This summer's been spent moving the three horses to new (and old ) digs. Before moving in August to a barn I've boarded at off and on through the years, I took a tumble off my horse Lady. We'd just finished a very nice ride too. My mistake was feeling over confident and not physically up to the task of mounting from the off-side after already dismounting from the offside without incident. This time the saddle slipped and well, my failure to properly desensitize her, or at least test her memory of being desensitized, got me bucked off while I tried to throw my leg over. I remember seeing her butt in the air and thinking, 'oh no! How am I gonna one-rein-stop this?' I hit the ground reeeely hard, with an an audible crack in the vicinity of my rear end,( which was actually the cell phone in my back pocket, and it still works! my butt...not so much.) Soon after, came an electrifying pain similar to what I imagine it feels like to be disemboweled. It's taken me ( as I'd predicted) about six weeks to even feel ready to try riding again, and that's only at the walk, and on my old, reliable yet arthritic senior horse, Wyatt. See Wyatt? it's just like I was always telling you, "Come on Wyatt, cheer up, someday it's gonna hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.''
Currently, I've buddied up with two friends and we're back at our old barn trying to run a co-op deal. I was the first to move and try and settle in, with lots of cleaning up and organizing to do despite pain and discomfort. For a while it seemed a ghost town til my friends got their horses moved. Many of the stalls had flooded, and still do on account of the rainiest September we've had in years. To top that off, the water hydrant has a leak, and we have no charger for the fence, which itself is in disrepair. We have some challenges and have to work with what we have, but it sure is nice setting things up the way we like it and having some control over our own horses. I live 5 minutes away now and it's the next best thing to having them in my backyard. We have an attached indoor arena which will comes in real handy for long winters. Last winter was the pits, trying to get them to the arena for exercise when the paddocks and fields were closed.
This month's big activity, besides the fencing, is attending the All American Quarter Horse Congress. As a spectator I plan on taking full advantage of it this year, even though I'm pretty busy with all the additional barn chores.
