Author: Amanda

blog hop

TOABH: Sugar Mama

Amanda2 Comments

Let’s continue pretending that horse poop magically transforms into money instead of the other way. So money doesn’t matter. If you could buy anything for your horse, what would you buy?
I mean, beyond the small hobby farm + live-in help, of course!

I’d buy a new truck and trailer, first off.

Trailer: custom Hawk 2h straight load goose neck. I’d expand the dressing room a bit so there was plenty of room for tack trunk as well as my own stuff. I’d make sure it had a water source underneath the goose neck, and would plan the high portion so that it made a comfortable bed.

Then I’d replace my truck, which would go in honorable retirement to my parents where it could live out life as a weekender truck.
I’d get a brand-new, kitted for towing 3/4 ton GMC Sierra. I like GM trucks for towing. I’d get the extended bed, and not the full extended cab – just the king cab. Seats in the back, but not separate doors. 4WD, without question. Honestly? I want exactly my same truck, brand new, with 4WD. I love my truck.
I’d find a reputable storage place to garage them both over the winter so they don’t get wear and tear.
Other than that…?
Both of Tristan’s saddles fit him and me, and I love them. Ditto his bridles. His blankets are all in good working order. He gets the food, supplements, and medication he needs. I might consider doing blood work quarterly, instead of bi-annually.
If he pooped money, I’d pay down my mortgage faster and build up his emergency fund. I’d increase my cash flow so that I could take lessons weekly over the spring, summer, and fall.
I’d probably seriously consider investing money into my current barn. Maybe I’d be some kind of partner in the business so that they could do some major capital improvements. I honestly think the property is marvelous as it is, and they do a nice job maintaining it – but I also know that more money in a horse property is never a bad thing! Or maybe I’d invest in a fancy horse for my trainer, and fly down to Florida to see it in the big classes. Who knows?
Finally, I’d sink some money into improving equestrian sport. I’d either establish a regular fund or regular donations for a couple of horse rescues, and I’d set up a decent sized scholarship for young riders. Probably through Pony Club, aimed at New Englanders.

winter

Mental Health Decisions

Amanda5 Comments

I think I’ve finally made peace with the riding obstructionist part of winter. Somehow, in the last week or so, I managed to just stop feeling guilty on days I can’t ride. I’m lining up indoor projects instead: lots of cleaning & cooking, some very initial organizing with the anticipation of moving later this spring. I will drop all of it like a hot potato as soon as the weather climbs back out of the Arctic.

In the meantime, I’m averaging about two rides a week. Last week, Friday and Saturday. Friday was a terrific schooling session under saddle. Saturday was a really productive longeing session.

Sunday, the temps were only into the double digits…when there was a clinic in the indoor. Monday I had to travel for work during the only double digit temperatures. Today I’ll be at work. Wednesday it won’t climb into double digits at all. Thursday and Saturday look the most promising this week.

We’re not getting hardly any snow from the blizzard. It’s hitting southern New England. Vermont is getting sort of spitty little haze right now, and we’re probably not going to accumulate beyond 8″. So basically a normal Tuesday here.

I did check on Tristan on Sunday amidst house-viewing. The edema is gone, thankfully, and he was happy and chipper and providing good babysitting guidance.

I’ll try to get more interesting things posted this week, but I’m really struggling with motivation when it’s so cold and I’m seeing my horse so rarely!

dressage · winter

A Case of the Winters

Amanda2 Comments

Last night, for the first time in mumblety days, it was warm enough to ride, AND not snowing, AND I wasn’t working until late at night. It was like I hit the jackpot!

So I headed to the barn, and groomed, and…Tristan’s ventral edema is back. On the other side, in a different shape, and softer and pitting. $#@$#@!!!!!! But not bilateral, or spreading, or really soft and squishy – anything that would point to more dire things. Just weird, mostly.

I called over the barn manager, who is infinitely more patient with me than she really ought to be, and we both examined and finally shrugged. He is looking and feeling the best he has in a long time. It wasn’t sore in any way. We jointly decided that I should get on and see how he felt. So I saddled up – the edema was back of the girth area – and hopped on.

