midnightsjane

LOL. Seriously, it's May already? Wow.

I had a great start to the month. Yesterday my friend Sue and I went to a clinic given by the totally awesome Charlotte Dujardin, winner of the Olympic gold medal in dressage, winner of umpteen other championships with her great horse Valegro, and oh, yeah, World Champion for 2015. We have been waiting for this for almost a year, got our tickets when it was first announced last summer.
She was here for 4 days, but we could only afford one day...but what a day it was. For anyone interested in horses and dressage, just have a look at her freestyle ride at the London Olympic Games here: http://scottphayes.squarespace.com/charlotte-dujardin-clinic/

To say it was inspiring would be the understatement of the year. She was warm and funny, and if I could ride even a fraction of the way she does, I'd be thrilled. We left so charged up to work even harder with our own lovely horses.

I was exhausted by the time I got home. I had a busy couple of weeks, worked a lot, and when I wasn't at work I was out at the farm, so today I stayed home. Cleaned the apartment, did 3 loads of laundry, and when I couldn't avoid it any longer, I did my taxes. I've been procrastinating so long with the tax thing that I was almost late filing..luckily Revenue Canada screwed up some email notification and had to give us an extra 5 days to file! Whew. I finally got it all done. Gave myself a reward; sat out in the sun with tea and a book for half an hour. It was lovely.

Went up the street for groceries, came home, made lasagna, cleaned up the mess and then watched Once Upon A Time. Now I'm officially done for the day.

That would be the theme for this past weekend. Happily for my peace of mind I wasn't present for the following OMFG moments at the farm (I was at work), but Sue gave me the story, as follows:

OMFG moment #1: Friday morning she found that Kiss (the mare we got from our Vet to use as a surrogate) had kicked down one of the walls in her stall, for the third time. Kiss was okay, and luckily there wasn't a horse in the next stall. The wall got rebuilt by one of the construction crew.

OMFG moment #2: Saturday morning Sue came out to find that either Sera or Florrie had knocked down the wall between their stalls. One of them must have rolled and kicked the wall during the night. There were boards in the stall and poor Florrie was kind of stuck in a corner. One of her legs was a little puffy, but no serious damage was done, thank heavens. Jack rebuilt the wall.

OMGF moment(s) #3: Figuring that Kiss might like being in the field instead of her stall, they decided to bring Midnight in and put him in his paddock and put Kiss out in the field with Rochelle on Sunday. Sue, Jack and Nicole made the change and watched to make sure the horses were okay...except it all went wrong. Kiss took one look at Rochelle and kicked her hard, then took off down the field. Poor Rochelle went over to stand by herself out of Kiss's way, not making any trouble at all. Kiss deliberately went over to Rochelle and proceeded to kick the crap out of my poor girl. Midnight was going beserk in his paddock, crashed into the fence and broke it. Nicole was in tears, and Sue was trying to keep everyone calm. They managed to grab Midnight and get him inside to his stall, and then got Kiss out of the field, and poor Rochelle too. They all went into their stalls while Jack fixed the fence. It was a pretty traumatic hour or so, and pretty much put paid to any thought that Kiss would get along with my horses! She is on probation now. Stall to paddock, no field for her. We're seriously rethinking whether we want to use her as a surrogate; she's showing some characteristics we aren't thrilled with, and I think it's partly that she's not used to being in this kind of environment. She came out of field with other mares at our Vet's place, so perhaps she's better off there. She belongs to our Vet anyway, so we may be sending her back and having him look for another mare for us. We have lots of time until next spring until we have to get rolling with the breeding.

Sometimes you think you're doing a favour, and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket. Luckily all the horses are fine; Rochelle and Midnight are together again in the field, BFFs.

