Rea

So now that the weather is warming up I am planning my summer show schedule- wahoo! Rea is doing great! I finally get time/make time to ride. 

This weekend is a centered riding clinic at home with the amazing Susan Harris. Then at the end of the month is a hunter show at home. June will kick off with a dressage show in Huntersville and then a combined test two weeks later at TTC. Then hopefully going to do a baby horse trials 4th of July. So there you have it 4 shows in the works! It feels so good to have goals/plans/and exciting things on the horse front again. It has been waaaay too long!

Hart Square behind the scenes

I http://www.ourstate.com/hart-square-village/

This Saturday Mom scheduled an outing for Justin, her and I. She had been talking about this Hart square place for MONTHS. Justin and I didn't know what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised. Once we got there and drive for what seemed like 5 minutes we got to a clearing to park and then there were many little beautiful cabins. We walked around and explored the open ones and enjoyed all the views. The real treat came at lunch where we all sat down with our boxed lunches and Dr Hart came to speak to the group. He shared his favorite stories from the cabins that were open. What an interesting individual he bought cabins from the area and then took them down and painstakingly put them back up piece by piece. The afternoon we looked at the remaining 6 cabins that were open and mom bought herself a beautiful coffee table book that was signed by Dr Hart.

cool printing press

If you ever get the chance...go! It is really neat. He hosts a festival every fall where people are dressed in period clothes and all of the buildings are used for their original functions...printing press, gun shop, ect.

Rooms filled to the brim with beds...

The skulls of two deer that apparently got stuck fighting then died because they starved to death...once in a lifetime finding- although depressing...

Inbox is empty

I have a favorite book which helps you not to sweat the small stuff. It has a great lesson in it which tells you that your inbox will always be full and those of us that try and empty the inbox will never be fulfilled, there is always more to do. That said I can say that my inbox (at least of the important things) is empty! I have FINALLY caught up on all work paperwork, my truck is fairly stocked, and my workroom downstairs is clean and organized. What a feeling it is to finally have some time to rest without a huge weight of the millions of things i need to do.  That said I could not have done any of it without the help of my wonderful mom! She came over last week and helped me file which I caught up on medical records, invoicing, and double checking the numbers with the bank.  I finally finished the last few pieces last night and now all i have to do is keep up (easier said that done). Yesterday after a fun day at Hart Square she came over and we overhauled the work area downstairs. It never really got fully organized, I just moved in as much as I needed to and then started working.  It looks amazing now and I am so relieved to have that done!

That said the inbox is never truly empty, I know I have a filthy house, bathrooms, and other things I could be doing. But I know that mental health is also important and I have spent my morning reading Harry Potter in snuggly sweat pants on the couch. The house and bathrooms will get cleaned in due time!

Tonight I will finally get to ride my sweet girl again. Megan has been wonderful and riding her some this past week- she rides her so well! I had plans to go meet both her and Mom but of course emergency phone had different plans and rang as soon as I was changed and ready to head out there. Such is the life of a solo practitioner.


Rea and I have great plans for the summer, a centered riding clinic in early May at home, then maybe a dressage and cross country schooling mid-May and finishing it off with a Hunter show at home. Again all of those plans are written in pencil as we all know horses make their own agendas and its not fun to make plans in pen.

Hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday!

Transformation Tuesday

Rea my newest addition is wonderful! It's been about three months since I've had her so I thought I'd do a transformation tuesday! 

First trial November 2014

December 2014

First Horse show January 2015

April 2015

Chickens

We have Chickens now! As some of you know my wedding present from Justin was a chicken coop. Since we moved I had always told him I wanted chickens. He told me he really didn't want them so I agreed (reluctantly) to be ok with not having chickens.  Low and behold on our wedding day I got what I wanted :)

This was my face in response to him wrapping it in a USPS express mail envelope.....very Justin.

(photo cred- Vesic Photography)

"OHH I get a chicken coop! WOW!"
(photo cred- Vesic Photography)

Since October I have been anxiously awaiting chickens. When I did research I noted that many chickens stop laying in the winter. Well I didn't want to get them and then feed them all winter and not get eggs so we deiceded to wait until the spring. 

Last weekend we pulled the chicken wire for their pen. We wanted them to free-roam but not bother any neighbors.

