man from the Contrôle Technique. Did I want him to post the paperwork or would I prefer to collect it on Monday afternoon, seeing as I was under pressure?

I will collect, I practically shrieked down the phone (in French). Words failed me then. I didn’t know how to say I’m really, really grateful. I just repeated merci a couple of times. I hope he got the message.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, though. When I collect the paperwork, I then have to go to the Prefecture in Digne-les-Bains. I believe what will happen there is that they will be able to give me the registration number and the documents will be sent out afterwards in the post. Once I have the registration number, I can insure the trailer and I’ll be good to go.

That’s three things which have to go smoothly :

1. Collecting the paperwork

2. Getting the number from the Prefecture

3. Getting my insurance sorted out.

And then the adventure really begins…

Tags: registering a trailer in France

I don’t normally do this…

…so I hope you’ll forgive me. It’s a plea to lend your ears and then decide if you want to help a group of lovely, hard-working, dedicated young people in their journey along the road to musical success.

My youngest daughter Tansy and her band Nothing New Under the Sun have been recording their EP Smalltown Rain for the last week. (She tells me it’s sounding great! I can’t wait to hear it because I’ve haven’t managed to be in Cork for one of their performances yet.) They’re running a Fundit campaign to try to raise money to help defray the publication, distribution and PR costs – they’ve covered all the other costs to date themselves.

Have a look at their video, they even perform one of their songs on it.

If you like it, could you please share their campaign on Facebook or Twitter (or both!)? They’re currently running a giveaway draw on their Facebook page – if you like and share their post about the Fundit campaign, you’ll be put into a draw for 2 tickets to the launch gig AND a copy of the EP. Sure you can’t lose… click HERE to go to their Facebook page.

If you LOVE it could you see your way towards making a small donation? They could be famous one day and you’ll be able to say you helped start them off!

Click on this photo to visit the Nothing New Under the Sun Fundit page

I’m also proud to say that the YD is now following in my footsteps through the Bloggosphere and is keeping a blog for the band – you’ll find it here on their website, along with more photos and info about the band members.

Thanks for reading!

Tags: #nnuts, fundit, nothing new under the sun