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The ink wasn’t even dry on our closing papers and there I was paypaling a crap ton of money to a stranger for a pony I hadn’t even met.

There wasn’t any reason I had to add the stress of purchasing and transporting a pony from out of state on top of buying a house, moving, and filming for the show. The idea had gotten into me though and it just had to happen. Right then.

Right after I posted on here my lament that there were no ponies to be found, I stumbled on a FB group called “Packer ponies and horses for sale”. Huh. Sounded pretty perfect. It opened up my search nation wide and I immediately saw that there were a lot more prospects in my budget outside of my region where the same type of ponies were being listed for double or triple the price.

Early on I stumbled upon an ad for a nice looking welsh gelding. He did it all: w/t/c, 2′ jumps and trail rides. He was listed at the top of my budget and was located in RI which turned me off of him at first. Having just expanded the search, I was hoping to find something closer and less stressful to coordinate shipping.

As time wore on though, I kept going back to his ad and comparing everything else to him. Finally I caved and contacted the owner. A long conversation ensued and next thing I knew I was sitting in the lawyers office sending over money to a stranger hoping the pony really existed.

Next up was the stress of finding transport but it turned out to be extremely easy with living so close to Aiken and all the northern transplants heading this way for winter training. I ended up with several options and chose a delivery date of 12/22 (today!!!).

The last week flew by with moving and filming and I loved the seller who kept me in the loop with regards to the health certificate, shipping conversations and how he was doing. She sent me the bill of sale, a copy of his Coggins and the health certificate.

And then this morning I saw the truck pull up and my new love unloaded.

His stats: 9 year old 12h welsh pony. Broke to ride w/t/c, jumps to 2′, auto lead changes (um…yeah he is better trained than Gem). Not registered, but I don’t care. He is a gelding. Super easy going nature, been on trails and around kids. Perfection.

Without further ado here is the first of many photo spams of Nash. Wyatt hasn’t met him yet so be prepared for that post coming up 🙂 Doing this on the app is driving me crazy but I don’t have internet at home yet. Sorry for any inevitable funkiness in this post.

His little head poking out the trailer window already stole my heart.

The hauler said he loaded well and travelled like a complete gentleman. His partner in the trailer was an equally adorable black pony traveling from RI to GA

He seemed happy to be out of the snow and in grass again. He was quiet and got busy being mosey immediately

His tiny little ears stole my heart!

I love the look on his face. Gem is all “Oh! What new friend did you bring me?” Nash is like “Dear God what is that thing?!”

We sectioned off a smaller paddock in front of the arena to let him stretch his legs and have a small quarantine period.

I let him off the lead rope and spent time walking away, going back and catching him again, letting him off, jumping around, making loud noises. He could have cared less about any of it.

Since he came from snow and hasn’t had green grass in months, I let him out for about half an hour and then tucked him away in a stall with a big pile of hay. He was drinking great, peed clear and by the time I had to leave to make it to the OR (to sit here and wait while my case got bumped) he was settling in for a nice nap. Wyatt will get to meet him tonight after work and then we will likely have some monitored meeting time with the Dynamic Duo tomorrow and Sunday.

I can’t wait to see Wyatt’s reaction when he meets his new pony. And now all my December craziness is complete. Life should return to normal soon.

Waggy says that life on the farm is exhausting!

Phew! What a whirlwind this past week has been. Last weekend we moved into the new house and even though this is move number eight in thirteen years and I should be a pro by now I completely forgot how awful it is. Add to it that Dusty had to work Saturday morning, so we packed the truck Friday night and then my parents came and helped me unload Saturday morning. If a piece of furniture was moved, I was holding one end of it. I could barely function come Sunday.

The Dynamic Duo are settling into the new routine of coming inside to eat. It looks a bit silly having only two horse heads down such a long barn aisle.

Having moved so much I’ve come to learn to not stress at all about it. The first time I moved, way back in 2006, everything was a big deal: how the boxes were labeled, where the furniture ended up, how the kitchen was unpacked. I was a big ball of unfun. Since then though I’ve learned a few things: something important will be forgotten, something you love will get broken and no matter what your furniture will never fit the way you expected/wanted it to.

So now I just roll with it and shove boxes wherever, put the furniture however it best goes and deal with the rest. It’s much easier that way than to fight it.

There has been something else up my sleeve too which I haven’t been able to talk about until now and has added to my already full schedule of end of year work and the move.

