Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #4

 Here's something I spent maybe $10 on (but I'm pretty sure it was closer to $5) that has made my horse-related life so much more pleasant:

A whip rack.

Such a simple thing, but oh how much more pleasant is my life since I had DH install it on the barn aisle wall near the cross ties.  Prior to that, the longe whip either laid on the floor along the wall, where it was constantly in the way for the daily sweeping of the aisle, or leaned up against the wall inside the tack room, where I'd half the time forget to grab it until after I was outside with a horse in hand on the longe line.  Which meant trekking back into the barn with the horse, apologizing to the horse for the confusion when it thought it was time to longe, and try to go into the tack room to grab the whip without the horse following me through the doorway.

Once DH used his little torpedo level (because, level; I mean, I'm not a dressage rider for nothing!  Picky, picky, picky!) and two little screws to install it, I no longer forgot to grab my whip on the way out to longe a horse, and my whip was never blocking where I wanted to sweep.

And bonus! Now I can bring a horse in from longeing, snap the whip into the rack and put the horse in the cross ties all in one easy maneuver.  No setting the whip down on the floor so I could tie the horse, then having to pick the whip up later and put it in the tack room (or sweep the floor!).

As you can see from the photo above, there's lots of room for lots of whips.  I think it has slots for a dozen (? don't quote me, Google it for yourself if you're in the market) and will hold various lengths and types of whips.  I currently have my long longe whip, a shorter longe whip and my 40" (? again, I didn't take measurements before writing this post) dressage whip stored there.

Could I have stored whips in an old bucket?  Yes.  I've worked at several places that kept them that way. Could I have stored them in a fancier 'whip canister'?  Yep, again, worked at places that were a little more upscale that had a more decorative and metal bucket called a whip canister that whips sat in when not in use.  But both of those tend to collect dust and debris in the bottoms after a while (and occasionally a mouse nest if the whips aren't taken out and used regularly) and they can be very easy to tip over especially if the whips are all leaning in the same direction.

To me, this whip rack and the vertical storage it supplies is ideal.

More Hay

 I ended up buying the wagon of hay I talked about in my post about Saturday's activities.  After DH got home mid-afternoon on Sunday, we went and got it from the farm of the people who do custom baling in the neighborhood (including my own field).  K3 was interested in helping unload it, so she came along.

It was a hot and humid day, but there we were, in our jeans and long sleeved shirts, to protect our skin from the stiff prickly cut ends of the hay bales.  Honestly, there were 'only' 117 bales on the wagon, so between the three of us we didn't expect it to take very long to unload and stack the hay in the loft at this little place here.

And, really, things were going well the first 50 or so bales.  And then the elevator broke. 😭😭 A link in the chain that carries the bales came apart.  After about 20 minutes of fussing with it, including unhooking the PTO shaft from the tractor so we could hand turn it to get the chain in the right spot, DH and I were able to get the link reconnected.  At which point I asked if he thought we should put a couple of zip ties on it, just in case.

To which he said No, wasn't necessary.

Well, I think you can guess what happened next.  Only took two more bales and deja vu, there we were with a disconnected link in the chain.  And now the chain had also jumped the cog at one end of the elevator, so now things were uneven, as the elevator has a chain on the left and a chain on the right with bars that run between them.  The left chain was 'up' two links from the right chain and the bars were all wonky.

More fussing with the elevator for DH and I while K3 waited patiently in the loft for us to be back in business.

We finally got the chains evened out, the right one back on the cog wheel, and the disconnected link pulled back together.  This time, DH put a big honking zip tie on it (while I bit my tongue.  Hard.)

After that, it really didn't take long to finish unloading the wagon and get that hay all stacked in the loft.  In the process of all that elevator chain-link issues, we'd gone past dinner time, and it was now after 7 p.m.  Which meant it was time to get the horses their dinner and bring them in for the night. 

K3 helped me with that, and then she requested that DH take her home so she could take a shower and change into cooler (and less nasty sweaty/full of hay chaff) clothes.  Given how gross and hot we all were feeling at that point, we didn't even try to talk her into staying for the pizza we'd planned to order--pizza being our easy-out go-to dinner after putting up hay.  So DH quick changed his own clothes and took her home.  

While he was gone, I called our favorite local pizza joint and put in an order, which he would pick up after dropping off K3 and before coming back home.  Then I jumped in the shower to cool off and clean off.  I swear I couldn't get that shower water cold enough, I kept turning it down a hair, and it only felt cooler for a few seconds before I felt the need to turn it down again.  I was going for 'Lake Superior in early June' temperature (IYKYK), but never did get it that cold before my turning the dial down incrementally ended up just turning the water completely off.

Oh well.  I did feel cooler and less covered in green 'herb' sprinkles (aka hay chaff) than I had prior, and DH arrived with the pizza right about the time I was dried off and dressed.  In shorts and a tank top.

Glad we had the opportunity to buy the hay, it looks to be good stuff.  Glad we got it up in the loft.  But man, a cooler day to do that would have been nice.  (Or, at least, an elevator that didn't break and add about an hour in the blazing sun.)

Any Given Saturday

 Last Saturday, I was (again) home alone for the majority of the weekend.  While there were some 'must dos' on my list for the day, I decided to, for the most part, tackle whatever I felt like doing around those have to do items.  For funsies, I kept a list of everything I did that day.  (Well, not everything, as I obviously didn't record bathroom breaks or brushing my teeth and hair, getting dressed, etc).

Anyway, if you're bored interested, here's what my Saturday looked like on that given day:

I fed horses their breakfast.

I fed myself my breakfast: a couple pieces of ham (I'd put small baggies of 2-4 slices of ham into a gallon sized freezer bag and put them in the freezer last year for such purposes as this) and two chocolate chip pancakes (also from the freezer, leftover from last time the grandkids spent the night).

Then I boiled six eggs and when they were done in the hot water and ready for their cold soak, I 

-went out and turned out horses

-cleaned stalls

-replaced the grossly-full-after-less-than-a-month fly ribbons hanging above the horse stalls

Also before noon, I was able to 

-clean past-their-edible-phase fruits and veggies and non-meat leftovers from the fridge and put them in the compost bucket, which I dumped in the compost bin out by the garden

-clean out the still sorta edible (like not moldy or slimy or gross) but I wasn't going to eat it things like shriveled blueberries, leftover peas (I'd already had some of the peas twice that week), and overripe watermelon from the fridge and give it to the chickens, which I let out of their coop at that time.