He actually felt ok at the walk; not great, but not out of the spectrum of normal, either, for a horse who has had sporadic work while his turnout has been a sheet of ice and oh yeah he’s turning 20 this spring. So a bit of a hitch, but he was willing enough to keep walking. I gave him a nice long walk warmup and incorporated a ton of lateral work to try and get at his flexibility. I also did some bending stretches, and spiraled in and out, and tried some tighter circles – all with the dual purpose of really warming up his whole body and doing a bit of a stress test to see if he would tell me if he was obviously hurting in some way.

Nothing jumped out, so we picked up the trot, and he felt great. More even, more solid than he had at the walk. Basically 100% normal, if behind the leg and fussy in the bit. (So, normal.) We did about 8 minutes of just stretching loose trot around the entire indoor, with only an occasional 20m circle. Nothing dramatic, just keeping him moving and getting him warmed up.

We took another walk break, and the barn manager came in to longe a Paint mare who’s in for training. She came in as a sort of Western Pleasure horse, very daisy cutter without being that pretty efficient look that a nice hunter gets. Just flat and lazy. She’s already looking dramatically better.

Apparently, said Paint mare is also a hellion to longe, and is used to more work/turnout than she’s been getting. She spent the next 15-20 minutes rearing, bolting, spinning, you name it. Holy mackerel. God bless Tristan, you guys. Even when the mare came galloping sideways, head in the air like a giraffe, barn manager trying desperately to keep her reined in, on a circle, sane – anything! – the worst he did was scoot for a few strides, mostly to get out of the way. The most I had to do was pick the reins back up and sit deep to get him back.

Don’t get me wrong, he was very alert and up and paying close attention to what the mare was doing, and I had to do a more hands-on ride than I was hoping for in a walk break, but I was also able to channel that energy into some really terrific work after the break, once the mare calmed down.

If anything, he was too light in the bridle, too quick in his legs and not through enough, so we had a different sort of problem to tackle for once. I worked on getting him deeper, with more push from the hind end, more uphill, more solid. He was fussy in the bridle until I really, really focused hard on keeping my hands still, consciously opening and closing my elbows. He seems to have gotten a bit fussier with the bit as the years have gone on, and I often find I can fix the ducking in and out of contact by simply being better about my own hands.

I had not intended to canter, really – well, it was in the original plan for the day, but not in the modified, what the hell is on my horse’s stomach plan. But he felt so good in the trot I couldn’t resist. And wow. His canter felt light years better than it has since, what, June? He was not stiff and resisting. I could get at his hind legs and ask him to bend and be uphill. He almost felt like a real dressage horse!

We finished with 10 more minutes of walking, and poor abused pony was a little bit sweaty! Ever-so-slightly damp around the ears and at the girth area. So half of his final walk was in hand with a loose girth, and then I layered up some coolers. It was high 20s, so considerably warmer than it has been, but not exactly warm and cozy. I went with his cotton wicking sheet under his fleece – thinking the cotton would bring moisture out, and the fleece would still keep a measure of warmth.

I tidied up and hung around for 20 minutes or so, and at the end of that he was dry and about 85% cool, so I swapped his coolers for his regular blanket, since the temperature was starting to drop precipitously.

What next? Ride tonight (Saturday) since it’s going to be in the 30s. I’ll try to ride Sunday afternoon after house hunting (no farm properties, all city houses), but the rest of the week – through Thursday – will be in the single digits or well below zero, so probably no riding for me. 😦

As for the edema? Wait and see, I guess. It’s now officially more concerning than it was, but as I said: one side only, one spot only. He could just be sleeping funny (maybe on top of a hoof or something) or moving less. The last one disappeared after a few days of bute and rest. We’ll see what this does. I didn’t notice a huge change after riding, and he felt fine, so fingers crossed? If there’s any progression or if he starts acting funny for any reason the vet will be out immediately, but for now…wait and see.

blog roundup

Weekly Blog Roundup

Amanda1 Comment

Here are some great posts from the horse blogging world this past week.

Hooves: Excellent for both Exploding Heads and Amazing Healing Powers from We Are Flying Solo
Longtime readers of this blog will know that I am no stranger to crazypants hoof drama. This is an excellent overview of a pretty impressive and nasty foot wound, complete with lots of photos and retrospective thoughts.

A Filly Named Patriot Takes on the Colts from Trafalgar Square Books
GO PATS.

Making a Heavy Horse Lighter from Guinness on Tap
Tristan’s natural tendency is to be so heavy he’ll give you blisters and sore arms. This is a truly outstanding overview of how to ride such a horse and help them be lighter. I’ve done a lot of these (with a great deal less skill than Austen has!) for Tristan over the years and he is considerably better than he used to be.

