Cup of coffee, bucket of breakfast

What an awesome way to start a day - bringing a cup of coffee and a bucket of mash to the barn, to be greeted by Baasha who was standing in the stall staring at the house, as if he knew what to expect. I want to do this every day!

I just spent an entire day playing with my horse. And I did something amazing, something you can only do if you have your horse at home. I took a shower between grooming and riding!!! HA! You know the saying, that grooming is the process of transferring dirt (and grime and hair) from a horse to a human? Well, I took no less than 2 hours with grooming today, and felt so disgusting afterwards, I thought, "Hey, I'll shower, and THEN ride!" It worked.

Of course, putting a helmet on still totally wet hair makes for a terrible hair evening. *shudder*

I admit I had a nightmare Baasha escaped and was killed. So still dark, 6 AM, I ran out to the barn in slippers and gave him a carrot to confirm his there-ness and alive-ness.

That's funny. Normally he's a total pig in a stall, but it was obvious he spent the entire night in there, because there were 4 poop piles, and his legs were stocky from standing still. 4 poop piles, not poop smeared everywhere, ground to bits. I also deduce that he was probably vigilant all night, because as soon as I went out there this morning, he went out on the grass and lay down and fell asleep.

"Oh my head is so heavy. Please, someone shut up the birds." After just a few bites of breakfast, he was down. Ears swivelling, legs twitching, even a nicker in his dream, the nicker is new!







He never went all the way down, but was almost there for a long time. I sat with him on the grass, just watching him sleep. I wonder if the other horses ever let him lay down, I had always worried about this. I just love to see him lay down and take a load off his old legs. And to know that he's utterly comfortable and apparently immediately relaxed enough to do so here: )



"Merry Christmas. What time is it. Huh? Who moved my alarm clock. What's with the birds around here?"










Pretty feet: ) You can see there really isn't that much grass here, so I'm not worried about him getting sick from this sudden exposure. He's just out there trying to find every last blade. He has no idea that soon there will be LOTS more! But rationed with a moveable fenceline, of course: )





"I'm up. I'm up. Really. Up. Already."









I sat with him the whole time. What a lovely way to spend a morning: ) Gay-org came to take care of the fish, he said hi to us. Later today the next door neighbor said "Your horse is really relaxed here huh? We saw him rolling." "Yah," I replied, "He's really responsible." DOH! Later I realized I said the word for "responsible" instead of "laid-back." AGH! I hate that when I make gigantic vocabulary errors. I hope he knew what I meant. Yes, my responsible horse lays around all the time! Geez.


He's also been rolling a lot, trying his best to destroy all the grass under that tree. It's working.









He looked back at me as if to say, "You didn't just take a picture of that, with my legs in the air foolishly?": )











I made our manure box today, I mean, the fence guys made it yesterday, but I lined it with tarp and made a tarp cover. This is a wetland area and we have to be careful not to hurt the trout. I look forward to quickly-composting manure!










This is the bottom tarp. I had to redesign it a bit to make sure rain can't come inbetween the layers. It was tough! Baasha slept through all my tarp swinging.








I did finally cover up all the electrical cables in the stall. Not that Baasha would chew on them, but it's just too risky. It was much easier than I thought, cutting rabbit wire and wrapping it around the posts. It was last-minute, Baasha had already arrived yesterday when I did this!

Then I gave him as much of a bath as possible. I did his legs, tail, mane, and one side of his neck. It's too cold for a real bath, so I did what I could. It was windy and sunny today, so he dried quickly. His tail is a silver wonder. I can't stop touching it! And his mane has not been shampooed in over a year, so it is fine and shining in the light. Oh, how he hates to be clean. He tried to thwart my efforts tonight, rolling under the walnut tree, but there's no mud here (yet). He did manage to get old walnut leaves all through his splendid tail, so I rushed out there to fix it.

After the shampooing, the shedding out commenced. I took him to our 5 acre field and let him eat for 2 hours while I ate hair. Big "groomas" of white hair are lying everywhere out there now, I sincerely hope they don't blow into a neighbor's yard, but there aren't many neighbors nearby.