-wash and hang two loads of laundry on the clothesline 

-ran down the road to look at some hay I'd been offered to buy off the wagon after it was baled later that day (same family that does my hay was cutting and baling a neighbor's field about two miles away)

-rinsed my cucumbers that had been doing a limewater soak the three times rinsing and resoak in clean water 1 hour each time called for by my go-to customized dill pickle recipe

-set up the canner to heat the water to a boil and also set up another pot with the vinegar, water, canning salt and turmeric brine to simmer.

Then I fed myself lunch, which was two more pieces of ham from that breakfast baggie and some thin-sliced smoked gouda cheese made into a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on homemade bread with about a dozen sweet cherries on the side.

Wow!  I was kind of amazed when I looked at my documented activities from the morning.  Not bad.  I actually had done a lot and wasn't feeling tired/overworked yet.  So I continued after lunch.

I made deviled eggs with three of those hard boiled eggs I'd cooked that morning; the other three eggs I left for eating on salad in the coming days.

I peeled and sliced some short but fat cukes from the garden and made them into refrigerator pickles for DH to enjoy after he returned home on Sunday.

I canned dill pickles made from those cucumbers I'd limed the night before and rinsed that morning.  Three quarts and one pint worth.

While waiting on the canner, I emptied the dishwasher of clean dishes, swept the mudroom and kitchen, and vacuumed the living and dining rooms plus DH's home office.

After that I tallied up how much it had cost to raise the broiler chickens this year.  DS2 and DD1 each had wanted me to raise a few for them with promises that they'd reimburse me the costs of each bird they took.  I was unhappy to find that it cost me $18 per bird--although each bird weighed between 5 & 6 pounds after processing--because my original guesstimate based on last year's costs was only $13-14 per bird.  That extra $3 per bird processing fee having to not use my planned on processor really was a hit.  All the other price increases--like on feed and the purchase price of the chicks themselves--were tiny compared to that.

Plus, I also

-moved a dresser we don't need/use from the upstairs down to the garage so I can get rid of it (will list on local free pages)

-emptied the water in the dehumidifier

-weeded the four rows of peppers in the garden and 4 of the 6 rows of cucumbers

-walked to the mailbox and got the mail

-fed myself dinner of a salad and a protein bar (too hot to feel hungry)

By then it was time to bring in the horses and feed them their dinner.  Once that was done, I

-picked beans, cucumbers and zucchini

-made a chocolate zucchini cake

-loaded the dishwasher

-shut in chickens and gathered eggs

-sat on the porch swing and read Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts while listening to cicadas singing in the nearby trees

--ate a big hunk of zucchini cake still warm from the oven (YUM!)

 And that was what I did with my Saturday.

Hey, What, It's August?!?

 For the last several weeks, most days if you asked me what day it was I would tell you the wrong one.  Usually a day or two ahead of what it actually was.  This week, for example, Tuesday felt like Thursday all ready to me.  So on Thursday I was sure it was Saturday, and yesterday I almost put horses out an hour early so I could change my clothes and get ready for church.  Except it was Friday, not Sunday, and thank goodness I realized it in time before I got myself all gussied up. (Which, honestly isn't very gussied but does usually involve a dress or skirt, earrings, and not having my hair in a ponytail. LOL)

While yesterday may not have been Sunday, it was the first day of August.  All ready!  

Well, no wonder I'm starting to feel a) burnt out on gardening and b) like my house needs to be gutted and thoroughly cleaned and c) like I need to run away and go somewhere relaxing!  

As the sole caretaker of the animals and the garden as well as the person in charge of all things food at this little place here, summer is not a time when I laze around, take vacations, and generally wonder what to do with my time.  Summer is like full speed ahead, balls to the wall, hit the ground running every morning and don't sit down until dark every night.  Not that I don't hit the ground running every morning all year long (I suspect this is a habit I really should change to be a bit more relaxing and warm up to the new day kind of lifestyle), but in summer with it's long hours of daylight that's 14+ hours a day 7 days a week of not sitting down with the exception of eating meals (and church on Sunday).  And, like the hit the ground running morning ritual, meals typically are not a long time of sitting, more like the minimum seat time necessary for refueling and then I'm squealing tires out of pit row and back into the race.

You know, the fact that DH doesn't adhere to the same seasonal extra-work-can't-leave-home schedule and has been gone (*ahem* playing in the name of taking various family members on canoe and kayak float trips) most weekends since the middle of June probably doesn't help with my glut of work that keeps me from sitting and relaxing.  Or taking even a day off to recharge myself somewhere that I'm not responsible for making sure 36 mouths have enough to eat (20 young chickens, 9 adult chickens, 4 horses, 1 cat, DH and myself)  and that the garden isn't shriveling up from lack of rain/watering or getting overrun in weeds that smother my veggie crops and that the dishes get washed and laundry gets done and put away and bills are paid and the floors aren't too gritty or the furniture too dusty or the trash too stinky before it gets taken out to the bin. . .

I'm all for making hay while the sun shines, but you know, I need to include down time for enjoying while the sun shines, not months from now when it's chilly and damp and icky outside.  I like sunshine. I love sunshine.  That's part of why I practically live outside in the summer months; I can't pull myself indoors away from the sunshine so I go whole hog on outdoor work.  Do I need to raise our own meat birds?  Perhaps I could, in coming years, buy them from a local person raising them.  Do I need to grow as much as possible in a quarter-acre garden and tend it by myself?  And then be the only one harvesting and preserving the bounty?  While some of that is a yes because of my dietary needs (ie avoiding a lot of additives in food from the stores), maybe we should do some budget shuffling to procure the same good food from someone else.

And then there's the whole point b) gut the house thing. . . Housekeeping is not my favorite task.  And, when I'm outside all day, housekeeping is reduced to the bare minimums.  Which, by this time in the summer, means that the inside of my house is driving me nuts because no one else here takes care of it (lookin' at you, DH, who's idea of tidying is to every few weeks stack things in piles for me to take care of).  When the weather changes and I'm forced indoors in a few months, I really don't want to be in a cluttered mess of a place.  Housekeeping fairy, where are you? I could use a visit from your magic wand. . .

