Note to self: must not use the words “T!ny” and “H0me” in a post together, much less a post title. I get 9 bajillion hits every time, most of which are people who typically never read this blog and found their way here because of those keywords and want to ask me a bunch of questions via my contact page email (it BLEW UP) that google could easily answer. I’m not into it. At all. Henceforth those posts shall be titled “THT” and the house will just be referred to as like… or “the mini abode” or “the diminutive dwelling” or “the petite palace” or… I don’t know. Anything. Anything but those two words. I can’t keep using the T word with the H word, I don’t need that kind of headache.
So, um, as you can probably tell, I’m wound a little tight right now with the house stuff. I have A LOT to get done in the next two weeks and I’m majorly stressing. I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this post today because I have a million other things to do, so my apologies. BUT I did want to take a second to show y’all a really cool Instagram giveaway that I’m cohosting, in case you haven’t seen it yet. I had a vague idea of putting together something to encourage/reward our fellow equestrians for voting, and luckily was able to find two equally enthusiastic cohosts that helped develop the idea and get it off the ground. We were lucky to find a bunch of amazing brands that were equally enthusiastic about the cause to throw in toward the prize pack, too! First, the prizes:
over 1k worth of stuff!
It’s easy to enter too, you just have to 1) follow all the hosts/brands (you should follow them anyway, they’re great people and super generous), 2) tag a couple people in the comments, 3) post a photo to your Instagram feed with #equestriansvote. Easy peasy.
Here are the guidelines for the photos:
-Take a pic with your “I voted” sticker
-Take a pic dropping your sealed ballot in the mail (NOT of the ballot itself – sealed and with any sensitive/personal information covered)
-If you’re too young to vote or voted super early & didn’t take a pic, write “I will vote for (or voted for) ______” on a sign & fill in an ISSUE you’re passionate about (i.e. education, women’s rights, etc), NOT a candidate. We want to know what motivates you the most! Take a pic with the sign.
You can involve a horse in your photo or not, it’s up to you. Have fun with it! In addition to the main winner, we will also have two additional winners that get a monogrammed Majyk Equipe fly mask.
See this post for full entries rules/details. It’s open through voting day, but I know many people are voting early, so go ahead and get your photos in!
I feel like I’ve spent Presto’s entire life obsessing over his condition. He’s been a scrawny, rangey, skeletor-type kid since the word go, and I kind of feel like we’ve always been playing catch-up, in a way. I don’t know if it’s all his thoroughbred, the fact that he’s been pretty fast-growing, or if this is just him, or if there’s some kind of lingering effect of all his digestive-system-related problems early on in life, but keeping condition on this horse has always been a challenge. Over the years I’ve run just about every test on him that you can imagine, never quite satisfied. He’s never looked BAD, but he’s just never looked truly GREAT either. I have an actual spreadsheet where I’ve logged and broken down all of his feed and nutrition information over the years, trying to find just the right formula.
The only solution is more cookieeeeez
To be fair, it does seem to come and go a bit with his growth spurts. He always thins out when he’s growing, and because he is such a blooded horse, he doesn’t naturally have very much in the way of natural muscle bulk. I’ve always hoped that this would improve with age, and it definitely has, especially since I started riding him lightly.
I also don’t believe in throwing a ton of concentrated feed at a horse, especially a warmblood baby. That’s just asking for issues. And when he was boarded, while he did have access to grass and hay, it wasn’t nearly as much as I would have ideally wanted. I did what I could, buying him premium feeds and extra fats and extra hay and making sure everything was balanced, but y’all know how it is when you board – there’s only so much you can control.
Remember when I struggled to keep weight on Henry at a few boarding barns? LOLOLOL. He is a literal air fern here.
Now that Presto is “at home” I’ve had a lot more leeway with what I can feed him, and he has 24/7 access to grass and/or good quality hay. I also switched both of my horses over to a top of the line feed, and added flaxseed oil to Presto’s. It definitely helped some – Henry’s grain amount has been cut in half, and Presto has held his weight better. Still though… never quiiiiiiite the kind of condition that makes you feel really pleased. You know what I mean.
