chh-chh-chh-changes...

The exciting news I referred to in my last post is about my boarding situation. The property where my barn is located has been leased by a BNR from Indonesia  (who's coming over to train with Phillip), even though there are two barns on the property, she'll be needing all of the space so that left us looking for a new place to live!  There are plenty of good things about this barn (ample turnout with sheds), stalls in a nice barn, a tack room, a well cared for ring, someone living on the property, close proximity to lots of good hacking, vet, tack shops etc. But the bad started outweighing the good (so we were sort of ready to move anyway), we had almost outgrown the property, it's land-locked and not close enough to any decent hacking that you don't have to trailer to, no bathroom, it's VERY windy and cold there when it's not summer, not hot water in our barn (and no wash stall) and it's an hour away from my house. We are located out in Chester County, PA... it's a VERY horse centric area, with a long standing hunt community, loads of big name riders, and horse properties everywhere... but finding a place has not been that easy and we needed to be out by Sept 1st! You'd think in our area it would be easier to find a place but we've hit a lot of dead ends, the girls have looked at some unsavory places and then the ones that were super nice were just out of our reach financially. Argh! So as a precaution, I chatted with them and offered to look around on my own as a regular boarder just in case they couldn't find something suitable for all of us. It's tricky because we needed to find a place that is self-care, not traditional boarding (I work out my boarding agreement with them), they are running a business and even though there are probably suitable boarding facilities nearby, that would make their overhead ridiculous!

 Mr. Fat 'n' Sassy (in case you forgot who this blog is about)

In my search I stumbled across a really nice possibility. It is a co-op barn, so my board would be a nominal fee + shared hay/straw and I would supply my own grain. My partnership would mean feeding two mornings, etc with possibly a weekend day sprinkled in here or there. It was a really cute farm in the heart of horse country that backs up to 1400 acres of preserved hacking (I nearly peed myself), a small mixed herd (a few retired former advanced event horses and two pony mares, one of which is 29). The vibe was very relaxed. The barn was older and in okay shape, but also seemed like it could be depressing in the winter. The woman who runs the co-op has been boarding there for 20 years and everyone else has been there for at least 5 years. Some pics:

One side of the barn. Our stall would be the 2nd to last stall on the left

The gate to ALL. THE. HACKING (oh and they mow a car wide path throughout all of it)

Ring with jumps. Nothing fancy, it was grass but had sand around the outside.

Turnout, with a triple shed + auto waterer and a natural spring waterer connecting the five big pastures

I was pretty excited about this place, but I really wanted my current situation to work out. They've been so great at helping to ease me into horse ownership, I was honestly afraid to take the training wheels off. And while I realize that I probably function better in a baptism by fire scenario, it still terrified me. I asked if I could have 3 days to let them know. They hadn't officially advertized the spot yet and I knew once they did it would be snapped up in a second! In the meantime, the girls had set up a few places to look at on Monday and they LOVED one of the properties! So for the next 36 hours while they stewed over numbers and logistics, I waited patiently to give the co-op a firm yes or no. It was decided yesterday mid-day that we would take the new place and that I would move with them. They seem to like having me around, who knew? Hopefully going forward, I'll be able to work out some sort of co-op situation with them to balance out the costs more evenly. After all, they have 3 horses each and I have one, ha!

The new place is in a beautiful barn on a gorgeous property in the middle of hunt country (I believe it's a former hunt member's barn and it was just sitting empty), 10 stalls, lots and lots of turnout with sheds, and access to hacking without a trailer. No ring (but a field we can ride in for flat work -- and it's close to lots of rings we might be able to use), a heated tack room (!!!), a bathroom, and a hot/cold wash stall!!! Some pics (I drove by today and it's gorgeous, but I didn't get a chance to take pics of the outside, these are from the BM):

I think this is the wash stall

hello little pony -- Lovely barn interior

turnout

enormous tack room!

HUGE!

 So, it looks like we'll be moving next week!

Oh, and in Riley news, let's just say... I am not going to use the word SOUND ever again on this blog. After my last post, I went out on Tuesday morning to lunge him and he was head-bobbing lame tracking right. Grrrrr. I thought he was just being lazy so I worked him a little to see if it would improve (again thinking that maybe he's been protecting that hoof for so long it's become habit), we got some gorgeous work tracking left and after about 5-10 minutes of flat out refusal to do antyhing but mince around even on the largest circle I called it a day. I told the BM and since our farrier was coming the next day she figured he could take a look. In the 24 hours that I had to wait, like any good neurotic horse owner, I took to the internet and started WebMD-ing my horse and came up with the conclusion that he obviously had a high suspensory tear since his lameness is so noticeable when that forelimb in on the outside of a circle. Concrete evaluation, no? Right as I made that evaluation my BM called to talk about Riley's hoof. Here we go... stall rest, hand-walking, a year off, blah, blah, blah. NO. He reacted violently to the hoof testers on the inside of his LF (the same problem hoof). That would explain his movement on the lunge tracking right as that part of his foot in under the most stress on a circle in that direction. He says abscess, but it's too deep to dig for.

Oh, you'll learn how to stand in a bucket mister

 So, we're back to soaking + wrapping, soaking + wrapping until this thing blows. He's scheduled for a trim next Wednesday, so maybe by then the farrier will be able to reach it if it hasn't erupted on it's own accord. Thank God this horse can grow hoof, because if he had all these thin sole issues AND couldn't hold a shoe I think I'd go even more crazy. We're going to talk about putting him in rim pads to see if there's any improvement. In the meantime, I'm going to start researching equine transplant surgery of the lower forelimb, because in the last 24 hours Riley has also managed to give himself a nice cut on the inside of his LF!!!!

Real cute dude. Standing wrap overnight seemed to help a little

There's another tiny nick above this one (which looks worse in this photo)

When will it end!!!!!??????!!!!!!

Finally, it's been epically foggy on my early morning drives, making for some spectacular views!

It actually got foggier when I was leaving the barn!

Good morning Riley -- against the cool morning sky and the foggy arena

Henry (Riley's turnout buddy) -- what a dreamboat

More Henry against the foggy sunrise