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Sunday, November 21
Nov. 22nd, 2021 01:40 amToday I am grateful for:
I managed to get up early (for me) to get to the riding barn. The owner R was going to another facility to give a mini-clinic on rider fitness, and I paid to attend too. I got a ride with her to the clinic, and I didn't want to be late at all because she needed to be on time.
It was a good clinic. R demonstrated several exercises for improving rider posture and balance, and I am going to try to incorporate some of the movements into my life. She also demonstrated some stretches for the horse, but she already showed those to me in our lessons at the barn so they weren't new to me.
I enjoyed the people. Most of them were boarders at this other facility, and they were really fun. There was also a very sweet little chihuahua puppy and a very loving cat that basically sat on one person after another soaking up all the love it could possibly get.
One of these people USED to board at this barn that held the clinic today, but was in the process of moving their horse to...the barn where I used to board River. The one that had the garbage hay that ruined his breathing, that had the muddy pens that were under water every spring, and the one where the owner fed the horses round bales and wouldn't put new hay out until every scrap of moldy garbage at the end was cleaned up, and even then would often not put a new bale out until the next day.
I will be open in saying that there were good things about that barn too, there had to have been or I wouldn't have stayed as long as I did. I would get lulled into thinking that things would be okay, and sometimes months would go by where they hay was okay, my horse was okay, and the pens were dry and I would forget how bad they could be. The arena itself was great, the barn was good, and the lessons and farrier and such were okay. She helped me a lot with my confidence issues. There were sometimes fun events like a Halloween party, or a good clinic.
What was also bad was that you could never question B. If I had an issue with anything, her answer was often "then maybe you need to go to another barn". She started charging a holding fee for bringing your horse into the barn for the farrier, even if you wanted to bring him in yourself (she wouldn't let you, and made you pay the fee). She would get angry if she found out you took your horse over the the stored hay to eat something when the feeders had been empty all day. She saw me doing this and said I was "stealing hay" and threatened to ask me to leave if she caught me doing it again. She would never do extra things for the horses, like put on their blankets if it threatened to really get cold overnight. Either you came out yourself and put on a blanket, or it didn't happen. She would not be responsible for giving horses extra feed if they needed more than the hay, not even if you paid for the extra feed yourself and paid her extra to give it to them. If you pointed out hazards like a broken board in a pen, she was often almost angry that you brought it up, and it wouldn't get fixed for days. At one point, she was very low on hay and was giving the horses hay cubes, but didn't put the feed in troughs. She poured them on the manure and mud in the spring when it was all wet, and they likely ate as much mud as they did hay cubes.
In the end, it was her overall attitude that made me feel like she neither cared about me as a client, or about the health and welfare of my horse. There have been lots of other people who left too who felt the same way.
I told this woman what I thought of that stable, and hopefully she at least goes there with her eyes open, and a plan for where to take her horse if she has problems.
When I brought River to our current barn last year, he was underweight with very little muscle development, and breathing issues. R has brought him up to the best weight I have ever seen him, with lots of muscle now. His breathing will always require some management, but the hay at R's will not make it worse. Mostly he has trouble on hot, dry days or if there is smoke in the air from forest fires. From time to time R felt like he might need a bit extra food, and made sure he got extra feed and would bring him in and feed him on days when I didn't ride. She is very open about the quality of the hay, talks to me about the nutritional analysis, and would be very open to exploring any supplements I needed to feed him. There is a laminitic horse there that R goes to great lengths to find the right hay for her, and even soaks the hay to reduce the sugar content for that mare.
I came home and my sweetie was cooking up a storm. He cut up our pumpkin from Halloween (we only drew on it) and made soup and pumpkin loaf, and I baked the seeds. They are wonderful.
He looked at the wiring in the porch, and apparently it is going to be a hard job figuring out where the wiring even comes from, because the wiring in that room appears not to be directly wired to the box, but somehow piggy-backed to wiring in another room.
He put up a tiny bit of insulation on Friday, and I guess that's all that's going to happen on the house this set of days while he's home. If that's all we're going to get done when he's home, I don't know when that addition will actually be livable. Not this year, if this is our new pace of accomplishment. A roll of insulation represents progress for two weeks until he's home again.
We watched "Free Man"', though I was really tired from getting up early and not really getting any sleep. I enjoyed what I did see, even though I'm not a gamer. I got the general idea.
