NaBloPoMo Day 19 - A discipline you would like to do that you’ve never done before

I think I've always known that I want to try eventing.

I mean, I grew up on a steady diet of eventing on TV - often, as I think we all know, the only horse TV you can get, aside from the Triple Crown races - and it never once occurred to me that those jumps were big and scary.

Yeah, uh, adult brain says different?  But I still want to do it some day...

NaBloPoMo Day 18 - Your grooming routine

I have three levels of grooming routine.

The Everyday
1. Catch horse and head over to the car trunk.
2. Optional scraping with a shedding curry.  Usually when there's mud, but every now and then because there's extra hair.
3. Curry and brush body and neck.
4. Brush legs and face.
5. Stare at mane and tail, decide not to bother.
6. Pick feet.

The Energetic
1. Steps 1-3 above.
2. Comb out forelock.
3. Despair of mane.  Tackle it with Cowboy Magic or the Canter detangler, a Tangle Tamer brush, and possibly scissors.
4. Despair of tail.  Tackle it with Cowboy Magic or the Canter detangler, a Tangle Tamer brush, and a lot of hope.
5. Cuss a lot.
6. Get stabbed by things stuck in the tail.
7. Bleed, cuss some more, and find a bandaid.
8. Finish the tail.
9. Run a comb through the mane, because at least it cooperates.
10. Braid the mane and forelock and take ridiculous pictures.
11. Pick feet.

The Bath
1. Put all electronics somewhere that's guaranteed to stay dry.
2. Hose off horse.
3. Put soap on horse.
4. Scrub.
5. Put on more soap.
6. Scrub.
7. Rinse horse.
8. Despair of mane and tail.
9. Put soap in mane and tail.
10. Massage hair and hope a miracle happens.
11. Rinse mane and tail.
12. Discover soap in horse's coat.
13. Rinse horse again.
14. Find more soap in the horse's coat.
15. Cuss.
16. Hose off horse again.
17. Pause to wring out shirt.
18. Find more soap and sigh.
19. Hose off horse and resolve to ignore any soap I find after that.
20. Pick feet.
21. Move horse away from the ant pile.
22. Comb out forelock.
23. Consider poor life choices, then pick up Cowboy Magic or the Canter detangler and a Tangle Tamer brush.
24. Tackle mane.
25. Contemplate whether tail is worth it.
26. Start on tail.
27. Seriously consider just cutting the tail off at hock level, because at least then someone can't get stabby bramble things in it.
28. Find a bandaid.
29. Take a break to commiserate with BOs about being completely and utterly soaked to the skin.
30. Finish tail.
31. Throw horse back in the pasture and curse at my 12 year old self, who loved horses with lots of hair.

NaBloPoMo Day 17 - Your equestrian idol

I mean, I totally admire the eventers and I'm fascinated by them, and I have a huge amount of respect for the show jumpers, but when it comes down to it - these guys are the masters.

NaBloPoMo Day 16 - Your favorite equine memory

I have one weird one, and one normal one.

The weird one - look, I spent last year really excited that I had horses.  So of all the silly things, the memory of buying a bag of grain for one of my own horses is a total favorite.  It was a bag of grain!  For my horse!  That I own! 

(Y'all, I was maybe a little too excited. lol I know I cracked my BOs up a few times.  "You'll need to buy dewor-"  "Here you go!  Look, you gave me a calendar and told me what to buy on it, and I got to buy dewormer for my horses.  So, uh, here's mine, and here's an extra one for one of the your horses...")

Cessa says I'm an embarrassment sometimes.

The other was getting to see the Spanish Riding School when they came to Texas.  It was the first time I dragged my now-husband off on a random equine expedition.  It was stupidly expensive, a long-ass day/drive, and we were practically sitting on top of some kind of box in the seating that made seeing around it challenging, and I didn't care.  I so wish I had brought a camera.  The various touring shows that have Lippizans have nothing on the real thing.

NaBloPoMo Day 15 - If you could speak to any horse, dead or alive, what would you say?

