tales of a barn sale, and ponies in my driveway

This has been a highly stressful week for me. I heard through the grapevine about two weeks ago that my barn had been sold. I was really taken aback by it because I hadn't heard anything about it directly from my BO, but I decided to let it play out and see what happened. I wasn't too worried about it.

Then last week my BO told me they had received an offer on the farm but it still had to go through inspections and all sorts of preliminary paperwork, and she didn't seem too confident in the whole thing. This made me feel even less worried about the sale.

Then a fellow boarder told me early this week that the farm had passed inspection, but I never heard anything from the owners about it. I completely freaked out because there was absolutely no communication about anything, and I decided to plan for the worst (being kicked out by the new owners) and I immediately started searching for a new barn.

Then the new owner was suddenly at the barn this weekend, moving her horses and belongings in. None of the boarders had any head's up that this was going to happen, so we were all very surprised. Thankfully the new owner seems really nice and was happy to communicate with all of us as to what was going on. I feel a little bit better about the situation, mostly because I know I am not going to get kicked out on the first of next month, and I'll even be able to continue to work off my board as I have been doing. I am sure changes will occur and I will do my best to roll with it and see the positives in everything.

Of course all of this was compounded by a whole lot of nonsense at work, so between the barn and my job, I was feeling very overwhelmed this week.

Lucy has been doing ok. She has been so forward and absolutely nothing slows her down and she has been exhausting to ride. I've been riding her in her new bit and she certainly seems much happier in it, but it's still constant half halts/setting her up/enjoying a stride or maybe two/her falling apart/rushing/half halts/setting her up/on and on and on. The whole ride.

Here's a recent video:



I was feeling very disheartened last night but today, a friend came and picked Lucy up and we took Lucy and my friends horse RiRa to a near-by trail system. We actually parked the truck and trailer at my house, unloaded the horses, and walked to the end of my road, which connects to the trails. We had an absolute BLAST! I fell in love with my horse all over again. She was a superstar. She took her time getting on the trailer, BUT she wasn't naughty or belligerent at all; she just wanted to have a good look and a good sniff before getting on. It was a step-up trailer, too, and she's not very used to those. I ended up picking up one of her front feet and putting it on the trailer and then bribing her forward with a crinkly candy wrapper, and she walked right on!!

She was quiet for the ride over to my house (about ten minutes), unloaded great along with RiRa, was good to tack up, and was so brave and so happy out on the strange trails. She did have a good-sized spook twice, both times because dogs ran up around a corner and it was the sound of the leaves and the running dogs that got her, I think. Luckily I had my heels jammed down to China and I hung on!

Here are some photos:

happy ears! she is a totally different horse out on the trails.

Nicole and RiRa! RiRa is a QH/Belgian cross and he is
awesome.

after our ride, back in my driveway. my neighbours
weren't quite sure what to think of this!

pony love!

early morning crazies!

She was getting a bit warm, so I took her blanket off.
Isn't this December? In New England? It felt like Spring!

Oh here comes Tony, the 17hh Shetland Pony.
Well, he thinks so, anyway.

Sheepish?

Tony ran around me in circles, taunting her! HE IS SO NAUGHTY!

Mom, seriously, you turn me out with this fool on purpose?

I bet he would taste really good.

Is this their inconspicuous look?!
"It wasn't me!"
"Or me!"

Then at the last second she sticks her tongue out at me...

And they're off again, leaping about their field.

Lucy and the Fuzzball

Early November marked two years since I bought Lucy, and in all that time, I've never turned her out with another horse. I know horses are sociable animals but every time I considered turning her out with another horse, I remembered the times she got her back legs stuck in the fence at Frank's barn as she was trying to kick the gelding next to her in the face. Or how when she says "hello" to another horse, she goes up to them, takes two big sniffs, and then pins her ears, emits a high-pitched "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" and strikes out with a front foot.

These behaviours led me to believe that maybe she was better off as a lone ranger, safely confined to her own enclosed space, and that would be all fine and dandy if I hadn't moved her to a new barn exclusively to put her in a bigger paddock. You see, only groups of horses can go into the big paddock at my barn. If Lulu wanted a bigger space, she was going to have to learn how to play nice.

Earlier in the week, we put her out with the smallest equine on the farm: Tony the Shetland Pony. He may be small in stature, but he is mighty at heart. I thought he'd probably be perfect for Lucy because he isn't going to fight back if she tries to push him around, but he isn't going to take a beating, either. He is smart and cunning and it turned out they actually liked each other.

She tolerates him until he gets too close to "her" hay if she is eating it. We put out several piles of hay for the two of them, and the piles are far enough apart that they can both eat separately and not be in each others' faces. As you can see, she does occasionally share with him, though about three seconds after this photo was taken, she pinned her ears and drove him off. He wasn't fazed, though; he just trotted ten steps over to the next pile of hay.

