I journalled for a while. It seems like I actually only write when I'm pretty wound up. This thing with River's breathing really has me anxious, because I know he needs to be somewhere that he won't be fed with a dusty round bale (horses tend to stand in one spot all day, and eat into the bale until they make a hole, and stand there with their head in that hole most of the day. It's just too dusty that way, and it ruins their breathing sometimes).
I've been looking at options, and that first place I looked at is so beautiful and so willing to help with his issues, but I think it's going to be hard to find a dressage coach to come give me lessons, and I wonder if I'm going to end up riding alone. Other than that, it's my first choice.
The other places I've been considering either don't have indoor arenas (a real important thing for me), or they still feed with round bales, or...whatever. They're not working for me.
Yes, I could just bring him home, but the whole point of having him at a barn was so I could ride indoors during the winter, that there would be other people around for safety (no one here at home most of the time), and there are supportive things like lessons and a horse trainer available. People to help you find a saddle that fits, people to help you sort out a training issue, people to give you advice.
So, it's been bothering me for weeks now. I've said for years that the place where he is right now is about 90% what I need. What's missing is that the owner isn't approachable when you have an issue that she feels is a criticism of her (mostly I've only had issues with the hay). Really, just about everything else is pretty good. The other thing I dislike is the mud around there. Whenever it's wet it's worth your life to walk out to get your horse, and the horses end up standing knee deep in mud for weeks, which is really bad for them. There's a lot of problems there with thrush, scratches, and abcesses.
Anyhow, I'm trying to be proactive and I'm looking into a few places, and I tried having a reasonable conversation with the current barn owner, asking her openly and sincerely without blame if there's anything we could do to help River's breathing together. If we could feed him cubes, or if I could buy him small hay bales. I wanted to see if a rational solution could be reached together, and it appears that she does not want to help me at all. She doesn't even think his breathing is bad, and didn't even think I needed to bother getting a vet for him. Some amazing gaslighting going on. Good thing I know better.
It's really been weighing on me, but I have to look at it as "nothing is permanent". Since I found out that the main trainer of the current barn is looking for her own place, I have to consider that this current barn might go bankrupt in a few years. Without this trainer person, this current barn is nothing. Almost everyone at this current barn would likely leave and go to wherever this person goes. So that's an important consideration.
I have to also think, that in two or three years, a lot can change. Some new arenas might go up. Some places might be in different hands. There might be different options. If I go to that very nice farm for a year or two, even if I can't find a coach, one might show up before long. If it turns out not to be perfect, I can try again, but River has a better chance of improving his breathing.
I also looked at my last long entry from May of this year, and it was kind of a recap of all the chaos that was from last summer, and a winter of my husband being gone at work for most of it. You know what, it's been a hell of a year. Having to move everything out of the trailer, tearing the trailer down, having no privacy all summer as crews of people were working in our yard all the time, trying to feed people all the time, never knowing if I was going to have water that day, or a working toilet, or power, not having reliable heat for months at the beginning of winter, dealing with having his parents here helping, having the septic back up into the basement twice last winter, having monster piles of dirt, concrete, old appliances, scrap metal, and lumber all over the yard, dealing with the bank, dealing with trying to pay people after the bank failed to extend us a line of credit after they promised it once the house was on the basement, my sister's partner dying, another sister's husband dealing with cancer, my Mom being in the hospital for a very serious issue, lots of family drama over power of attorney for my Mom, my husband being gone for three months straight and part of that at the beginning of COVID and I had no idea if he would be allowed to come home, losing a dear goat and a turtle this spring, being told a cat had six months to live (he seems to have recovered), thinking I was going to have to amputate another pet goat's hind leg (issue seems to have resolved by giving mineral supplement), not being able to go home to see family, horse at home having an acute respiratory issue, River having breathing issues, huge amount of yard clean up (literally something like 15 loads to the dump with a 15 foot trailer of lumber, garbage, some scrap metal, shingles, etc.), starting to build the addition, and the stress of so much rain through May, June, July that we couldn't work on building, trying to get proper drawings of the addition done for the bank because we STILL don't have extra money to carry on with building, we had BEES in our house and no way to get rid of them safely, all of the additional stress and change associated with COVID, really it's been incredible. Just incredible.
Somewhere in there, there's been good things too. It's nice to be in a good house. I do love it already. I did a lot of painting over the winter, and a lot of it makes me happy. I've come to really appreciate how much people have helped us with everything. We really couldn't have done this without them. All good things.
Overall, the stress levels have been so high for so long, I've almost forgotten what it's like to have nothing big on my mind. Most of the time this past year I've been worried about something.
I know a many of us here have had some incredibly difficult times recently, or are still experiencing them.
So the whole point of this post, is just sort of a declaration of amazement at what a hell of a year it's been (I'm kind of being loose about definition of a year, I'm kind of going from last spring through to this fall, so more like the last 18 months. I'll feel like it's a new year when things shift and it isn't a constant shit show.).
Whenever I just sit in my chair like a zombie and stare at the ceiling for an hour or two because I am completely unable to function, I'm just going to cut myself some slack instead of whining inside "but we need to do the dishes".
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