Waving the White Flag

Since I last blogged, Cinder and I haven't done all that much. April was one of the wettest months on record, which is a good thing since we need the rain, but didn't really work well with only having an outdoor arena. As I found myself going days with out riding, I was less inclined to hop on Cinder alone. And considering I'm alone 90% of the time, I didn't ride much. Add in some brutal work stress, and my mental and emotional game is pretty much shit right now. 

I did do a couple of bareback walks with Peebs because sometimes you just need your best boy

I've decided that for my mental health, I need Cinder in a program. I need to know she's getting worked regularly, so I'm less fearful of getting on her alone. I'd like a trainer to get on her first at a show if she's worked up. I need regularly scheduled lessons to hold me accountable. I also really miss having a barn family and the social aspect of a bigger barn/program. 

I also recommend taking your horse's b-day pics early for a quick pick-me-up

 

So, I'm on the hunt for a new trainer and barn for Cinder. Peebs will stay at our current barn since he's currently retired and it's a great retirement facility. As much as I love Trainer A and all that she's done for Cinder and myself, she's an eventer and I'm a hunter. I want a h/j trainer and program that goes to the shows I want to do. I've talked with A and she understands, and I did say that if whatever program I try doesn't work out, I'll go back to her because she's my safe space. 

I failed at getting media so enjoy this one blurry pic

I've been in this area long enough to know what barns/trainers I'd want to/be able to afford to ride with. After talking with her a bit, I scheduled a haul-in trainer ride with my top choice trainer. She's a little over an hour away (boo), but is very nice, has a good group of students (both ammys and kids), and her philosophy seems like it meshes with mine. Cinder was pretty wound up, and wasn't so sure about potential new trainer on her back (only the third person to ever ride her, so fair) but I really liked how potential new trainer handled her. We go back this Sunday for another lesson with her. She doesn't have an open stall till June, which is both good and bad. My anxiety wants Cinder in a program ASAP, but this gives me time to work with PNT without fully committing to her program and completely changing both my and Cinder's lives. 

Rise and Grind

Thanks for the comments on my last post.  After putting it out there and talking it out with a friend, I'm in a much better mindset.  I scheduled "my" arena time for this week and the next, and it felt good.  I figured it's also a way to hold myself accountable for my riding.  Like if I'm blocking out the arena for my use, then by god I'm going to use it.  I've got a weekly plan for Peebs in my head with flat days, jump days, and lunge days.

When there’s eleven hours of lessons at the barn, you ride when you can #riseandgrind #amworkouts #sorrypeebs

A post shared by Molly Basney (@mollybasney) on Jan 12, 2018 at 6:04am PST

Last Friday when there was supposed to be lessons all day (a couple kids cancelled) I did get up at 4:45 to ride before work. I let our BM know, as she and her family live in the the apartment in the barn.  Her husband usually feeds around 5 and leaves for work at 5:30 so they'd be up anyways.  I got to the barn around 5:20 and was on by 5:40.  We didn't ride long, but had one of our most productive rides in the indoor in a while. I think the fact that the barn was quiet and I had it to myself, let me focus so much more on Peebs and what we needed to work on. I could make circles and figure eights and change directions without having to worry about lesson kids with questionable steering. While I don't want to make 5:30am ride times our normal thing, and looking at the schedule I shouldn't have it, it went a lot better than I thought. Peebs might have other opinions though.

When Your Happy Place Isn't Happy Anymore

This post is super hard to write, super hard to even think about.  To me, and probably a lot of equestrians, the happiest place on Earth isn't Disney World it's the barn.  It's my second home, my sanctuary, my therapy.  But in the past couple of weeks I've come to realize my happy place isn't making me happy anymore.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with my horses.  I can not imagine not having Peebs and Cinder.  Peebs is pretty darn close to being even on the list of heart horses with Phoenix. I don't see myself ever selling him.  Cinder is far and away so much more than I imagined a baby would be.  I can't wait to see her develop and be started under saddle.

January 1st marked 11 years that I've been boarding at my barn. So much has changed, but one of things I love most about it, is that it's always been a quiet low key barn.  Even when we had the college team riding, it was never super busy except on practice day once a week. My trainer and a few others come in and give lessons, but there's no resident trainer. But that changed in October. We had an Arabian western pleasure, KH, trainer move 7 horses in, in October and she just moved another two in this month. Most are her own horses, 2 or 3 are client horses in training.  She also gives lessons five day a week.

Before KH moved in Peebs had a double stall.  We had taken a wall down between two stalls.  I wasn't paying for the double stall, but we had room so my BO gave it to me. BO has been cutting back her barn time and letting another boarder become the barn manager, which is fine except BM has had a bit of a steep learning curve.  When BM announced that KH was moving in, she asked about putting Peebs back in a single stall.  I said I was ok with it, since I wasn't paying for the double and BM assured me that she'd try to keep him in a double, and if/when they had to put walls back up he would be the last horse to lose his double stall.  Well, KH moved an "extra" horse into the barn and guess who was the first horse to lose a double stall? Peebs.  And they didn't give me any warning that it was happening, just a text at 8:30pm after they did it.  And it was the night before a show.  I didn't blog about it at the time because I was beyond pissed and couldn't process.  I did send some nasty texts a few days later and after a bit of back and forth BO and BM apologized for how it went down. And they assured me that nothing else would change with KH in the barn. (Side note: a horse moved out that was in a double and Peebs was able to move into it on the 1st)

Only things have really changed. With 9 horses in the barn KH is always there.  There was one day I rode early in the morning and KH showed up at 9am.  When I came back to feed that night she was still riding, having used the arena all day, at 5:30pm.  If I hadn't ridden before 9, I wouldn't have had the arena. She's always doing something, has a horse turned out in the indoor or is riding or teaching. Her dogs are always in the tack room, which she's taken over except for my little corner.  She had little kids and parents asking questions and wanting to play with Cinder when all I want to do is be left alone with my ponies.  She does put her lessons on the board, but the schedule is never correct. I try to time my rides/turnout around her schedule but it's always screwed up. I've been cutting back on my barn time, and ride time because of it and only just noticed.  But once I noticed, it's all I can thing of.