Which leads me to c) wanting to run away.  The urge to take a day trip is getting stronger.  I need to wait until after this week--broiler chickens are meeting their doom going to freezer camp--and find a farm care person who is willing to not just do feeding and turnouts but also clean stalls (DH adamantly refuses to help with stalls) and then I think I going to run a few hours away and do some beachside rockhounding.  Still outdoors, but no garden weeds or chores in sight, and while it's still August, i.e. summer, i.e. sun shining!

Meanwhile, let me offer you a sampling of photos of things going on at this little place here lately.  If it weren't for the fact that phones these days are practically never separate from our bodies, and that phones have cameras, I probably wouldn't have any pictures of my life to remember summers by.  Hence, this collection of things that caught my eye, or I thought about sharing as I've gone about my busy days.

the tomato patch, with grape arbor in the background

friendly neighborhood cat (not my cat, therefore not a mouth I feed)

visiting me while I was checking for pickle-sized cucumbers

the wild blackberries on the edge of the woods are getting ripe;

this was enough to enjoy with my yogurt and granola breakfast the next morning

Faline helping me hang laundry the day DD1 needed me to watch her for a while after VBS

blue swallowtail

reddish day lilies

little green frog

a brown garter? snake

(not sure, as I don't know if they come in brown; first brown one I've seen)

running some errands in Sweet Madame Blue and she rolled 3100 miles

(that lady lives a life of luxury and goes out in good weather only)

K3 having a riding lesson/helping me train the LBM

(owner wants 'anyone to be able to jump on and ride')

Excuse Me, Ma'am, I Think You Dropped Something

 Last summer, the Poetess gave herself toe cracks in both right feet mid-summer by stomping flies.  It took them pretty much all winter to grow out, and that included some packing and wrapping of the affected feet to keep the cracks from getting bigger. Honestly, the rear foot wasn't totally grown past the top edge of the crack when the flies came this spring.

This year, I decided I would be more proactive than just using fly spray, and ordered her a set of Shoofly Leggins.  I had heard good things about them, and decided rather than try similar brands at a lower price, I would shell out the bucks for the real deal.  Afterall, I reasoned, one set of Shoofly's was cheaper than having front shoes put on the Poetess once. Let alone shoes all around (you typically don't shoe just one foot of a pair front or hind.) So if they lasted the whole season, and prevented her feet from cracking and busting up (potentially making shoes necessary), the cost was well worth it.

This post isn't intended to be a commercial for Shoofly's, but I have to say I'm loving them!  And, other than still insisting on lifting her back feet exceptionally high the first 3-4 strides after I put on her Shoofly's every morning, the Poetess seems to also approve.  That front foot hasn't cracked at all so far (fingers crossed I didn't just jinx us by saying that).  The rear foot, while it hasn't cracked, does have a chip out of it currently in the spot near where last year's crack was. (And so this month I'm back to packing and wrapping that one . . .)

But anyway, the real intent when deciding to write this post was to share a picture with you.

This is the Poetess one day last week.  She went to the pasture in the morning with all four Shoofly's on.  She came  in from the pasture at dinner time with only three.  

"Excuse me, Ma'am, I think you dropped something."

After removing all her fly gear and putting her in her stall, then bringing the other three horses into their stalls for the night, I went walking in the pasture the Poetess had been turned out in that day to look for that missing Shoofly.  Being blue, it was easy enough to find in the short green grass.  

I had expected to find it laying open, thinking that I probably hadn't secured the velcro down the entire length it, and that she'd pulled it open by snagging it on something.  Nope, that hadn't happened.  It was still tubular, all velcro attached to itself, as if she'd just plain stepped out of it.  Strange, but okay.  I was glad it was recovered and undamaged.

How she managed to get it off like that, I have no idea.  As if she just took a high step and it slid right off.  Hasn't happened again, so far.  And apparently it wasn't off so long that she stomped a lot from having flies on her legs.  At least, her hoof on that leg looks crack- and chip-free so far.

Horses.  They do the strangest things.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #3

 Trough divers.  Horses that so love to splash and play in water that they will put their front legs into their water trough and paw, splashing water up all over themselves (and the ground).

This doesn't sound too terrible, does it?  I mean, especially in summer, it can be refreshing to splash water onto themself.

Except. . .

• by putting their feet into the trough, they are dirtying the water in it
• the risk of serious injury exists anytime they stick their legs into somewhere legs weren't intended to go
• splashing the water all over makes the trough need to be refilled sooner
• if the water level in the trough is low enough, they can tip the trough over and then there's no water to drink 
• the chance of cracking the trough, causing a (nearly impossible to fix) leak is greatly increased

The Poetess loves to trough dive.  I'm not sure if this habit is something she's had for a while, or was discovered when she came to Michigan and had a water trough rather than an automatic waterer/horse drinker in her turnout.  

Last year, I yelled at her anytime I caught her with her legs in the trough.  Heck, even hearing the distinctive sound of water splashing in the pasture while I was in the barn cleaning stalls would cause me to shout "Poetess!!  Quit! Get out of the trough!".  And she would, until I wasn't around/she didn't think I was around and then she'd start up again.  A couple of times I came home from running errands late on a hot afternoon to find the trough tipped on it's side, totally empty.  Not good.

Over the winter, I did a little research.  There's no way I was going to install automatic waterers in my pastures, so I needed to find a safe, economical, effective way to keep Poetess from playing in the water trough when the weather warmed up again.  If you google the subject, there's tons of different suggestions.

What I chose to try, and so far is a rousing success, is actually a very simple thing.  I put my water trough up on blocks.  We have lots of unused cinder blocks around this little place here, so DH grabbed four off the stack of blocks, and we made a platform to set the water trough on in the pasture Poetess and the LBM were currently turned out in.  Easy peasy.  And free.

But would it work?  Was a simple raising of the tank by the height of a cinder block on it's side (8") enough to keep Poetess from being able to put her feet in the trough?  And, more importantly, would the horses be willing to drink out of a raised trough?

Yes.

Yes.  

And, yes!

