Physical results of riding

Riding has many expected and unexpected results on the physical body.  There's the obvious fact that it is exercise, and as such is attributed with some mighty fine sculpting.  I read in a book, actually mom read in a book, a description of a woman's "shapely" "equestrian" legs.  Sounds good, sign me up, right?  And luckily, the prancing around in skintight britches only accentuates the shapeliness.  And the pantylines (which always inappropriately makes me think of Lil' John?).  Sooo glam.

I don't know that I'll ever get comfy with the leather cupping look, though.

Anyway, there also seem to be some way less glamorous consequences.  My back still twinges from when the Taru-bear buck slammed me into the back of the saddle during a ride approximately 3 months ago (imagine the glamour of not only walking like a hunchback, but trying valiantly to appear a-ok to your guests while gasping and choking for air).

This is Taru, when he was a baby, before he learned how to buckeruski.

Then there are the constantly chapped and dirty hands.  I know I have dirt magnet fingernails, but the situation is hopeless whenever I get near a farmyard.  Most recently I dealt with the results of trudging around in boots 10 hrs a day.  Really pretty feet.  Especially when said boots consistently find a way to blister you in new places every week.

So I had dealt with that for a few months, and a few months later just dealt with the results while getting an apparently much needed pedicure.  I'm really glad those pedicurists at least appear so non-judgmental when they pull out the razor and start hacking away at your feet, and that there was no one else in the shop at the time.  Really very gross and embarrassing, but also so satisfying.  There's nothing a little razoring can't clear up!

During my time on the ranch I always try to balance being a a wrangler and still being a human being, which basically just meant trying to scrub the hands and slapping on quick-dry hot pink polish on Friday nights, which then would be shabby chic chipped come Monday.  That, combined with the hunch-back gait really accentuated the the allure of the shapely legs, making obvious why all the riders are always in such high demand.  No, no, we are.  I swear.

Step 3: The stuff

Since as of yesterday I can accurately state that I can ride in all of my own tack, I feel more qualified to talk about stuff.  I wasn't starting from scratch, we had tack boxes and grooming stuff from the days of Sheena and yore, and some handy saddle racks dad had installed in the woodshed.  But as far as tack and horsie clothes, it called for a shopping spree.

Kinnitty Capall's Ronan knew exactly which of his saddle's would fit EZ for me to try him in, and then tried to sell it to me.  I didn't want it, because it wasn't black.  All my stuff (boots, helmet, etc) is black, not to mention the horsie himself.  So I wanted a black all-purpose, but it couldn't look to jumpery since I like those dressage saddles at heart, and I hate the square-backed cantles.  And it should be less than $300, but not cheap looking.  Easy, right?  After extensive searching on ebay, I came to this very well-developed conclusion: Damn, saddles are expensive, yo!  And I got to like Ronan's more and more, it fit both me and the horse well, and I discovered EZ's nose is  brown, which makes all the difference.  The dark brown saddle matches his accents!  So, I'm paying on installments.

This just meant that I needed everything else!  The first thing I got was a happy mouth, because EZ mouths are sensitive mouths.  I didn't give up on ebay and bought far too many saddle pads (well, 3, maybe 1 too many), a squishy non-slip size 40 girth (details!), and a dark havana brown bridle, all from the same discount tack seller, trying to save on shipping.  The stuff is pretty good, but it did take approximately a month to arrive, which meant stealing poor Donovan's equipment, and giving mom the excuse," Oh no I really would love to ride, but you've got my bridle...."  But I really did.  Now though, you can't get mom off that horse!  Just kidding, not really.  Not yet.  She just needs a groom first.

So let's summarize, this will be a good game:
-1 happy mouth bit: $25
-1 pretty dark brown saddle, second-hand: $600  (at one time belonging to a "Nicholas Xatzis"--thanks Nick!)
-3 saddle pads, 1 girth, 1 pretty dark brown bridle: $107
-2 turnout blankets (1 heavy, 1 light), second-hand: $150 (at one time belonging to a horse named "Alice"--thanks Alice!)
-1 round bale horse feeder: $300ish
-Oh yeah, 1 horse: $250

Good news is that these are all one-time expenses.  There are way more, like the feeding, and the shoeing, and the worming and medicating, and any boarding or traveling we might do, and the horse treats (we need A LOT of those), and I'm sure a bunch of other unforeseen things.  Let's hope I keep getting a paycheck!

Step 2: The Place

I figured I had this one all sorted out.  But again, I'm learning nothing is ever all sorted.  Donovan had proven that home, Indian Pond Farm, could support equine residents.  Even better, a friend, Cathleen, brought her menagerie to join him.  This includes Dutch Boy, the Dutch Warmblood (shocking, I know), retired from a snappy hunt career, Donker, the mini-Donkey (even more shocking, you don't have to tell me), never to be retired from position of king of cuteness, and Myma, the pot-bellied pig, with a squeal she'll let you know about.