I am really happy because this paddock is about five or six times the size of her old paddock, so there is lots of space to run and play. I caught the two of them playing one night. To a non-horsey person, it would have seemed that Lucy was about to kill Tony, but she was just kicking up her heels (and not getting anywhere near kicking Tony) and he was loving it. At one point she was in one corner of the field after romping over there from the opposite end, where Tony was still standing. They had a bit of a stare-down and then Tony suddenly dug his heels in and whisked himself over to Lucy as fast as his short pony legs could carry him. He was totally instigating the play! It was adorable.

how about a positive post?

Enough with the woe-is-me-I-just-got-run-over-by-a-horse nonsense.

I gave myself the weekend to heal from my various cuts and bruises related to getting trampled by a horse last Thursday. Today I saw that the worst bruise had turned from blue to green to a delightful shade of puke yellow and thought, "that's good enough; it's time to ride!" Lucy had been out of work since Thursday, so I was slightly apprehensive about what she'd have in store for me. To be safe, I lunged her before getting on. Ohhh boy did she have a lot to say! Buck, romp, leap, rinse, repeat. When she started breathing evenly and stretching down at the trot, I asked her to woah and I got on.

She was LOVELY.

So lovely, in fact, that to finish up the ride, we went through a reasonably tight bending line of a crossrail to a vertical, both of which were on opposing diagonal lines in the middle of the ring (like an "S"). I trotted in, looked left and opened my inside (left) rein, cantered off the first jump, used my outside leg to get her straight toward the second jump, had four fairly effortless and floaty canter strides to the second jump, and over the second jump I looked right and opened my right rein/redirected the bend, executed a nice automatic release and she easily landed on her right lead and softly cantered away.

BUTTER, people. It was like butter.

The best part was that we had an audience. A girl from the local high school had contacted me through the farm website to see if she could shadow me. I was supposed to teach a lesson this evening so I offered to let her come to the barn, learn what I need to do to take care of my horse, and then watch me teach the lesson. She was very excited to be there and she asked lots of intelligent questions and listened to my responses (and even took notes!). She has to write a paper about what she learned so I tried to beef my responses up with some intelligent banter. Horse management is so complex and I wanted to give her the most complete answers to her questions, but I felt a bit bad about rambling on and on (or so it seemed) because of course each answer required background information, and that background information required its own background information. Oh well, I don't think she'll have any problem coming up with a two page paper.

My student ended up rescheduling her lesson but I enjoyed my evening immensely regardless.

I will leave you with a fun photo of Kenny and Lucy that I took early last week:

my cowboy and my wanna-be western trail horse.

thanking my lucky stars

I had a very bad surprise at the barn yesterday morning and I am still perplexed over the whole thing. When I arrived at the barn in the morning, I walked down the barn aisle to start bringing the horses out (I always start with Lucy, of course!) and about halfway there, I realized her stall door was wide open.

Like, WIDE OPEN.

To make matters worse, I didn't see the horse in her stall at first. I started running and she heard me barreling down the barn aisle and stuck her head out like, "oh, hi mom!". I stood there and took it all in: the horse still standing politely in her stall waiting to be turned out, the door completely open, the chest guard not up at all, and all of the other horses getting very impatient about going outside.

My barn is right off of a highway that is two lanes and has heavy traffic, especially in the mornings. I really cannot believe my very curious and very cheeky mare didn't waltz herself right out of her stall, down the aisle, out into the driveway, down to the highway, in front of an 18 wheeler, or maybe back in the 60 acres of property that the barn has where hunters like to trespass and shoot big brown things (deer? horse? really, what's the difference?!).

Nope, she stood there and munched her breakfast hay quietly and then happily went outside when I put her halter on and took her out.

My barn owner feeds breakfast in the mornings and she didn't think she had left her door open, but the other possibility is even scarier: that someone deliberately went in and opened her door. I am not sure which option to hope for...I just hope it was a freak thing and it will never happen again. I certainly can't be locking her stall in case she needs to get out quickly (like in the case of a barn fire, god forbid).

why I wish I had her metabolism

Lucy was weighed on Sunday. I was excited to see what her weight was. I didn't think she had gained much if anything at all, but I thought she had added a lot of muscle over the summer with all the jumping we did.

First, a review of her progression:

11/7/09 (the day I bought her): 1020lbs
1/23/10: 1011lbs
4/10/10: 1053lbs
9/26/11: 1150lbs
6/11/11: 1197lbs (almost 180lbs heavier than the day I bought her)
11/6/11: 1152lbs :( :( :(

So she lost quite a bit of weight.

The dumbest thing is that I had 1253lbs in my head as her weight back in June, so I was beating myself up over the fact that I thought my horse had lost 100 lbs in less than 6 months...but in actuality it is half of that (not that it's good, but it's not as terrible as 100 lbs would have been).

I have been coming up with a list of reasons why she might lose so much weight:

-worms are the most likely culprit. I de-wormed her back in July-ish but I haven't done anything since then, and 'tis the season for lots of nasties right now. I sent a fecal sample out to be tested so I know exactly what I'm dealing with before I pump her full of chemicals.