It works!  She tried a few times, found it uncomfortable to get her feet up above the rim of the trough, and has kept her feet out of the trough.  She has no qualms about drinking out of the trough at that height.  And, the one I most worried about being turned off by the increased height, the several hands shorter LBM, also has no issues with drinking from the raised trough.

Faces only, no feet!

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #2

 This is another tip in regards to polo wraps.  I discovered, a while ago, that if I hung my used, sweaty/wet from dew, polo wraps on the hayloft ladder, the breeze coming in the front door of the barn would typically dry them by the time I returned for the night feeding.  Cleanish ones (ie, just damp from dew or sweat) could then be rerolled for use in the next training session.  Dirty ones could go in the house to the laundry and not become a yucky, damp, and potentially mildewy mess by the time I had several sets of polos in need of washing. (Especially helpful when the Poetess wasn't getting worked but once or twice a week and it took awhile to get a load of horse laundry built up.)

When DH built me the new hayloft ladder, I was happy to discover that it not only does the same drying task handily, but that it also performs another service: it holds the wraps fairly taut when I reroll them. Having them be taut makes the task so much easier!  

I attribute the difference in tension when rerolling to the fact that the old ladder was propped up and at more of an angle than the new ladder, which is installed pretty much vertically.  Whatever the reason, I'm loving how handy it is for both drying and rerolling the wraps.

So, for those of you who might also use polo wraps on your horses, and who have a ladder in your barn, my tip is to put the ladder to use as a wrap dryer!

What's Changed in the Barn October Thru April

 I haven't posted anything in a while about the horse barn project, or about the horses specifically.  That doesn't mean there hasn't been anything going on.  Rather, quite the opposite.

Last fall, I acquired two new boarders, both geldings, both basically retired and owned by the same person.  This is a great arrangement for both my client and myself: she gets someone knowledgeable about older horses giving her horses great care, and I have a client who isn't concerned that there's no 'real' riding arena here (yet. . . it's on the list but not likely this year. . .)

Those two horses, I think I'll refer to as Crockett and Tubbs.  Yeah, Miami Vice, but really the only thing remotely related to that TV show is that one of the geldings is rather chubby (he's an easy keeper and I will need to watch his weight) and mentally I started calling him Tubbs.  Which led to me thinking of Miami Vice and that I could easily name his friend, the other gelding, Crockett, because they are a long time pair.

The LBM is still boarded here, although at the end of December her owner took her out of training for the winter.  Which ended up being a good decision (and one I wholly approved of despite the loss of training revenue) based on the winter we had which was mostly too frigid/snowy/icy to work horses with any sort of regularity.  Plus, it gave me all the decent weather/decent footing days to work the Poetess rather than trying to squeeze her in around a paying customer.  

The LBM started back in training on May first, and seems to have retained a whole lot of what we worked on last year.  So far, so good!

The Poetess? She loved having me all to herself, as it were.  Her training is coming along nicely, and I'm thinking by the end of summer we'll have made an amazing amount of progress.  She catches on pretty quickly, and working her 3-4 days a week has ramped up her learning significantly.

Meanwhile, inside the barn, there's been a whole lot of changes since the beginning of the year.  DH ran wires to the feed room, so now I have a light in there.  That was a great and very appreciated addition, especially on those dark winter mornings.

Next, he framed in the tack room.  Which included making the divider wall between the tack room and Poetess's wall go all the way up instead of just high enough that she wouldn't be able to jump out (as we'd originally built it in our rush to get her home.) 

I wasn't sure how she would respond to that after more than a year of having an unimpeded view to the front half of the barn--and out the front door, but she took it in stride.  That first night, when she came in from turnout, she pricked her ears, sniffed the new boards and I could almost visibly see her shrug and say "huh, guess that was gonna happen sooner or later".  I have, since then, stained the new boards so they match the existing stall wall.

After that wall was finished, DH began framing in the other three walls of the tack room.  And that began the mess of stuff pushed into the center of the room so that he could access the walls with a ladder, and also be able to bring boards into the room for building with.  A mess that daily drives me nuts and has me more and more anxious for the whole tack room project to be finished.

Photo taken before more stuff was added to the center of the room,

making a gigantic mess.

The next wall to be finished was the one between the tack room and the aisle.  Once it had enough boards on the 'exterior' to make DH realize it would be easier to set the door before the whole wall was covered, DH installed the door to the tack room, and then added the remainder of the boards.

In March, when the daytime temperatures were warm enough for three to four days at a stretch, I painted the tack room door.  Because I could.  And because I have a thing for color (that thing being the rationale that anything that doesn't have to be white shouldn't be white).  Using a semi-gloss alkyd paint, I made that door dark green.  (For those wondering, it's Behr paint and the exact color I had mixed for me is called Vine Leaf).  I used two coats of paint and was quite happy with the result.

The door after the first coat of paint, definitely green, but blotchy.

That wasn't the only thing I painted green.  In framing up the tack room (and getting ready to install a ceiling in it), the time had come to move the ladder to the hayloft out into the aisle (it had been in the tack room area for eons) and cut open the 'hay drop' in the loft floor that we'd framed in nearly 20 years ago when the barn was originally built.  

Using the old ladder, which had been given to me in 2005 by a friend who no longer needed it, with the now usable hay drop didn't work ideally.  So, DH offered to build me a new, longer, ladder to my loft.  Of course I said "yes, please!"  I mean, when DH offers to do something remotely horse related, I've learned to jump on that offer before it disappears never to be mentioned again.

With a brand new ladder custom made by DH, I absolutely had to paint it green.  Two coats of the same paint I used on the tack room door, and it was good to go.

DH didn't quite understand why I so vehemently insisted that the ladder needed to be painted before installation--or painted at all--until it was in place.  Then, he had to admit that it was definitely worth waiting the three days it took me to get it painted and cured before bringing it into the barn.  The green ladder by the green door just really looks sharp.

It's the little details like that that can make a big difference.

For the interior of the tack room, we'd had many discussions over the winter of what the sheeting material on the walls would be.  DH was hoping (ease of installation and price-wise) that I would say OSB was good enough.  HA!  He knows me better than that.  So his next suggestion was cheapy paneling sheets.  Also a "I didn't wait 20 years for a tack room to slap just anything on the walls" response from me.  Plywood?  Maybe.  Maybe, I said, depending on the grade of it.

