This year I didn’t have an entourage with me at Championships and I found myself really missing our personal photographer from last year (aka Michelle). She was on a flight to Italy on the day of FEH Championships, on her way to Tuscany for vacation. I know, I can’t imagine why she’d rather go to Italy than FEH Champs either. But the venue does have a really good resident photographer, so I signed up and paid my proof fee, because we all know that the most important part of horse shows is the pictures. And we also definitely all know that I really really suck at remembering to take pictures at all, and when I do take pictures they’re generally terrible.

The photographer definitely did not disappoint, and I got a proof folder full of 140 pictures. They were a bit pricey so I had to limit myself, and choosing just a few proved to be quite difficult… not a bad problem to have! In the end I settled for a social media package rather than the hi-res, since I could get more pictures for less money. Plus like… I’m about to live in a tiny house, there’s not going to be room for any more art or photos on the wall anyway (Hillary did get me one of those cool digital picture frames for my birthday that will totally be stuffed with pictures of my horses that shuffle through on repeat).

One of the few things I regret in retrospect with Presto’s mother is that I never really got any nice photos of her like this when she was a baby. Lots of cell phone pictures, and some badly posed photos with real cameras, but nothing like these. These are beautiful. And looking at Presto’s FEH pictures from last year compared to his pictures from this year is really fun, you can see him growing and maturing and changing so much.

But I think one of my favorite things about these photos is how I can so clearly see both parents in him. I see a lot of Sadie in the above photos, which makes sense because he inherited her big floaty trot. For the rest of him, though, I see Mighty Magic. SOOOOOO much Mighty Magic. I mean… look at this:

I swear I think Presto is looking more and more like MM as he grows. They’re two peas in a pod for sure.

Big thanks to Ernesto Photography for these lovely pictures. What would we do without these awesome show photographers?

As of yesterday the boys are all moved in and settled at their new home! I know… that probably seemed fast to y’all, since I kept hush-hush about the whole situation until last week. But the previous barnowner has known about it for a couple months, I just wasn’t really sure if I’d be moving them in October or November. Once we’d talked through the turnout scenarios and logistics at the new place there was really no point in staying, since there was already someone else lined up to take my stall. And since October 1 fell on Tuesday, I figured we might as well go ahead and get them moved the weekend before.

On Saturday I moved all my jumps over, since they’re a trailer load in and of themselves. They’re looking pretty sad these days, so my winter project will be to repair and repaint everything… something that will be a lot easier to do when I’m on site. Tell you what though, after loading all those stupid things in the trailer I was starting to question just how important jumping really was to me. Just kidding. But for real though it was like 100 degrees (this is the neverending summer from hell) and those things are heavy.

On Sunday it was the boys’ turn, and I rode Henry early in the morning then loaded all my stuff up (which only took 4 trips to the trailer, let me be proud of myself for a second) and away we went. We unloaded them and took Henry to the barn, while Presto went over to the front pasture and went out with an older mare and a yearling. As predicted, he and the yearling were fast friends. I think it took all of 10 minutes for them to engage in their first game of Bitey Face.

I think the best part of this new friendship is that the yearling, JB, has even less awareness of personal space than Presto does, so Presto actually finds him a little bit annoying. Talk about a major role reversal from the norm. At one point JB was actually eating grass out of Presto’s mouth and Presto had this exasperated look on his face like “Bro, I’m trying to graze here.”. As you might expect, after watching Presto annoy the shit out of every horse he’s ever met in his entire life, I find this to be HILARIOUS. The mare (who’s official role in this situation is “referee and voice of reason”) wants nothing to do with either of those idiots.

After making sure that those guys were getting along, I started unpacking my stuff. The tack room here is nice and big, plus there are auxiliary storage spaces, so I took this as an opportunity to sort of re-vamp my storage spaces. At the other barn I had all my stuff crammed into my tack trunk, which is kind of hard to keep neat. It inevitably turns into a big black hole and I end up digging around for things all the time. Since I don’t really need all that stuff on a regular basis I went and bought a set of drawers, to hold the regularly used items like boots, tack cleaning stuff, ointments, a fly bonnet, etc.

Everything fits with room to spare, with my bathing bucket and grooming bag stacked next to it. I think this will be easier to work out of with the daily items, and the tack trunk with all of it’s less frequently used stuff is over in the storage barn. It’s nice to have the drawers to keep thing separated and easily accessible.

