Jumping

For the record, I swore I would never jump a horse again.

Following Willow’s fire ant attack and her subsequent week off, we were back to our old selves, plodding around the farm and doing some basic dressage work. When we were both bored to tears, we put on the close contact saddle and went for a nice hack around the farm, trotting the perimeter and cantering/galloping (I wanted to canter, Willow wanted to gallop) up the rolling hills. It was great exercise. A few days of that, and I did the unthinkable. I asked Carlos to build me a jump.

Build me a jump he did. Nice little white four foot standards with enough poles to make a three bar vertical. We started trotting and cantering over ground poles. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would have the guts to actually jump anything, but in a moment of madness and determination, I set up the smallest cross rail I had ever seen. it was probably about ten inches at its highest point. Over the last week, the jump has slowly been raised and as of two days ago, we jumped our first respectable 2’3″ vertical.

Unfortunately this has led to my present conundrum. I’ve decided to want to go back to the jumper ring competitively, but in our current location, we lack a proper ring to set up multiple jumps and actually work on course. The field is way too hilly; it would be more like cross country, which I don’t plan to ever do again (especially since I took Carlos to the Fork CIC*** and said “look baby, I used to do that!” as riders and horses fell like flies)

I think our most recent accomplishment warrants a schooling trip.

Ouch

Willow and I have been making a ton of progress. We’re cantering fine now, riding all over the farm and having a good time. 

Until last week that is. Willow woke up with a nasty case of hives around her throat latch area. They were pretty itchy, so we gave her 18 benadryl per the vet’s recommendation and gave her the day off. The next morning when I went to feed her, the little bumps had turned into a seeping, bloody, hairless patch of horror. She had scratched the area so violently that she had ripped all of the hair off and exploded all of the hives. It was pure nastiness. Photo is below, but consider yourselves warned. It’s icky. I called the vet out, who gave her a shot of pred and recommended that we keep it clean, moisturized and covered with some sort of anti-itch cream. A week later, she’s doing much better, but still sans hair. Poor girl. 

 

 

 

 

Milestones

Ah milestones. They come in all shapes and sizes and are all about perspective.

Ten years ago, if I had told myself that a big milestone for me would be what I did today, I would have laughed hysterically. Ten years? Shouldn’t I be competing in this year’s summer Olympics? That’s where I thought I’d be. I should have been winning Grand Prixs in Wellington by now.

Today, while Carlos was taking a nap and all other family member’s were gone, I went to the barn, tacked up my horse, got on and went for a ride at sunset all by my lonesome. I even trotted in a new area of the farm! *GASP!* It was thrilling, and yes, it was an enormous milestone for me.

If you’ve read any of my horsey posts you know that I’ve suffered with some major confidence issues for many, many years. I stopped riding altogether a long time ago, so when I decided to buy myself a 17.2hh German warmblood, a lot of people thought I was mad. But I wasn’t crazy. I was determined. I wanted to get back in the saddle, and after a few weeks of sizing her up from the other side of the fence, I hopped on. She was a sweetheart. Not the easiest ride, but patient enough to deal with my floppy legs and crazy hands. At first, we just walked. Then we took a few steps of trot at a time, but only in an enclosed paddock. Over the past 3 months, we’ve gotten to the point where we could do complete low level dressage tests out in a newly constructed dressage ring. But it’s always been under the watchful eye of someone who cares about me. But not today. Mom’s out of town with my Aunt, my Uncle was somewhere else and my husband needed a nap. I would have gotten angry with him, except that he really, really needed that nap. He was getting cranky. Normally I would have just scrapped the riding idea, too afraid that something bad would happen at the worst possible moment. Instead, I dug deep and pushed through the fear. I tacked up Willow and we went for an awesome ride, trotting all over the place on a loose rein and having a good time.

It was good and it was a little bit of a miracle.

Saturday

It was peaceful on the farm this morning. I woke up late at 7:30. The horses usually eat just before that and I heard them nickering as soon as our creaky back porch door slammed. It was a balmy 35 degrees instead of yesterday’s 23 and the birds were all a twitter, chirping and singing. At one point our roosters crowed at exactly the same moment, which was generally awesome and hilarious- they sound so different. I still feel guilty taking the eggs from the hens. They seem to look at me and say “why?!” These are unusually expressive hens. As usual the goats were noisily following Winston, their guard llama around. He was equally noisy, humming impatiently for breakfast. 