-lots of exercise, even more than usual

-cold weather setting in

-grass not as plentiful in the paddocks

-trying to hold off on blanketing so she'd grow a coat (though in mid-October I looked at her one day and saw ribs and I was like AHHHHHH! so she's been getting blanketed fairly aggressively ever since)

I will wait for the fecal report to come back and go from there. I'm just glad she didn't lose 100 lbs...I seriously was going nuts about how terrible of a horse owner I am.

up on the scale, looking cute

The highlight of the day, by FAR, was a little visitor we had to the farm for the weighing clinic:

a pony in a mini van!

meet Lily, a therapy pony who came to be weighed. how much do you think
she weighed?

she was an excellent loader.

she kissed, "shook hands", peed, pooped, and reared on command.

Lucy, Lauren, Dreamer, and C ready to go out on a trail ride. Yes, Lauren is
bareback. She's a brave woman.

things that make me irrationally happy

I bought myself a present earlier in the week: an electric blower. I have this weird obsession over sweeping the floors at the barn. Hay, dirt, and miscellaneous stuff all over the floor really drives me nuts.

The thing is, sweeping takes a long time and it isn't really that great. Plus, someone always walks a horse down the aisle or mucks a stall or carries hay through the barn as soon as I'm done, and all my hard work goes to waste. My new electric blower, however, shows the dirt the door...literally, and it only takes a couple minutes to clean the whole barn, so I don't even mind if someone gets it dirty right after.

Best part of the whole story is that I bought it at a liquidation sale at a local home improvement store for $20!

barn rules

The number of horses at my barn is about to increase by 150%, as a local lesson barn is moving 15 of their horses and ponies to my barn on the first of November to stay for the winter. I'm not exactly thrilled about this because I like how small and quiet my barn is. I also like that there are minimal kids. There are a few kids at my barn currently but they are pretty mature and reliable. My last barn was all adults, though some of them acted a lot like kids themselves. All of the boarders at my current barn are respectful of each others space, I know all of the horses and their quirks, and I don't have to battle for ring time or play dodge-em with four other horses in the ring.

I know I've been spoiled with all of that space, though, and I've accepted the fact that the circumstances will change dramatically very soon.

My barn owner and I were talking about barn rules. With so many new people moving in all at once, there is the potential for things to get very messy. My opinion is that we should post the barn rules in a very obvious spot and have a barn meeting within the first week of all of the new people being there to introduce everyone and make sure we're all on the same page. The thing is we don't even have official barn rules because we've been able to function just fine with everyone cleaning up after themselves, being respectful of each other, and making sure their horses are behaving themselves.

My main concerns are:

-possibly having to schedule ring time because there are going to be so many lessons that the lesson program could literally take over the barn and all of the space
-if there is a lesson going on (or two), are they going to allow me to ride in the indoor with them? this is New England and it's going to start snowing soon, so though we have an outdoor it may be under 3' of snow until March like it was last year.
-making sure people clean up after themselves. this is a HUGE issue for me. I hate when people pick their horses feet out and then just leave the dirt right in the middle of the aisle.
-ensuring that people are aware of what they can and can't use. I'm lucky that my tack, grain, and other supplies are locked up safely in a small tack room that I share with one other person, but my tack trunk is out in the aisle. I don't keep anything valuable in it but I would hope that no one would go looking for something in there. I am very particular about my things.

So my question is, what rules does your barn have?

Kenny gets brave

Kenny has really taken up a renewed interest in riding. I had to run a big errand on Friday night so I wasn't around, but he went and tacked Lu up by himself, warmed her up, and rode her in the indoor. Toward the end of the ride, he decided to jump over a crossrail that he had set up. She jumped it well, so he made it a 2' vertical, which she also jumped well. He sent me a photo on my phone of the jump and told me he jumped it with Lucy and my eyes just about bugged out of my head. I was a bit concerned that Lucy is still so young and impressionable, and I didn't want her or Kenny to get hurt. He assured me that it was a positive ride, though.

On Saturday, he rode again and this time I was there to help him. She was kind of a huge brat to begin with, but he got her attention by using lots of half halts, changes of direction, and circles. They had to ride in the indoor again because the outdoor was totally saturated from all the rain we got on Friday, and Lucy is really different to ride indoors. She is stiff, she turns like a piece of cardboard, and she is more "up". She did relax after a few minutes, though. He ended up jumping her over a 2'6" vertical and they both did great. I was like, PHEW! What a nice horse. She really took care of him, listened well, and was so cute.

He rode again yesterday and this time I have photos! He "warmed her up" for me and then I rode for a few minutes.

Pretty good, huh?

First swedish oxer! What a star.

Trying out a bigger spread.

I am also very proud of the young lady who has my old pony Dreamer at my farm. They have come so far since Dreamer arrived just a couple short months ago. She started out not being able to really stay with him at the trot, has progressed to feeling comfortable enough to canter through fields and on the trails, and yesterday they jumped their first little crossrail! I was beaming...and so was she :) Dreamer was such a superstar. He is pretty much autopilot to a jump, which is great for her right now because she can focus on her position and not worry about getting to their destination. That pony is worth his weight in gold.

Superlu

Reminder: don't forget to enter to win a hand-painted saddle pad :) Contest ends 10/21. There are some truly excellent entries so far. I'm glad I decided to pick a random winner because choosing the "best" entry would be next to impossible.