Chris Bartle: Let’s Be Besties from The $900 Facebook Pony
I always mean to watch streaming online clinics, and then I never do. Here’s a great summary of some of the recent ICP symposium stuff from Chris Bartle.

smartpak

Hacking SmartPak: Barn Buddy Shipping

Amanda3 Comments

I thought everyone used this, but reading through the comments on a recent post by Amanda at The $900 Facebook Pony honestly surprised me.

I like SmartPak quite a lot. For me, they’re a local upstart (as is Dover Saddlery, actually). I will grant that I am not the avid consumer of the latest and greatest in tack or riding clothes and that if I were I might search harder for deals, or selection. So while I like SmartPak, I get that there are legitimate reasons not to be their biggest fan, as many in the above post outlined.

Here’s the trick to SmartPak, though: Barn Buddy Shipping.

If you’ve never heard of this, I urge you to check it out.

Essentially, if anyone in your barn autoships SmartPaks, or if your barn is registered as part of the Barn Buddy program (which is SUPER easy to do), you can get weekly free shipping to your barn of any item SmartPak carries. Order up to the afternoon before your barn’s shipping date and it gets added on to the shipping order.

For me, that means that anything I order up to Wednesday afternoon is put on a truck on Thursday. Because I’m relatively close to SmartPak, that means it is at the barn by Friday afternoon. Easy as that.

There’s no minimum. There’s no requirement for purchasing specific items. I once ordered $7.95 replacement blanket straps on a Wednesday, and they were there on Friday. When Tristan was recovering from surgery, this was a key part of my planning. Some of the more specific stuff like Elastikon was not available locally. If I looked in my kit on Wednesday and thought “shit, I’m almost out,” I would order more and it would be there on Friday. Ditto for vet wrap, gauze, betadine…you name it. I got weekly packages for like two months straight.

Here’s how to get at Barn Buddy shipping.

Log in to your account and look along the left-hand side for your Address Book.

In your Address Book, you’ll see the various places you can ship things, like any other online retailer. Here’s mine: you can see that my barn is an option for shipping.
To add your barn, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Add a New Address.”
You can then click on “Find Your Barn” and you’ll see this page.
Here’s an example of an executed search on longtime Area 1 eventing barn Hitching Post Farm.
Double-check the name and address of your barn, and then click “Choose This Barn.”
Then you’re done. The next time you purchase something, you’ll have the option of shipping it to your barn. When you do that, shipping will be free and it will ship weekly on the specified day.
It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s apparently not commonly known. The one catch is if you board at a truly private facility or if you keep your horses at home. Then, yeah, you’re out of luck. But if you have any friends at a commercial barn – or you go anywhere to lesson regularly – then you can just put their information instead.
(Ummmmm, not that I do this anyway, but this was not paid, endorsed, requested by, or whatever by SmartPak. I just think it’s an awesome feature and it didn’t seem like people knew about it!)

Uncategorized

Horse Husbands & Finances

Amanda22 Comments

Lauren at She Moved to Texas raised an interesting and important question: do you discuss your horse finances with your significant other? Read the comments – they’re thoughtful and comprehensive!

I thought I’d take a minute to outline the way I handle my horse finances.

When I first adopted Tristan, I was working in a year-long paid internship at my undergraduate college. My take-home pay was about $18,000 that year. I adopted Tristan for $150 on January 2.

Field board for Tristan for the first two years I owned him saved a lot of money.

That first year was really, really hard. I had been sharing a house with other college friends, but they all moved away at the end of December, leaving me with one roommate who was an acquaintance but not a close friend. It was a big, mostly uninsulated house on the side of a mountain in Vermont in a town with a population of 765. Yes, really.

I snuck into the college dining halls for breakfast and lunch every day. I ordered one, sometimes two, items from the McDonald’s dollar menu on the way home from the barn every night. My roommate basically did not live in the house for the months of January and February, and the house was heated by wood stove and a furnace that took heating oil. I couldn’t afford heating oil, and didn’t entirely understand how to order it anyway. Every night I got home from the barn at 9pm after fighting with the snowy mountain roads, put wood in the stove, poured lighter fluid onto it, flicked a match into it, put on three layers of clothing, my winter coat, my winter hat, gloves, scarf, piled on blankets, and slept on the couch in front of the wood stove. Going up to my bedroom was not an option; the frost was half an inch thick on the inside of the windows.

