First story:

A few weeks ago, I was tacking up in Tristan’s stall and dropped the saddle pad. It was covered in shavings when I picked it up, so I shook it out, hard, putting a good snap into the end to get the last of them off. In the stall. Right next to Tristan. The last snap was maybe an inch from his belly.

He flinched in place then turned his head to GLARE at me, every line of his face saying “You are so damn lucky that I’m your horse and not 99% of the rest of horses.”

Honestly, I didn’t even think about it, not for a split second. I just did it and knew he’d be fine.

Fast forward to last Thursday, when we did a dressage school. Everything went splendidly, and in the last ten minutes or so I picked him back up to work on our walk-canter transitions. The walk collected nicely, and then I started putting some jump in it.

Then I asked for the canter, and all hell broke loose. He flailed with legs in all directions, cow-kicked out behind when I put my outside leg on, raised his head to the sky in his best giraffe impression and then shook it, hard. When he stuttered into a canter it was tense, bracing, and wholly terrible. I must have tried a dozen transitions and they were all like that, some worse than others, but none of them even marginally acceptable.

I ended up trying to salvage the moment with a few semi-clean (but still not good) trot-canter transitions, and then cooled him out while regretting my entire life. I texted Hannah and whined about ruining everything, I thought again about having the vet do a lameness eval when she comes out for spring shots. You name it, I went through the depressed rider’s toolkit over and over again.

Then I got off and turned to pick up his hind leg to pick out his foot.

Saint.

http://www.hand-gallop.com/how-tough-should-a-judge-be/

http://flyonovereq.com/planning-your-ride/

Tristan has a bit of a colic history. At some point, I got into the habit of praising him every time he poops. I usually say something like “Good job! Ponies who poop are my favorites!”

Yay home ownership!

This was stage 1: Wednesday night into Thursday morning. The water was coming from the wall in the front of the basement, where there is a crack that we already knew was problematic. We knew, from the inspection, that the slope of the grade all around the foundation was wrong and would need to be fixed.

A few minutes with a shop vac took care of the worst of it, and then I turned the dehumidifier on to turbo and headed off on a work trip.

At about 2pm on Thursday, I got back in town from my work trip and it was WAY WORSE. The wet spot you see above was gone, BUT!

See, it was still raining. And the ground was still frozen, except in places where it wasn’t. And one of the places it wasn’t was the ground around the well that surrounded the outside of one of our basement windows. The water pushed the well away from the foundation, and then filed it up. Completely.

Result? Water literally pouring in like a waterfall through the frame of the window, which is nearly 100 years old and was no way tight enough to prevent that.

(Sorry, no more pictures, things got very busy and hectic from here!

So yeah. Way, WAY worse. And luckily I was home to fix it before it genuinely flooded the basement.

First things first: set up the shop vac again to start siphoning the water, and then I left it running while I sprinted outside with a plastic cup and then bailed out the window well by hand, pouring the water into the street about 15′ away so it would not just drain back in. I have no idea how many trips it took. Several dozen, until the water level was below the frame of the window. I checked back on the basement periodically – which required circling most of the house – and the shop vac was still going strong.

Finally, the water stopped pouring in, and the shop vac reduced the standing water to just a broad wet spot. The dehumidifier was going strong and had already made good progress. I finished by pushing some mud around to fill in the gaps around the broken well – ineffective, but at least something – and then got a sand bag from the basement to brace the mud and hopefully divert the stream of water stil coming down the hill.

Then I changed into new work clothes – the old ones being muddy and sweat-soaked, awesome – and headed to work for 2 hours. When I got home, the window well was muddy but empty of water, and the basement was well on its way to drying up. By Friday night, there were only a few damp spots left in the basement.

So, that bumps our summer landscaping projects way up the priority list!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled horse blog to tell you that home ownership is THE WORST.

aka Vermont is seeing torrential downpours of rain that ought to be able – and the ground is still frozen, so it’s not draining as it ought.

sigh.

