Grace has officially been here for over a week now! And it’s been a pretty busy week…

The farrier came on Monday, the barn owners left for Florida on Wednesday, the vet came on Friday to do teeth, I went through and cleaned out all my trunks/bins/trailer/tack room to get stuff ready to take to the new consignment shop nearby (gotta make room for the Black Friday purchases that have started to arrive), fired up the Cricut to crank out some WTW stuff, I’ve ridden Grace 5 times now, Hillary has come out to ride Henry a few times, and yesterday we went out to a horse show to cheer on some friends. According to my tracker I’ve walked 26 miles in 5 days, with 13 of those being on Saturday and Sunday. It’s been busy. And, of course, not without drama.

I was out in the barn on Thursday poking around and glanced out in the field to see Grace literally standing there on 3 legs. Like… waving a front one around as if it was broken. That’s cool, I didn’t need those extra 5 years on my lifespan anyway. I ran out and found that she had sprung a shoe, twisting it just enough in the process to where the clip was embedded in her white line. I got her into the barn and set about trying to remove the shoe, which… was not easy. It took me a while, with a lot of sweating and cursing. Only two of the eight nails had come loose and the rest of the shoe was EXTREMELY SECURE so getting it off was not a simple task, especially while trying very hard not to damage her foot or take any wall with it. I finally got it off though, and immediately cleaned and flushed out the spot where the clip had gone in, wrapped it with some animalintex, put a boot on it, and texted the farrier. Then marched inside and ordered more/better farrier tools, because – and I cannot stress this enough – EFF THAT SHIT.

She was a little foot sore that afternoon but by the next day she looked 100%, so even though she was still wearing the boot I took her for a short hack. I try to avoid jumping or doing anything particularly strenuous in the boot, because it does make their footfalls a little uneven, but I’ve never had a problem riding Henry in it, so I figured I’d see how Grace did. She handled it totally fine and felt great, so the next day I took her in the ring and did a little flatwork.

She’s still a bit forward and distracted, being in a new place and back in a more regular work schedule, but she’s getting better and better every ride. You can definitely tell there’s a nice horse in there that has had a lot of good training. She’s already earned herself the nickname Mingo (do I call any horse by it’s actual name? Rarely.) because when she wants a treat she folds up one front leg like a flamingo and just stands like that, staring at you. I find it hilarious so it always works.

Hillary also got to jump Henry a little bit, his favorite thing. I love this horse so much, and seeing other people enjoy him only makes me love him more. He’s just the goodest dude and the most golden of eggs, he brings me joy and makes me laugh every day.

He’s already got Hillary trained with the cookie delivery service, too. He requires two when you go get him, one when you get to the crossties, one when you put on his saddle, one when you put on his bridle, one when you dismount, two when you turn him back out. At minimum. Those are the rules, and he made sure she learned it quickly. Hillary has delivered in full, coming every time armed with a big bag of German Horse Muffins, and not even breaking them in half like I do. When she showed up on Sunday he came up to the gate and waited for her to come get him. Guess she’s got the official Henry seal of approval. He also showed her his very best dolphin impression when we were out hacking. What a gentleman.

On Friday Grace got her teeth done, which she was due for. She’s only here for a few months but I figure if I’m going to be asking her to work for me, it’s only fair that she’s taken care of. She’s not so sure that she likes me all that much, with my horseshoes and my dental work and all my riding, and just wait til I clip her. I’m definitely making the barefoot-and-pregnant broodmare life more attractive to her, I think.

Since she had the dental on Friday I rode her in the hackamore this weekend. Boy does she ever feel Irish in a hackamore… it was about as useful as riding her in a halter. It got the job done well enough though and we got rides in on both weekend days. I’ve been utilizing the little hills in the back on the hacking trail to try to help strengthen her stifles a bit, and she seems to really like riding out there. We also did some flatwork in the jump field just so she could get used to the space (it has trees bordering one side that cows are often lurking in, so it can be a bit spooky) so now she’s been ridden on and seen every inch of the property basically.

For everyone who said she looked big… we sticked her and she’s 16.1. Not particularly tall, just really deep and wide in the heartgirth so she takes up a lot of leg.

After we hacked on Sunday we drove out to Pine Hill for their horse trials to watch some friends go. I feel like the off season is always the best time of year around here, with lots of people moving up a level and young horses making their debut. This show was no different, and everybody had a good day even if it was a bit warm for December.

We’ve already got more riding plans for this week and this weekend, hopefully the weather cooperates and, uh, the farrier gets out here to put Grace’s shoe back on. I’ve also got some fun packages arriving this week that will merit some discussion I think, and I’m hoping to have a post ready tomorrow about Grace’s “family tree”, so maybe I can actually keep things interesting on the blog front.

Hope everybody had a good weekend! How is it already December 6th??? Time flies.