Well, then, on Craigslist he found some tongue-in-groove knotty pine paneling that ended up being, per foot, about the same cost as the (less than ideal in my book) grade of plywood he'd been trying to convince me to go with.  Knotty pine paneling?  Oh Hell Yes!!  Winner!!  

So on Good Friday (because he had the day off work) he drove two hours one way and picked up an entire 'rack' of knotty pine paneling from the guy who'd listed it on Craiglist.  And on Easter Sunday, after church and after barn chores (we'd done family Easter on Saturday, remember), I got to staining that paneling so he could start installing it.

It's really a clear coat sealant with polyurethane, but it does put a very light tint to the wood, as you can see in the above photo of the stained (bottom) vs unstained (top) board

Interior tack room/aisle wall, 

partially paneled.

Now, we don't need an entire rack of knotty pine to do the inside walls of the tack room.  But, a neat thing that DH didn't tell me about until after he'd gotten the paneling boards home, is that the back side of the boards is milled for bead board.  So, my tack room ceiling is going to be finished in white bead board, and I spend the end of April starting painting boards for that with a semi-gloss white alkyd paint.  Two coats per board, and they are exactly the look I want for a ceiling (to reflect light back downward as much as possible).

And that is all the horse and barn related news at this little place here from October 2024 to the end of April 2025.

Don't Try This Away From Home

 Rather than the disclaimer so often heard when watching something on a tv show or commercial: "Don't try this at home!", at risk of TMI I'm going to share something I learned while on that hiking trip to Sedona with the grandkids last month.

Being a lady of a certain age, who has borne four children and has the resultant bladder tendencies to show for it (or, rather, hope they don't show enough for other people to see!) I've noticed some things as the years go on.

1.  Being sick with a racking cough can be embarrassing if it's been more than about 10 minutes since I used the bathroom.

2. Likewise a sudden hard sneeze.  Both of which instances can create extra laundry.

3. Ditto trying to ride a horse with a jolting trot. (Several years ago I instituted a 'pee before mounting' rule, LOL, but sometimes the trot is just too rough for even that to work.)

4. Grandmas don't jump.  Even if our knees are game, our bladders aren't.

5. Likewise large steps up or down while hiking/rock scrambling can create extra laundry. 

Too much TMI?  Ok, you probably want to stop reading now.  Proceed at your own risk; don't say I didn't warn you.

Still curious?  Read on, especially if you are also a woman of a certain age who has borne many babies.  Consider this a Public Service Announcement.

Period Underwear.  You know, the stuff that is supposed to alleviate your fears of unexpected period abundance and is even lately touted as being useful for leaky mom/grandma bladders?  Due to observation #3, above, in the last couple of years I have invested in some of the miracle undies even though at the advanced age of over 50 I'm hoping every period is the last one (please. . . can I be done yet?!?)   

And, while they do help with the jolting trot situation (or, sudden spooks on a young horse IYKYK), I can't say they work well for numbers 4 & 5.  Those two items being the reason I packed them for our Sedona trip.

In retrospect, it was a great idea, but with testing it failed miserably.  Did I end up with wet shorts/leggings during our hiking excursions?  Nope.  In that respect, they did a great job of absorbing whatever little liquid bits came their way.  (Told you this post really pushes the limit of what's considered TMI.)  Nobody on the trails could tell I'm a lady of a certain age who has borne many children just by walking behind me.

However, how other hikers didn't wonder why, late in the hike, I walked like a toddler with a giant wet diaper, I don't know.  Because that's what I felt like after hiking, and sweating, for miles.  Like I should be making a squishing sound with every step.

Those period undies are super absorbent, and very discreet.  However, they sucked up every single drop of SWEAT that was in their vicinity.  And hiking is a sweaty undertaking, more so when you're on the difficult trails with rock climbing or having to take large steps onto/hop off of small boulders.

Based on this highly unscientific trial, I'd give them five stars for absorbency. 

Five stars for wearing while riding young/spooky horses and/or rough trots.  

But for wearing while hiking??  Zero stars. They would be okay if there was somewhere to strip out of them immediately and replace with a pair that didn't hold five pounds of sweat at the end of the hike. Definitely don't try this away from home.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #1

 I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but about a year ago I happened upon a way of keeping my polo wraps tangle-free while washing them.  (Well, honestly, part of the reason it took so long is that until about a year ago I hadn't used polo wraps in a long, long time, typically using splint boots or brushing boots on the older horses I was riding.  It wasn't until I started working the Poetess, with her young four-year-old legs, that I went back to wrapping.)

Are you constantly frustrated with polo (or other long, skinny) wraps that get knotted like some demonic test of wit every time you wash them?  If so, read on for my (brilliant if I do say so) light-bulb moment of a tip for easier washing with less detangling.

Rather than tossing my polo wraps into the washing machine willy nilly (except for folding the velcroes over themselves so they didn't grab everything in the washer), I bought a couple of lingerie washing bags and put each set of polos into it's own bag.  Wonder of wonders, no more tangled wraps!

(Except for recently, when a bag came unzipped and ejected it's cargo into the washer, which prompted pictures and this post).

Now, instead of dealing with this Gordian knot on laundry day:

I simply unzip the bag, grab the end of a polo wrap and they tamely slide out one at a time in an organized manner like this:

Nice and orderly, not a big lumpy knot of snakes trying to touch the ground, the floor, and everything else that might dirty them while you try to extricate them from their grip on each other (and themselves).

This works a treat in the dryer too, not just in the case of line drying, as I was doing until the weather turned last week.  

Lingerie bags are cheap to buy.  And a set of four polo wraps fits nicely into one bag.  Definitely money well spent; it saves me both the time to untangle washer-knotted wraps and the frustration of having to unknot them before they can be rolled.

If you want to wait a little bit, and save some money, put a few lingerie bags on your holiday wish list and perhaps someone will buy them for you as a gift!  And if you've been jonesing after some new colors in polo wraps but can't justify the price when you all ready have plenty of wraps (that aren't new eye catching colors), put a set of wraps and a lingerie bag on your wish list!  

(I have seen some laundry bags for wraps listed on a few tack store websites, and I bought myself one, but, in home trials this summer, I think my cheapy lingerie bags bought at Wally World work just as well as my specifically-for-leg-wraps bag).

