Truthful Tuesday

 

Do you all remember many, many years ago when I had the squirrels living in my house? A couple of gray ones and like 40 flying ones? It was a whole thing! Ever since then, I've not really been a squirrel fan. Which is complicated here in my town because that's our mascot. 

Designed by the late Peter Good

Anyway, I'm not here for a history lesson about our town mascot. Rather, I'm here to discuss why my feud with the squirrels has been reignited. Guys. A SQUIRREL made me fall of Eros on Friday. (Fear not, no one was injured except my ample behind.) Please enjoy this short video of what went down (me, it was me, I went down). Make sure you watch the whole thing for full squirrel antics. 

So yeah. Now I have to watch out for the neighbor AND the sassy squirrels. I wonder if he's a domesticated squirrel. Trained by bang and clang. It could be a conspiracy!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I spent almost all of my braiding money on new blankets for the horses. And I don't even feel badly about it. I think I finally have exactly what I want for weights. Hopefully. We shall see how they work out over the winter. Our previous turnout gear had almost all lost it's water proofing and some of them had holes. So it was time. And I wasn't happy with my stable wardrobe last year. The 100 grams didn't fit the horses properly, the drop was too short and they shifted a lot. I'd come in to them kind of hanging off one side. And the heavies, while lovely and warm and cozy actually weighed A LOT. As I'm aging, I have a lot more aches and pains in the cold weather, and those very heavy blankets were pretty difficult for me to get up on the bigger horses. So I ordered the Amigo's for inside. I had similar ones from Amigo at the old boarding barn, and I really liked them other than the color. So hopefully I will like these too. 

Anyone else getting ready for the dark season? I dislike winter so much, that I'm hoping having new outfits for the horses will at least bring a little joy. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

I'm back! Thanks for hanging with me while I was overwhelmed with life last week. Today's confession is that I've finally accepted that I can't do all of the things all of the time. And as a result, my horses only got ridden twice last week. But fingers crossed, we're back to (mostly) normal this week. The only hiccup I'm so far aware of is tomorrow. Rita is having a dental and a broken tooth removed, so I will have to pick her up late afternoon which might mean I only have time to ride two tomorrow since it's family dinner night. But that's okay. Just doing the best I can with the hours supplied in a day. 

Anyone else? Or are you still finding ways to put more hours in a day? If so, share with me your secrets!

Truthful Tuesday

 

So as I was obsessively sweeping my barn aisle one day this weekend, I had a realization. I don't think my desire to keep the barn looking dust, dirt, and cobweb free comes from a need for perfection. I truly think it's due to my actually being such a lazy person inside. 

I realize this is counterintuitive. But, see, I know that if I don't keep up with it, it will be SO MUCH more work when I do get around to it. And that feeling leaves me overwhelmed and not l knowing where to start. (Which is everything you need to know about the state of my own home...) 

And THAT is today's confession: I'm actually really lazy and my house is a mess.

Truthful Tuesday

 

Oof, guys. This rain! I really hope this is mother nature getting excessive precipitation out of her system before winter. Because if winter follows this pattern I might just lose my mind. I barely got to ride last week. Tuesday and Friday were the only weekdays I got everyone ridden. The weekend was better thank goodness! A friend of mine with a rain gauge posted that our town received 10" of rain over the last four storms (which were all within the last week or so). That's a LOT of rain. The positives are that the grass is green (in August!) and the pool is staying full all on its own. So there are pluses. 

I know this doesn't sound like a confession. But here it is: I was feeling very discouraged by the lack of riding. This summer has been challenging in the mental department for me, and after the winter... It's been a little hard. But I'm trying me best to turn my mindset around. I know I'm incredibly lucky. I know that I have really special horses. And I also know that they don't care if they are super fit and going to shows or not. They only care that I feed them regularly and keep them healthy. So I'm going to keep remembering this and just enjoying our time together. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

So... I was cleaning up outside the other morning. I had a pitchfork in one hand and a bucket in the other and this buzzy bug kept flying at my face. So I went to wave it away and clocked myself in the face with the pitchfork handle. 

And that's today's confession! I'm the clumsiest. Should not be left unsupervised. Clearly! Haha! Anyone else like me?

Truthful Tuesday

 

Okay, this is an icky one. So one of the mornings last week or the week before (who can remember) when I walked under the chain that runs across the barn door opening to start my day out there, I walked into a spider web without realizing it at first. I spent the rest of the morning still feeling like there was web on me, even though I had removed what I thought was all of it. I went about my morning, occasionally trying to pick imaginary (or was it?) web off the back of my neck. 