The hay man came to walk the field, and I asked him what kind of fertilizer he'll be using, and how soon my horse can go on it. Get this, we don't just get a little hay, we get all the hay we can store, and we can store a year's worth it turns out. For free. My man likes to remind me that the field cost money, and taxes, and the parcel we rent is not "free" either. But I keep saying, "But we won't be buying hay. We're getting hay and we don't have to DO anything!" Awesome! For some reason, talking to that hay man, I felt so connected with the community suddenly. Like, I'm helping a neighbor (he gets LOTS of hay too!) and somehow it just made me feel like I belong here. Hm, hard to explain.

Baasha's out of shape. He was huffing just from one circuit of our field. Yes, it's very very hilly, but geez. I cued him to canter, and apparently he was feeling frisky and he dropped his head all the way to the ground and threatened to crowhop/canter. I yelled at him and off we went. Neighbor kids watching. They're fascinated with the new horse I think, cuz they seem to keep playing on our street lately!

I lunged Baasha in my field, cuz I can: ) I really would like a round pen for lunging and cavaletti, even though it's so hilly. Maybe someday.

Then we hit the trails and woo, they're pretty here! I pushed him off the trail to make room for a little old lady, and she was so nice, she talked to us for about a half hour. People are different here. I'm sure not all of them, but small towns are different. She asked where I'm from, and I told her I can see myself here a long time: ) It's so idyllic here. Gotta get some blog pics of the landscape around here, it's just amazing!

I came home to my brand new garbage can sitting in my driveway, for horse food or bedding. Nice! My man ran out with a carrot for Baasha, I'm just gonna keep carrots by our front door from now on: )

Baasha hardly touched his hay, because of the grass. I saw him eating some tonight though, that's good! See Baasha, I made that hay feeder! Oh, you could tell? Cuz it's kind of crappy looking? Well, we can't afford to have EVERYTHING professionally made here! You really have no concept of money. You should talk to my man, he'll explain the concept. Then out of guilt, you'll go to work. And me too. Yes, Monster.com is calling my name.

Oh, you should see our new barn gate! Sweet!










And the latch, one of those swings shut slowly on its own and latches itself behind you! That's good!









The fence guys were nice enough to give me a safe hook to hang my bucket from. Yes, my beautiful American bucket.


I took off his halter today. I only had it on for the first night cuz I was so paranoid he'd escape. Now it's hanging in our bathroom cuz I had to wash the mud off of it.

I saw him when he first saw the horses across the street. They had just turned the grey Arabian loose, and he/she was prancing around, tail straight up. Baasha was transfixed. I worried, "Oh no, what's he gonna do.." thinking he might call, or try to escape, or fidget or something. He watched him for a while, and then thought "Oh yah, there's grass to be eaten here!" and resumed grazing. Tonight we rode by their arena and watched them riding circles. An icelandic was cruising around choppily, rider leaning back like they do. Baasha wanted to keep watching, but I wanted to get home to my man. (The pic is later when Baasha spotted our neighbor horses again, mouthfull of hay.)

What a day, all day long with my baby. I promised my man tomorrow the house WILL get vaccuumed (there are pellets of some sort in our BEDROOM!) and the laundry will get washed. He doesn't mind, he knows how important this is to me. In this picture you can see all the bite marks the other horses took out of his blanket. Today I discovered a gory wound that I had to wash out and put Nolvassan on. Geez, I hope that's the last one. It's all puffy and gross, and when I brush near it, he flinches. (Sorry!)

One more day then my man has spring break and 2 glorious weeks to spend with me at our new home (ok, fixing stuff and installing stuff!).

I know this post contains practically every detail of my new horsey life, but I've waited my whole life for this. I'm in a state of bliss right now. Imagine, I was 10 years old, measuring an empty lot on our city street, hoping we could buy it and stick a horse there. It took me a long time to get a horse, and then way longer to get him home.