COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: The Mares Away From Home

We sold Annie.

For a while, Carrie wasn't sure if she was going to sell Annie or Nibs. It was the trainer, Tori, that suggested Annie would be easier to sell. 

Carrie was really happy with the home Annie was going to. It's a well-known rider who lives in SC.

We lost money on the deal. We got what we paid Sonya and Jeff, but didn't cover any of Annie's living expenses or training fees. We hadn't planned on making a profit (or even covering all expenses), but it would have been nice. Prices have been depressed with the virus shutting down so much, and Carrie wasn't willing to haggle to get any more. 

Annie's a sweet girl, so I hope she does well at her new home.

Meanwhile, Nibs has been having blazing heat cycles! The trainer said that she peed in front of every horse down the aisle and then had four feet off the ground doing lungework!

We're really hoping that Nibs' heat cycles will calm down once she's out of the horny teenager phase! Carrie has been researching medications and medical options like spaying her. Otherwise, she's a horse you can ride 3 weeks out of every 4.

Nibs is actually going to be going to SC. Tori is relocating with her military husband. Carrie used the money from Annie's sale to fund more training for Nibs. The hope is that she will come home rock solid and with no orphan issues hampering her integration to a herd.

Horses - They're expensive. We're fortunate the barn offsets a lot of the costs. If you're not having fun riding, they can drive you crazy, too!

Having the barn has been good for us during the pandemic, because we always have stuff to do! Carrie wants to have a barn that people can come relax at and our boarders have been visiting regularly! (Especially since the hospital furloughed a bunch of staff...)

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: How's Annie Doing?

Carrie's been doing a lot of thinking about Annie. She remembers Annie as being a brave and curious horse.

However, the Annie we've seen here has been an anxious horse who's scared of everything the first time around (and sometimes the fifth when she forgets it's okay).

Carrie thinks it's due to trauma. 

This is a photo of Annie before she moved to us. 

That's Jeff in the dinosaur costume. Annie and her friend wandered right up to say hello. Sonya is a photographer. She sometimes does silly things to make a good photo or just to be silly. 

Annie's friend is dead. He was a sudden case of colic. He died right in the aisle in front of her stall. 

Horses are large animals. 

They didn't immediately have the equipment necessary. 

Not long after, Annie's sire was rushed to the vet and didn't return. I can't recall if any other horses were sold/transferred after that.

I do know Annie came to us. She'd never been off property before. She immediately tried to bond with Nibs who started to terrorize her. She didn't really have a buddy until Kitty came along.

Trauma wouldn't have occurred to me, but when Carrie laid our her reasoning it seemed to fit. It would explain why she's seemed so fearful. Horses have surprisingly good memories, and Annie went through a lot of change. 

Fast forward to present day: Annie and Nibs are in the same field at Tori's. Nibs has learned a lot about how to get along in a herd. They are doing well together.

After talking to Tori and her mom, Carrie decided that Annie is the horse we're going to sell. That was the original plan and Annie's demeanor means she should fit in easily to most homes. 

Annie's still under training and it's not a seller's market. There are people posting "Coronavirus sales" where they need income quickly. We're hoping Annie finds a home fairly quickly to have her off the payroll. 

"You don't get into horses for the money," Carried said.....and I can confirm! It's like being a professional gambler! There are those top level people who can turn a buck, but most people are cruising for a losing (unless they're the House!). 

We bought Annie to help a friend, so we weren't looking to make a profit. It'd be nice to come out even or money in the pocket, but the main goal is to get her to nice home for Carrie and Sonya's sakes.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Horse Work

The horses have kept us busy all week (Carrie more than me).

Sam and Maddy are both in the tough love fat camp. Maddy's on stall rest, too, and she hates it.

Maddy can't stand being stuck in her stall. She stomps around and turns constantly which grinds her poop into the hay. There's no way to pick it out if you don't catch it falling from her rear! It became an awful mess and by the end of the week Carrie, Shane, and I had to muck it all out. Carrie and Shane scooped while I schlepped the refuse off into a compost pile past the arena.

We would have been able to go longer, but we had multiple people come to check out the barn and Carrie didn't want the smell to drive any prospective boarders away.

Sam started off in his stall, but Carrie moved him out to the dry lot. She learned some lessons with Nibs and picked up a cattle gate. We set him up so that the doors were open and Maddy could see she wasn't fully alone (We had to close her upper curtain window, because she tried to jump out over the door! Have I mentioned Maddy hates stall rest?).

Sam's been a bit of a jerk about it. Carrie tried to put out a water bucket for him, but he kicked it over. Every. Single. Time.