We are going to be on House Hunters!!!!!

Unfortunately I can’t spill much beyond that. All filming is complete and it was a total blast. It required a bunch of time off work and a bit of shuffling around, but I would do it again in a heart beat. It helped that our field producer, Joe, was amazing. He kept us all in track somehow between all the laughter and screw ups. I haven’t laughed that much in a real long time.

We have no clue when it will air, but I’ll be sure to post it so everyone can laugh at me. Gem should make an appearance or two as well. For anyone local, or who wants to take a trip, we are going to have a major viewing party when it airs (we get a dvd copy) with an outside projector screen and a bonfire. All who want to come are welcome!

Gem staring me down through her new fence wondering what I’m up to.

Now that that is completed we are returning to our normal, way less fun, lives and trying to get settled into the new routine. Each house we have lived in has dictated its own flow and we are in the early stages of figuring that all out.

I have managed to ride, and jump!!, once in the new arena which was nice and as we get past the holidays hope to return to my 2-3 day a week riding schedule again.

One more big happening is about to be ticked off my to do list on Friday this week and then life will settle back down once again.

There are roughly five billion things happening all at once between my work and home life right now.

Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration although it doesn’t currently feel like it. The end of the year is always hectic at work but this year I decided to torture myself and staff with changing my electronic medical record and billing system. Ahem…again. The one I have won’t work with new government mandates in 2018 and so I’m stuck making another change. Changing systems in this day and age should be easy. Ha. Hahahahahahahaha.

That is added on top of the typical year end rush of people wanting seen and surgery performed prior to deductibles starting over again.

Some big life stuff is happening at home too and well, it has finally all caught up to me. I’m having a difficult time figuring out how I’m going to get it all done in time. When this happens my body, oh so helpfully, shuts down and freezes. It’s like it says “how are we to do it all? I know! I’ll just stop functioning, drain all energy away and that will help!”

Ugh.

Anyway… all this whining to say that I’ve decided that Gem is on vacation until further notice. Well, it wasn’t all my decision. With the darkness now and no lights or arena to ride in, she is a pasture pet Monday thru Friday anyway.

I was supposed to go to a schooling show this past weekend. The rules were posted forever ago, but I only stumbled upon them the Thursday before the show and was dismayed to read that even though it is a schooling show, the material clearly stated that schooling attire was not permitted and coats were required.

I don’t own a show coat. Or didn’t anyway. Friday I booked out of work to make it to the tack shop an hour away that has a plethora of coats in my price range (under $200) with 15 minutes to spare before closing. I snagged a navy (ick but beggars can’t be choosers) RJ Classics Sydney coat on sale and an Ariat long sleeve show shirt that was $60 off.

I was all set. Or so I thought.

About a week ago I texted with Trainer about what classes to do. It was a hunter only show and I wasn’t sure what all the classes meant like Hunter Under Saddle O/F 2′ and Rail Work. She had no clue what that one was either. The plan was to do one cross rails, HUS and equitation O/F 18″ and then the HUS and equitation O/F 2′ classes. If Gem was feeling good and ready we would add the hunter derby 2′ as well. I was stoked for the progression of height for both of us and the planned 5-6 rounds.

Then Friday I found the rules again and read past the “no schooling attire” part. This basically killed my show plans. Turned out that cross rails meant no other height could be entered, scratch that off the list. Then I saw the definition of short stirrup was under 14 yo and all the 18″ classes were short stirrup only. The adult classes started at 2′.

Sigh.

Having only done one prior course at 2′ and um…not having ridden in 2 weeks…I didn’t think it was fair to pull Gem out for only 2’classes without the warm up smaller rounds. We are so incredibly green to the whole jumping thing and our participation is tenuous. Every outing needs to be fun and confidence boosting for us both. I didn’t think this would be.

Plus it was an hour away for only 2 rounds. Seemed a bit silly to trailer out that far for two rounds.

After that blew up in my face I decided to call the rest of the month off. Gem does so much better with consistency and it isn’t fair to grab her only once every two weeks and expect much of anything. She isn’t that type of horse. Instead I think a month off to relax and regroup is in order.

Once things settle down at work and home, which should happen simultaneously once the holidays are over, we will get back to our lessons and schooling shows. Until then she is on vacation while I pull my hair out and try to squeeze 30 hours of work into a 24 hour day.