“So be prepared for a welsh cob Arab foal in about 10 months”
Words I never wanted to hear, ever, in my life yet found myself listening to this morning as the hubby and I crossed paths getting around for work.
He laughed.
I panicked.
Apparently he put Gem out last after breakfast this morning and Nash was hanging out by the gate which isn’t unusual for him. He waits for Pete too, liking the herd to all be together. As soon as Gem was let loose, she immediately shoved her hussy little bay butt in Nash’s face, peed and knelt down so the shrimpy little guy could…well…enjoy himself on her behalf. Not that she was suffering, mind you.
I immediately went into panic mode. Did I buy a stallion? I have the vet exam I paid for which clearly states GELDING. I even contacted the seller and made sure I wasn’t going insane. I re read the original ad I still have on my phone. GELDING. Of course, I have no proof he was ever gelded beyond the exam and he could be a crypt orchid some asshole breeder passed down the line claiming to be a gelding, but that seems maybe unlikely. I don’t know. He was certainly enjoying himself and I highly doubt it was the first instance of debauchery those two have partaken in. And in front of Pete no less! The poor old gelding has been pastured with Gem for 9 years and she never so much as batted an eye lash in his direction. Add little stud muffin Nash to the mix and voila! She becomes a whore overnight. Guess she isn’t in to big, strong blondes.
Dusty assured me that most crypt orchids throw blanks. Ok, fine. The chances I’m going to end up with a tiny version of Gem next year are looking pretty slim, thank the Universe. Not that I don’t love Gem, but I really don’t need a miniature version of her for the next 30 years. It still leaves me with a big problem. I can’t have my mare having sex all day long while I am at work. She returned to her normal self after the Gastroguard was started, but it just can’t be that healthy for her to be so….active.
This means I need to separate them. Which likely means I need to sell Nash. Sure, I have the extra pastures to put him in, but I really don’t like having a solitary horse and with his personality I think it was quickly become an instance of him pacing the pasture fence all day long and I will not purchase a friend for Nash. No thanks.
This brings up two other issues.
How would I even tell Wyatt that his pony is being sold? I mean, what explanation would I give him? Sorry, but your pony is a male gigolo?
How would I write that ad? Kid friendly welsh cob pony. No bad habits. Well, except he is horny as hell so watch out!
Ugh.
I don’t need this right now.
Hubby is going to pull blood tonight and send off to the lab for a blood test to check to see if he is a crypt orchid. Apparently you can do that. I may just do that as part of my pre purchase of any male horse for the rest of eternity.
The first quarter went really well. I could feel the improvement in Gem’s over all willingness to participate in this new discipline and start to relax into the work. The biggest change was in her attitude of saying yes instead of no. This got me all fired up for the second quarter and I sat down to write out the list of goals I had.
Which was about the time reality and a big dose of panic hit and I realized this quarter was going to be a wash. If I’m lucky.
Wyatt continues to love fishing. He has two poles and last week caught two blue gills at the same time. He was stoked.
Currently I am qualified in foot and ankle surgery. This May I will be sitting for my certification exam and spent the better part of February banging my head against the wall trying to collect the requested documents for the case submission part of the exam. Now it’s time panic about the computer portion of the test.
Failure is not an option for this test. If I fail I lose my hospital privileges. If that happens I’m screwed.
Spring flowers make my heart happy
Studying in school was easy. It was my job and I had nothing else to worry about. I graduated with a 4.0 from medical school due to my ability to focus on studying and studying alone. Having a very understanding husband who never fussed about my 14 hour study binges was a big plus.
Studying in residency was also easy. We had weekly meetings to cover various topics and scenarios. I ate, slept and breathed surgery often times scrubbing in for my first case at 6:30 am and my last case at 7:30 pm that same day. I was surrounded by it. Passing the qualification exam was made possible by this.
Waggy and her stick.