Then my own personal OMG moment: yesterday, after we'd done all the work I decided to walk around the field before I went home to see if I could find Midnight's halter, which he managed to get rid of at some point. I walked down to the bottom of our 5 acre field, along the fence between the field and the blueberry farm next door, by the little stand of trees and bushes. The fence there is a bit on the rickity side, on our list of things to fix. I walked along the path and found a whole section of the fence that was down, which left a perfect access to the berry fields. I could just imagine Midnight getting in there. I spent the next hour fixing the fence as best I could. It's not great, but safe enough until Jack can fix it on the weekend. Funny thing, we are so careful to double chain the field gate but the back entrance was left open! Yikes. Glad I decided to search for that halter. Didn't find it, BTW.

This kind of excitement we can do without, thanks very much. :)

We're just so proud of the way our horses have been going over the past year. It's like night and day, the difference a year makes. Last year we were pulling our hair out trying to find the right people to help us with the training of these very talented horses, and this year we have people who just can't do enough for us. We're building a great team, and it's so satisfying. Jack, Sue and I are all working so hard to make the farm a success, and we have the breeding part of it down, but the training has always been the factor we struggled with. Now we've found people who know what they're doing and who are bringing the horses along. It's a very good feeling. We have the best horses and they deserve the best training we can give them.

We got some exciting news about one of the horses who has gone on his career path; Socrates is the son of Phaedra and Odyssey, who were both born on the farm. He was Phaedra's first foal, and turned out to be an awesome jumper. He was just bought by the great American rider Beezie Maddon! Apparently she has had her eye on him for the last few years, and really wanted him. It's such an honour to have one of our own kids bought by an internationally renowned rider, a testament to the quality of our breeding program. I know, it's tooting our own horn, but dammit, we deserve to do a little back patting. Yay, Socs!! Your grandmothers, Jubilee and Kandance, are proud of you too.

Goldie has done us proud at the Thunderbird show this week. She has won a ribbon in every class she's been in, and only knocked down one rail all week.

We have had a very good week.

I don't seem to be getting any less busy, but I thought I'd best check in before someone sends out a virtual search party. Now that I have my new phone and can check email with it (and check LJ too) I haven't even turned on my computer for the last few days. There has been a lot going on the past couple of weeks: I've been doing a lot of night shifts, which makes me less sociable, and then we've been crazy busy out at the farm.

We now have 4 horses in training. Goldie is getting ready for the big show next week; she's jumping well, and her trainer is happy with her progress. We hope she'll have a great time at the show. Dusty is back in action again after some time off due to her rider's injury from a fall off another horse, and as he said yesterday, "the Rocket's back!" Sera is going well, and looks fabulous. She has an amazing trot, very fluid and huge.

And then there is Flori. We've been anxious about getting her started, because she is big, and very athletic, and a bit quirky at times. We figured she'd be difficult and opinionated and need lots of time....boy, we were so wrong!
A friend of ours who used to keep his horses at our barn, and who has been away on the dressage circuit in Florida with his media business, just came back. He offered to help start Flori, and we were delighted to accept, because he really knows how to lunge and long rein, and is really good with young horses. He and Flori have bonded, and she follows him around like a puppy. She has turned out to be a superstar.....it's like she came already trained. First lesson on the lunge line ever, and within five minutes she was out on a twenty metre circle, walk, trot, and cantering, like she'd been doing it for years. Five lessons later, she's an old pro. No bucking, no attitude, just a fabulous work ethic. Andreas is over the moon and we're so excited. We always knew she was a great horse; we just had no idea what a great mind she would have, and how she'd take to this like a duck to water. It's thrilling, and worth all the work we've been doing.

I'm still trying to get my garden ready for planting, in the spare five minutes I have. Did a little bit this afternoon before the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down.

The house is coming along. They're almost ready to put the siding on; the doors went in yesterday. It's beautiful! So many windows, and French doors, lots of light and white.

Oh, new episode of Elementary is on now. Gotta go. Later!

We lost our lovely boy Orca today. He was the first horse born on our farm, Kismet's first foal, way back in 1996. I remember that night so well. He was a spectacular horse, and had such promise, but sadly he was seriously injured as a 3 year old, and was never able to be ridden. But he was a good companion to the other babies, a steady Eddie for the youngsters, a great role model. He was kind and gentle, and we loved him.