Every weekend, all day, I worked at the barn to help pay for board and lessons. I picked up shifts during the week when I could. I borrowed a saddle until I could buy a friend’s for $300. I bought a $20 bridle at auction. I owned one pair of breeches and the $75 clearance tall boots I had bought four years earlier.

That summer, I moved out of the house, down into the valley, closer to the barn. I lived in a studio apartment that was so small I actually kicked open my refrigerator door in the middle of the night. Really. I swear. It was stiflingly hot in the summer, and the only thing I owned to put my TV on was an upside down tupperware bin; one day it softened and practically melted underneath the TV and the whole thing sort of sagged sideways in slow motion. (Thankfully the TV was ok! It was probably the most expensive thing I owned at the time.) My budget for groceries was $20 a week, and I still worked at the barn constantly.

I still saved money. I was never in debt. I never went hungry. I was content and happy. So I don’t tell these stories to make anyone feel sorry for me! I had graduated from an excellent college with no debt, I had great life skills, and I was willing to work hard.

Things slowly got better, and the lessons I learned in that first year have stuck to me. Our grocery budget is still $40-$50 a week for two people. I scrimp and save and budget and Tristan has never, ever wanted for anything. I make a decent living now, but I work in nonprofits: I’ll never match my two younger brothers, who are a computer engineer and management consultant respectively.

Owning a horse is so insanely difficult. It is one of the stupidest things I could do with my money. But to me, it is worth every penny.

Here are a few lessons that still stick with me.

Have a separate bank account for horse finances. I’ve maintained this for almost ten years now, and it works beautifully. I estimate a monthly cost for board and farrier bills, and then I add in a small padding percentage. I have that amount automatically deposited each month, and that’s where I draw money from. If I buy something for Tristan with my credit card, I pay from that account. I write checks from that account. If there’s overage – from an extra pay day or the like – it goes into a horse-specific savings account. It’s not a perfect system – things come up. But it is the best system I’ve ever found, because it helps cordon me off from temptation, and it helps me stick to a budget.

You probably don’t need that. The newest best whatever it is. That fast food dinner or lunch. Cable. The fanciest new car on the lot. Whatever “that” is, you probably don’t need it. You need good nutritious food, a safe, clean place to live, and ways to engage your mind and body. Your horse needs the same. Is it fun to buy extras? Sure. I’ve done it. Do you need it? As in, you can’t live without it? As in, you’re okay with it costing 2-3x as much because you had to have it and so you put it on your credit card? The number of things in that category is extremely small. Possibly nonexistent.

Be honest with yourself and your partner. Don’t say that your future self will take care of that bill. Don’t pretend you need that thing. Don’t lie to your partner about money. This stuff will ruin you if you let it. Keep a constant, watching eye on what you do, on yourself, on your reasons for choosing the things you do, and on the ways in which the money is going in and out. It’s so easy to slip and justify. Don’t stick your head in the sand. Face up to it. Applying your willpower to this area of your life will unlock all the doors for you. It’s that important.

Get by with a little help from your friends. I’m very conscious of inherited privilege on all levels. I’ve been lucky in many ways. I have a wonderful, supportive family who have backed me up and taught me good lessons. I have knowledgeable, wonderful, supportive friends who have helped me out when I needed it – ridden along in the truck for moral support, offered a barter system for goods and services, bent the rules to make things just a little easier, and shared their incredible experience with me so I can make better decisions. Don’t underestimate the value – social, economic, on every possible level – of a good support network.

I don’t mean to preach, but this is something I feel very strongly about, in all areas of my life. Nobody’s perfect – so says my smidge of credit card debt leftover from a very bad fall, and my slooooooowly rebounding emergency fund from Tristan’s vet bills – but when you internalize good principles, you put yourself in a MUCH better position to rebuild. Ultimately, that makes life safer and happier for both you and your horse.

farm hunters

Farm Hunters: Updates

Amanda8 Comments

Just to clarify my process going forward: I’m writing my property profiles based on the on-paper information I have before we look at these places in person. I’ll do updates once we actually see the properties. With that in mind, I have two updates!

