Sacrifice

Yes, sacrifice.

That's my current topic for discussion.

As many of us know, we knowingly sacrifice a "normal" life to become horse people. There is no way to completely dedicate your self, your time, your money and your body to riding without it effecting the rest of your life. Non-horse people consider us strange and cannot seem to grasp why we do these things to ourselves. They've even asked us why, and we never seem to be able to give them a real coherent answer.

Our connection with our horses is something beyond words, and it's a blessing. However that blessing comes at a cost. Some give up any and all other hobbies, others give up ever having a clean vehicle. We've all sacrificed something in order to keep our equine connections.

I guess what I'm getting to, is how much is too much sacrifice?

I'm almost twenty-five years old (yes, yes, I know that's not that old), I have no college degree, a mortgage and other bills to pay and I'm currently unemployed because eighteen plus years of equine experience isn't enough to get a job anymore.

I graduated high school a few months before I turned sixteen. I was burned out from cramming all that knowledge into my head and needed a break. I'd been volunteering at a local barn and taking riding lessons. My parents offered me a deal, they'd buy me a horse if I paid all it's bills. So I studied, budgeted and on July 8th, 2002 I was the proud owner of my first horse. I immediately accepted a job offer to work at the barn where I kept my horse and worked my ass off there for the next two or three years. I'd work sixteen days straight because I was stupidly loyal and did everything I was asked. I even ended up working for free sometimes on my days off, as I'd get sucked into something when I'd only come up to ride my horse.

I lived and breathed barn work, sacrificing any form of social life outside of work in exchange for being able to pay for my horse's expenses and to finish paying him off. That pure dedication to the equine paid off in many ways, not many nineteen year olds are asked to manage an "A" circuit barn.

Successful and in demand, it was a great time to be me. I was constantly turning down job offers to work at various farms. Then the economy took a massive dive in 2008. I was getting married and I'd outgrown the barn I was managing. My husband said "take a break we can live on just my salary", so I did. After a few blissful months of only having to worry about my horse I started the job search once again.

It was misery. Barns were closing left and right, and the ones that were managing to stay open were not looking for new people. I worked for awhile at a barn that was trying to be more non-horse people friendly, I didn't stay there long as safety wasn't one of their priorities. I ended up finding a job outside the horse world, bringing my past retail experience into play. It lasted a year, I was miserable and just couldn't bring myself to keep slogging along doing something I hated.

I accepted a job offer to be a secretary at the a law office. I'd grown up in my dad's office and had a general knowledge of filing and other legal things. It was quite the change for me, but I needed the money to keep paying for the horse. I was pretty happy doing it, even managing to get hired by a bigger law firm and working there till the head partners broke it up. I went back to working for a solo attorney and kept doing my thing.

I have to admit, working a predictable schedule with weekends off was very nice. Eventually however I realized I wasn't happy and it was starting to eat at me.

So here I am again, the economy got even worse, clients weren't paying their bills so there was no money to pay me. Fun.

I've sacrificed so much to stay involved with the horses, and I don't really regret it. But sometimes I wonder about the what if's and such. Would life be much easier if I gave up the horses? I know my husband would be happier.

I love UK and I don't plan on giving him up or selling him, but I'm getting stretched very thin financially. I cannot justify paying for him instead of paying my mortgage. It hasn't come to that yet, but I worry that it might.

This is where I really start hoping that Karma will kick in... I need a job, and I really will only be happy with a job at a barn where I can teach again. I love to teach above all else. Working with human and equine students fills me with purpose and pride when I see them do well for themselves.

So I'll continue praying, keep checking Yard & Groom, Craigslist, the local want ads and just hope that something will work out. I really don't want to have to sacrifice anything else...

I think it may be spring finally!

Be quiet though, wouldn't want to scare it away! So on and off for the past week the weather has been generally 50degrees and upward, with occasional days of rain and gloom, like today. Yesterday was almost 80degrees at one point, it was so nice to not have to wear multiple layers!

I've been lunging UK pretty regularly now. I'm going to try to ride again soon, the last few times I tried to get on it started pouring on my drive to the barn. Talk about feeling cursed. Then the weather was finally nice enough but I had to be other places and doing other things. Damnit. Oh well, I'll ride him again soon.

Ok, this is just so cute.

Om, nom, nom, nom. 

So last weekend I decided to take some extra pictures to show you all a bit of 1832 Farm. It is our own little horse heaven. Most of Connecticut is either, woods, swamp or pavement these days so I count myself lucky to have a place where there is some actual room for my horse to be a horse.

Ok, so a big chunk is swamp, but they sure learn how to be surefooted. 

The above view is  looking towards the back of the barn from across the swamp. To the left, behind that fencing is where our ring is. Betsy's house is to the right, you can just see it.

See, it's not all swamp.

A view of the area around me. The fence you can see to the left is the border between us and some neighbors. Soon this will all be beautiful green grass, yeah!

And if I turn the other way, more grass! Behind those trees directly ahead is another paddock they usually can play in, but at the moment it's fenced off. The winter did a number on the fencing back there and it is literally falling apart.

All together Betsy owns a very large chunk of land, and the horses get to use the majority of it. When the grass comes in, it's lush and plentiful. There is a constant breeze due to it's high elevation, which is a blessing in the summer and a bother in the winter.

Well, I'm going to attempt to get some good photos of UK free jumping soon. I'd really like to get him to jump the tarp without spooking, but we'll see.

Toodles!

Freezing Rain Sucks

Yes, yes it does.

One of the many joys of living in New England is the strange and violent weather patterns. I usually take great joy in nature's shows of strength, but freezing rain is not something I enjoy. Snow? Yes. Large amounts of snow? Very much yes! Freezing rain? Eeeww. The horses seem to feel the same way. UK especially hates getting wet ears.