Studying now feels impossible. I have a full time job that isn’t all surgery all the time and is instead once a week. I also need to run the business. Then I come home and be a mom. Cook dinner. Feed the horses. If I’m lucky I get to sit down and study at 8:30 pm after Wyatt is in bed and I’m already exhausted from my full day. Keeping my eyes open and my brain focused until 10 pm gets harder and harder as the week days go by.
It’s not going so well. I’m scared shitless I’m going to fail.
We ended up getting a new riding mower versus the zero turn. It was 1/3rd the price and had great reviews plus we had a great coupon at TSC to use to bring it down even more.
All that to say Gem is getting a vacation until May 9th rolls around and my life can resume. It’s bad timing. We will lose a lot of what we gained. But not losing my business is more important and so it must be.
How did the first quarter end up flying by? This year was my first time breaking goals down quarterly instead of longer ranging yearly goals and I think it worked out a lot better. Looking back on how we did:
Gem:
1) Get back to a 2-3 times a week riding schedule for consistency. I have the arena at home now and lights. Really there are no valid excuses left. Success! Well, except currently since my arena is out of action being renovated, but I was riding at least twice a week every week leading up to that and will get back to it once the arena is all set to go.
This fair weather rider even rode in the rain!
2) Twice monthly lessons. The last two months have been rather dry due to the move and the holidays. The beginning of the year slows down at work quite a bit too which should help. Success! I either took a lesson or had Trainer come to a show and help me through warm up and my rounds which counts as instruction.
3) Switch feeds. Triple Crown has been disappointing since the sale to Purina. I’ve talked to a new rep from another feed that seems promising and with only one bag of TC remaining in my feed room (holy crap I have a feed room!!) it’s time to make the switch. Success! I switched the Dynamic Duo to Tribute. Gem is on the Kalm N EZ and Pete gets the ration balancer. Nash is on Purina Mini/Pony feed and is looking great as well.
Gemmie looking beautiful as always. After a week on Gastroguard she is back to nickering to come in for feed, scarfing her food down and being a pain. I love it.
4) Figure out a good mix of flat rides versus jumps at home. Now that I have a few standards I can jump at home for the first time ever. I’m very nervous about this since I haven’t the foggiest idea about how to set up an exercise. I need to find my 101 Jumping Exercises book and get cracking. Success! I dug out my 101 Jumping Exercise book and have worked slowly through the exercises. I err more on the side of flat rides versus jump ones and generally do 2 flats for every 1 jump school.
5) Make it to two h/j shows and don’t wimp out of the 2′ division for absolutely no reason. Time for the big girl panties to come out. Fail. I made it to one show with plans for a second, but them Gem came up NQR and got the rest of the month of March off.
I will never tire of this photo
6) Make it back out on the cross country course for schooling again. Kinda. I did go and I did jump over the ditch, so sorta schooled. A more experienced rider got on and got Gem over some starter level jumps which counts too.
7) By the end of the quarter have Gem accepting my leg at the trot and begin work on better bend using inside leg Success! We are getting better and better in regards to both and my lower leg position has gotten stronger because of it.
Farm:
1) Get the left side of the property situated. There are two fence lines I want to condense to turn three pastures into one. There is a fourth pasture there too but this one needs some fence work to make safe and a plan on how to connect it through a small patch of woods. Success! We removed all the fence lines we didn’t want and created one large pasture for them. It has been great too as it is J shaped and they walk the entire thing. I’ve watched them slowly get in better and better shape because of all the roaming they do. They also show their pleasure at the open space by gallivanting around on the regular and it is such a joy to watch them galloping and playing.
Sharing the salt block
2) Look at the right side and start some tentative plans. This half is trickier as there is a section of woods with a deep creek separating two pastures and then an open area that was used as a burn pile separating another. I’d love to plan a cross country field over on this side. Tentative planning will help future ideas. Success! We have plans. The right side has three pastures and a big open space. The plan is to connect the two front ones and expand into the open space to create one medium sized pasture leaving the back most pasture as a smaller one by itself. That way we have three pastures to rotate between all of varying sizes.
3) Hang real cross ties in the aisle and wash rack Partial. I have cross ties in the aisle, but the wash rack is currently out of commission as the water line broke.