You know, this is one of those questions I stare at for a long, long time.

I... have to admit I've never really felt a burning need to speak to a horse...?  I mean, are we talking about the horse having a human-like intelligence here, or are we talking about a talking horse with the walnut-sized brains we all kind of suspect they have?

And even if we're talking human-like intelligence, we'd then have to assume human-like understanding and vocabulary, wouldn't we?  Because otherwise, we're having a conversation about "the big noisy thing that comes by home a lot" or "the green stuff I stuff my face with all day" instead of "the train that goes by the pasture" and "grass."

...

It's possible I'm overthinking this.  By a lot.

Here. Have a photo of the one foal my BOs had this year.  None of this happened.  Look at the pretty baby.

 

NaBloPoMo Day 14 - Your dream barn/farm

Ok, like, seriously - who doesn't have this planned out?  lol

My wish list has changed over the years.  I used to want a big metal barn like is ridiculously common around here, because... that's what's common around here.  Metal barns?  We got 'em.

These days... well.

What I really want is a concrete block and metal barn, with a bunch of stalls.  Probably way more than I need; I have dreams of a 20 stall barn, and what on earth am I going to do with that many horses?  Anyway... I want the outside stalls and walls to be concrete block (reinforced, of course) for coolness; I've seen photos of barns like that, and to be honest... the dorm I lived in in college was concrete block, and it was freaking cold year-round.  I'd probably do half-height concrete block on the stall walls, metal bars above that for equine socializing, and a concrete floor with drains, that stuff they put on the floor of gyms for traction (both in stalls and the aisle), and then big, thick rubber mats in the stalls as well.  And I want big stalls, like 16x16 or 18x18.  I know they're more expensive to bed down than the 10x10s and 12x12s, but if I'm building with concrete blocks, gotta have space for foaling/stall rest, right?

I want a real concrete wash-rack in the barn.  And I want a grooming area like they had in one barn where I rode, where the three grooming stalls were basically thick wood uprights for the crossties, front and back, and between them was a horizontal rail at just about the perfect height to drop your saddle on while you worked.  (I think they were actually telephone poles, to be honest, but it was really cool.)

And I want a freaking indoor arena, not a covered one like we have around here; the covered ones are just... they're gloomy, and they're effing hot in summer and freaking cold in winter, and "oh, the wind will cool us down" is a lie.  I want a full-on indoor.  My only remaining decision there is whether to go with the Coverall-type fabric one or the metal one, because I'm not entirely sure how well the fabric ones hold up in our (occasionally exciting and hail-filled) Texas weather.  Either way, I want light.  And Big Ass Fans, and probably a swamp cooler.

And to top it all off, the barn will have solar panels on the roof.  And if the arena is metal, it will too.  There's enough sun on our house to make solar panels potentially worthwhile; you better believe I'd be putting up solar panels on a barn with a ton of roof space.  lol

Of course I want an outdoor arena, and a couple of pastures.  And a round pen, which I'd put in the middle of the nice big loop in front of the barn that the driveway would make so that trucks trailers can be easily extricated without a bunch of shenanigans.  (U-turns?  We don't need no stinkin' u-turns in Dream Farm! lol) 

And all the equine parts of the property would be double-fenced.  I want a nice wide alley between the actual pastures and the property fence, so a) I can "trail ride" there, and b) I have an extra layer of security in the event of loose horses.  Interior fencing would be something like Centaur, exterior probably a 5 or 6 foot pipe fence (criminally common around here) or pipe and wire fence.

The house would be at the front of the property, so that you'd have to drive past it to get to the horses - although I'd kind of like the barn to be close to the house as well, so I guess that's still a question.  And somewhere near the front as well, my husband wants a shop and space for his hobbies...

NaBloPoMo Day 13 - A video of your horse/you riding

Mm.  Well, videos of me riding are ancient and I'm not entirely sure I have any of them in a digital format, but videos of the horses, I have.

Baby's first puddle:

And his birthday party:

And, not to be left out, Cessa followed me in polite confusion one day: