If you’ve followed this blog for more than approximately 2 seconds, you know that Henry is a total weirdo. You also probably have heard me say that he’s not particularly “normal” when it comes to horsey societal behavior. He’s one of those horses that tends to prefer to have friends from afar – ie he wants to see the other horses but he doesn’t particularly want to interact with them. He’s got that crochety old man “get off my lawn” personality.

So imagine my surprise to see that he appears to have struck up some kind of kinship with the yearling, JB. I’ve caught them playing over the fence too many times to count by now.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Henry play with other horses. Scream at them, yes, bite them, yes, chase them, yes, but play with them? And seem to genuinely enjoy it? And LEAVE HIS PILE OF HAY to do it? You could knock me over with a feather. I never would believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

I guess maybe he and JB have a particular connection. They’re both weird. Super duper mega freaking weird. Like I don’t think I can stress enough how weird they both are. None of the other horses really seem to like JB that much (Presto loves to play with him, but I’m not convinced that he particularly enjoys his company otherwise), and in fact most of them seem to find him quite annoying. He’s like the mega-strange little brother that you tolerate because you have to but you also kind of want to strangle. Henry is the most easily- annoyed horse I know, yet for some reason… he’s ok with JB’s particular brand of annoying?

Now I catch them playing almost every day. Granted, they don’t live in the same pasture, so I’m not sure that Henry’s apparent affection for the weird kid would carry over if they spent more time in each other’s direct company. Still though, it seems to have had the effect of softening Henry’s rough edges a bit when it comes to his social interaction in general. He and the older mare are stalled next to each other and I catch them contentedly hanging out, faces mere inches from each other, quite a bit. I’ve even caught Henry playing with Presto over the fence too.

Yeah I dunno I can’t explain that. I have no idea what was even going on there. Presto seemed content to have Henry hold his chin with his teeth?

I even ended up having to move Henry to a different pasture, otherwise he would just stand at the fenceline of the other one (which was of course the only muddy spot on the property) and look forlorn all day. The pasture he’s in now runs lengthwise to theirs as opposed to just sharing an end, so he can stay near them no matter where they wander. He seems happier now having more and closer access to them. It almost makes me want to try turning him out with their group to see if his friendly behavior would carry over and he could be normal for once in his life. I don’t even know what horse this is. Making friends? Enjoying the company of other horses? What??? Tis a Christmas miracle.

Speaking of Christmas, I have a photographer coming out on Friday to do holiday-themed pics of the boys. I’ve never had pro pictures done of them outside of shows, but there was a great deal on holiday mini-sessions that I couldn’t refuse. It’s also possible that I bought antlers for Presto.

I think Presto will just wear his green Kincade halter for his pics (he also has navy leather and black leather?), since it’s festive, but I think I want to put Henry in a bridle. I just have to decide which bridle, since he has, uh… five. Hackamore bridle, side pull bridle, dressage bridle, figure eight bridle, flat hunt bridle.

The hackamore and the sidepull are out for aesthetic reasons, and I think the figure eight might be too busy. That leaves me with the black dressage bridle with black rhinestone browband (like this one, except his is not patent and doesn’t have the flash):

Or his brown flat hunt bridle, like this one:

Thoughts? They will be black background style shots, if that matters. Never done this whole photo shoot thing before!

Yesterday I did a ground driving session with Presto for the first time in a few months. All in all I’ve ground driven him less than 10 times ever, and only maybe 4-5 times with a bit… I’m not trying to do anything too specific, I mostly just want to give him some idea of how to understand and be comfortable with the bit well before I swing a leg over and actually try to ride.

I really haven’t done much of anything with him, aside from grooming, for almost a month. We’re at that point where honestly he’s quite ready to throw a leg over and start riding, but also he’s not three yet. If I can get a ground person to come help me, I do want to do a few very quick and basic “rides” on him this winter, but otherwise he’s just kind of chilling, and I’m in waiting mode. Every once in a while I get him out for a short lunge or ground driving session mostly just to check in and make sure he remembers everything. He always does.

I took him away from all the other horses, groomed him, tacked him up, led him out to the arena, and he still looked bored with it all. The blown-over dressage letters that Henry spooks at every time are mere curiosities to Presto. He wants to go put his nose on them, but he’s never once even looked at them in a semi-anxious way, not even when footing gets kicked onto them and they make a scary (according to Henry anyway) noise. At the beginning of every session I always lunge Presto for a couple minutes first, going over his voice commands. He knows whoa, walk, and trot 100% now. They’re good enough to where you can even transition between gaits pretty rapidly. The word canter is only about 50/50, mostly because I rarely canter him on the lunge line. He’s a big rangy horse with a big step, I don’t think his balance or his body is really ready for cantering on a 20m circle yet.