4) Make some early plans for the tack room organization. Fail. This one is trickier than I thought. Dusty wants to tear down the entire barn and build a new one and if we do that then there isn’t any reason to put money into this one. That is about 5 years off in the future though and in the meantime I need at least a door on the tack room to keep dust out. Still need to work on this one.
5) Figure out stall bedding. Having never dealt with stalls before I’m a bit clueless as to what works best. Since they are only in stall for a few hours total a day the stalls don’t get that messy. I’ve been stripping them once a week and it’s been fine. The pine shavings I grabbed at TSC are ok but there has to be a better way to buy in bulk. Success! I’m loving the pellets and so are the horses.
Me:
1) Ride 2-3 times a week with a mix of solo rides at home and lessons Success! See above in the Gem category
2) Continue to work on my lower leg position. I’d love to have it in muscle memory by end of the quarter. 50/50. I am working on it and it is getting a lot better, but it isn’t quite there yet.
3) Learn to relax when jumping.Trust Gem a bit more and go with the flow better. Fail.
4) Gain a better balance with the release over jumps. Right now I either throw my reins all the way up by her ears losing all contact or I don’t release much at all and get her in the mouth. Success!! The neck strap has really, really helped me with this.
Einstein called it quits on me during an arena renovation day last weekend. It is the first time in the 3 years we have had him that he has curled up outside and just said “I’m done”.
By End of Year
1) Complete a HT at any height, most likely amoeba (18″)
2) Begin work over 2’3″ stadium fences
3) Have a decent canter in dressage with ability to show the BN dressage tests
Admission time. Every time I see someone write about how bad they feel that their horse is just sitting in the pasture wasting all that talent so they must sell them to a working home, I sorta kinda really want to reach through my computer and throat punch them.
I mean. Sure horses enjoy human interaction and a lot of them apparently like having a job, but you’d be hard pressed to convince me that any horse chilling in a grassy pasture eating and taking naps is secretly hating their life and wishing someone would saddle them up and make them work.
It took me for forever to find a 10″ western saddle for Wyatt. They were either all purple, pink and glittery or had not real trees. Thankfully I scored this one brand new for only $100!
And while I still feel that way…I’m sorta starting to look at Nash and get this nagging sense that maybe he should be doing more than looking cute in my pasture and annoying the living daylight out of the Dynamic Duo.
No worries about rehoming though. I’m stuck with that little adorable devil for what…like the next 20 years? Wyatt will be grown and potentially married before that thing dies.
But…
He really is a fancy little mover and when he stops trying to bite your knee caps off under saddle he is a fun ride. Trainer says that he would sweep the ribbons in both dressage and eventing with a little more training and the perfect little person to take him there.
And there in lies my conundrum.
The tiny little english saddle was cute. This thing is freaking adorable. The funniest part is that Gem’s endurance pad and mohair cinch fit him perfectly.
I bought Nash for Wyatt to learn to not be scared around and on horses. For that Nash is absolutely perfect. Wyatt leads him in and out of the pasture and has taught him (all on his own which makes this mom’s heart swell) to not try to eat grass while being led. The other day I watched Nash get a little quicker than Wyatt while being led and saw Wyatt make a circle with him to slow him down and re group. I never told him to do that. I couldn’t have been more proud.
Wyatt grooms him and picks his feet. While Nash reared the other day for the farrier (he is a little shithead to be honest), Wyatt can grab, pull, pick, push and basically do anything and the pony just stands there and takes it. He knows why he still has a home for sure.
The stirrups at the highest hole were still a little long, but Wyatt felt much more secure in the western seat and having the horn to hold.
Wyatt can get on him and toodle around and Nash will stop on a dime for him. Sure, he only walks and gets down about 10 minutes later, but he is 5 and is enjoying that amount of time. I’m in no way pushing him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He will learn and grow at his own pace with it.