Property #1

We went and saw the house, and it was exactly as gorgeous in person as promised. Absolutely gorgeous. Droolworthy. The kitchen…! Surprisingly, for 2,500 square feet, it felt small, though. The bedrooms were tiny. The downstairs rooms were chopped up oddly. 
Then we walked the property. The lot was in an L shape around the neighbor’s lot, and their back yard was RIGHT on top of this property’s. The barn had been recently redone, but clearly they hadn’t graded the base appropriately: the dirt floor was packed weirdly, and one wall had already lifted up with several inches of daylight showing and a swathe of ice where water had leaked in. It was spacious and pretty-looking from the outside, but would require work to make livable for a horse, which was unexpected.
The agent was pretty convinced that we could in fact buy extra land behind the house, but with the property already edging toward the high side of our budget, the condition of the barn, and the overall location of the house RIGHT on a very busy road and right on top of the neighbors, we passed on it.
Property #2

The good news first: we liked the house much, much more than we thought we would. For all that the overall square footage was smaller than the first house, it felt more spacious & open. Windows were all new, and all of the rooms were in overall nice shape, except for some truly hideous wallpaper. (Whyyyyy, people?!)
The outbuildings were all in surprisingly usable shape! There was a 20×20 insulated barn with a concrete slab that had clearly been used in the not-too-distant past for chickens, but thankfully did not smell of it.

Also, possibly kennels? A little unclear.
Second outbuilding was in tough shape but probably usable for hay storage. Third outbuilding was in better shape but weirdly done on the inside – but definitely usable for equipment storage.
The lot was six acres total, which, if everything was perfect, would be enough. Here’s where I’m still not sure. If the property lines were drawn one way, behind the barn and across a small creek was an open space of at least an acre that just needed a little work to fence it in. So, say, a dry lot off the barn.
If the property line was in fact closer, along the line of the creek, then the land went straight up a decently steep hill. Not impossibly steep, but not exactly level and/or gently rolling either. Oh, and entirely, thickly wooded.
Plus, there’s that creek. Everything was under 12″ of snow, and I tried to do some stomping around but was unsuccessful in my investigations. Was it a trickle or mostly a thin marshy area? Did it run up the banks in the spring? Was the land around it boggy, or was it pretty good land with simply a creek running through?
In short: there’s still a lot of potential there, but there was no way of gauging the land in the winter, which is something I’ve been afraid of since the beginning of the process. 
The other drawback: we timed it, and it’s a solid 15 minutes to the highway for the fiance, who then has a 45 minute commute. When all is said and done, that may have been the biggest drawback. It just wasn’t quite right.
We’ve been looking at other houses, too, without land, city houses at a far lower price point. I did wonder whether that was something people would be interested in hearing about, too, or just the potential farms? Honestly it’s about the only exciting thing going on in my life right now, unless you want to hear all about the exciting time I spent on the couch crocheting and catching up on Orphan Black…
can i go back to bed now?

Making the Best of It

Amanda6 Comments

January has not been the best for riding and horse-related activities.

Tristan is happy and healthy. That is the priority.

But I’m averaging one ride a week, sometimes two. The weather has been horrible. When it gets warmer, I ride, and I’m having great rides. We had a terrific schooling session on Sunday: he felt strong and good and there was a nice, clear progression from start to finish. He had some really good work in the canter, and I felt good about my effectiveness.

Then Monday, which was warm enough to ride, but first I ran out of time, between work programs, then it started snowing heavily and my fancypants new 4WD car had gotten the fiance to work that morning, so all I had to take me to the barn in a series of nasty snow squalls was his Prius.

I gave up. I admit it. This winter is not doing good things for my mental health. I am tired, worn out, and cranky much of the time.

Today: single digits. Tomorrow: single digits. Maybe, maybe, Thursday will pan out. We’ll see.

I’m just…tired. Sorry to put an almost entirely negative post out there in the world, but I’m just sick and tired of a lot of things and having a lot of trouble digging deep and finding motivation.

can i go back to bed now?

Ugh

Amanda5 Comments

Let me just say that my day can be summed up by this incident: while rushing to get to my second location for my tenth hour of work on this, my day off, and an official holiday, I opened my car door into my face. Multiple bloody napkins later I have a nice cut along my cheek that will probably scar and an impressive and growing swelling. Also, I get to tell people that I actually walked into a door.

Eff everything, really.