He developed an abcess in his front foot a couple of weeks ago; Sue was so diligent, soaking and poulticing and wrapping his foot and legs. We thought he was getting better, but today he was on three legs, and could hardly put any weight on the foot. Our farrier came out and looked at the foot, and thought he had developed laminitis. Sue called our Vet, who came and took X-Rays. It showed the hoof wall was separated in places, and that was pretty much the end of the story. Because of his old injuries, he had arthritis in his hind leg, and this was just putting extra stress on his legs. Tracey said that his chances of getting better were slim, and he would probably get worse. We just couldn't do that to him, and it was obvious that he was in tremendous pain. So we did the right thing, and put him out of his pain. Jack and Sue and I were with him to the end, and he just put his head in our hands and went away. I hope he is running on green pastures now, with Kismet, Phaedra and Kyra.

Today was his 18th birthday.

It's so hard when something like this happens. We love our horses so much, and work so hard to give them good and happy lives, but in the end we have to make the difficult decisions, because they can't. As Sue said to me, sometimes we wish we didn't love them so much, it might make this less painful.

We're going to bury him tomorrow, next to his mother. He will be with us forever. Happy Trails, Orca.

Especially if you're watching others work like stink from the comfort of the bleachers..

Sue and I went to a Dressage clinic on Saturday. The clinician was the very knowledgeable and skilled Dutch rider Ellen Bontje, who is an Olympic Silver Medalist. She put a dozen or so riders through a private coaching session, and then watched as the rider rode a Dressage test. The test was judged by an FEI 4th level Dressage Judge, who gave a running score and overview of the ride throughout the test. It was fascinating to watch, and we learned a lot. Most of the horses were young, just starting their careers, and the tests were lower level ones. What was so interesting was watching them and seeing them work through some of the same problems we have with our youngsters, and seeing how Ellen helped them work through their various issues. Sometimes you can learn almost as much by observing as you can by participating. There were some very nice young horses and riders, and we were very pleasantly surprised by the whole clinic. We ran into several people we haven't seen for ages, including my old teachers.

It was educational and fun, a great combination. We're looking forward to next year when we have Florrie and Sera ready to go to the shows and clinics. It will be great to have horses going in both dressage and jumping. Goldie is down in California at the Thermal show, and will be starting the competition next week. Go, Goldie!

I think my Rochelle is going to be a jumper. Can't wait to get her started this spring. It's great to be seeing some of the results of all the hard work we've been doing over the years!

Dec. 9: teadog1425" I would love to hear the story of your life in horses: how you got started, what your dreams were when you started out, how you ended up where you are now, what you love about what you do now, and what you would like to change! (Or any variation on the above topic that you would prefer!)"

My experience with horses started back in the 1970's when I was living in the Slocan Valley. My now ex-husband bought a horse, whose name was Star. I rode her a few times, and went on a couple of trail rides on a friend's horse, but I had no clue what I was doing. I was just a passenger. I loved the horse, but I was pretty intimidated by her, so after my husband and I split up, I had nothing to do with horses for the next 10 years or so. Then, one evening when I was hanging out with my friend Steph, we started talking about horses, because she had just sold her own horse, and was missing him. She decided to take some lessons and asked if I wanted to come along. So, in a spirit of adventure, I did. We booked a lesson at a local stable, and from the first lesson I was hooked. I don't remember what it was exactly that so intrigued me, but I loved it. I started taking a couple of lessons a week, even after Steph dropped out. I'd been feeling kind of isolated socially for various reasons; I worked shift work and weekends, and most of my friends didn't, so I spent a lot of time on my own. All of a sudden I had a whole little world waiting for me at the stable, and it was really amazing how much it came to mean to me. I had something that challenged me physically, and gave me a sense of accomplishment when I did something that kind of scared me, like cantering for the first time. The first year (this was when I had just turned 40, BTW, so learning to ride as an adult I was probably a lot more nervous than any of the kids) I took lessons on various school horses 3 times a week. I had two pretty serious accidents during that year; the first was on a horse called Beauty. We were cantering across the ring when she started going a bit fast, so I made a classic novice move and leaned forward, which made her speed up. I came off at the wall of the arena, and hit my shoulder on the wall as I did. Got back on the horse and finished the lesson. As I was driving home I started feeling short of breath and I thought I'd broken my scapula. Went to the hospital, and it turned out I'd broken my first and second ribs, and collapsed part of my lung. My first question was "how long til I can ride?" Six months later I came off another horse and gave myself a compression fracture of L1. While I was off with that injury I found a horse in the school string I kind of fell in love with; she was a 16 year old Arabian mare, a pretty chestnut named Kastanet. I bought her, and that was when it really started for me. Her stall was next to a thoroughbred named Caddy, whose owner was a nice British woman named Sue. She took me under her wing, and we became good friends over many a trail ride through the park. Those were great days, and I remember them with such fondness. I had Kastanet for 4 years; she died of an infection that she somehow picked up at the age of 20. After that I leased a horse for awhile, rode Caddy from time to time.