Then this weekend we got the chickens. I found young pullets that had just started laying in Winston.  Justin agreed to get up early on his day off and go get them with me. We squeezed in an awesome breakfast with Nana, Papa, and D'Neil then went to get our chickens.

Copper rode in the back and kept them company (really he just shook and whined all excited-like the WHOLE TIME!) 

Here are our beautiful hens- meet Ginger, Cherry, Caramel (and the last one doesn't have a name yet)

Snow Day

We had a very rare day where I was on call and Justin and I both got to hang out together! We spent the day playing games- Life (where he kicked my butt) and Cafe International (where I kicked his! )

Did I mention I also lost terribly at Monopoly the night before??

 Then we alternated between watching New Girl and Friends. Both quality shows. Justin took a nap and I went on a long walk with Cooper to get rid of some of the cabin fever we were both feeling.

He pulled out every. single. one. of. his. toys.....

 Star and Sam got some extra love and soaked alfalfa cubes for being troopers about the weather. Sam thought that this was great! Star on the other hand gave the the stink eye which explicitly told me he was an INSIDE horse!

 The phone stayed quiet until about 7pm when we were on the road with a neighbor going to dinner.  (of course) I got dropped off back at home and the patient came to me. It ended up being a c-section with a very large, cute, ALIVE baby goat.  Thanks to Justin and Dan for all the help!

Cute baby Nik - Named after the Dr :)!!!!!

Horsey weekend

This weekend was a weekend full of horsey adventures!  It started with an early morning Friday so that I could finish my surgeries before my good old man Sam came down from the mountains.

Let me back up- Sam was one of my first horses as a kid- I started him from the ground up and was even the first person to ever ride him!  We had a great run of it but he kept coming up lame and we didn't feel it was fair to make him keep working with that many issues as a young 7 year old. He has since spent his retirement in the mountains with many acres to roam and cattle as buddies.  I have always felt guilt having such a sweet horse so far away from constant human interaction so I knew one day I wanted him closer to me.  When we bought this property we didn't originally want to fence it but after a few 8 hour mowing marathons Justin threw up his hands and said we need something to help!  In came fencing for 1.5 acres and the plan to bring Sam home! Since then it has been a waiting game with the wedding around the corner and work crazy.  I finally put my foot down after Thanksgiving and said we need to figure out how/what we are going to use for a shelter for the horses.  That is a whole other blog post but we built a BEAUTIFUL lean to shed for them in a little over a month.

The logistics of bringing Sam down looked grim but my dad has some wonderful friends up the mountain who offered to bring him up for us so we wouldn't have to worry with the weather. The forcast for Friday was great and they loaded him in a stock trailer with a heavy blanket and trekked down the mountain.  He came right off the trailer and went into his new home and started munching on grass- not bad for a guy who has been in the mountains for 15 years!  Since he seemed so content I decided to give him some time to settle in before Star came back home.

he had a rough life up there. What a wonderful view!

Saturday was another huge day for me and horses.  Rea- a 6 yo Trak. mare that I bought from my lovely neighbor was debuting at her and I's first show!  I had her since early November last year and made the purchase official in December! We had a rough start with a puncture wound directly over the hock but she is such a lovely mare with a great disposition.  The morning started out in all the wrong ways- the truck wouldn't start - it was a bit miffed at being left out the night before in the cold (26 deg).  Then the ball in the back of the truck wouldn't come up and then we finally got the trailer pulled out and realized the registration sticker was 2 years old.....we almost threw up our hands at that point and scratched but Dad came to the rescue! From there it was smooth sailing the girls loaded beautifully and Rea acted at TTC as if she had been there multiple times before. Our tests were a little tense but she had a fabulous warm-up.  We walked away with a 73 in Intro A and a 70 in Intro B.  I am beyond proud of what we have been able to accomplish in this short time even with injuries, crappy weather, and crazy work schedules.  The next show planned is in March and is a hunter show where we plan on jumping :)

Running around in their new home :)

Sunday morning started by hooking up my tag along trailer and going to check on Rea and Ace and bring my old man home.  The girls were happy and ready to go out for the day- appreciating their day off. Start jumped right into the trailer and when I brought him to the new pasture he ran around like a spring chicken. Poor Sam was trying his hardest to keep up.  It was wonderful to go out yesterday and give them both kisses and carrots before bed.  What a wonderful life!  The Gooch Farm is coming right along :)