But…
A part of me looks at Nash and wants him to do more. I would love to see him out there winning ribbons because lord knows Gem and I certainly aren’t and he is only 9, the life experiences of training and showing would be good for him. Maybe it would knock him down a peg or two. I spoke with Trainer about it and her best barn rat was recommended as a trainer/rider. She only lives 10 minutes from me and I’ve thought about offering her a summer job working Nash a few times a week with a mix of ground work and under saddle work.
Wyatt eventually got brave enough to let go of the horn and take up the reins. Until Wyatt learns to not constantly pull, I’m keeping Nash in his halter and attaching my endurance reins to that. Nash was much happier without his mouth getting ripped off and had no head throwing.
But…
I don’t know. Nash doesn’t need to do any of those things. He does exactly what he was added to the family to do and I don’t have a young girl to show him any way. It would likely end up with him being better trained and then just sitting in the pasture entertaining Wyatt again. It would make better sense to wait and see what Wyatt’s interest really becomes and then send him off for training at that time.
Lots to learn, but the fact he enjoyed this ride and asked for more was a really, really big step.
But…
He really is a fancy little guy and it would be so cool to watch him out there kicking butt.
See, the inside of my head really isn’t a fun place to be.
So for now he sits in the pasture, annoys Pete and Gem into playing with him, tolerates Wyatt acting the fool and scarfs down his special pony feed I buy for his spoiled little butt.
I’m not spoiled. You’re spoiled.
I’ll make a decision eventually what to do with him and the next time I see someone lament about the waste of their horse’s potential in the field I’ll still want to throat punch them, but will maybe understand it a little better.
It rained all day Sunday. In fact it started Saturday around dinner and never let up. It was also in the low 50s. Gross. Facebook reminded me that it was 85 and sunny two years ago when I was conditioning for the 100. This weather sucks.
We left the horses in overnight Sunday to Monday so they wouldn’t have to be out in the cold wet. It was a low of the upper 30s. Nobody needs to be outside in that. Except the Trio do not like being inside, so when Dust went to feed in the morning Gem voiced her displeasure at being inside in the nice dry stall. She yelled at him, gobbled down her food (guess her belly feels better) and when he went to take her out she tried to barge out the stall door with her ears forward and an eager look on her face.
That is until she hit the end of the barn aisle and got hit with a gust of rainy wind. She slammed on the brakes, pinned her ears back and turned around.
Dusty laughed and slackened the lead rope to see what she would do and she went right back into her stall with her head in the corner hiding from going out in that crap. Mare has opinions.
Dusty put their blankets on them and kicked them outside. Gem was happier with that, but still dragged her feet going outside. Spoiled mare. The weather looks to remain in the same pattern for the 10 day forecast: rain Monday, sunny and upper 50s Tues-Fri, rain and cold all weekend. Is it summer yet??
There are two weekends left before the end of the first quarter which gives you all plenty of opportunity to scour the internet for shows to lend your hand at. Debating entering a show or not? Why not volunteer instead! A friend or significant other is showing and you aren’t? Go with them and donate your time while they compete. A local barn is hosting a schooling show that doesn’t fit into your competition schedule? Donate a few hours to help out. They will love you for it as will all those who wouldn’t be able to compete if the show couldn’t be put on.
Remember the first quarter prize is a package of horse related items I feel like buying (with an attempt to get something the winner will actually maybe like) worth up to $50 and is based on the number of hours volunteered for that quarter.
With two weekends to go there is still a lot of opportunity to donate your time and upset the leaderboard.
Next time you do show pay attention to the number of volunteers from registration to bit checkers to ring stewards to timers to jump judges to scribes to the random helpers running everywhere and realize that the show simply could not be put on without these people giving up their own free time and chances to compete to be there. Please do your part to give back and lend a hand.
Entries close at 12 midnight 3-31/4-1 and I’ll announce the winner the next Monday so get out there and give back!
‘Gem peed six times between the time I got her out of the pasture to load for the FRC show and the time we got back home. Probably nothing anyone would comment on except for the fact that I’ve maybe seen her pee while being handled or ridden that many times total in nine years. She’ll almost always pee in the pasture as I walk up to catch her because she hates to under saddle or when being handled, but then during our actal time together she rarely ever does.