Looks like it’s going to be a good Saturday! 

Chickens

I just want to mention that we have 47 chickens now, a big increase from the 7 we had last month. They’re all ages, sizes and breeds. I fear though that today we will be down to 46. We’ve never lost a chicken but today one of our Silkie roos named Wimpy looks like he might pass. He’s been extremely lethargic and depressed. His old owner who sold him to us 2 weeks ago said that he was “homesick” and we bought it for a few days but he’s never seemed to perk up. He’s the sweetest, fluffiest thing. I will miss him terribly but I hope he isn’t suffering.

Get well soon Wimpy.

Big news

So many things have changed since the last time I’ve posted here.

Willow and I are doing really well getting to know each other. We haven’t been riding too consistently due to the fact that I’ve been out of town for two weeks visiting family from Venezuela. In the meantime though, my cousin Stefanie has been riding her. She’s been doing well but apparently was a little spooky last week. I was a little nervous to hop on her yesterday because she has been acting “hot.” But as always, her attitude completely shifts as soon as she gets the tack on. She was calm as can be! She took really good care of me and we were able to get in a good workout. The footing in our makeshift arena was pretty slippery due to the morning’s frost and she has new shoes on so we were sliding a bit, but otherwise everything was great. The best part though was when we were ready to cool down, we left the ring and headed out to the back field- 20 some acres of green grass and rolling hills! We walked around the perimeter with my cousin and my other cousin’s pony. It was a really great experience. Today we’ll try to work out in the field some.

Ok, ok, so what is this big news? Well, we’re moving! Carlos was offered a contract at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona so to Phoenix we are going, horse, cats and all. We will be moving around April or May as his job begins in June. He is officially Maricopa Medical Center’s newest Internal Medicine resident! I am so proud of him! It’s been a long and difficult path and at several points we thought we’d have to return to Venezuela. He kept going though and gave it all he had. He passed all of his licensing exams on the first attempt (a big deal) and helped his university during the excruciating process of getting “ECFMG” certified. He did it though, and we’re moving! I’ve already found a lovely facility where I will board Willow. We’re going to Phoenix at the end of January to check out the town and see a few barns so I will make the final decision then. One of the best parts about this move is that one of the larger jumper circuits in the USA is located on Tucson- a two hour drive from Phoenix! It’s called HITS Arizona. We’re looking forward to competing!

Well, off to clean the barn and the ponies! Happy new year!

Chickens

Well the chickens (all six of them!) got their fist taste of the good life we had intended to provide for them. We’ve had them for a few weeks now, and they haven’t been in the coop the whole time, but a good about of the time due to some fencing issues which have now been fixed. We built a temporary run for them so they could get some fresh air for a few hours of the day, but it was a little difficult chasing them around to put them back in the coop at night (although now they are extremely easy to handle and they will come right up to us!)

Carlos and my uncle have fixed the fencing! So today, Carlos built a little chicken door and ramp for them and they spent their first full day out in the sun and lush grass. Winston, our llama, was very happy to be in his own pasture, guarding the chickens. He seemed a lot more relaxed than he has. He really is the sweetest llama, but we’d been turning him out every day in the horse pasture, and I think being on that side of the farm so close to all of the action stressed him out. He went through a three day phase of threatening to spit at us. It broke my heart, and I’ll admit, I shed a tear or two because I thought we were bffs. He seemed to only like Carlos for a few days. But he’s back to liking me today and came running up to me in the pasture and put his head on my shoulder, then followed me around for a while. I love that darn llama.

In other news, we have three (tiny) eggs! The chickens seem to have started to lay now that they’re settled in, despite the lack of proper nesting boxes (that’s the next project for the weekend.) We do not, however, plan to eat these little eggs. As it turns out, one of our six “hens” started crowing about three days after arriving so there may be baby chickens on the way. We’ll see. In any case, none of us can wrap our heads around eating fertilized eggs, so we’ll wait until the rooster heads to his new home. I’m a little sad about him leaving. I was just getting attached to him, and his weird crow that sounds like a teenage boy screaming.

My new horse Willow arrives in two weeks!