A number of wildfires in Canada and Washington caused smoke to hang at almost ground level for weeks. In western Washington the smoke has cleared but not so much east of the Cascades.
Lingering smoke, an ugly curtain, except there was no way to escape. We shared the smoke as far as the mid-west. Maybe Florida was smoke free but Florida has its own misery in the summer.
The smoke made me crabby, feel physically ill. The horses lived in it. Beege didn't seem to be affected much but he wears a fly mask most of the time and doesn't work very hard (or at all) in his retirement. Odin the Mustang developed a disturbing noise in his right nostril, as if he had a giant booger that wouldn't clear. Then his right eye reddened and oozed. He acted like he didn't feel that well either. We slowed his work to very easy stuff. No heavy breathing. The eye got worse even though the air cleared a few days ago. I called the vet on Tuesday and made the appointment for Thursday morning. Then his eye got better overnight. I cancelled the vet appointment.
Thursday afternoon I went to play with him, worked on walking confidently in and out of buildings. He felt better and seemed interested in learning again. In and out of the barn, the wash stall went fairly smoothly so we went over to the indoor arena, which has a low-ceilinged, narrow entryway — another challenge for him. That went smoothly too. Cones were set up in the arena so I thought I'd see how he'd feel about trying a figure 8 pattern around 2 of them. First he had to investigate the cones.
I love how committed he is to checking out this cone. He has it trapped against his front leg so he check it out with his lips.
We tried the figure 8 and it went well in one direction but I had to break each part of the motion down in the other direction: go left, stop and face me, come toward me, yield shoulder in the other direction. Once he got all the steps, I quit since I don't like to drill him. Plus he was super smooth in the other direction.
Today I got to ride! Oh happy day!