The weekend was mostly uneventful. I was certainly busy enough with fairly mundane tasks like refilling salt holders and updating feed charts. And you thought there wasn’t a glamorous side to being on a retirement farm!
Saturday evening did provide me with some unwanted excitement. As always I went over to the barn right before I went to bed. We do a night check on any stalled horses and give them more hay and check water buckets. Of course we go over every night to tuck in Mina and Jo. world’s cutest fainting goats. Jason was away this weekend so I was on my own on Saturday evening.
I always give Mina and Jo a little bit of grain when I put them in their stall for the night. I keep their bag of feed in the office in the barn because I’ve never bothered to get another feed can for their food. I obviously don’t want an open bag of feed out in the barn or in my feed room so I’ve just been keeping their bag of feed in the office.
I went to scoop out a little feed and before the scoop made it to the bag I noticed the bag shifted ever so slightly. This did not make me happy. Some kind of rodent, either a mouse or a rat, had finally realized where I was keeping the accessible food. I stretched and leaned forward as far as I could trying to see in the bag without getting too close to it. What can I say, I am a major wimp!! I couldn’t see anything so I reached out and tapped the bag with the feed scoop. More movement from the bag.
I stood there contemplating my options – or I should say trying to come up with an option that didn’t involve me in any way – when Jo decided this was taking way too long. She marched up to the bag of feed and just stuck her head in it to grab a bite. All of a sudden the inhabitant of the bag leaped several feet into the air like it had been shot out of a cannon, over Jo and past me. Jo fainted, proving yet again that Jason and I definitely got the premium fainter that we had paid extra money for! As I simultaneously screamed along with Jo’s faint I was thinking that I had a really ticked off super rodent coming after me.
I only screamed once, I had my big girl pants on that night! As I finished my scream I turned around to see where this mighty, leaping, air borne rodent had gone so I could make sure that I ran in the opposite direction. My plan that I formulated in a split second was to grab fainted Jo and get the heck out of Dodge before we were attacked again.
I saw where our attacker was and realized it was . . .
.
.
. . . wait for it . . .
.
.
. . . a tiny FROG!!!
Jo and I recovered our dignity and moved on with our evening. Mina was watching us from the aisle in the barn and wondering what in the heck all of the excitement was about.
The rest of the weekend was uneventful.
I look at this picture and ask myself what horse would not want to live here and enjoy all of that space and all of that green grass? The very lucky grazers are Elfin, Chance, Leo, Homer and Levendi. They all happen to be retired show hunters, I guess they were trading war stories with each other, or maybe they were comparing ribbons.
Levendi napping; you can see a peek of Elfin who was napping behind him
People often ask me who their horse’s best friend(s) are. That can really vary. Sometimes the horses are grazing together as a group, sometimes they are paired off, and sometimes, like in this picture, they are all spread out across the pasture. Lily is in front, Cuffie is behind her, then Missy, Harmony and Buffy in a row. MyLight is a little speck behind Buffy that you can’t really see.
Ivan, retired Grand Prix jumper. When Ivan first arrived three years ago I thought he was going to eat us out of house and home trying to keep weight on him. He is a much, much easier keeper today. Ivan is a thoroughbred and is 17 years old.
Clay, O’Reilly and Teddy grazing together.
Trillion grazing, Winston looking alert and Ogie looking half asleep. Trillion was a nationally ranked show hunter, Winston was also a hunter, and Ogie is a retired eventer.
Sebastian and Trillion grazing; Sebastian is a Connemara/Irish Draught cross and was a horse that you could pretty much do any discipline on and win. Trillion is a Dutch Warmblood and I love it when I have the opportunity to see him show off his big, lopey canter stride. He showed in the 4′ hunters and when you see him canter through the field you can envision him hunting down to a 4′ oxer.
I have so many different versions of this picture because I could take this picture almost every day! B-Rad and Asterik grooming each other. B-Rad is a Belgian Warmblood and Asterik is a Holsteiner, both are retired jumpers.
Winston and Ogie grazing together
This isn’t a great picture I just liked how the tree framed it for me. Snappy (retired 4 star eventer and show hunter), Teddy (retired Quarter Horse), Lightening (Arabian and retired trail horse), Mr. O’Reilly (Irish bred and retired jumper) and Chili (Quarter Horse who worked cows and had trail duty)
Trigger and Chance wanted to be the first ones to dirty up my clean trough