It’s not *bad* bad, as these things go, but it is still worrying and moved the foundation regrading project further up the priority list this summer.

Also the new shelving & reorganization projects are now in high gear. Because I needed more to do.

Some years ago, maybe seven or eight, I had a standing weekday dinner with friends at a dive bar in Boston. They had a selection of mediocre chicken sandwiches that were 50% off on Wednesdays, so we went and paid $2.50 per sandwich because we were broke post-college twenty-somethings. There could be anywhere from four to fifteen people there.

One night, conversation turned to a “what if” scenario: would you give up your cell phone permanently if someone paid you a large sum of money to do so?

I didn’t even hesitate: yes, I said, I’d do it, but I’d want to have a pager or beeper or some other method of receiving emergency messages in case there was a problem at the barn with Tristan.

One person at the table rolled her eyes and said, “Or you could just fucking let him die. He’s a goddamn horse.”

Which should tell you basically everything you need to know about that particular individual. (Plot twist! She’s now my sister in law. That’s among the milder things she’s ever said to me, but it sticks out, for obvious reasons. The universe is a cruel and fucked up place sometimes.)

So what I want to know is, are there people like that in your life, who go above and beyond the usual “I don’t get it, horses do all the work and can’t you just give them the night off”? They’ve actively said nasty things, or judged you unnecessarily harshly for the time and money you spend.

Maybe it doesn’t work this way for other people. Lucky you.

Tristan is a very good communicator.

He’s more perceptive of body language – both of horses and people – than many horses I’ve known. He makes his preferences very clear, both on the ground and under the saddle. He has a remarkably expressive face that can convey a wide range of emotion in just a few seconds.

Here’s one of the ways Tristan says “fuck you, mom.”

Habits are hard.

In part inspired by Karen’s excellent series on her blog, Not So Speedy Dressage, but I have been thinking about putting this together for some time now.

Throughout 2016, I am going to track, monthly, every penny I spend on Tristan. It should give you an idea of what it costs to keep a horse in my specific circumstances.

So, for context, my circumstances are thusly: I keep one horse in central Vermont. He is boarded at what is for the area a higher-end facility. He has a stall and turnout during the day, hay and grain provided. The farm has an indoor, two outdoors, access to dirt roads and some trails, trailer storage, excellent full-time staff, and a choice of resident trainers that are all also excellent. I have access to a tack room and more or less unlimited storage (within reason, but I have two saddles, two bridle racks, a large tack trunk, etc.)

I am not charged extra for blanket changes, feeding supplements, giving basic medications, holding for the vet, holding for the farrier, etc. The barn schedules the farrier and routine vet appointments in conjunction with other horses who use those same professionals, but it’s very much my choice to use those specific ones (the barn works with other vets and other farriers in the same way).

I am charged extra for extra shavings (only used when Tris was on stall rest after his surgery), barn-supplied medication (like Previcox), or more involved medical care like soaking his foot.

In terms of the horse, we’ll describe Tristan as a senior horse in moderate work, with some health conditions that require ongoing medication, slightly more frequent than average veterinary care, and ongoing supplements that I’ve found do help him. He goes barefoot and is trimmed every 5 weeks.

In short, I totally and completely lucked out and have basically the best barn ever, because on top of all that, they’re all awesome people.

What does all that cost? Here’s January’s breakdown.

Board: $550, base price
Farrier: $45
Medication: –
$109 – 1 50ml bottle of Pentosan (8-9 month supply)
$96.00 – 1 200mg container of Pergolide (6 month supply)
$6.75 – shipping
Supplements: 
$69.95 – 1 8lb bucket of ReitHoof from Horsetech (60 day supply)
$125.95 – 1 25lb bucket of High Point Grass Pellets from HorseTech (60 day supply)

January 2016 total: $1,002.65
2016 total so far: $1,002.65