40 Years of Horses!

 A long, long time ago, I bought my first horse after years of being horse crazy, three consecutive summers of attending a week of Girl Scout camp where I did the Horse Camp option (the third year earning my way to camp by selling enough cookies to go at no charge to my parents, who'd told me they couldn't afford camp that year and I'd have to sell 300+ boxes of cookies to qualify for the week of camp to be 'free'-- I was an incredibly shy kid but I managed to knock on every door in a 5-mile radius of our house and take orders for cookies as long as my parents put up the time and gas money to drive me further than I could walk), and months and months of begging my parents to let me buy a horse.  They finally said "IF you can find a horse for the amount of money in your savings account, we'll think about letting you buy it."  

And so I did. After having a prepurchase exam done on him, he was delivered into my ownership on Labor Day weekend 1984.

The rest, as they say, is history.

My first horse, an 8 year old purebred registered Arabian

(with a tail that had been partially amputated after an injury a year or so prior to when I bought him).

I was twelve, almost thirteen when I got my horse. I think my parents figured horses were just a typical phase little girls go through, and that in a year or so I would grow out of it and we'd sell the horse and all the horse gear and be done.  They even put up stipulations I had to meet in order to keep the horse:

• Maintain at least a B average in school (I'd been an Honor Roll student all through school up to that point)
• Take riding lessons so I'd learn to ride safely
• Join 4-H and do the horse program

The first requirement was not an issue for me; I got good grades because I liked learning and school was something that (with the exception of multiplying and dividing fractions) had always come easy to me. Five school years later I graduated in the top 10% of over 330 students in my graduating class.

The second and third requirements, instead of pushing me away from horses (like maybe my parents secretly hoped), just sucked me in further.  So much to learn!  I couldn't get enough!  I went from learning to ride well on my first horse, to selling him and breaking out not just the next horse I bought (paid for with the earnings from the first horse, which I sold for more than I'd paid for him, but also by months and months of cleaning stalls for the lady I bought him from--my trainer) but also the young horse my mom bought in 1987 intending it to be her own horse.

In addition to joining 4-H and being extremely active there, I was one of the founding members of my high school equestrian team, which finally got approved and became a real thing my junior year.

My second horse, a 7/8 Arabian, 1/8 Quarter Horse I bought as a coming three year old

and then trained under saddle both western and hunt seat.

My Mom's horse, which ended up being too quick for her;

which I then started to teach to run barrels  but never quite finished 

(In the above pictures I'm 3 months pregnant with my first son; the reason why we soon scrapped the barrel racing training and the mare sat for over a year unridden.)

Then there was a haitus in ownership for several years, most of which I continued working at horse farms but not owning a horse of my own and not riding much.  I had met and married DH and then popped out babies #2 and #3 in rapid succession.  A week before baby #4 arrived, we became the owners of a pony I'd known from back in my 4-H days.  He was in his late 20s by then and ready to be retired from the showring.  So he became a backyard pony my kids loved on and learned to ride on.

The Pony

When my youngest child was 3, the barn owner I was then working for, was looking to downsize her (very large) herd of Holsteiners.  She offered me the choice of one of three she would sell for the same price.  All mares, all in the 10-12 year old range, all very green broke eons ago and not ridden since they were 3 or 4 years old.  I chose the one whose build and personality I liked best. I didn't have the full asking price at the time, but I put $1000 down and worked off the remainder of the balance over several years.  And that is how I became the owner of a papered warmblood horse.  I trained her mostly on my own, with some intermittent riding lessons (as I could afford them/work them off) for help.

The Mare and I, about 8 years after I'd bought her.

Shortly after putting down The Pony due to Cushings and advanced age (32), I caught up again with my second horse, the 7/8 Arab.  He'd been at a therapeutic riding center for over a decade and was in his early 20's.  They were going through some financial difficulties that necessitated dispersing some of their herd.  Being that he was now on the older end of their roster, I inquired if they might be willing to sell him to me.  So, he came back into my ownership, for my daughters to ride, and has been known here as The Old Man until his death in 2018.

The Old Man

In 2007, I went into a 3-way ownership on an 8 year old registered Quarter Horse.  He was supposed to be for my daughters to ride, the daughter of a fellow boarder to ride, and the farm owner to occasionally trail ride as her health allowed.  I ended up buying out the other two owners over the years, and he shows up in several stories posted at this little place here until I sold him in 2017.

The Quarter Horse

My two year partnership with the California Horse followed, from summer 2017 until 2019.  He is mentioned in many horse updates.

The California Horse,

all 18 hands of him!

Almost immediately after the California Horse left Michigan for Oregon (where his owner's parents had bought a farm), I purchased Camaro, the second purebred Arabian I have owned and trained.  The photo below is from our one and only show, in June 2021.

In June of 2023, The Poetess became my next horse.  Maybe my final horse, we'll see.  Looking to train her as far as I can (based on how my body holds out and how she ages).  DH would like to retire in about five years and hopes that he and I will be doing a whole lot more traveling after that.  I'm not so sure I'll be 'done' with horses that quick. Maybe ten years from now.  In 10 years I'll be almost 63.  Not a whole lot of women that age still riding and doing barn chores on a regular basis.  Fifty years of constant horses/horse chores might be enough.  Time will tell.

'

Horse Update, August

As in July's update, K3 has been coming once a week to 'help' me with training the LBM.  This is good for the Little Black Mare, as it reminds her that she has to listen to humans of any size, not just adults and not just me (as a rather strict human when it comes to minding personal space or who's the boss in the horse-human relationship).

It is also good for K3 as it gives her something she can be responsible for (keeping her 'job' schedule of working the horse once a week), something of her own interest to learn and work at, and it gets her into the mentally calming atmosphere of being around a horse.

Each week, when it's her day, K3 and I talk about our game plan for that training session.  And then I put her in charge as much as possible.  She has to get the horse.  She has to groom the horse.  I do the saddling as she's not strong enough and the saddle is too heavy for her to lift over the LBM's back and set down nicely.  The LBM came to this little place here being rather nervous about the whole saddling thing and it took months for her to learn to stand still, that I wasn't going to fling this saddle at her and whack her in the back and sides with it's parts and pieces.  So, for now, I do the placing of the saddle and K3 does the girthing.  We are working on K3 getting coordinated enough to do the bridling.  That's coming along, but I still stand behind K3 and help hold the LBM's head still and in the right position while K3 fumbles with holding the bit in one hand and the crownpiece in the other and keeping everything from twisting.