While Presto is really good at handling whatever life throws at him, Henry is a much more anxious type, so I was a little more worried about how he would settle in. There was a bit of neighing at first, but not bad, and he seemed happy enough eating hay in his stall and watching the goings-on. Since it’s still so hot he’ll stay in the barn during the day with Toni the stallion (the two huffers and puffers) and go out at night in the pasture next to Presto’s. The other horses in the barn go out during the day and are in at night. Henry does best being turned out alone anyway, so it works out well. Once the weather cools down (IF it ever cools down) he can go out during the day too, and they can all be in neighboring pastures. There are plenty of pastures to go around and rotate through here!

Both of them ate dinner well last night and seemed content. JB and Presto are totally two bros in a pod, and Henry isn’t being a screaming idiot so that’s definitely a bonus.

Everyone came up for nightcheck and ate their cookie (I think these boys will quickly become fans of THAT particular perk) and all were happy and well. So… here we are… the new adventure has officially begun, and it’s off to a great start. I think we’ll all be happy out here.

Alternate title: The Comedy of Errors

My brain has been in a lot of places lately, and none of those places had anything to do with this show. Up until Wednesday night I wasn’t even sure if we were going, and I certainly hadn’t put much thought into my preparation. But on Wednesday I showed up at the barn and Presto’s hock looked a lot better… still a bit puffy on the inside where the cut is, but it no longer looked like he had a tennis ball attached to him. He was totally sound (vet-verified, of course), so I bathed him, brushed out his tail, banged it, chopped off some of his fetlock hair and his bridlepath, and chunked him back outside, telling him to make good choices. He promptly shocked himself on the fence, of course. I loaded up my grooming kit and his bridle and called it done.

And then, at 10:00 that night, as I was lying in bed unable to sleep, I suddenly remembered – HEALTH CERTIFICATE. SHIT. I needed a health certificate to get into the show grounds. Cue text to vet “Shit, I totally forgot I need a health certificate! Could you possibly do one in the morning before 9am?”. Yes, I am a terrible client. Not only texting at 10pm because I’m an idiot, but also asking you to do some paperwork for me ASAP. Normally I’m pretty good about this stuff but it had just completely slipped my mind and I was mortified. There were many sorry’s and thank you’s. Thank goodness Presto lives at his house right now.

After that I REALLY couldn’t sleep, and then at midnight one of the guys on my team at work texted and said he wouldn’t be in the next day. Which is normally fine, but there were already two of us that were going to be out, adding him would make 3, and we’re only a 4 person team. Shit. So then I laid awake for a couple more hours thinking of all the things it would affect and what all would have to be moved around or done by someone else.

After what was a quite terrible night’s sleep, I was up at 4:30am to get ready, top off with gas, and drive to the barn. Somewhere during the night I had a wandering thought about remembering to check to make sure that my braiding kit was in the trailer (where I usually leave it), but in my sleep deprived stupor I forgot to check. I just rolled in, hitched up my trailer, pulled Presto out of the field and slapped his quick wraps on, shot some omeprazole in his mouth, and put him directly into the trailer all alone in the dark (what I like to call “kidnapping style”), in a grand total of 6 minutes start to finish.

To his credit, he was great. Walked right in the trailer and didn’t utter a peep.

I had to wait until halfway through the 2 1/2 hour drive for it to be late enough to call another co-worker and fill them in on what was going on with our team and what needed to be done that day or moved, which devolved into questions and “situations”. Fun times. But we pulled into the showgrounds a bit before 8:30, and I parked, went and got my packet. and then came back to unload and braid Presto.

Which is when I realized my braiding kit was not in my trailer. Shit.

I did a quick SOS text to a friend (SOS texts are becoming a theme with this whole experience) who was also there, and she said I was welcome to use her rubber bands. Thank goodness for Christine. Sorry I’m like this as a person.

Since we were all alone in the parking lot I didn’t want to leave Presto there totally unattended, so I grabbed him and all his stuff and traipsed up to the barn. Cue all the screaming. ALL THE SCREAMING. The best word to describe the stabling area at a baby horse show is cacophony, of which Presto enjoys being by far the loudest and highest pitched. There was no going back to the parking lot alone at this point so I tied him in the stabling and went to work on the braids. As I was standing there trying to braid a wiggling baby horse, getting my ear drum burst, and absolutely POURING sweat from head to toe (like for real there was a river dripping into my eyeball), I was questioning all of my life choices.