When Cathleen decided to make Indian Pond Farm the menagerie's home, she decided to bring the home along with them, in the form of her (their?) stall and tackroom barn.  After some fencing was put up in the upper pasture, the barn was added!

They love it, as you can tell.  Even though Donovan usually tries to hog it and EZ entered it I'm pretty sure for the first time today, when I dragged him inside to untack in the pouring rain.  Which brings up the next point--if all three horses, the donkey and pig, oh, and these new additions, Joey and Petey:

...if they all are going to pastured together, how will they all have shelter when Donovan is so cranky and hoggy (no offense, Myma)?!  Of course, we did still have the run-in that dad built for Sheena and Rosie, the my sister's childhood horse, in the lower pasture, and we thought maybe we could connect the two:

But, as you can see, Duke, the Great Pyrenees, lives there now sometimes.  That, and there's a bit of a hill that we were concerned about in the icy snow.  Aaaaand, handily enough, Cathleen has another barn!  Coming soon, so stayed tuned.  It took a very long dinner date to figure out exactly how it is to be placed to maximize weather-protection and horse enjoyment, and it's bound to be great.   Aaaaaand water and electricity in the upper pasture.  So seriously, stay tuned.
I am seriously lucky to have so much help and this enterprise wouldn't be nearly as EZ, or maybe even possible without it.  Dad building sheds left and right, Cathleen hauling them over every other day, not to mention cleaning the water trough like 42 times a day, this menagerie is COVERED, and I couldn't do it myself.

So with accommodations almost worked out, I wanted to figure riding venues.  Small detail.  I had ridden Donovan all over town (and by "town," I of course mean "neighboring farmland"), but right as I was looking for horses of my own, the neighbors decided it was better if we weren't trolloping around.  Not that I ever trollop.  So, although it cut down quite a bit on rideable land, we still gots plenty in the Indian Pond Farm parts.  A lot of it is woody though, or actually, you know, farmed, with crops and stuff, which get in the way of my riding.  Someone, I can't take credit, noticed that one of the overgrown fields behind the nextdoor house on the property was pretty flat, so I started wheedling dad to make it my new fancy arena.  FANCY.  Well, at least mowed.  I staked out the corners, like 20x50ish meters, and dad complied, as good dads do.  Here's the result:

Not bad, right?  EZ obviously is really loving it.  Look at those ears.   If you are super-observant, you may notice the pile of wood at the upper left corner of my fancy arena.  A large willow is right out of frame to the right, and was cut down, and those are the remnants.  They were also scattered all over my fancy arena.  Dad showed me how to drive the tractor so I could load the sticks I picked up in the bucket.  And by "showed" me, that's all he really did, of course he actually ended up driving, and by "I picked up," I obviously mean, "we picked up," because he was all over that with me.  The thing about picking up sticks though, and then mowing, and then riding, is that you just find more sticks.  So a few days ago I went on a solo mission, and these were the results.

Check out all those stickies!  And that tractor I drove all by myself!  With just a sliiight scraping along the floor/wall while pulling out...(don't tell dad) (Hi, dad!).  And you'll notice, they're still actually on the tractor, I haven't attempted the unloading part of it yet.

With the fancy arena, the fancy barn, soon to be barnS, we're pretty psyched.  There are still some issues, like this scary number in the pasture:

Terrifying, right?  What do you do about giant hunks of metal clogging up your fancy pasture?  Other than get it removed, novel thought, but one we're still working on, hoping that the kids stay wise in the meantime.  While working on that, and the never-ending stick supply in the fancy arena, you've got to remember this:

...the cuties that make it all worth it.  Them, and this:

Step 1: The Beastie

First, a note about the chronology of steps.  No one really happens all that much before the other, and really I think they are all always happening at once.  Well, not the acquiring of the horse, but then the dealing with the said horse is certainly always going on. So far though, the actual horse part maybe has been the EZest (ha, no pun intended.  Kidding, it was definitely intended).  While the rest of the process might have some imperfections, some of them glaring, the horse part is perfect.  Or maybe I'm just EZily satisfied.  I promise, I'll stop that.

So, my last few weeks in WY this summer, during most of my time in the one room on the ranch with internet access I was looking for the pony that really wanted to come home with me.  Since I knew my funds would be limited, and I was ok with having a project pony, since I felt pretty good about my horsiness (skills, not looks, thank you very much) after my years and summers working and riding them, I started looking for adoptions.  Given the current economic climate I also thought I might be able to find some pretty sweet and maybe not so project-necessary mounts on the cheap too.  Petfinder.com became my go-to, and soon thereafter equine.com, where I usually was plugging in $0-$1,000 in the search fields.  Although sometimes I would just go all out, and look at all horses available, which was helpful, I think, to think about what I really was looking for, and what the market was.
Because, I didn't really know what I was looking for.  A pony!  A cute one!  A sweetie-pie!  I wanted a big one, a draft cross maybe, that was large and cuddly but still had some spunk in its step.  After riding all the baby Arabians I didn't want something I felt like I was squishing.