Carrie tied a buck of water for him higher up that he can't easily reach up to kick, but he still splashes it around and paws the gate whenever he hears someone in the barn.

The only thing that's made him tolerate the situation is Kitty. She's in heat.

Sam tried to make a move and got shocked! That minimized his excitement!

Madeleine and Carrie finished clipping Kitty on Wednesday. I stayed inside for that one! I'm already trapped around all my allergies without work for a respite.

The horses haven't been the only source of action around the barn. Carrie spent half an hour on the phone with Laura when she was picking up the cattle gate. She was on and off the phone with her all week.

It started when Laura asked for some advice about her current boarding situation. Laura helped out a lot caring for the horses and with everything else going on (Laura's a nurse that teacher nursing) she was stressed and tired.

It led to Laura coming to check out our barn (and Loki!).

Laura, Barbara, and Heidi are all friends. They boarded together at barn that mostly shut down (Laura was the one who remained to help support operations). They were all happy to see each other.

Barbara and Heidi have both shown up multiple times over the week. Carrie is always quick to greet them and check in.

Carrie's even given Heidi a couple of riding lessons. How many trainers will shovel your horses crap as it comes?

Heidi joked Carrie's tough! "She make me straighten out my shoulders!" Carrie popped on Eddy after Heidi and put him through some paces one day.

There was one startling moment when Heidi fell dismounting after the lesson. Her foot got caught in the stirrup. Thankfully, she had switched to some safety stirrups that Carrie had showed her when she first started to board with us. Carrie ran across the arena to check on her, but Heidi was already up and more embarrassed than anything.

Sam was cute, because he trotted after Carrie when she left him at the mounting block. He followed her right back over there when she was sure Heidi was okay.

Heidi put Eddy away and then came back out to watch Carrie do some lungework with Sam.

And then Carrie rode him.

And then she took him for some laps around the yard (some at speed!).

Carrie's really trying to work Sam, build up his muscle, and shed some fat. She's given him a day of rest after each hour+ session and he's already looking better 

Every one of our boarders has come out and done some riding this week. It's projected to get colder over the weekend and I guess they're all trying to get some exercise and sunlight in the current COVID world.

We have had a string of people interested in our remaining spots this week, as well. With Laura, I think there were at least three who made it past texting and onto the property. Carrie's been trying to figure out logistics and if it would be wise to turn our dry lot into "Maddy's personal playground" complete with a run-in shed (That would put our horse capacity up to 8).

It's a good thing the horses have picked up, because the virus has played havoc on the travel industry (amongst others). But, that's another post.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: First Days at Home

It was a short commute to work for us on Monday!

The horses kept us busy over the weekend and it seems like they're going to keep us busy going forward. Sam's started to stop partway through his door to demand scratches before he'll head off into the field.

Annie gets a special mention today. Our new normal is starting with one less horse. She's going away for training.

Four horses was never the plan. We picked up Annie to help out our friends Sonya and Jeff. Nibs is older and was sent to a trainer, Torrie, to learn how to support a rider. The plan was to have Nibs spend 3 months learning how to work and then she'd come back in May when Kitty moved out. Then it would be Annie's turn to go off and learn how to be ridden.

We got offered a deal. Torrie's moving to SC to get married. She wasn't planning on picking up new prospects, but with the virus and social distancing her events have all been canceled. Suddenly, she has more time than expected and offered us a discount. Carrie likes her work with Nibs, and Torrie was already cheaper than who Carrie was planning on sending Annie to.

We talked it over and decided to go for it. Carrie's hoping that having the same trainer work with both horses will help us have a better comparison between them for how much they could sell for and what homes would be a goof fit for them.

It meant we had to do some extra work Monday morning. Carrie decided to 'ace' Annie to keep her calm for the ride. I got to distract her and hold the lead rope while Carrie found the vein.

I gave Shane my phone and asked him to take some pictures to keep him busy.

There's no need to shower or fix your hair when working from home! I was still in pajamas to boot.

Kitty was shocked.

She kept looking off into the arena and calling out to her friend. You could tell she was lonely. She started to stand closer to Maddy after a while and life went on.

Shane and I stayed home this time. I got to deal with all sorts of things from homeschooling to Happy barf with worms wriggling around in it.

We've wormed her multiple times and she's started to avoid food with the medicine in it. Genevieve is being awesome and sending us prescription strength wormer (she works at a cat clinic).

In between keeping Shane busy, I had a virtual meeting at noon. 

I put on a hat to hide the bed head, but then discovered I could join the meeting with the camera off. I muted myself for good measure (Shane kept trying to yell to me across the house, because Shane).

A bunch of other people didn't get the "mute your mic" memo and kept talking over the principal. I typed in chat that people could pose questions there and an AP said, "Yes!" and took over moderating.