So there I was, scrolling innocently through inflatable Christmas decorations (as one does) when I came across the best one ever.

And I was like… “you know who needs that? Michelle.” aka The Babies. I had visions of all these adorable things they’d do and the cute pictures that would result. I’m here for the pictures, ya know? So I ordered it and sent it to Michelle’s. To help make sure the babies wouldn’t be too afraid of it she opened it up out in their pasture, set out the uninflated “body” for them to sniff, and then started to blow it up.

They thought it was kind of interesting, and stood back a little bit to watch it grow to it’s full height.

And then once it was inflated they immediately came over to check out their new little Christmacorn friend.

They all got a good look at him, trying to figure out exactly what species this was. I don’t know what I expected them to do exactly, but in my mind it was more… exciting than this. They just sniffed him. Zero theatrics, not even a fun little yeehaw prance around while they summoned the bravery to approach him. NOTHING. I GOT NOTHING. They just kept sniffing him… face and tail especially.

The only semi-exciting part was when he fell over. The babies skittered a few feet backward and then reapproached with concern over Christmacorn’s general welfare.

And that was the beginning and end of the excitement over Christmacorn. They quickly lost interest and wandered away. Little turds! This barely counts as entertainment, I expected better from them.

I was hoping for like half an hour of actual excitement and instead I got 5 minutes of mild intrigue. Next time I guess I’ll have to spring for the 9′ tall inflatable Clydesdale…

You guys know by now that I love pretty much any kind of art with my horses on it. I’ve got paintings (on canvas and on glassware), stickers, crochet, clothing… if you put a Henry or a Presto on it, I’m sold.

I also really love stained glass. The whole reason I got a transom window above the front door in the tiny house was so that I could get a stained glass panel made to hang there (which I have totally failed at because of my crippling indecision about what should be on said panel). I’ve always thought stained glass was really pretty though, and even follow a couple of artists on Instagram.

About a month ago Hillary said that she got my Christmas present and was really excited about it, thinking it’s the best she’s ever done when it comes to gift-giving. Like to the point where she should just retire from buying presents for anyone at all. That’s a bold claim, so I wracked my brain about what the heck she could have possibly gotten me… I feel like I’m kind of hard to shop for really, I’m picky and I’m not a normal person and if I want something I tend to just get it (unless you want to buy me like, a couple new saddles or a truck or whatever… I have plenty of things on the “massively expensive” list). She does know me really well though, so I figured if anyone could nail it, it would be her.

She was so excited about it that she didn’t want to wait for Christmas, and when we decided to go up to Megan’s to drop off Lex/pick up Grace, she was like “OMG I have to bring it so we can get a pic of it with Presto”. At this point I was super confused about WTF it could be. A pic of it with Presto? What? Turns out, this is what:

Y’all, I died. It’s a little stained glass Presto, complete with his epic side eye and everything. I was cackling. It really does look just like him too, even the shape of his face and the emo forelock. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and I’m obsessed with it and Hillary was right, she should retire from gift-giving because she’s won.

We presented it to Presto but he wasn’t as impressed with it as I was. He was like “neeeeeh, looks nothing like me”.

I had to order some hooks for it, but once they get here it’ll live on my kitchen window above my sink. It’s just the right size and gets some afternoon sunlight, so I think it’ll be really pretty, and I get to see Noodle’s goofy face all the time. I LOVE IT.

Astute observers of the black friday sale list updates may have noticed that after Thursday night there were way fewer updates than I normally do. That’s because I was busy getting other things.

The acquisition of Grace worked out pretty fortuitously. Hillary was already planning to take Lex up to Megan’s after Thanksgiving to drop him off for a few months training. Michelle needed to take Nalah (Lissa’s Catoki filly, if anyone remembers her… she’ll be 3 soon!) over to Megan’s husband Reed to get her started under saddle. We were able to coordinate things to where Michelle took Nalah and Grace over to Megan’s earlier in the week, and then Hillary and I came up on Friday, dropped off Lex at “camp”, stayed overnight and socialized, and then took Grace home in Hillary’s trailer on Saturday. It’s only 3.5 hours from here to Megan’s, vs 6 hours from here to Michelle’s, plus I got an excuse to see Presto while I was there. Worked out great, and I much appreciate both Michelle and Hillary’s efforts in helping me get Grace here, and Megan for letting her squat in her barn for a few days. Horse friends are the best friends.

We left Megan’s shortly after dawn on Saturday with Grace, and while she was snorty about it all she loaded right up with no funny business and rode home like an absolute champ. I don’t think her head left her hay net the entire ride, and she was quiet as a mouse back there even when we stopped at a strip mall in BackassNowhere for donuts.