And then it was time to get ready to ride. As I was taking out my ponytail to do my hair for helmet, guess what I discovered. GUESS!

If you said a spider in my hair, you would be correct. Thankfully it was a small one, and not the absolutely enormous potential tarantula I saw in the hay barn yesterday. So that's my confession this week. I spent many hours doing chores the other day with a spider in my hair the entire time. 

Truthful Tuesday: Change is hard edition

 

I'm back! Sorry for the short hiatus friends, but I was fresh out of bandwidth last week. As you know I've been having some issues with the job my helper of many years has been doing. And when I was spending so much time finishing and or redoing his work that I was struggling to have time to ride all my horses, I knew that I really needed to do something about the situation. Spending eight hours in the barn plus trying to work my hours for Turnout during the week, and 12-13 hour days in the barn on weekends was taking a toll on me. Physically and emotionally. I didn't have time or energy for anything else. 

So I made the decision a couple months ago to commit to finding a replacement. And I finally did, which meant that last Friday it was time to let my worker go. I've never had to terminate a worker before. I've had people leave of course over the years I've been here. One lady was struggling with carpal tunnel so she needed to stop cleaning stalls. (I feel that, I've developed it myself over the last year.) I had a few weekend helpers that graduated college and left to start their grown up lives. That sort of thing. I haven't ever had to be the bad guy. So needless to say, all last week I was having a wee nervous breakdown about the whole thing. It actually went fine, and in all honesty, I don't think he really wanted to be doing this job anymore. But I was really stressed last week just knowing I had to do that. 

My new worker started on Sunday. He's going to be doing Sunday through Thursday. Which I'm really excited about. My little town has a great Farmer's Market on Sunday mornings in the summer and concerts at the lake across the street from me on Sunday evenings. But I haven't been able to get get to either of those things for the last few years. And now I'll be able to! Plus I think having an easy day Sunday (pretty much just riding that day and evening chores) hopefully I won't be so exhausted on Monday and I can be more productive with my non riding day. (It's honestly shocking how energy levels tank after 45. SHOCKING. Believe people when they tell you this.)

New worker is pretty green around horses, but has had some experience. Thankfully, my three are all generally very easy to handle. Even Al who is such a weirdo, is very respectful on the ground. I've been working with him all this week so he can get the routine down, and I can make sure things are getting done how I like. He's very willing to do things the way I want them done. He's picking things up quickly. Tomorrow is the first day that I'll leave him alone in the barn for a bit while I take a work meeting. I'm going to help him get everyone out, and then probably head back inside for my meeting and pop back out when it's time to bring the horses in. If that goes well, I'll do a little less each day until he's comfortable on his own. 

Hopefully he'll enjoy the work and want to stick around awhile. Send good vibes for that outcome if you have them to spare! 

So that's my confession. I was having a wee panic attack about this big change in my life. Hopefully I'm over the transition hump and things will settle down soon. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I am taking the rest of the week off from blogging. We don't have much to report on for tomorrow and I have some changes going on over here that have me pretty distracted. I'll give a full report next week! Have a great week everyone!

Truthful Tuesday

 

So I've been trying to be better about going to the grocery store myself rather than choosing delivery because it's cheaper to do it myself. I don't have to leave me a tip! But things have just been so busy here, I ordered my groceries this week. I chose the latest two hour window I could, and hoped it would come at the later end of the window. Of course it didn't though. It arrived right at the start. I was still riding, and didn't want to go in the house and get Rita all excited only to leave her again. So I put the perishables in a drink cooler I have in the barn with a couple ice boots. Which I thought was pretty responsible! Totally did the trick of keeping things nice and cold. Except I didn't realize that I missed a whole package of smoked salmon that was hiding under the lettuce. $13 right in the trash because I'm definitely not eating fish that's been sitting out for two hours in the summer. 

It was especially disappointing though because I had also ordered a rotisserie chicken which was the base for all the meals I had planned for the next several days and they were out of those. So I got a whole load of groceries (mostly vegetables) and absolutely no protein. Sigh. Guess I'll have to make that trip to the store after all. I did have tuna fish though, so tonight I made tuna macaroni which was a pretty solid meal for a last minute change. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

I was on my own in the barn Friday through Monday, and I was VERY productive out there. We had two rain days so instead of riding, I did lots and lots of cleaning. I'm trying to get things back to where they should be so it will be easy to keep up with. (Of course today, my worker was back and used his gas powered blower to dirty everything back up... but that's a complaint for another day.) Monday I was able to ride, but I made sure to leave the place looking perfect. It was a long day.

Monday's Stats
Yes, 35,736 steps. 