Once the LBM is saddled and bridled, the three of us walk out to the 'arena' that is behind the barn (so there's a fenced in area in case of mishaps and a loose horse) and K3 does the longeing.  This is something she has been learning, and, while I typically still stand behind her and man the whip as needed (which entails just raising it as needed as encouragement to move out on the line or to change speed--or keep moving when the horse gets lazy and slows--not cracking it or touching the LBM with it), K3 makes the decisions on how long to walk, when to begin trotting, when there's been enough trotting, when to halt and change directions.

Then it's time for K3 to get on.  We are still having her begin each ride on the longe line.  That is when we do a quick recheck that the LBM is listening to K3's aids for walking, halting and trotting.  It's also when K3 rides in trot, as she is still learning her seat and trying to stay balanced at that bouncy gait. I don't want her using her reins for balance (and inadvertently banging the horse's mouth), so rather than have her try to trot and keep her balance and steer right now, we're sticking with being on the longe where she just needs to think about balance and going into and out of the trot.  We'll tackle steering--ie going solo--at the trot when she's developed her seat a bit more.

Depending on how much trot we work on and how tired K3 is from that, we either end the session there, or I remove the longe line and K3 rides solo at the walk for a bit.

Solo walk work involves a lot of turning, halting, and going over a single ground pole.  Both to make sure the LBM is listening to her rider (vs just following me around) and to give K3 practice at these skills (and being the boss of the pair, not just a passenger).

On the days when K3 isn't the rider, I work with the LBM on developing more balance at the trot and canter as well as riding through visually confined spaces in a relaxed manner.  She was doing awesome riding out and around the property until about mid-July when the corn in the fields got tall enough to not be able to see over.  And thick enough that you can't see through it.  And the leaves long enough that they wave in any sort of wind.  Scary stuff for a prey animal like a horse.  And we're practically surrounded by corn this summer, including in our own 15ish acres that we lease out to a crop farmer. 

So I had to take a step back from riding her anywhere and everywhere and concentrate on getting her to be calm while working our way closer and closer to the monster-hiding corn. Which meant sticking to super familiar areas with great visual distance for a few weeks as well as keeping a fence between us and the corn.  This week we finally rode between the fence and the corn for a short distance at the end of a training session, then turned and went back to the barn before she had the chance to get anxious about what might be lurking inside the wavy seven foot tall green wall.

Poetess just had her very own long post, which pretty much brought you up to date with how she's doing.  I will add that this morning I rode her for the first time without anyone else being on the property.  DH had to go in to work in person today, and I really didn't want to lose out on a training session with the Poetess in his absence, so I figured I'd work her like I normally do and see what happens.  She was very good and it was no big deal.  In retrospect she had no idea if he was home or not, so his absence only matters to me (as a safety measure in case the horse manure hits the fan--causing me to hit the ground--which so far she's shown no inclination to initiate.)

Barn-wise, there hasn't been any new construction done.  I've disappointingly had to replace dozens of the T-post insulator caps in the past three weeks.  I will have to get in contact with where I purchased them from last fall, as they are supposed to have a 5 year warranty and we haven't even gotten through twelve months of use yet.  It's not the horses pushing on the fence that's breaking them where the fence tape runs through them, either, as it's always in the mornings that I find the top 'rail' of the fence sagging with another broken insulator and the horses are always in the barn overnight.  If anything is putting excessive force on the insulators, must be deer hitting them.  Which, if they are designed for a horse to push on/bounce off of the fence without breaking, a little 100-some pound deer shouldn't be beyond the integrity of the caps.  

The Poetess After One Year

Late June marked the one year anniversary of the Poetess's arrival in Michigan and the beginning of our partnership.  I had wanted to write a long post in honor of that in July, but *sigh* it didn't get done.  

On the outside, since I'm not cantering her around yet, and not showing her in even Intro Dressage classes, it might look like she and I haven't made much progress since the day of her arrival.  But au contraire!

Looking back, we've actually made quite a bit of progress. Especially if you factor in that we've never had an indoor arena to work in, so we're pretty weather dependent.  Add to that the fact that we haven't had a fenced outdoor arena either and at this little place here I don't --so far-- even have a real arena with good footing, just a mowed patch of clay dirt.

There's also the health issues I was having last summer (could barely walk 50 feet without coughing, muscle weakness, etc., etc.) that slowly started to resolve themselves over the winter and are much better now (cough free and can lift 50 pound bags of feed again, YAY!) but was whammied in May with a knee issue that took away a lot of physical ability in it's own way.  All to say, it's not like we've had five days a week every week since her arrival to work on training. . . 

Here is our notable progress, starting with on the ground:

She stands still in the cross ties.

It's been months and months since she nervous pooped either in the cross ties or on the longe line (and she actually has never done this under saddle).

Speaking of manure, it is of normal consistency all the time, compared to being loose when she first arrived and then varying between normal and cowpie-ish for many months.

In turnout, she not only is willing to be caught, but 9 times out of 10 she comes to me if she sees me approach the gate to the pasture she's in.

She figured out what treats are.  😁

She picks up all four feet and patiently holds them up for me to clean (compared to jerking them up and back down; and also compared to only picking them up if I stood on her left side as was the norm at the track).  She also stands quietly for the farrier.

This mare, who had no idea what hand grazing was all about, now hand grazes like nobody's business!  I think she'd almost rather graze with me holding the lead rope than she would loose in the pasture.

She stands like a statue for having her legs wrapped as well as for saddling and unsaddling.

While she still doesn't like her ears messed with much, she will let me brush them with a soft brush, and sometimes even lets me put the roll on fly repellent in them without yanking her head up and down in avoidance.  Interestingly enough, bending them forward for haltering and bridling has never been an issue

Not only does she lead from either the left or right side quietly, she also walks, trots and canters calmly on both sides while longeing.  It took months, but she finally figured out that going to the right is just no big deal and the same rules and expectations apply as when she's going to the left.  There are still some days where the longe session begins a bit up and tight, but most days (and even the ones that start tight) she is looser in her body and stretching forward and even sometimes downward over her back.