By the time I was done popping in some braids Presto had settled down a lot, so I put his bridle on and went ahead and took him out to the warmup arena. Once he was “working” he immediately went right back into the normal horse I have at home. He’s just so ADHD, he’s got to have something occupying his brain and moving his feet, even if it’s as simple as walking in a circle. This is something I’ve learned about him from taking him to these shows, so that’s good knowledge to have for the future.

We mostly just walked around, getting him loose and forward, turning away from me, and reacting promptly to a cluck or a whoa. Everything was running a bit slow, and by the time his turn finally came around, he was honestly a little TOO quiet. I handed him over to the handler, who had to try to jazz him back up a little bit before he went in.

Last year Presto screamed the whole way through his time in the ring and had major ants in his pants (it’s asking a lot of a baby horse to leave the area with all the other horses and go into a ring by themselves), but this year he just neighed once, and was very polite in the ring. He stood pretty still and correct, he focused on the handler, and he was just much more professional in general.

His first pass at the trot was definitely a bit sluggish and dull, but I thought the end of the second pass showed his real quality – more active and uphill. He was trotting a bit wide behind though, I think trying to protect his cut hock so he didn’t bang it (a surprisingly intelligent decision on his part).

For as much as they liked him last year, this year they weren’t that impressed. The most positive comments were about his type (good refinement), his feet (good quality), and his walk (active with good overstep). One judge thought he was too light of bone, and the other thought he was perhaps too weak in general to be an upper level horse. Both judges commented on him being wide behind in the trot, with one giving him a 6.8 for that – the lowest score he’s ever gotten for anything. His trot score at his last show was an 8, for comparison. His overall score ended up being a 73, so still respectable, but quite a ways off of his 79 from last year.

Presto ended up 3rd out of the 3 colts, behind two baby stallions (that definitely looked much more developed than he did). I think at this age Presto’s slow-maturing lines are starting to be more obvious, and these types of classes just aren’t going to be where he shines. Either way, he was a super good boy and we had a positive experience. I was very happy with him and how quickly he settled, and his overall behavior. We had to do a lot of standing around between his class and the awards, and he was content to just hang out and graze. Fun fact: his handler is French and we got to talking about stallions, and he said that he really likes Mighty Magic and his offspring. Me too!

Poor Presto was really sleepy by the time we loaded up to go home. The driving, the standing around in the heat/humidity all day, missing his usual morning nap time, and all the excitement of the morning really took their toll. He loaded back up and proceeded to sleep the whole 2.5 hours home. It’s hard being a baby horse.

AND THEN.

I hadn’t pulled his braids out yet because I really just wanted to get him home, so when we pulled in I tossed him in his stall while I unloaded his bridle and grooming bag from the trailer. I left him unattended in his stall with his braids in for a grand total of MAYBE five minutes. I came back inside to undo them and was robotically pulling the bands out at warp speed when I got to this spot in his mane and paused like hmmm… what the heck… I’m pretty sure there was a braid there…

I was like how the hell did he do that? Did he rub it out in the trailer without me seeing it happen on the camera? Did he rub it out on his stall doorway? A quick search around the stall landed my eyes on this:

Yep that would be the entire braid, which he somehow got stuck in the bucket loop even though the rubber cap was on it, and ripped the entire thing off.

Five minutes.

FIVE. MINUTES.

Only Presto.

If you’re reading this, that means Presto and I are on our way to FEH Championships. It’s looked reaaaaaally 50/50 all week, but if the hock swelling is down enough to be presentable, we’ll go. May as well since we can’t get a refund. He probably won’t win, but hopefully it’ll be fun and a learning opportunity anyway. I mean… as fun as a 5 hour round trip journey with a baby horse that involves putting said baby horse on the trailer in the pre-dawn darkness can be. Which now that I put it in writing, I clearly sound like a psychopath.

But anyway.