Once I’d practiced his voice commands both ways, I hooked up the long lines. One little squeeze on the left rein to move his nose left, one little squeeze on the right rein to move his nose right, and I was satisfied that he remembered what the bit means, so off we went around the arena. We turned, we went straight, we circled, and we made a somewhat drunken attempt at a serpentine. It’s a little hard to ground drive him because he’s almost TOO sensitive and turns a little TOO well. It would be a lot easier from the saddle where I could use my leg and body. But, he definitely remembered it all, and he did everything I asked, as if he does this every day. I halted him and took the long lines off then led him over to the stepstool, jumping up and down and leaning my body over the saddle from both sides. Again, never moved a muscle. At this point we were all of 15 minutes in and I had accomplished everything I had set out to do. I slid down and declared him to be the most boring baby ever.

And when I say boring, I mean that in the best possible way. He’s smart, he retains things easily, he’s confident, he’s obedient, and he’s not emotional. He can go for a long time between training sessions and pick it right back up as if it’s a daily occurrence. He’s very calm about “working”, and is far more of a thinker than a reactor. There is no “well let’s see what kind of mood he’s in today”… so far he’s always the same.

Don’t get me wrong, he can definitely be a goofy baby in his free time. He loves to run and buck and snort and turn into an arabian anytime the neighbor cows make an appearance. But so far, when it comes to his job (if you can even call it that yet), he’s very steady, predictable, and easy.

Things might change when I swing a leg over and actually start doing things… we’ll see. I’ve had some that were exactly the same for groundwork as they were under saddle, and others that were totally different. He IS only 2 years, 8 months, and 9 days old, after all (but who’s counting?).

ME. IT’S ME. I’M COUNTING.

I am kind of functioning at peak anxiety level right now. Work has been BONKERS in a way that it has never been before. Not just busy but also weird things happening and random problems that seem to sprout up every couple hours and need to be fixed, plus process changes and system changes that may or may not be working. Our customers are trying to wrap up their end of year spending so everyone needs everything RIGHT NOW. I don’t recall a time when I’ve ever been this stressed out at work, and I’ve been here almost 15 years. It feels a little like this:

Plus the place that I like to escape to so that I can look at pictures of ponies and see all the fun things that are going on – social media – has been batshit crazy as well. It’s like a weird game of “how freaked out can you make equestrians on social media in one week”, and the universe accepted the challenge. The depo debacle, a trainwreck of comments at the ML reappearance, the FEI making helmets mandatory (I CAN’T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE STILL ARGUING ABOUT HELMETS IN 2019), and then the GM thing. Bam bam bam bam one after the other. Like for real, I doubt the Chronicle’s facebook page has ever gotten this much action in a week. It’s madness.

And then I had the bright idea to listen to the Hunting Warhead podcast, about the biggest child sexual abuse websites on the dark web, how they got busted, and the people who created them. It’s beyond fucked up. I mean, really though, everyone should listen to that podcast, it’s so important to understand, but jesus christ.

Oh yeah, and my horse is lame. Makes sense since I just finished paying an unrelated $1300 vet bill. WHY NOT GO FOR ROUND TWO. IT’S NOT LIKE I’M TRYING TO SAVE MONEY FOR A HOUSE OR ANYTHING. No profit sharing or bonuses at work this year either. Hope no one wanted Christmas presents.

Also this morning I tripped over nothing and fell down while carrying all the horses’ breakfast. So. You could say things are going well for me at the moment.

In between torturing myself with real life, people screaming “it was a different time!” on social media, and dropping shit, I’ve retreated to the holy sanctity of memes. You can always count on a good meme to make you feel better, ya know? That’s the kind of mindless entertainment I need right now. Here are a few of the week’s favorites:

(Hair is currently burgundy as I work my way through my arctic fox colors…)

And perhaps the most relevant:

Might try that in the next meeting. That should go over fine, right?

I’ve also started putting together my big annual Black Friday sales list, which kinda makes me want to a die a little bit in and of itself, but hey why not. If any business owners are reading this, please shoot me a message via my comment page or on my facebook/instagram with info about your sale so I can make sure you get included. This will go live next Wednesday or Thursday and as usual I’ll keep updating it as we move through the weekend. Hope everyone is ready for some shopping (I’m not, because horses)!

Happy Friday!

I have had my JRT mix, Stewie, for 14 years. He is without a doubt my OG sidekick, having outlasted many relationships, had many horse-brothers, and been on all kinds of crazy adventures with me (fact: he LOVES kayaking, and he’s also finished a 5k.). I got him when he was just 6 weeks old, sourced through a post on an online horse bulletin board of someone giving away some “oops” puppies. He’s the first dog that was ever completely my own, and I must say, he was the cutest puppy ever.

He’s been around horses for his entire life, too, obviously. I couldn’t bring him to the barn with me daily, because he wanted to stay right on the heels of whatever horse I was riding, but he still got to come out on a pretty regular basis and roll in dirt, wallow in ponds, and try to sneak bites of horse poop (why, dogs, why?).