Sue and her husband purchased a farm in 1995, and the plan was always that when I retired I'd have a place to live there. Sue and I did all the work on the farm those first few years; we had 4 horses the first year, then the next year we had 3 babies. We started to get interested more in the breeding aspect of the horse business, and learned a lot through trial and error. Over the next several years we did everything on the farm that was needed, from fencing to birthing babies; we like to say that there is nothing that we haven't put our hands to, and I think that makes us better horse people for doing so. There were some very difficult times, let me tell you. The first winter was a doozy, and we had frozen pipes and snow up to the windows, and had to haul water from the house for the horses. That was tough, but it really tested us and made us more determined to succeed. I drove from Vancouver to the farm in the Valley through all kinds of weather every day I wasn't working. I'm still doing that drive!

I bought one of the foals, a lovely boy named Pharoah; raised him until he was four and then realized he was too big for me, so he went to a nice home with a good rider who loved him. Then I bought Midnight, a 3 year old quarter horse who was being boarded at the farm. We had some great times, and he really did test me a lot. He's still a pushy horse, very strong minded, and in the beginning he intimidated me. I learned to be a lot tougher, to stand up and say hey! I'm the boss here, behave. Didn't always work, I admit. We're still playing that game, but we've come to an arrangement; he behaves, most of the time. Unfortunately, he became quite lame several years ago, with navicular, so he's pretty much retired. Kyra came into my life via the SPCA; she was a rescue horse, and we had room, so we adopted her. Turned out she was a good riding horse too, so I had fun with her for a few years until she got too old. I loved her; she was much more my kind of horse than Midnight, a much softer nature. Now I have Midnight, and a 5 year old mare, Rochelle, who I'm going to start next spring.

We have had some really bad times along with the good; Sue and her husband split up, and running the farm alone with my help was challenging. We both had to dig way down deep. I speak of "we" because Sue is my best friend and we have a great partnership and love of the horses; everything we do has that focus. There were times when we weren't sure if we could keep going, and I have had a few meltdowns on top of the manure pile, when it all just seemed like too much for two women to keep things going. But we did, and man, I am so much tougher and stronger than I had ever imagined I could be. That's what horses have taught me: if you have a dream, and ambition, and focus, and if you're willing to make sacrifices, you can accomplish what seems to be impossible. I am so much more confident and unafraid of life because of the work I've done with the horses. I've learned that sometimes you just have to act confident, even if underneath you're quaking; the horses always pick up on your emotions, and react to that. I've learned patience, I've learned to leave my worries at the barn door and focus on the moment, and I have had the most amazing moments of pure joy, working with my horses. It's made me a better person.