I managed to get up early (for me) to get to the riding barn. The owner R was going to another facility to give a mini-clinic on rider fitness, and I paid to attend too. I got a ride with her to the clinic, and I didn't want to be late at all because she needed to be on time.
It was a good clinic. R demonstrated several exercises for improving rider posture and balance, and I am going to try to incorporate some of the movements into my life. She also demonstrated some stretches for the horse, but she already showed those to me in our lessons at the barn so they weren't new to me.
I enjoyed the people. Most of them were boarders at this other facility, and they were really fun. There was also a very sweet little chihuahua puppy and a very loving cat that basically sat on one person after another soaking up all the love it could possibly get.
One of these people USED to board at this barn that held the clinic today, but was in the process of moving their horse to...the barn where I used to board River. The one that had the garbage hay that ruined his breathing, that had the muddy pens that were under water every spring, and the one where the owner fed the horses round bales and wouldn't put new hay out until every scrap of moldy garbage at the end was cleaned up, and even then would often not put a new bale out until the next day.
I will be open in saying that there were good things about that barn too, there had to have been or I wouldn't have stayed as long as I did. I would get lulled into thinking that things would be okay, and sometimes months would go by where they hay was okay, my horse was okay, and the pens were dry and I would forget how bad they could be. The arena itself was great, the barn was good, and the lessons and farrier and such were okay. She helped me a lot with my confidence issues. There were sometimes fun events like a Halloween party, or a good clinic.
What was also bad was that you could never question B. If I had an issue with anything, her answer was often "then maybe you need to go to another barn". She started charging a holding fee for bringing your horse into the barn for the farrier, even if you wanted to bring him in yourself (she wouldn't let you, and made you pay the fee). She would get angry if she found out you took your horse over the the stored hay to eat something when the feeders had been empty all day. She saw me doing this and said I was "stealing hay" and threatened to ask me to leave if she caught me doing it again. She would never do extra things for the horses, like put on their blankets if it threatened to really get cold overnight. Either you came out yourself and put on a blanket, or it didn't happen. She would not be responsible for giving horses extra feed if they needed more than the hay, not even if you paid for the extra feed yourself and paid her extra to give it to them. If you pointed out hazards like a broken board in a pen, she was often almost angry that you brought it up, and it wouldn't get fixed for days. At one point, she was very low on hay and was giving the horses hay cubes, but didn't put the feed in troughs. She poured them on the manure and mud in the spring when it was all wet, and they likely ate as much mud as they did hay cubes.
In the end, it was her overall attitude that made me feel like she neither cared about me as a client, or about the health and welfare of my horse. There have been lots of other people who left too who felt the same way.
I told this woman what I thought of that stable, and hopefully she at least goes there with her eyes open, and a plan for where to take her horse if she has problems.
When I brought River to our current barn last year, he was underweight with very little muscle development, and breathing issues. R has brought him up to the best weight I have ever seen him, with lots of muscle now. His breathing will always require some management, but the hay at R's will not make it worse. Mostly he has trouble on hot, dry days or if there is smoke in the air from forest fires. From time to time R felt like he might need a bit extra food, and made sure he got extra feed and would bring him in and feed him on days when I didn't ride. She is very open about the quality of the hay, talks to me about the nutritional analysis, and would be very open to exploring any supplements I needed to feed him. There is a laminitic horse there that R goes to great lengths to find the right hay for her, and even soaks the hay to reduce the sugar content for that mare.
I came home and my sweetie was cooking up a storm. He cut up our pumpkin from Halloween (we only drew on it) and made soup and pumpkin loaf, and I baked the seeds. They are wonderful.
He looked at the wiring in the porch, and apparently it is going to be a hard job figuring out where the wiring even comes from, because the wiring in that room appears not to be directly wired to the box, but somehow piggy-backed to wiring in another room.
He put up a tiny bit of insulation on Friday, and I guess that's all that's going to happen on the house this set of days while he's home. If that's all we're going to get done when he's home, I don't know when that addition will actually be livable. Not this year, if this is our new pace of accomplishment. A roll of insulation represents progress for two weeks until he's home again.
We watched "Free Man"', though I was really tired from getting up early and not really getting any sleep. I enjoyed what I did see, even though I'm not a gamer. I got the general idea.