I didn’t have much time to draft anything else, but please send Presto some good luck vibes today! I um… think he’s gonna need it…

I did want to take the opportunity to repost this, which I saw on facebook yesterday and felt absolutely to the bottom of my soul. Everyone needs to read this facebook post from Kate Samuels and share it. So well said!

You don’t need to pay a lot of money to find a good horse.

You DO, however, need these things:

The experience of having ridden as many horses in your life as you could get your hands on: the good, the bad, the ugly, the sensitive, the scared, the buckers, the stoppers, the very green, the tall, the short, the fat, the skinny, the long giraffes, the well trained horses, the hunters, the jumpers, the dressage horses, the race horses, the not-so-well trained horses, the horses with baggage, the horses with a clean slate. All these horses will be your greatest teachers.

The ability and inclination to learn to be a better horseman, a better rider, and a better caretaker. You’ll never stop learning, and if you do, it’s a real problem. Learn from mistakes, learn from watching others, learn from those you respect and who respect you, learn from success and learn from failure. A wise man once told me, “When you hear a horse person tell you they know everything, it’s a sure sign they’re a dumbass.”

A sense of humor so you can live through the bad days along with the good, and tolerate the abscess from hell just as much as a clear round on cross country.

The patience to think in six month, twelve month, eighteen month increments. The intellectual ability to see tiny building blocks and stack them accordingly for the finished product that will appear in several years. The patience not to skip steps because they are boring or seem unnecessary.

Emotional distance to realize that difficulties you encounter along the way are absolutely not personal and instead just a puzzle you haven’t solved yet.

The connections, friendships and partnerships who are genuinely interested in your success as much as theirs. People who will guide you truthfully. Cheerleaders from all corners. Trainers who know and respect you, vets who are invested in the journey (and maybe great at stitching), and a farrier that might grumble at your horse’s tricky feet but works with you for a solution.

And last, but not least, knowing what a good horse for YOU is. Know what you can realistically ride, what feeling you enjoy in the saddle, and what personality traits work for your personality. A good horse for me is not a good horse for a lot of other riders, and vice versa. Don’t get sucked in by pretty markings or a flashy trot if the stuff that really matters isn’t there.

 

Happy Thursday everyone, and hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with a show recap!

I’ve hinted at big changes coming for me and the boys, probably to an annoying degree, but I didn’t want to “spill the beans” until I was sure that everything would actually come together. It’s been a few months in the making, but now that we’re officially starting to execute the plan I think I can finally tell the story without jinxing anything! Hopefully.

A few months ago the couple that I barnsit for on the regular (and have for… gosh… 6 or so years maybe? oh and hi Rejan – she reads this!) approached me with a proposal. Last year they bought a gorgeous second farm near Wellington, where they now spend their winters doing fancy dressage things. That means that they spend about half their year here, and half in Florida. Last year, the first winter away at the new farm, they buttoned up the farm here and took all of their horses with them, which, considering they have a range of horses from yearling to retired broodmare, was a bit much. Not all of them needed to go, and some would have been happier staying behind. So after a lot of thought, they asked if I’d be interested in putting a tiny house out on their property, living there full time (with the boys of course) and taking care of the farm and the couple horses they leave behind when they go to Florida in the winter.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty great opportunity for a lot of reasons. 1) I get to live with my boys and take care of them myself. This has been my ultimate goal and dream for a long time. 2) The farm is awesome, lots of pasture on nice sandy footing, and has everything I could possibly need from space to ride out to an actual dressage arena. 3) Big financial savings, which in turn equals 4) more opportunity. I would not have to change jobs, but does increase my commute to work big time, from 10 minutes to 45 minutes. BUT right now I’m driving 45 minutes to the barn 5-6 days a week anyway, so… it actually equals out or even ends up being a bit less. Obviously it also increases my responsibilities quite a bit, mostly during the winter when I’m sole caretaker, but having barnsat for them so much by now (with more horses to care for) I know it’s definitely manageable.