Needless to say I really haven't been able to ride. It's been in the single digits or below zero every night this week and the days haven't been much warmer. Those temperatures combined with the 2+ feet of snow have made things a bit difficult. These are the times I dearly wish that  I had an indoor ring or had the time and the resources to trailer to an indoor ring. My truck is out of commission at the moment, and it still needs a trailer brake control before I could use it anyway.

Even though I was wet and cold I did manage to enjoy myself as I was caring for my horses this evening. There is just something about being surrounded by my four legged friends and some good honest manual labor to take away the stress of the day. General and UK were funny to watch. General desperately wanted to play and UK humored him for awhile, trotting along and playing tag with his "little brother". When UK was finally tired of playing he just stood there ignoring General, which made General start barking to get his attention. It was quite amusing, as this is pretty much the only time I hear General use his vocal cords for something other whining.

The night beforehand was quite exciting! Kristy and I had finished taking care of the horses, said goodnight and then went our separate ways home. I was a few miles from the barn when my cell phone rang. It was Kristy, there were horses running loose in the road. I did a u-turn and flew towards where she was. When I got close it was then time to slow to a crawl, as the road she was on was curvy and I didn't want to  run into the scared horses that were roaming the road somewhere. Eventually I came up behind Kristy's car and put on my hazard lights. I grabbed the only thing I had that would be of help in the car, a dog leash, and went to help Kristy who was in the process of trying to herd two frightened horses up a driveway.

I got the leash around one of the horse's neck, and grabbed the mane of the other one, luckily they were small horses. Then I pulled out my cell phone and called my mother-in-law to see if she knew who the horses belonged to. Meanwhile Kristy is trying to get the attention of the people that live in the house that owns the driveway by yelling as there was two large irish wolfhounds that were keeping her from getting anywhere near the door.

Eventually someone poked their head out, and it turned out that they were the owners of the horses. They were very grateful, and we helped them get Ollie and Lola back to their barn. Ollie who is a 28yr old gelding had managed to bust through his electric fencing. It also turned out that they knew my mother-in-law, as she is their bookkeeper. I was really happy that our little adventure ended well!

Tomorrow will be gross, and then it's going to get really cold. Oh winter how I love you and yet wish you would end soon!

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As a bonus, I just realized that I forgot to mention I started to do some clicker training with both UK and General last month. UK is the smarter one of the two. UK will now pick up a brush from my hand and hold on to it. This is a great thing as he's really touchy about his muzzle. I hope to get him to really get brave and move on to holding "scary" things, but for now we'll just stick with brushes!

Riders 4 Helmets Story Contest

On a whim I entered the Riders 4 Helmets end of the year story competition. All stories had to involve helmets and have photos to go with the written words.

My entry was featured on their website! To see it click Here.

Of course the horse that flipped over on me was Tessa.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Looking Forward

So it's the last week of 2010 and I can't help but look back at all that's gone on this year. Boy has it been long and fraught with drama!

I can honestly say that this year was one of the worst for me personally. When I compare it's major events to years past it is easily in the top three.

However, that doesn't mean it didn't have good moments too. One of the big ones were finding and purchasing UK (obviously). I mean, talk about things just falling into place. I think fate (or the powers that be) couldn't have done much more short of putting up a sign to tell me that if I didn't buy this horse I'd always regret it.

I know I sing his praises quite often, but he really is a honest to goodness good guy. I'm not saying he's perfect, every horse and every person have their faults. His are just minor compared to all his pluses.

So looking back at 2010 what am I happiest about (I'm sticking to horse related things for my own safety)?

1. UK (duh!)

2. Finding Tess a great home with a girl/woman that adores her. Which is more then a lot of horses get these days.

3. Finally being honest with myself about what I really want to do instead of letting other people's opinions overshadow my dreams. (I let that happen a lot when I was younger)

4. Remembering to count my blessings often so I don't loose sight of the real things.

Now then, looking to 2011 I do have some wishes and goals. Will I manage to do all of them? I really hope so, but as any horse person knows having goals just seems to tempt ill luck sometimes. So crossing my fingers, knocking on wood and saying a prayer before I put the pen to paper/ fingers to keyboard...

1. Go Eventing! Or a horse trial or SOMETHING that is actually a real riding competition other then a fair with my horse.

2. Actually take some lessons with an eventing trainer. (I have a history of reading a lot and then going it alone, which I'm getting too old for)

3. Take UK to a show and do a Halter class. Not only have I never done one, but I think it would be a great way to see how Mr. Yuke does in a show atmosphere.

4. Do a hunter pace, hopefully Ride for the Cure.

I know to some people those don't seem like huge goals, but they are for me. I've basically only been riding recreationally for 2 and a half years when it comes to my own horse(s). Sure I've been training, showing and teaching other people and their horses, but not my own.

Plus life keeps throwing up roadblocks, and I'm sick of having to tear them down or go around. Now I'm going to try to jump them! HA! (I can hear my husband wince at the mention of jumping, he can't understand why I can't be happy doing dressage like his mother and sister. Silly man.)

So Friday night I'll be at my good friend (and farrier)'s house for a new years bash, and I'm going to do my best to just look forward and leave this year in the dust.

-- On a separate note, I'm very excited to note that my good friend Kristy (the one who rode UK for me) is getting a new horse on Saturday! I will update and hopefully have some pictures once we get her settled. UK will be so happy to have a new friend! --

So.... I bid adeu to you 2010 and I'll do my best to Rise Up, Ride Forward and Not Be Afraid to Grab Mane in 2011!