Under saddle she is figuring out her new role too.

She stands still to be mounted and, while she still thinks she's supposed to move off once I'm up, she has begun to occasionally continue to stand until I have both feet in the irons and tell her to walk!

She halts quietly under saddle.  And stands calmly to be dismounted!

She's caught on to steering with seat and weight aids quite well although there's still a day now and then when she still doesn't want to bend right very willingly.

We haven't ridden outside the greater fenced in area yet, but we are riding at a walk around the majority to the inside of it!  

We do trot work about 50% of each ride now, and she especially loves going over a series of ground poles.  Bending lines are another favorite. 

Her balance is getting better and she's figured out trot is a gait in itself, not a precursor to going into a gallop (occasionally she pops into a canter over the last ground pole but comes back to a trot pretty quickly when asked).

Over the course of the year, and especially in the nine and a half months that she's been living at this little place here, we've become a team.  She nickers at me in the mornings when she sees me walking from the house to the barn for breakfast.  Sometimes she comes to the fence and nickers at me when I'm out in the yard doing various tasks.

She is insanely jealous when I ride the Little Black Mare instead of her, especially on days when I'm giving the Poetess the day off and I just work the LBM.  Apparently I belong to her just as much as she belongs to me.

                                                 

Horse Update, July

 The bugs have been awful at this little place here pretty much since May.  One huge drawback of having a warm winter: not enough prolonged cold weather to kill off the bugs.  And so we are having an especially buggy summer this year.  Mosquitos honestly aren't so bad, but the black flies and stable flies and green head flies and deer flies are horrible.  I'm going through fly spray like crazy and no matter which one I use, it seems like a few hours later there's flies landing on the horses again.

The Poetess wears a fly mask with ears in turnout because she has ear plaques (had them last summer; not sure what her history is on those) and I don't want them to get worse/irritated by fly bites.  Her mask keeps her happy when she's out in the pasture.  But when she's being worked, her ears are unprotected and she really doesn't want me to rub roll-on or cream bug repellent into her ears, especially the one with the majority of the plaques; it's sensitive.

The LBM doesn't seem to care much about flies in her ears when she's out grazing.  But under saddle, that's a whole 'nother story!  The head shaking to remove bugs sometimes got so bad that she wasn't listening to me at all while riding.

So, shopping to the rescue: I ordered two ear bonnets.  One for the Poetess to wear while working, and one for the LBM.  And just like that, the LBM was no longer being driven out of her mind while being ridden.  And Poetess's ears are protected during work sessions without me having to try to swipe goop into them every couple of days.  What a game changer.  I highly recommend ear bonnets if you are having similar issues with bugs in the ears driving your horses batty under saddle.  Mine aren't fancy, and aren't the sound deadening kind.  Just something lightweight to seal up those ears from bugs.

Along with the bugs being a problem, we went through about two weeks of nightly invasions by raccoons.  My nice heavy duty snap-on lids for my grain bins failed me; the darn raccoons figured out how to get them off.  I'm not sure if it was the biggest one(s) doing this, or if it was a joint effort of many little raccoon hands. Even on the nights they didn't get the grain bin open, I could tell they'd been wandering around inside the barn because in the morning when it was turnout time and I opened her stall door Poetess would put her nose down to the cement floor and walk up and down the aisle, smelling.  

This couldn't continue; raccoons in the barn and barnyard/chicken coop area was not a good thing.  So, I baited two live traps, put them nightly near the front door of the barn and in 8 nights of setting out live traps I was able to catch five raccoons, two of which were adults and three were juveniles.  They were quickly given lead poisoning.  DH patrolling in the evening just before dark was able to dispatch six or seven more who were given lead poisoning without being trapped first.  That seems to have solved the critter raids on the barn problem.

In the last three weeks, K3 has been able to 'help' me with the LBM's training twice.  LBM's owner and I had talked about putting K3 in the saddle to see what the horse would do with a much less experienced rider than I.  We agreed to start this on the longe line, and then progress to K3 riding solo.  So far so good, a few interesting things have come to light (the LBM spooked the first few times I had K3 raise her arms while in the saddle; shorter legs giving the walk command got ignored) which have given K3 things to do in the saddle and me to desensitize during my work sessions with the mare.  We are planning on having K3 in the saddle once a week for the remainder of her summer break.

While DH was on 'vacation' (mandatory first week of July), one of the many small/medium size projects he worked on was finishing up the final two stalls of the barn by laying the floor mats.  Luckily, that week had decent weather, a break from the low 90's with high humidity that we'd been having and was a comfy lowish humidity upper 70's on the day that we put in the mats.  We still got sweaty and tired, but at least neither of us got heat stroke!

DH cutting a mat to needed size, using the tractor forks and a pallet as a work table.

(Yes, that's my foot in the foreground, my knee was super blown up still and I frequently had to sit with it up on shavings bales to rest it while working in the barn.)

If you recall, last summer we'd found these stall mats on sale and purchased the total number of mats we'd need to do all six stalls even though we were focusing on getting just two stalls built that year. We didn't want to come back in a few months (or more) when we were ready to mat the remaining stalls and have to pay full price (which at that time was $15/mat more than the sale price) for those. Well, when measuring and cutting mats for the very first stall, DH miscut one of the mats and it was then too small.  We set it aside, hoping that it would work for one of the future stalls as each stall wasn't quite exactly 12'x12'.

As each new stall was matted, that miscut mat was still too small.  It was beginning to look like we were going to have to make a half-hour trip to buy just one new mat, at the regular price, in order to finish matting all six stalls.  

We were literally down to the last mat needed in the sixth stall, when, to our utter joy and amazement  (because we'd been measuring it for four whole stalls hoping it wasn't too small), it wasn't too small for the final corner!  In fact, it needed just quarter inch or so trimmed off part of one edge.  Whew!  So glad that mat wasn't wasted after all!

The 'thank goodness it's not too small for here' mat! (A bit dusty from storage not in a stack.)

That's all for this month's update.  I was going to mention more about the Poetess's progress, but that was making this post extremely long, so I decided to give her her own post talking about how far she's come.  Look for that soon.