It was cold and rainy by the time we got home and kept raining all afternoon, so she had to spend her first day in her stall, which is situated right between Henry and Quinnie (Presto’s stall!). She mostly ignored them and ate her hay. The good part about the horses having to spend that first day inside is that they all got to meet and settle in together with the stall walls between them, so by the next morning we were able to just go ahead and turn them all out together with little drama. Well… Grace has been living in the desert of West Texas for a while, so she seemed to be having some real Ireland flashbacks out here at first.

She woohoo’d for a while before settling in to eat grass, and largely avoided any kind of direct contact or confrontation with Henry or Quinnie. She seems to want to opt out of drama in general. She’s not super submissive, but she also would rather remove herself from a situation rather than escalate it. She’s smart and has a good sense of self-preservation. Henry kept trying to pester her into drama but she just wouldn’t take the bait.

Later that day it had dried up enough to hack, so Hillary came out to ride Henry and I hopped on Grace. My saddle fits her pretty decently, and her head is the same size as Henry’s so that works out bridle-wise. The only thing that didn’t fit her was my girths, I had to squish her into Henry’s, but luckily the next day my Black Friday girth showed up and that one fits better.

We walked them all over the property – front field, both rings, and then all the way to the back to and around the hacking path. Grace was definitely alert and a little snorty but she’s the kind of horse that still wants to keep going forward even when she’s unsure, which I REALLY like. We trotted a bit once we got out in the back… she’s also quite sensitive and light, definitely rides more like a TB. Which again, I like. That’s my type. She’s VERY wide in the heartgirth though, boy… she’s not very tall but she’s stout through the shoulder and chest and there’s a lot of neck up in front of you, so she rides a lot bigger than she is.

On Monday she got her feet done. She’s been barefoot out there in the West Texas sand, and her feet are pretty good, but my farrier and I both had some concerns about trying to keep her barefoot and in work here where it’s rockier and the soil is more coarse. She’d already started to chip off a little piece of toe so ultimately we opted to put shoes on her fronts. Once again she was perfectly behaved for the farrier and never put a foot out of place the entire time. She gets a lot of gold stars for how easy she is to do things with and how she conducts herself in the barn and on the ground.

I hacked her again yesterday as her first ride with her shoes and she felt great, so now we’ll start moving into a more normal schedule. Michelle was riding her some, but not consistently, so I want to give her body time to acclimate to being a riding horse again before just throwing her into full work. Friday she’s getting her teeth done and that’ll be the last thing she needs before we’re “all systems go”.

Henry definitely has some jealousy issues to work through. I’ve been giving him lots of cookies and attention but he still stood at the gate and shot daggers at me with his eyeballs the entire time I was tacking Grace up yesterday. He’s got issues. He was being a little bit mean to Grace the first couple days too (he can be a MASSIVE asshole in the pasture sometimes until he decides he really likes the horse) but that behavior seems to have settled down. Henry is just extremely territorial about Quinnie and doesn’t want anyone else near her, even though Quinnie is damn well capable of taking care of herself. It’s more of a “she’s my friend, you can’t talk to her” dynamic. He’s a stage 5 clinger. I’ve actually caught him and Grace hanging out a couple times with Quinnie further away though, so I think in a couple more weeks they’ll be the three muskateers. Henry just has to get over his drama.

We’re only a few days in but so far, so good, knock on wood. She seems to have transitioned just fine, she’s eating and drinking well, and she’s behaving herself impeccably. And even having just sat on her a couple times and seeing her more in person, its changed my opinion on stallions for her slightly, or at least re-ordered my top 3 favorites. This is exactly why having rideable broodmares is such a nice bonus, it really gives you a better picture of what they’re like.

At some point next week I’ll do a post all about her pedigree and family, since she’s a pretty interesting one having been imported from Ireland. For now it’s kind of fun having a redhead in the barn for a change!

I mean, if your bank doesn’t contact you at some point to verify that all these charges are valid, have you even Black Fridayed?

Since I’m the one that makes the big stupid giant sale list, there’s really no way for me to avoid them. Especially because whenever possible I make sure to click into the site, make sure the link works, and verify the sale/details before I post it, in an effort to be as accurate as possible. That means I see A LOT of sales, which is both a great thing and a terrible thing. I’ve learned to just embrace it at this point. I know it’s inevitable. And honestly, it is a great time to stock up on things, or splurge less severely on something you’ve been wanting.

I tend to prepare for Black Friday weekend with a three pronged approach 1) I use it to load up on essential items that I use all the time anyway, like fly spray or shampoo or supplements or whatever… may as well save a few bucks and make sure I’m well-stocked. I just finished last Black Friday’s fly spray a couple months ago. 2) I always go into it with a few “wish list” items of things I don’t really NEED but would like to have, and if I find items that fit the criteria and are on a good enough sale to excite me, I’ll get them. 3) I’m always on the lookout for gifts, or wicked good one-off sale items. They’re usually rare, but sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time and who am I to deny fate?