I filed it in my brain as mildly interesting and kept an extra close eye on her figuring it was a spring heat or the like.
The magnolia tree in question from Friday’s post. Its beautiful and it is huge.
Of course once you start paying close attention everything seems like a red flag. She seemed a bit girthy when tacking up. She was a bit reactive to being curried over her back and sides. Was she shedding or was her coat a bit dull? All tiny things that are easily overlooked but can add up.
Then she began leaving grain behind in her bowl. After a day or two of that she began to eat super slowly. She is always the first one brought in to eat and I noticed that she was barely touching it by the time the last horse was caught and brought in. In fact the other two were finished and Gem was maybe half way through hers. Odd.
It covers half the house up. There is a two story addition hidden behind that big tree.
Between all the blasted rain and my newly torn up arena, I didn’t ride all week. The farrier was out Friday afternoon and all seemed ok except for her lack of interest in her grain and an overall sleepy demeanor. Both uncharacteristic for her.
All things lined up in my brain added up to potential ulcers. I had changed her grain about six weeks prior and it could just as easily be the grain not doing as well for her and her not liking it or she could be in major spring heat and having ovary pain. Lord knows my uterus hates me on a monthly basis.
While the trunk is a good ways from the house, the excessive branches nearly touch it. Looking out those windows all you see if tree. It has got to go.
But I’d rather be safe than sorry and so I scratched from the h/j show I was slated to do last weekend and had Dusty order Gastroguard for me. Thankfully he is a vet and can get it through work because holy crap that stuff is expensive. How much do you guys pay for it? It was $400 for a month’s supply at his cost!! Jeepers.
Of course as soon as it got ordered Gem started looking more like herself. By Sunday she was back to gobbling her food down at Mach speed and running amuck in the pasture. So maybe it was just her heat cycle. Or the shitastic weather swinging from 80 and sunny to 45 and rainy. Yet again. Or maybe she was more tired and sore after those three jumping rounds than I gave her credit for. Jumping is hard. Jumping while spooking at everything is even harder.
Nash and Gem taking their typical 1 pm siesta while Pete stands guard. Pete typically naps around 11 am while the others are awake.
I don’t know but since that liquid gold isn’t harmful mareface will be getting syringed daily for the next four weeks just in case. I’m giving her the next week off as well while she gets the first week of treatment and then we will get back to lessons and riding again with an aim at entering the FRC CT May 5th with added jump rounds at the end. I love that format and since it is only an hour away it’s a pretty solid place to show. Add to it that I adore their baby cross country fences on the other side of the road and maybe just maybe someday I’ll enter a HT there.
So that is the deal at the moment in Gem land. NQR but returning to normal again.
Having a farm name has always been a dream of mine. Something about naming the place makes it feel more permanent, more special. Like even when we eventually leave for whatever reason, perhaps it would still live on and people would remember us. Or the new owner could do what I did…rename it. But I won’t think about that.
Wyatt cleans Nashville’s stall every week. We ended up getting a pitch fork and sawing off the handle to make it his size. He is very proud of himself for caring for his pony.
Coming up with a name was a lot harder than I thought. Reading through various websites with tips and tricks, it quickly became obvious that there were a few main ways to go about it.
Use your name. Borkosky Farm. Ick.
Copy your favorite farm name from a book or movie. I’m not into copying things outright.
Go humorous. Get Off My Lawn Farm nearly became a reality. It was really close and had Dusty been on board the discussion would have ended there.
Use the defining feature of the place. Hmmmm….
Make it a memorial. A Gem of a Farm. Except I find that creepy.
Waggy hiding in the shade on a warm day last month.
Number 4 seemed like the best bet, but what really is the defining feature of our place? We don’t have mountain views or ocean front property. There isn’t a pretty brook or stoney ridge. No meadow of spring flowers. There is a massive magnolia tree, but we plan on cutting that down before it falls on the house.