Before I could say yes to this, I had to convince the SO. He’s been wanting to live somewhere more rural for a while, so that part was easy, although he wasn’t enthused about the longer commute part or the tiny house part. ESPECIALLY the tiny house part. While living small has always appealed to me in a big way (I hate wasted space, we don’t even live in half of the 1500sq ft we have now – ask me the last time we actually used the dining room or the front bedroom), the SO has a lot of crap, and he loves having a lot of crap. I think when I first said tiny home he was imagining one of those really tiny truck-towable homes or a shipping container or something, but I really wanted a park model RV (for so many reasons I won’t even list them all here), which is a lot different. So I dragged him up to a big dealership up near Dallas and we spent the day looking at various models, which changed his mind about the idea completely. Being able to walk into them and see the space and see the possibilities was a total game changer. We settled on a 399 square foot model with an extra large porch, a loft space, and every dream option you could imagine (like for real, he’s getting a tv and fireplace on the porch and dual rain showerheads, plus all the regular appliances. There’s no hardship involved in this tiny house.), and it still came in under my pre-determined budget.

Ours will be similar to the above (same model), with a few different options. I was super impressed with all the stuff you could change or add or tweak in these. We won’t officially put the order in for ours until closer to spring so that we have more time to save up down payment money, but he totally fell in love with the small-living concept that day. The massive financial savings was the final push he needed… as soon as we looked at the numbers, and what it could mean for us a few years down the line, he was 100% on board. Plus we found out that one of our friends’ parents lives in that exact model, and his feedback was awesome.

After we got a good look at the tiny houses, we had to decide what we’d do with the current house and figure out a realistic timeline. We don’t want to sell the house quite yet so we’re going to rent it out for a while and see how the market does. Our neighborhood has BOOMED in the past several years and with Amazon and Apple campuses adding tons of new jobs nearby, this bodes well for our property value. The neighborhood is already in high demand for rentals. The amount we can rent it out for would cover the mortgage plus the payment for the tiny home, with some left over, but we’re going to take whatever “profit” the house makes beyond the mortgage and put it into savings to cover the updates or repairs that would make the most sense if/when we do decide to sell. Let the house support itself, so to speak.

Rejan is leaving for Florida in November, and we looked at trying to get everything set up and ready to go by then, but there was just no way. We have a lot of stuff to move, throw away, or otherwise figure out what to do with, we gotta actually order the tiny house, it has to be built, the site (a lovely shady corner of the property) needs some prep work, etc. Shrinking 2 lives from 1500 sqft into 400 sqft (ok in fairness the loft adds another 200) is no small task. Plus the house needs a few things done to it before it will be ready to rent. Trying to get all that done within a couple months wasn’t realistic.

So Rejan and her husband talked about it and offered, for this winter, for me to stay in their house on the property. That gives SO and I a lot more time to get things going with moving/packing/consolidating, plus having my horses out there instead of boarded will help save more money towards the down payment of the tiny home, and they’ll still be able to get to leave a couple of their horses behind on the farm for me to take care of. Win-win for everyone. SO can spend his weekday evenings at home working his way through his massive collection of stuff and fixing up his old ’56 Mercury (which he wants to do before we move and he loses the garage space) and getting the house rentable, and come out to the farm on weekends. He can kind of ease his way into farm life and we can ease our way from one place to the other. We also have A LOT of shit to sort through and sell (the only furniture we’re keeping is our bed) and we won’t have room to keep crap just for the sake of it. Everything from couches to tables to kitchen appliances to, yes, even some of my ridiculous collection of horse crap – it’s all gotta go.

The only decision left after getting all that straightened out was deciding when to move the boys and how we wanted to arrange everyone to fit 2 new horses. Presto will have a yearling friend, which is exciting, and there’s plenty of room to accommodate both him and Henry. We talked it through yesterday and figured out a plan for turnout/barn and who to put with who, so… I think we’re ready. I have to figure out an exact moving date, but everything is lined up. The boys will go first so they can settle in (which will also give us time for Rejan to show me things like how to work the tractor, drag the arena, etc), and then I’ll move myself out there full time when they leave in November.

Obviously this is a lot of change in a lot of ways. Neither of us have to change jobs, so it’s not as jarring as packing up and moving far away, but it’s a little scary to leave something comfortable and “known” for something that will definitely offer some challenges and be a lot different. But I’m a big believer in seizing opportunities, especially the rare ones that have the potential to have a huge influence on your life and your future. This is one of those. It feels momentous, it feels important, and mostly… it just feels right. We have a lot to learn about living tiny, but I have no doubt that it will be a grand adventure and that’s what life is all about. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity, and I can’t freakin’ wait to look out my window and see my boys grazing outside. ❤