I’ve never been much of a supplements person, I always start at the roughage and then add a super high quality (and low NSC, high fat) feed, and I strongly believe those two things are by far the most important basis for a horse’s diet. I have a bit of a grumpy grumbly old man response when it comes to supplements, a distrust that runs deep enough to where you might hear me mumble something that sounds a lot like “snakeoil salesmen” and “show me the non-biased research”. Henry and Presto both have been on various powders and potions over the years, me trying things out here and there, but none of them have made any real noticeable difference. The barn owner is a long-time user and big fan of the Platinum Performance line, which admittedly I have always heard really good things about and her horses definitely look great, but with boarding two horses that supplement line has also always felt a bit hard to swallow budget-wise. They aren’t cheap.
Not that either of my horses have ever given one shit about my budget
There have always been a couple little niggly things with each horse that have continued to bother me a little though. Henry’s a walking Mr. Sensitive. Like if you look at him wrong his hair will fall out, or he’ll break out in hives, or his butt will start flaking off, or he’ll have an allergic reaction to like… dirt or whatever. Tres sensitive. And with Presto, it’s always been just that little lack of truly great condition. Not-quite-shiny. Not-quite-thriving. You guys know what I mean, when a horse seems 95% of the way to “great” but you just can’t seem to bridge that final gap.
The BO and I got to talking about supplements one day when she had let one of her mares’ supplements lapse and noticed a difference really quickly. The more we talked the more I was kinda like… ya know what… I’m in a place right now where I can afford to drop a little bit of money on one of the few things left that I haven’t tried – let’s just see what happens. I mean, worst case scenario I was out a couple hundred bucks right? WHAT THE HELL ELSE IS NEW WITH HORSES.
I wish Presto had been closer yesterday when I took this picture so it was clearer, but you get the idea
It’s been about a month now and honestly? They both look great. Presto especially. He’s on Platinum Performance Equine and Platinum Balance, and Henry is on Platinum CJ. I haven’t noticed quite as much difference in Henry yet… I do think his skin and coat look nicer/shinier, but granted there was not as much room for improvement with Henry, he already looked pretty good. Presto though… wow. Despite already having a good start to his winter hair, his coat is looking the best it ever has. He is SHINY, the hair itself feels different, and he’s rounding out a bit. Not in a fat kind of way, but in a topline kind of way. My skeptical side wants to pipe up and say that he’s rounding out because we’re heading into the time of year where his growth rate slows down, and he’s getting older, but even if both of those things are entirely responsible for the change, he’s still shiny AF. I can’t even tell you the last time I gave this horse a soap bath, nor have I touched him with a shine spray. Shit, he only gets groomed once or twice a week. He’s about as filthy and au natural as you can get right now. I was watching him yesterday though, while the crew was there to level the house, and I was like DAMN. Who dat horse???
low quality GIF, high quality shine
Kind of can’t wait to see what he looks like after I bathe and clip him.
The Platinum supplements have earned themselves an extension for sure. I’m not quite 100% sold on it for Henry yet but the difference in Presto over the past couple weeks has been pretty undeniable. I’m finally feeling pretty pleased with his condition. I don’t know if it’s the Equine or the Balance or the combination of both. I don’t know if it’s the extra vitamins or extra fats (he was already getting a lot of both between his feed and flax oil) or if the digestive assistance is helping his body utilize the rest of his diet better. Maybe a combo of everything. Either way, I’m not going to question it. If this is what it takes to give him that last little bump towards THRIVING, count me in. Bye money.
Surprises abound last week. First, the Turdblaster (or Incinolet if you want to be proper. I don’t.) arrived on Thursday. When I ordered it at the end of September they were quoting a 6-7 week lead time, so I hadn’t planned on seeing this thing for a while yet. It was quite a surprise to get a shipping notification for an 80 pound package from a company I’d never heard of until I googled it and found that it was the parent company of Incinolet. It only took 4 weeks, yay! I had it delivered to the property since I thought it would be coming after I was already moved out there, but since it made it before the house did, it just got stuck in a storage barn to wait.
All 73 pounds of it
And it didn’t have to wait long, because the house was delivered the next day. This was a complete surprise to us… when they completed the build they were supposed to contact us to set up a delivery time. I don’t know what got miscommunicated or who forgot to do what, but the only notice we got of delivery was the driver calling my SO when he was about an hour away from the farm with the house. I sort of panicked, mostly because I don’t like surprises. I’m a big fan of itineraries, as anyone who’s traveled with me would definitely know. Honestly though it kind of worked out perfectly – I was already at the barn, both of the barn owners were home and available, the spot was ready… let’s do this.
here she comes!