He also brings Nash in from the pasture nearly every night for dinner and returns him after.
I knew I wanted a pretty name. I love this planet and everything it offers us and I wanted the farm to have a pretty and nature based name that was also representative of the property.
I wracked my brain. Name it after the pond? Sparkling Pond Farm. Eh. Not so great. Hidden Waterfall Ranch. Maybe, but again neither of those things defined the place.
Then I landed on it.
Waggy’s version of being a lap dog. She either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that she can’t fit.
What we have here is a whole lot of grass. Big sweeping pastures. And then even more grass.
Light bulb!!!
Moonlit Pastures.
Concise. Calls up a beautiful image in your mind. Pays respect to the property itself.
When we bought the farm we knew we would need to purchase two big pieces of equipment and put another on a wish list: a new mower, an arena drag, and a manure spreader (on the wish list). Once the arena started turning green we needed to make a decision to either help it go all grass or bring it back to its intended sandy state.
Gross an not particularly safe either
While I don’t mind grass arenas when done right, this one wasn’t built for that and I was growing increasingly concerned with the footing getting compacted down with each progressive flooding rain and drying out. Her prior hoof prints were starting to be like cement and it was only a matter of time until the footing became unsafe to ride in. Gem is sound and happy but she is also going to be 20 this year and I want to protect her legs and feet as much as possible. I was dying to get in there and fluff up that footing.
But first we needed the equipment. Dusty did all the research. I just signed the 1 year loan papers. He chose an ABI TR3 E series arena drag due to its ability to not only drag and groom the arena, but allow us to do the renovation part as well.
Fresh out of the shipping crate
It showed up Monday afternoon and as soon as I got home I hopped on the tractor and headed to the arena. Probably not the smartest move since rain was forecasted all day Tuesday and the arena would be out of action for a while, but it needed done and I was too excited to wait.
Swoon
The drag has five different parts all used for different reasons. It came with an awesome little book that went over the set up, the parts and how to use it for all sorts of reasons. Thankfully it had a whole section on removing vegetation, just what I needed to do!
All parts needed raised so that only the very front bar was in play and it recommended setting it to a depth of 1″ to remove the grass at the roots but avoid any penetration into the base layer. We followed the protocol and I held my breath as I engaged it hoping I wasn’t about to ruin everything.
The first pass through had me grinning like a fool. I have no idea why this sort of stuff makes me so darn happy. The bar was doing exactly what it was supposed to: remove the grass at root level.
The first swipe through all that ugly weedy grass. You can see Pete in the background coming to investigate the open arena gate.
It took a bit of playing around to figure out how to best maneuver the drag and deal with the build up of grass and dirt as it collected on the bar. At first I tried stopping, raising it up, and then backing up but this just left huge piles. I finally perfected when to raise it up and for how long to let it slowly drop the clumps over a larger swath which was easier to then go back over again.
Cutting right below the root system to remove the grass and leave the footing mostly intact.
It took 4 hours to do the entire arena to my level of satisfaction. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome. The more mature and solid grass in the corners didn’t all come up, but I wasn’t really expecting it to. The directions specifically said to kill it with Round Up first which I obviously didn’t do. We have a disc we can hook up to the tractor for those areas and I’ll go over them again.
And then all three entered the arena, of course with Nash staring at me the entire time. In retrospect I probably could have put them in the arena for a few days first to eat it down and then got busy…but impatience.
Next up will be going over it with the grooming rake to collect the clumps of grass and get rid of them. I’m not looking forward to that at all. It will take a ton of wheelbarrow loads to get rid of it all.
The end product: clean sandy footThankful I had lights to work under. You can see the tracts the blade made and the build up between them. This process was solely aimed at getting rid of the vegetation
After we pick up all that loose grass and deal with the corners, it will be on to step 2: grading
Looking more like an arena now. It did cross my mind when I was about half way through that summer, when I don’t ride due to the heat, may have been a better time than spring. But the footing was really starting to worry me, so I had no real choice.
The Roaming Rider 