Everyone is trying to figure out how to do virtual school when not all kids can access virtual school. At the moment, the guidance from the state is:

1. Stay closed at least two weeks.
2. Nothing graded allowed those two weeks.
3. No new materials either (unless you're an AP class).

ACPS has said that we need to provide some sort of enrichment material that can't take more than 2 hours to complete in a week. They've extended the school wifi to reach into school parking lots so people without access can use it and there are food distribution sites set up at schools to help the families who rely on schools for food. We will have a virtual meeting Wednesday with more info and it's planned to become a weekly event.

The schools were closed for all business except picking up materials. Shane's school opened to distribute student laptops for 3rd-5th graders, but we opted to stick with what we have.

Carrie came back with more work. She'd dropped by the supply store near Raphine (trailer accessible!). We cleaned out the trailer and did some afternoon work in the barn.

We were all cleaned up and ready for when the vet came that evening. Loki hasn't had a bad vet experience yet and was happy to run and greet the doctor.

Carrie had fecals for all the horses labelled and ready to go. Sam and Maddy earned some special attention.

They're going to the tough love fat camp this week. Sam was estimated over 1400 lbs and needed to slim down to ~1250 lbs. Maddy was estimated around 955 lbs and needed to drop into the 800's (800-850 lbs preferred).

It's good for Sam, but critical for Maddy. After she displayed some aggravation with Shane riding (and he's little) Carrie's kept an eye on her. She seemed a little resistant on the lunge a few times and the vet agreed with Carrie's assessment.

The vet said she thought Maddy was pre-laminitic. Carrie described it to me as "like diabetes in horses, but not diabetes. It affects the hooves." Fresh spring grass is higher in sugars and our fields are sprouting beautifully.

Maddy won't be out on them. She's going be trapped on stall rest with a controlled diet of hay (maybe even soaked hay if she'll eat it).

Sam got pulled in as moral support (No one wants to go to fat camp alone. Especially a herd animal!).

Maddy broke out of fat camp that night.

I'd heard her banging when I went to bed. She'd been complaining about being in the stall ever since the vet left.

We changed out almost all of the stall doors and hinges. Guess who's we hadn't yet?

Nibs was the first one to bust a door. Sam was the one Carrie worried about, because he kept impatiently bumping his chest up against his door. I'd forgotten that Maddy broke one, too.

The cheapo builder screws stripped and several of them broke when Carrie tried to reuse them.

Quite annoying.

It'd not a hard process. It's been on the docket for a while, but it's easier with two people and it was normally dark and cold whenever I made it home through the winter.

It's a good example of why it's good not to put something off for too long, though. There's only one old style latch left in the barn and it's in an unused stall. We took off all the inner ones when we switched to metal stall gates.

That's a big post dealing almost entirely with Carrie, me, and horses. My next post will talk more about how I'm planning to keep this guy busy while at home.

Dial It Down, Sunday

Sunday! A day of rest!

Carrie braided Annie's hair and worked with her in the arena.

Annie's making progress. Heidi came by and it was a horse day for Carrie.

Shane and I went to church and then I taught him how to play Memoir '44 after. It's a history game about WW2 I borrowed from John.

Loki ate a couple of pieces that dropped on the floor. He loves cardboard.

Loki peed when I yelled at him.

Shane rolled really well and won! I missed a rule about sandbags making him roll one less dice against me, but him winning may mean he'll be more willing to play again in the future.

I was happy to lose the battle to win the war on future boredom!

I spent a fair amount of time outside and helping out. I discovered a gross friend in Annie's poop.

It was at least a six inch long roundworm. I took a picture in case we needed to show a vet, but Carrie just grunted and said, "Time to worm her." For such a full grown worm, Carrie thinks Annie came from Sonya's with them.

Shane and I did manage an afternoon play date. We met the Cartwrights at Dorrier Park.

Claire wasn't there, because she was selling Girl Scout cookies. Logan brought his Nerf guns and Julia grabbed the ammo and ran off. Shane tried to get the ammo back for Logan, but it ended up a free for all.

Their dad, Alex (?), had a single shot nerf rifle and got involved in the running around. Shane told him to "pull up his pants" because he could see his butt crack!

"HVAC crack is worse than plumber's!" Corrie said (the mom - not sure on spelling).

The kids all enjoyed running around. Shane opened up a store where he started to sell ammo and other things. Logan accidentally shot himself looking down the barrel of his gun, got upset, and broke it.

It wasn't the longest play date, but it got some energy out.

I reached out to Shelby's family, as well, but their kids were all sick. That left horse chores and hanging out to finish up the weekend.