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?