I was so pooped by the time I got ready for bed I put my jammies on backwards. And THAT my friends is today's confession. I did turn them around before actually going to bed though. Fear not!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I spend a lot of time checking to see if the blankets I want for the horses are on sale. I'm not satisfied with our current wardrobe, and I'm slowly trying to get them replaced with better options. I'm nearly done with turnouts for next year. My current turnouts all fit well, but as this was the first winter home in awhile, I realized they aren't quite the weights and configurations that I want. I had a different set of blankets for the winter barn, but they also aren't exactly what I wanted either. So as tack stores were putting turnouts outs on sale this spring, I got what I think I wanted. I just have one more weight to find and also a set of liners. 

As for stables... I'm having a few issues with what we have. While I LOVE our heavies from Kentucky, they are very heavy literally. I would prefer something that's warm but a little lighter weight to handle. Also, the shavings just stick to them which is so messy. I have to brush them off before removing them or there are shavings just absolutely everywhere. I'll probably still use them for the coldest days since they are so cozy. The 100 grams we have just don't fit that well. They aren't long enough in the drop, so they tend to shift a lot. Poor Al some mornings has his whole right side hanging out! And then I have a lined sheet we use for when it's not quite warm enough for just sheets but 100 grams seem like too much. I love them, but they create SO MUCH static. Poor Eros is now terrified of having his blanket removed because of them. 

Amigo came out with green insulators which is what I'd like to replace what we have currently. They come in several weights. I want the 360 grams for heavies, the 100 grams, and the 50 grams for those in between days. Unfortunately, so far they've only had the heavies on sale, and it was a short window which I missed. So I may have to wait until fall blanket sales to start restocking blankets. Until then though, I'll keep wasting time stalking websites to see if there are any sales... 

Truthful Tuesday

 

So last week was one of those weeks where I had something additional to do outside of the norm every single day. And I was SO looking forward to my Monday this week. I don't ride on Mondays. I have my helper in the morning for chores and turnout/in. All I have to do on Mondays is make Shiny's hay bags, feed all the meals, top off waters, and do night check. Since I have less to do in the barn that day, I usually tend to all the household chores, do my PT exercises, run errands, and clock some work for TurnoutHQ. Now that I'm HAPPILY back in the saddle, my weekend days in the barn are a solid 10-12 hours between riding and chores. Needless to say, I very much look forward to my Mondays. But alas, my worker called out this week. So after a crazy week and two very long weekend days, I had to do the barn Monday. And it was actually a really nice day so I decided to ride. Today, I figured I'd catch up on a few things I couldn't get to yesterday, and then go ride. And now comes my confession for today. 

My morning helper is also the lawn guy. After calling out yesterday, he thought he would stay late today and start spring cleanup outside. But without asking me first. And here's my confession. I was really frustrated by this. I just got really fed up with him just doing what he wants when he wants around here. And I'm not sure if that's entirely fair, but it was very much how I was feeling. Now, I'm not an asshole. I didn't tell him that. But I did tell him he needed to be done for the day when it was after noon and I needed to start riding. I probably would be less bothered if I'd had my Monday. But this was the second one in a row that turned out to not be truly my "day off" and I was just needing some peace and quiet. (Not that I really get that with the neighbor...) Anyway. That's my confession. I had big feelings today. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

Well guys, I messed up on Sunday. I set my usual two alarms. And somehow slept through both of them. I woke up at 8AM! I ran out in my jammies to feed the horses before heading back inside to put on appropriate horse chores clothing. 

Thankfully, my horses aren't too tied to a clock so they didn't seem terribly offended that breakfast was more than 30 minutes late. Thank goodness. But I sure felt terrible about it! It all worked out okay in the long run because it was going to be a rainy afternoon so I figured we wouldn't get to ride anyway. They got to stay out a little longer but were back inside just in time for the rain to start. 

I've since added a third alarm to the mix that's significantly louder. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

I'm a little ashamed of this one... I cleaned out a coat closet last week and you'll never believe what I found. FIVE pairs of paddock boots. Two winter pairs that I clearly got on sale because they are a half size too small (those went straight to the donate pile) and then three pair of perfectly good regular boots. While I am ashamed of myself for hoarding boots, it was actually a great discovery since I had several pair retire at the end of last year. I still think I want to find something waterproof for doing chores in, these finds will definitely go to use in the barn this year. I guess look for them on future Thursday's Threads.