It’s gotten a bit harder to do that in the past several years, though. Some barn owners don’t want you bringing dogs out, which I completely understand and respect. Stewie knows Henry, but they’re more like cousins who only see each other a couple times a year on holidays. They get along well though. Henry isn’t worried about dogs, and Stewie is scared enough of horses to generally keep himself out of harms way, but not so scared that they can’t interact.

Not to mention the elephant in the room – Stewie has aged. He’s still got a lot of that natural JRT zest, but he’s a little more… senile than he used to be. Plus he’s gotten quite hard of hearing.

When I moved out to the farm I decided to bring him with me. I prefer having a dog around when I’m alone, plus he really isn’t happy at home when I’m not there. He’s been my best dude for 14 years, and he’s not that “into” anyone else. Not to mention that, if we’re being totally honest, he much preferred being an only dog. He and Quinn the corgi aren’t enemies, but they aren’t the best of friends either. So Quinn and the cat stayed in Austin with the SO, and Stewie moved out to the farm with me. At 14, he’s finally a full-time barn dog.

And well… he loves it. He sleeps all day when I’m at work, then when I get home he comes out to the barn with me and hangs out while I do chores. He rolls in the grass, chases lizards, and goes around cleaning up whatever few pellets the horses dropped in their shavings. When I drive the spreader out to the way back, he waits for me about halfway down the alleyway, and as I come driving back he gallops along in front of me, leading the charge back to the barn. He’s delighted, and it’s adorable.

I do have to watch him extra-closely, especially since he’s almost deaf. He’s got that terrier instinct to want to put his nose in places he really shouldn’t, so I always have to keep an eye on where he is and what he’s getting into. There are snakes and coyotes and other critters out here. I also can’t call him if he gets too far away, since he can’t hear me. When I’m working directly with the horses, he has to stay inside.

Living the barn dog life, I can really see how much he’s aged, which makes me sad. But on the other hand he’s still pretty spry and happy and energetic for a dog that’s creeping up on 15. I do know that he’s quite enjoying his new role, though… he definitely LOVES being a barn dog again. That makes my heart happy too.

I figure there will be a lot of funny faux-pas type stories as I go along with my new full time farm living, so why not just go ahead and start a series? I’ve already been laughing at myself a few times, but my favorite dumb moment so far has been my misadventure with the alarm. The property is rigged pretty thoroughly with cameras and a Ring system, which the alarms are also synced with. To start the story of how I so thoroughly tested the alarm system, first I have to set the stage for you.

See, it was cold last week. Really cold, especially for a Texan, and especially in November. I mean seriously, a month ago it was 95 degrees, and all the sudden we had a whole week where it got down into the 20’s. And it was raining. There was legit frozen shit falling from the sky (ok, not at the farm, but nearby). I know I’m a baby compared to northern standards, but I was a popsicle.

So on one of those cold nights, after spending days being some level of cold 24/7, when I got in the shower after cleaning stalls and feeding the horses, I cranked up the hot water. I mean really really hot. And I let it run until my skin was pink from head to toe and I was enveloped in a steamy wonderland and I was finally hot again. It was delightful. Eventually I climbed out of the shower, feeling refreshed and happy in that glorious way that only a truly hot shower on a really cold day can achieve.

And then, my dog pushed the bathroom door open.

As soon as the door cracked enough to release all the steam in the bathroom, it billowed directly into the smoke alarm. It immediately started blaring with that horrible ear-splitting screech, making me jump completely out of my skin. Mind you, I had barely even reached for a towel at this point, much less dried off or gotten dressed.

A few seconds after the smoke alarm started blaring, the Ring alarm started blaring too. From on top of the refrigerator came another ear-splitting screech, so now there were two sources of screeching creating a lovely cacophony of noise in stereo. As I’m fumbling with the towel, trying to get out in the hallway to turn the smoke alarm off, I now hear my phone in the bedroom (from yet another direction) alarming too, because the Ring sends you notifications when alarms are triggered. Make that THREE sources of screeching.

So there I am, dripping wet, losing all of my glorious warmth by the second, trying to silence all these alarms coming from all different directions. I got the smoke alarm first, hoping that if I silenced the source it would shut all 3 of them up, but the Ring kept going. I had to dash across the house clinging to my towel (hello, across the street neighbors) and try to figure out how to turn it off. I was unsuccessful, so I dashed back to the bedroom, still in my towel (hello again, across the street neighbors), and opened the Ring app, where I was finally able to shut off the alarm.

Now I was wet, cold, wrapped partially in a towel, and had left a trail of water in my wake from one end of the house to the other. And I was definitely no longer relaxed. Probably a bit traumatized about taking hot showers forever, honestly. I’ve developed a real complex about it.

And then of course, the home owner texted and asked what was on fire, because I forgot they get the Ring alarm notifications too. God, I can only imagine them sitting there eating dinner or something in Florida and all the sudden their phones go off with a fire alarm at home. I had to explain that no, nothing was on fire, I was just cold and took a shower so hot that the steam set off the smoke alarm. Only me. ONLY FREAKING ME.

I guess, in the alarm’s defense, it was a really hot shower.