Like I said before, our barn has always been quiet and I've never had to deal with a lesson barn type atmosphere. Its been hard trying to adjust my schedule after having the same one for almost 11yrs. I've talked somewhat with BO and BM and basically my options now are to put my arena time down on the board and schedule myself.  I absolutely hate that idea.  There's not any H/J barns within an hour of me, and I can't afford big barn prices, and I still want to ride with my trainer who doesn't have her own place anymore.  Most of the other boarding barns in the area are either trashy, or out of my price range for two horses.  There's a couple eventing barns local, but I don't want to event. So I'm stuck. I'm not really hopeful that things will change, but until I can find another option, or please sweet baby Jesus KH leaves or gets kicked out, I'll have to come up with some coping strategies. Anyone got some for dealing with a busy lesson barn?

Shooting the Messenger

MAJOR BARN DRAMA AHEAD:  FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS POST.  I HAD TO WRITE ABOUT IT TO FEEL BETTER

My BO had one of her horses put down today.  Kue was a 25yr old mare that my BO has had since she was 2.  She was supposed to be my BO's dressage horse, but a big pelvic injury at 3 ended that.  Because of the injury she has had lots of back/hind end problem and has started having trouble getting up and down. Last winter she really struggled with keeping weight on.  BO decided that she didn't want Kue to try and go through another winter.  The vet agreed, and they set a date.

I sent out a barn wide text, minus my BO, on Sunday telling everyone not to go to the barn this morning.  And to not bother the BO, to come to me or another boarder with any issues.  My BO is not touchy feely, and would much rather be left alone than deal with people's condolences.  And she knew some people probably wouldn't agree with  her decision. We only have 8 boarders, so it's not a huge group.  And of course a couple freaked out. 

Even though BO has been talking about this for months, they didn't know she had actually set a date. One went to our BO and the other turned on me.  After the first went to the BO I sent a somewhat snarky text basically stating not to do that. The second boarder, SH, accused me of telling her what to feel and that just because she doesn't own the horse doesn't mean she doesn't love her.  I have no idea how she got that out of my text, and I tried to explain that via text back to her.  Yesterday afternoon she cornered me at the barn and lit into me how she loves the horse, and it's wrong of me to tell her not to, and that this is a small barn and we're a family and family doesn't do that, and on and on.  I tried to explain to her that I only wanted people to not talk about it with BO, not that SH couldn't have feelings for Kue.  She didn't hear me and went off again and it eventually ended with us screaming at each other before I walked away.

I tossed and turned all night, pissed because I tried to do something nice to help BO and it blew up in my face.  I posted the above this morning on Facebook because I was mad and sleep deprived and it really touched me.  Not only because of this whole thing, but also issues at work.  SH sent me a text telling me to stop playing immature games and how it was rude and not honoring Kue's memory.  She told me not to be petty and to stop being pissed.  Ironically, everything she accused me of doing.  I told her this, and she went off again. I haven't said anything else, and at this point I don't know what TO say. I hope that once SH recovers from her grief she'll be able to see my side of this.  But right now, I really don't want to be at the barn. I haven't said a word of this to BO, and hoping SH doesn't.  This is exactly the last thing she needs to deal with.

How to Spend 14 Hours at the Barn

So I accidentally spent 14 hours at the barn on Saturday. Oops. I got out early in the morning to ride before the western dressage clinic and had a great ride on Peebs. We continued our work on softness and bending and I threw in a few trot fences at the end, to see how he'd be. We haven't jumped in a while, and usually he gets pretty amped the first time back, but he barley even batted an eye. We ended with a stroll in the field to cool down.

I ended up watching most of the clinic, and snagged a sandwich during the lunch break. Then a couple other boarders and I started moving hay. We had over a ton of last year's shitty, straw like hay that another boarder had bought then left when she moved away. No one really wanted to feed it, but we have new hay coming in this week and had to clear it out fast. So we loaded it up on the flatbed and drove it out to dump in the fields. 

The horses out in the pasture were very happy with the giant moving hay cart and started walking alongside the truck. Then this happened: 

Stop and give us all your foodz

One of the girls had to jump off the truck and heard them away. After we chucked everything out in the pasture we had to rake up loose hay and rearrange pallets and tarps. We finished by cleaning some piles of random shit that's been left by people and picked apples for the ponies. 

The other boarders left at this point and my BO offered me a beer and we sat on the back patio and ordered pizza. Her husband then pulled us into the office where he was trying to set up a projector and sound system to play movies on the wall. It was not going well and I took the opportunity to escape for a bit to make a beer run. When I got back the pizza was there, the movie was playing but we had no sound. Much swearing and punching of buttons later everything worked and we watched The Big Short. When it was over it was 10pm and I wanted to curl up on the couch in the office and go to sleep. But I dragged by butt home and slept like the dead. It was a great day.