It was definitely disorganized-feeling though, with the lack of communication. I didn’t know that there was a separate set-up crew that comes in later to level and block it and finish everything out. Basically the driver parked it, handed me an envelope with all the keys and paperwork, had me sign for it, and off he went. I was like, uh… what now? A phone call would have been great just so I knew what to expect. I did find out yesterday that the set-up crew is coming today, and they texted me last night with an estimated arrival time, so it’s fine, but Friday it was all very confusing. All’s well that ends well I guess (says the twitching INTJ).
parked in her spot!
Even though it’s not set and blocked, it’s plenty stable enough on it’s trailer to get in and poke around. Which of course is the first thing I did. Having thought about all the options we picked, changed our minds, second-guessed, changed our minds again… I had to see how everything actually turned out. That eye for design that my mom had, and many women seem to have, did not get passed on to me. I have a really hard time envisioning things in my head and how they’ll actually look/go together when it’s done. Putting a bunch of samples together on a table is nice but it really doesn’t help me picture how it’ll look in real life at all. I need a configurator tool for everything (thank you Mattes for understanding this).
Anyway, I was kind of nervous opening the door.
But… I really love it. I don’t think it looks TOO gray, partially thanks to that black backsplash that I impluse-switched to and then second guessed a hundred times. I think everything works well together without looking too much like all one color. I love the touch of black, and the stainless appliances. My totally bitchin’ deep stainless farm sink with fancy faucet was 100% worth the splurge, too. I’m definitely glad we opted for the upgraded painted cabinets instead of the wood grain, it looks a lot cleaner to me. All the windows we added make the inside look pretty bright and airy, too, even when it was overcast and had no lights turned on.
But you want to know the best part about the living room/kitchen area? Turn around and take a look out my living room windows.
Presto was fascinated by WTF I was doing in there
Um yes. Best view.
The bathroom is pretty standard, I think the only real upgrade we got in there was the rain shower head and the tile shower vs tub. Of course we have to remove the regular toilet and install the Incinolet, so that will look a bit different once we do that. The bedroom is literally that – a bed room. We have a California king so it will pretty much fill that whole room minus the walkway space toward the closet/back door. It’s nice to have a small walk-in closet though, something pretty unheard of in a house this small. I don’t have a ton of clothes left after my big purge so I won’t have any problem fitting my stuff into half of it. The loft space is really nice too, it’ll be perfect for storage and the cats’ litter robot, plus I have an awesome reading nook on the far side that I plan to make into a cozy little space.
Did already try to shove a giant bean bag up there. Needless to say it didn’t work.
The real icing on the cake, the shining feature of this house, is the back porch. It’s where we spent the most money in upgrades, not just adding the porch in the first place but also making it big and fully screened, with a fan and a tv jack. It’s basically like having a second living room, and it’s REALLY nice. I can’t freakin wait to sit out there on a cold morning with a blanket and some hot chocolate, looking out at the horses. I foresee myself spending a lot of time out there.
the porch (10′) is almost half the length of the house itself (26′)
I’m also pleased with the exterior colors and how they came together. Since we couldn’t agree on any roof color except galvalume, we picked a deeper gray exterior color to contrast. I think it looks good, and should help keep the house cooler. I also really like the black front door and can’t wait to get the horse door knocker on it that I got for my birthday last year. It’s the little things.
Once they come and finish the set-up today, there is a lot that has to happen in the next couple weeks. It kinda feels like we’ve been waitingwaitingwaiting and now bam – we’re off and running. The barn owners leave for Florida on the 7th, so basically we’ve got a couple weeks for it to be livable and have me and the dogs moved in. I already started buying a few things, measuring for a bunch of other things, and have appointments/quotes out for yet more things, but I’ll update on all that next week. For now – welcome to the farm, little house!
Does anyone else ever find themselves wondering just how annoying your horses think you are, or is it just me?
Why yes, that’s Presto with Henry’s rein in his mouth. I guess Henry has double the annoyances: me AND his little brother.
Not that I really have to wonder that much, considering both of my boys have expressive faces. I’m relatively certain that Henry is 9 out of 10 annoyed with me on pretty much a daily basis, he’s had almost 7 years to become permanently pre-donewithmyshit. The only thing keeping me from a 10 out of 10 is my steady supply of Oatmeal Cream Pies (“A cream pie a day keeps the grumpies at bay!” is something I like to tell Henry every time I give him one, so it’s really no wonder I’m always sitting at a 9). Presto isn’t nearly as donewithmyshit yet, but he does run out of patience for some of my schemes. Especially if they require him to stand still for any length of time. He’s not into that.