Approach #2 failed miserably this year. I nabbed a lot of great things, this was one of my best years ever as far as deals I think (absolutely aced #3), but only one of them was (sort of) on my pre-game list. Again though, some of the deals were SMOKIN and I will actually use everything I got. I had to do some major digging for some of it, but I was rewarded. Here’s the damage:

– leather Pro Choice monoflap girth for $40 (normally $180). I mean… COME ON. They only had size 26, which Henry and Presto both have a 24 but I have a feeling that Presto is edging pretty close to 26 now or will be solidly 26 soon. Turns out to have been an extra fortuitous purchase though because Grace actually fits better in the 26, so I’m glad I have one to use on her!
– Jack’s nebulizer kit for $160 (normally $290) … I’ve waffled back and forth for YEARS on trying a nebulizer with Henry in an attempt to help him with some of his breathing issues, and this was the push I needed. If it doesn’t help I wasn’t out much and I can def sell it and recoup my cost, so it seemed worth a shot.

– those big ass stall front blanket storage bags for $12 (normally $28). Planning to logo this up with my Cricut and use it as a saddle pad/scrim sheet bag for shows.
– a set of 4 black pillow wraps for $10 (normally $25) Presto is a serial pillow wrap murderer and they were $10, done.
– nylon rain quarter sheet for $20 (normally $40) I sold my last quarter sheet because it was just too heavy for Texas, this one is much lighter weight so I think I can/will actually use it.
– a ROM breastplate for $85 (it’s very similar to the Fairfax which is like $350, the ROM is normally $110ish depend on the exchange rate). I got a custom breastplate in this style made for Presto this summer that I love, but 1) it was a lot more expensive than this, 2) it lives with him at the training barn. I really wanted a second one for home/Henry/Grace and the price is hard to beat.
– a couple sunshirts from Urban Strides, two for the normal price of one since they were already on sale and the Black Friday code stacked. My sunshirts are looking a bit sad, I’ve got ones in there that are 8 years old and definitely need to be retired. But I’m also cheap. So. Perfect sale.

– a clipper blade sharpener kit for $27 (normally $60). Will this thing even work? Maybe, maybe not. Worth a try considering the massive pile of used blades that I either need to chunk or drive the 40 mins up to the sharpening place (and then wait the week turnaround time and drive back, and then pay $7 a blade, blah blah blah). We’ll call this an experiment. I’ve certainly wasted more money on worse things.
– 6lb bag of German Horse Muffins for $15 (normally $30) Henry and Grace are gonna get the beetus for Christmas!
– one of those rapid-dry towel material coolers for $26 (normally $55) I REALLY wanted one of these a few times last year when I was having to try so hard to get Henry and Presto dry in dreary drizzly winter weather, so for $26 boom in my cart.
– some barn chore winter gloves for $10 (normally $20), I actually needed some bad, this was on my pre-game list
– a pair of Pomme breeches that I’ve reaaaally been lusting after for $90 (normally $140). This was maybe my one thing I couldn’t totally justify but like, look. Leave me alone. It was a pretty good discount at least. Black breeches were also on my pre-game list, although I’d been eyeballing the Quur (which never did go on sale at all, boo) instead of the Pomme.

Plus I got a free $50 gift card back with one of the purchases from a bigger store, which I will definitely use even if just for dewormer or ointment or whatever else. It’ll come in handy at some point. I did at least do a decent job of fulfilling the first item on my list of objectives in that I obtained some less-fun essential things like double ended snaps, blanket replacement straps, fly spray, salt licks, shampoo, and a few months worth of Redmond Rock all at great discounts. I failed pretty hard at finding gifts but did get a couple non-horsey things.

I’m pretty freaking excited about some of these deals though. I spent a little more than I’d planned but I also got a lot for the money. And I feel like it was a fairly reasonable mix of practical essentials and more fun items. The real peak Black Friday energy moment was on my very last purchase of all this, the Pomme breeches, when my bank was finally like “what the actual f are you doing?” and I had to assure them that it was indeed a legitimate charge to Sweden 5 minutes after I bought a donut in the middle of nowhere Texas lol. Have you even Black Fridayed correctly if your bank hasn’t been like

But, ya know… I don’t feel that bad about it. There’s a new consignment store that just opened not that far away so the objective this week is to go through my bins and pull out everything that got “leveled up” in this sale (like a couple old girths and breastplates and maybe some clothes and stuff) and take over there. That’s, uh…. sort of a wash?

The mail is gonna be super fun this week, anyway. Merry Christmas to me (and Henry. and Presto. and Grace.)! And of course now today it’s Giving Tuesday, so I hopped over to Strides for Equality this morning and made a donation. I’ve done the Frangible Fund for the past few years so I thought it was time to branch out!

Did you guys find any good deals? How did you fare this Black Friday?