Look, this could be me, on my new cheap, but very talented horse !  Super sweet and snuggly too, I'm sure.

After I got home to NY my friend and stable-owner said he'd help me look at some potentials I picked out.  That stuff is overwhelming.  So many options!  So many things to think about! Age, height, ability...I knew I'd want to keep the bugger at home, do lots of riding around the fields, do some dressage, do some baby jumps and eventing eventually, so just a little bit of everything, not too much to ask for, right?
So with my friend's help we decided to go to a rescue not too far away, http://www.akindalehorserescue.org/, a thoroughbred rescue with a horse who they promised was built like a warmblood.  
When we got there, the said horse was not available, but they had plenty of other ones they thought might work.  When they saw me, having said I wanted a gigantor, they were all, "Oh you're not that big!  Don't worry, we've got lots of little guys!"  So, I complied, and checked out what they had to offer.
The last one I saw was dear EZ Dollar.  And the rest is history.  He was the only one I tried riding, and honestly, it wasn't love at first sight.  He was small!  He was fine, but you know, fine.  There weren't sparks.  But he went, and he whoaed, and he took contact and seemed bendy and not crookedy.  My friend and I agreed he was promising.  We could still look around, but we'd have him to compare other to, and they'd have to more compelling.  Which didn't exist.  I tried one other freeby tb at a stud farm near my house, she was super cute, but had less training, was older, and didn't seem like she would hold up as well in the long run.  So I got in touch with Akindale to say I would like to take EZ on trial, and just in time, as there were other interested parties that wanted to take him to VA.  Whew, just in the nick of time!

I kept him for the 2 week trial at Kinnitty Capall Farm, my friend's stable.  The next weekend my friend took him to a little jumper's show, just to see what he could do.  Better him than me, I am not that brave.

There he is, so tiny, so brave.  It was bright, it was hard to see the camera and the focus...

Check out those sexy rainbow reins.
At the show and during the rest of the 2 week trial, EZ did everything we asked him to do.  He might not know a whole lot yet, but he was always willing and never put up a fuss.  What more can you ask for?
I really fell in love with him the first time I hosed him off and he tried to nibble and drink from the hose.  Goof ball.
 
I brought him home after the 2 weeks, and after the requisite adjustment period he's chilling with his homies.  More on that to come.

Hey! (Hay?)

I just got my own horse.  Finally.  His name is EZ Dollar (awesome name, right? I'm fairly sure I would never have been able to come up with as sweet a name myself).  And with this great development comes a whole host (horse? jk) of issues I'm working my way through.  Fascinating stuff really, especially to creepy-horse-people.

Because, there are, like, a bajillion things to figure out.  And buy, or barter, or negotiate.  Since I was just a wee thing, I fantasized about having a horse of my own on my parents' land in NY state.  And I had one actually, a black and white paint pony named Sheena.  She bucked me off a lot and I only sort of rode her because she sorta freaked me out with all the bucking, until I learned to actually ride a little bit and then she was too small for me.  So, soon thereafter  the fantasies began of a horse of my own, that would be my responsibility and my own to do what I pleased with.  Throughout high school I worked on a dressage farm, working after school and during breaks in return for lessons and competitions.  I loved riding the school horses and boarders' horses and marveled at their owner's ability to have and do all this STUFF.  I knew it would be a long time until I was able to do that for myself.  After college (and a semi-disastrous hunter-jumper career) I've spent summers on a dude ranch in WY, starting and training Arabians, as well as leading trail rides.  I really learned to appreciate a cooperative mount, and although all the wranglers adopted our favorites, it sort of just rubbed in the fact that they weren't actually MINE.  The last straw was about 2 years ago, when my mom, who had been riding for 2 years herself, got a 14 yr old Appaloosa to keep on the farm for herself.  Say what?? She'd been riding for 2 years, and had herself a horse, and I had been riding for 18, and where was mine?  But really, I'd been at college, and I was living in Spain at the time, I knew it had never really been realistic.
But this year, I thought it finally was.  I started my second year of teaching at a boarding school in September, about 20 minutes from my parents' farm.  So I knew I had at least 9 months of being in the area, with a regular paycheck (lord willing), and I don't have any immediate plans of a career change, so for the foreseeable future as well (lord willing).  Seemed like a reasonable start to be able to support my horse habit.  My mom had Donovan, her horse, who was doing well at home, and even more exciting, a friend had brought her horse, mini-donkey (I KNOW--sooo cute), pot-bellied pig, and barn to the farm and was an expert in horse care.  The time was ripe.  I knew it would be tricky--I had enough horse experience to know that anything having to do with the beasties had that potential, and I knew I would be working with a limited budget.  Both those things are still true, and I do not have it all figured out yet.  Not even most of it.  But I do have some things worked out (I think), and I figure the rest will get worked out too.  It's a fine balance between making careful plans, and just jumping into it, having faith that it will all work out.  So let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?