Any of you find any weird hoards recently? We're getting to spring cleaning time, so let me know if you do!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Okay, I remembered what I wanted to confess last week. Took me until the weekend but I got there! The confession is that I prefer to do stalls in paddock boots because they have smaller treads on the soles. When I do stalls in my winter boots the treads grab all the shavings and track them absolutely everywhere making a mess once I walk out of the stall. Drives me bananas! So I clean stalls in paddock boots, then switch to something else to climb through the snow to pick paddocks. In the summer I just stick to paddock boots for the whole process. Trouble is, stall muck is TERRIBLE for paddock boots. Rots the leather pretty quickly. So I thought I'd get some rubber boots that LOOK like paddock boots. 

Unfortunately, the tread is super deep, and I kind of hate them for that. I'll probably throw them in the trailer because they would be very useful at horse shows. So I guess I'm back to destroying paddock boots until I find a better alternative. I may look at some of the synthetic ones out there, but my past experience with synthetic leather boots ripped me feet up. I think they've made great advancements in materials since then though. So we'll see. For now, I'm not allowed to buy anything until I get caught up from everything breaking around here. 

Do you have any weird reasons for choosing a particular footwear? This very much might be a me problem. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I remember having a thought while cleaning the med paddock this weekend that whatever I had done would be a great Truthful Tuesday, but now I can't remember what it was that I did. I keep saying I need to note these things, and occasionally I do! But most often I do not. And I am pretty sure I would have some pretty entertaining content if I could remember what I do! Ha!

This is 45 I guess. Do you have great content ideas and then immediately forget them? No? Just me? It will happen to you soon enough!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I was pretty seriously considering selling the farm along with the horses today. I'm not completely sure how much snow we got on Monday, but it was over my knees. We still had huge piles from all the other snow this year, and thus, all the hard working snow plow people are completely overwhelmed. Understandably. But also completely overwhelmed? Us backyard barn owners. There were many of us commiserating today. I tried very hard yesterday to shovel enough to get the horses out, but I was unsuccessful. My snow plow person said they would be here early today, but early came and went. And the horses were stuck in a second day. Fortunately with this particular herd as long as you keep feeding them, they don't care much where they are. But I care! I felt terrible not getting them out for a second day. To top things off, my thermostat decided to quit its job early this morning too. Thankfully it was the barn one and not one of the house ones. But still not great given all the plumbing in my barn. HVAC couldn't come until I was plowed. Plow was MIA with no eta. Oh and did I mention that I was now out of muck buckets but couldn't get to the poo dumpster until I was plowed? Thankfully I got the stalls done both days with what I have. But I probably should consider getting a few more buckets. Just in case since this seems to be a recurring theme around here lately.  

Fortunately, early afternoon the HVAC company called and said they could climb in from the road and get me taken care of. Which was so kind of them, because I know that was a real PITA. I made sure to tip them generously. (Thank goodness I sold a few things to a neighbor a couple weeks ago so I had some cash!) The snow plow arrived sometime between 3 and 4. They did the best they could and I will be able to get horses out tomorrow, so that's the most important thing. I'm not sure I can get my car out, but they got enough done that I should be able to tackle whatever is blocking it myself. 

There's a driveway under there somewhere.

So anyway. That's today's confession. Winter very nearly broke me entirely today. Well, winter and my thermostat. But the good news is my spiral is back under control for the time being and my helper will hopefully be able to get here to work tomorrow! (I say hopefully because it will be snowing again tomorrow morning. 1-3" predicted. Someone please make it stop.)

Truthful Tuesday

 

Okay, I have a good one for this week. Despite knowing full well that I am maxed out with three horses, I still regularly read horse for sale ads. And there was one pony not long ago that I saw that I very seriously considered calling my financial advisor to make it happen. But then I thought about all the stuff I'd have to buy for it and the very small responsible side of my brain talked me out of it. Thank goodness. Because there is no room at this inn for anything else I need to clean up after. 

Anyone else guilty of such things? Why are we like this??

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I have a new understanding of cold. I always believed that anything under about 15 degrees just feels the same. But that is very much not true, and I have learned that this year. You see, I experienced -8 for the first time the weekend before last that most definitely feels colder than say 10 degrees in the positive direction. VERY DIFFERENT. Trust me. But here's something even more interesting that I learned this past weekend. I will preface this by saying I understand wind always feels colder, but I always believed if you're out of the wind then it doesn't affect the feel. I now realize that is also not true. Sunday morning at breakfast time it was 0 degrees out which is cold. But the wind chill feel was -20. MINUS TWENTY! I don't even understand these words. I can assure you, it felt much colder than -8 real temp did last weekend. 

So that's today's confession. Despite my intense disdain for cold weather, I was very ignorant about it. I am now better educated. And my disdain has grown.