I’m reaching out to you well educated, knowledgeable horse folks today to get help with an issue for dear Simon. Home boy hates flies. Now look, I know that all horses hate flies. This is not unique, but he is taking it to extreme measures. If you’ve been reading for a long time, you may remember that Simon started living year-round in a fly sheet around January 2016. Without his binky fly sheet, he runs around in the pasture to…
Nerd horse is turning 11 today, and for his big birthday present he’s getting… his hocks checked. Wow… I sure know how to spoil my critters. While there won’t be any kind of grand pony birthday party today, I’m taking a moment this morning to appreciate the old man. As firmly moves from an adolescent nerd horse to a mature, stately tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches-professor kind of nerd horse, it’s hard for me to believe that this is the same creature I met…
I love body clipping. I really do. My clippers are on the smaller/quiet side, and they have this lovely gentle hum that feels hypnotic as I clip through Simon’s soft and not overly furry coat. I typically clip twice a year, and treat it as a zen night spending time with my best boy. Except not so much this year. This year body clipping was annoying as damnit. I didn’t clip in the fall like I typically do. Simon was…
It’s been sort of a long drudge from one of the big low points I was experiencing last November, but I can finally say that I’m really feeling better these days. I can’t pin point exact reasons to why I’m feeling better. There are still a lot of stresses and unknowns, but I’m not crumbling to them as easily. My guess is that the improvement in mental health is a combination of a lot of small changes. I’m paying better attention to…
I’ve been writing about everything but the barn, so you may think that I’ve continued the passive attitude I’ve had about the barn since fall of 2016. In actuality, I’ve been riding quite a bit and getting my head back in the game. Simon’s lessee started to move to another horse in November of last year, so his work scheduled declined until he basically turned into an unemployed Thoroughbred. He did his part to keep up physical fitness by self-lunging in…
For the past several months, horses have taken a huge backseat in my life. This was due to a variety of factors including traveling, weather, and working hard on my grad school applications. If I’m being honest, it’s also due to me needing a break. Buying Roman, although a huge learning experience, wasn’t what I thought it would be. Horses began to be a stress instead of a relief, so I got my trainer and my great barn friends to…
For a supposed horse blog, I sure haven’t been writing much about the horses lately. Mostly it’s because emotionally I’m not in a spot right now where I’m super into the horses. That sounds worse than it is, but before you picture my two tossed aside in a dusty field… I can assure you that they’re both fine. I ride Roman between two to three days a week, which is certainly less than I’m used to going to the barn but…
The weather has finally taken a turn in Texas. Instead of feeling like you’re walking around in someone’s hot breath all the time, the cool taste of fall is back in the air. I love that feeling. It makes me want to sit on my porch all evening and stretch my arms wide open into the chill and let my body begin again. Some people associate January as a time of fresh starts and new beginnings, but for me that’s…