The future looks bright now; Sue found Jack, a great guy who loves the horses and the farm, and they're building a new house with an apartment in it for me, and we have big plans for the horses. We haven't lost sight of the fact that we're still going to have to work our butts off to make it happen. Looking back over the last 26 years that I've had horses in my life, there are things I'd do differently, of course. I've made mistakes, made choices that in retrospect weren't the smartest, but I've learned because of them, and I've grown. I'm a pretty different person now than I was when I took that first riding lesson. My life took on a whole new direction, and it opened up so much for me. Finding a passion and following it where it leads is such a blessing. Horses are such a part of my life now I can't begin to imagine not being around them. Just walking into the barn and being in their midst brings me joy. I am a happy woman when I'm with my horses.
Blessed indeed.

I gave myself a real scare this afternoon. I was up all night at work, went out to the farm right afterwards because our Veterinarian was coming to do the horses' teeth this morning. We got through 6 out of the 12 horses, did all the work, and I left for home around 3:30. I'd been up for over 24 hours by that time, but felt wide awake. Driving home I was fine, until I was almost at the off ramp for the city..when I suddenly realized I had no memory of driving the last mile or so and was thiiis close to being asleep at the wheel. The fright and subsequent adrenalin surge woke me right up, but man, that was a scary, scary feeling. Just proves that sleep deprivation makes for one impaired driver. Holy crap on a stick.

The horses were very good for the Vet. Most of them just needed the sharp edges of their teeth rasped; Florrie had to have her wolf teeth removed; and Kyra, my old girl, has some issues. She's missing some teeth, and has some other problems that make it a little hard for her to chew, but we're going to consult an equine dentist to see if there is something we can do to make it a little better. As long as it's not too pricey, and too huge a job, I'm okay with trying. Otherwise she can manage with her soaked grain and alfalfa..she loves her alfalfa soup, LOL. She's almost 30, is skinny but still very energetic; like some of those wirey little old ladies who don't have an ounce of fat, but are all sinew and strength.

Now I really do have to go to bed. My head is almost resting on the keyboard. I'm tired.

Midnight would make an awesome barrel racer if he was sound. Jake rode him again today, and OMG, that horse is quick. He was all fired up, and Jake loved it. Midnight was really good, even did flying changes, and I think he enjoyed himself. I was a little concerned that all the running and turning would be too much for his foot, and he was looking pretty sore at the end. I gave him some extra Bute mixed in a warm mash of alfalfa cubes after the session, so I hope he won't be too off tomorrow. It's a balance, trying to get him going again without making him too uncomfortable, so if this was too much for him, I'll have to have Jake go a little easier on him next week. Jake loves him, says he's just his kind of horse. It really is such a shame he's not sound, but we manage the best we can. I'm thrilled to see him doing this much, after all these years.

BTW: strawberries dipped in nutella? Best thing ever.

We had a mini rodeo today. LOL. We've had some problems getting Dusty to go forward, a common problem with young green horses. It's not that she's bad, it's just that she's a bit stuck, and the woman we had riding her just wasn't comfortable with pushing her. So Sue found Jake, a real cowboy who has spent time breaking horses in Alberta who is now working in this area, and got him to come today so we could see what he could do with Dusty. The introduction was a little, shall we say, eventful. Dusty was very good, didn't freak out when he put his western saddle on her and got on...until he kicked her forward and she bucked a little. Suddenly it all went OMG yeehaw rodeo..somehow the girth of the saddle broke and Jake was on the ground, and the saddle was under poor Dusty's belly. She did a very good imitation of a bucking bronco until the saddle fell off. Sue brought out her western saddle, Jake put it on and got back on the horse. Dusty was pretty unsure of things, but she wasn't too bad. The saddle was too big for Jake, so I brought mine out..it was like a western saddle fashion show. Third time lucky, and the rest of the ride went quite well. Jake is a great rider, just what we need to get the young horses going; he's not afraid if they buck or take off, and he can stick to them like a burr.
This might be the start of a good partnership; he's looking to build his business, and we have a series of horses in the lineup to start over the next couple of years. I am going to start Rochelle at the end of the summer, so I'm really happy that we may have found the right person to work with.

After that was over, I rushed home so I could see the season finale of Doctor Who. Wow. I don't know if I can wait for the Christmas special!