Horse Update, December

 I am loving having horses at this little place here finally.  I confess that there are some days that I feed horses their breakfast, then go back to bed for an hour, then get up and continue on with the day.  My energy levels are still not what I'd like them to be.  I also wish my family could see my barn time as a JOB and therefore my schedule is my work schedule and don't ask me to do things for you during that time period.  But, so far, they seem to think I'm home all the time so what's the big deal if they want me to do things in a different order rather than 6:30 a.m. is morning feed, 9 a.m.to noon being my 'office hours' where I'm at work (training horses and cleaning stalls) so leave me alone, and 5 p.m. is evening feed .  I guess the LBM (Little Black Mare) isn't the only one I'll be training in the next few months. . . 

Speaking of the LBM, she has some traits I find not so great--like being hugely insecure and not knowing what to do with herself if the Poetess is out of sight, but she also likes attention and likes being worked.  So far all our work has been in the cross ties (learning to NOT having a fit that she's in the barn being groomed while the Poetess is out in turnout), on the longe line (where she's a rock star), or in hand as I walk her away and out of sight of the Poetess in preparation for when we get to the stage where I'm riding her and we head out to the paths through the woods.  She's ready to be ridden though, so that's next up on the docket.

And while she's absolutely in love with the Poetess, Poetess is not in love with her.  It's more of an "I'll tolerate you, but only so close, and only if you remember that I'm the boss" kind of relationship in Poetess's eyes.  There were two big kicking type incidences early on once I put them in the same turnout (after a few days of being separated by a fence), but nothing drastic.  Now if the LBM gets out of line Poetess pins her ears and turns her head and the LBM beats a hasty retreat several yards away.

As close as Poetess will allow.

Poetess is rather jealous of me working with the LBM, and, if I go out in their pasture with them, she will keep herself inserted between me and the LBM so that the LBM has no chance of getting pets or treats.  It's both annoying (makes it hard to get the LBM for working her unless I do it first thing in the morning before turning her out) and kind of entertaining.  All summer and fall Poetess was kind of "well, I guess I'll let you catch me" in regards to me going out in the pasture where she was boarded; sometimes she would come to me and sometimes she would reluctantly stand still while I came to her.  Here, however, she has laid claim to me in no uncertain terms; whinnies when she sees me outside and is always first to the gate when I go to get her (or the LBM).

I was honestly kind of afraid that now that we have two horses in residence, DH would lose interest in finishing the barn and fencing the other pastures.  Interestingly, it's been the opposite.  He's been doing all kinds of stuff, from tinkering with the barn doors to make them less drafty, to setting depth on the stall floors and getting the gravel base in, to buying all the lumber we need for the remaining four stalls and getting a large majority of the walls built!  He took the day off work on his birthday and spent the entire day building the walls to cover the metal barn siding on the stall interiors.

Screeding the floor
(I had done the screeding on the first 12' but it messed up my back,
 so DH had to do the rest of the stall floors himself)

Stall boards

A third stall, minus the front!

Two days' work from DH.

He's also been working on extending the hot tape above the perimeter fence; it now goes on three complete fence lines.  As soon as he gets ahold of more insulators for the wood posts it will get finished and be connected the the existing hot tape on the perimeter of the two existing pastures.  He's also talking about setting gate posts and t-posts for pastures three and four in the coming month.

Looks like I need to get in gear with advertising for a third (or fourth?) stall being available in January for more horses to come board with me.