Mom, no.
Like yesterday, when I had to dress him up to get a picture for an Insta giveaway (going live this morning!) that I’m one of the hosts for. He didn’t mind the sticker, or me setting up the Pivo and tripod, or the hat (I mean this kid has been wearing hats since he was a year old, he’s pro by now), or the fact that I had stuffed the hat with those air packets they put in boxes as packing material in order to get it to stand up and the plastic made a horrible crinkly screeching noise right next to his ears. All of that was fine. The whole “be still” thing though? DUMB. ANNOYING. HATE IT. MOM SUCKS. Five minutes and he was mega-annoyed with me. I wouldn’t even let him knock the Pivo over with his nose. I’m a tyrant.
I mean I guess he’s plastic-broke?
We also experimented with a (loose) drop noseband this weekend, which I quite like so far but he thinks is real dumb. Makes it much harder for him to gape his mouth, cross his jaw, and try to yank the reins out of my hands (his version of a tantrum) and we have differing opinions on whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Presto is easy to appease when he’s annoyed though…. you just give him something to put in his mouth and all sins have been forgotten.
ok I like dis hat now
DIS MAH HAT. HATS GO IN MAH MOUF.
I mean, Presto and Henry both still come up to me in the pasture to be caught, and Presto still DEMANDS my attention at least twice a week. He’ll stand at the corner of his pasture staring at me in the barn, alternating between knocking on the fence with his foot or resting his foot on the bottom board. This is both a cute and terrible habit. I’ve hollered “GET YOUR FEET OFF THE FENCE” more times than any one person should. But still… he can’t find me that annoying if he wants my attention that badly.
except for when I reposition him 3 times and make him stand still for a quick confo shot, then he’s reached peak hu-mom irritation
I think Presto’s still got the innocence and optimism of youth working in his favor. Henry, however, does not, and I managed to annoy the crap out of him yesterday too. How, you ask? Body clipping. He’s very well-behaved for it (as long as you don’t do his ears or his legs, we came to that agreement years ago) but he hates it. First of all, he hates baths. I rode him, bathed him, and then turned him back out in his pasture to dry while I got Presto out. Henry’s pasture is really grassy so I didn’t think he’d be able to get very dirty again even if he rolled, but I was wrong. Super wrong. I don’t even know where he found that much dirt but he was dirtier when I went to go get him than he’d been before his bath. It was very thorough too, he coated both sides and really ground it into the top of his butt. I’m 100% convinced he did it on purpose, because he’s petty like that when he’s been annoyed.
Petty McSavage
I was done in less than an hour and considering it was almost 90 degrees he sure seemed to feel better when I turned him back out, so really it can’t have been that bad. He didn’t make a beeline for the shade like he usually does, so clearly body clipping helped. Still, he was very annoyed with me and wanted to make sure I knew it, giving me one last whack in the face with his tail as he marched away. He’s never shy about letting you know when you’ve erred against him.
He looks good clipped though, even if he’s mad about it
And that’s how, by the time I finished with the horses yesterday, I’d managed to thoroughly annoy the shit out of both of them. The true mark of a good day at the barn.
If you missed the beginning of our little Glamour Shots mini-series, don’t forget to go back and check out Remi’s from last week. This week we’re moving on to the next 2020 foal, Oakley (she’s a sportpony cross in case anyone has forgotten by now – Usandro Tilia Derlenn‘s first foal born in the USA)! She too got all braided and fancied up for her pictures, and it’s as if she knew, because she really rose to the occasion and showed off for Belinda, the photographer. As with Remi’s photos, I think Oakley’s personality really shines through.
She knows she’s beautiful, first of all, and she isn’t afraid to make sure you know.
At times it was almost as if she played intentionally to the camera.
You’re getting this, right? Just checking. Here we go!
four way off the floor
Wait… pause for butt scratches please.
Ok let’s continue.
Of course, she’s also a big fan of zoomies. Maybe not quite as much as Ollie, and maybe not quite as often as when she was a wee foal, but she still does her fair share for sure.
It’s a trait that she shares with her dam, Daisy, who is the biggest Zoomies fan of all the broodmares and also didn’t hesitate to show off for the camera.
#shegotitfromhermomma
Most of all though, Oakley really wants you guys to know: always remember to bring snacks.
breedrideevent.com 