If you recall, this is the phone that is so old and obsolete that it’s been turned in to lost and founds twice.

So normally, losing my phone is a temporary inconvenience: once I figure out where I had it last, I can always go pick it up.

This morning, however, I was supposed to be meeting two people at the barn, so it was not a good day to be phoneless.

But what can you do? It was lost and no amount of searching was turning it up. I left for the barn.

A friend was meeting me there, so she got to meet Aiden. I turned him out in the arena; it was still pretty waterlogged, but it was dry enough that I felt ok leaving him out for a few hours. I was going to show him off, but he wandered around like the old soul that he is.

The saddle fitter showed up shortly after, and Ro was popping out of her skin (high protein diet + limited turnout/work opportunities for a week = one wound up horse). It’s sad when an eighteen-month-old has better ground manners than the six year old.

We got her to stand still long enough to do a few last checks on the saddle, then I tossed her out with Aiden.

All that done, my friend and I left to run our errand. When we came back, instead of the quiet, water-logged barn I was expecting, the place was packed with trailers and families.

And the arena, which had looked days from being rideable just four hours before, was dry enough to ride in. Which was why, apparently, the barn was packed—some boarders were out, a couple lesson students were out, and a drill team had trailered in to practice.

We popped my horses back in their stalls and my friend headed home. I was planning to leave and come back later, and then decided better of it.

My saddle was back, after all, and I had boots in my car. Ro had been turned out for several hours, so I figured she had used up the worst of her energy.

I tacked her up quickly and we joined everyone in the arena.

Here’s how much Ro has matured:

The guys had let the steers in the chute that runs along the arena, so the steers could graze on grass for a bit.

The drill team was working on their pattern in the middle of the ring.

Kids were playing on the swingset right by the ring.

A couple boarders and a couple lesson kids were cantering around the rail.

Neighborhood kids were running 4-wheelers and motorized bikes and such along the road by the arena.

The neighbors were playing around with big trucks on their property.

Ro… was perfect. Not a spook, not a foot wrong, and a productive ride in between all the things going on in the arena.

Also, somehow I committed to being a stand-in rider for the next drill team practice if they are short a horse.

And I rode sidesaddle, on one of the drill team’s horses. Only at a walk, because it was hard enough for me to manage that (talk about a different balance point!) but it was pretty cool.

By the time I put Ro up, she seemed relieved to see her stall. It was a nice change from all the jumping out of her skin that she’d done that morning, and with the arena dried out, we can get back into work again (well, for a few days—I hear rain is forecast for later this week).

I put her up, cleaned all the mud off Aiden, and headed to the grocery store. I was hoping against hope that my phone had been turned in to the lost and found, but no such luck.

No luck either with having people call my phone while I was in my apartment.

And that bummed me out, because that meant my phone was well and truly lost.

Like it or not, I was going to have to buy a new phone. Probably a smart phone.

After a brief mourning period, I went online to suspend service to the phone, only to find out that AT&T was doing an upgrade and my account wasn’t available. Instead, there was a friendly “Call this number…” message.

Hey, AT&T? Consider this: if people need tech support? They may not actually be able to call. On account of how their phones are broken. Or in my case, lost. So it would be really helpful if you had a non-phone tech support option for us.

Just saying.

That was really a bummer. I couldn’t suspend service, and I couldn’t order a new phone.

I went to get a cider out of the fridge, figuring I could at least curl up with a good drink and a good book and hope AT&T got its act together soon.

And, um, I found my phone.

It was in the case of cider.

I must have dropped the phone in the bag when I was unloading my car last night, and it landed in the case. Then it went into the fridge and I just never noticed it. And the battery died, which is why I never heard it ring when my friends tried calling.

I’m not complaining, mind you. This means I don’t have to go buy a smart phone—I just have to find my charger. Which is at work. I hope.

The answer is: a lot.

For a couple hundred dollars (and in some cases, more), my little grade pony could become an X, Y, or Z pony.

I am equal parts bemused and disturbed, so I did what I usually do in that situation—I built a website.

At some point in the past I joked about creating the TAHAR (That’s a Horse All Right) registery. Well: now it exists.

However, I was able to get a little bit of him moving around:

And a couple photos. His feet obviously need work, but vet and farrier have both seen them now and are on the same page about what needs to be done and the best way to get there (frequent trimmings, with only small changes each trimming).

Opinionated little goofball, isn’t he?!

I window shop on the big name sale sites, and I window shop on Craig’s List.

So when I saw an ad for an 18 month old grade draft cross gelding, I figured I was, you know, looking at an ad for a horse that held no practical interest for me whatsoever. What do I need with a baby? Especially a draft cross?

This explains why I own him now, right?

Here’s the thing.

His photo in the ad? He looked like he was nicely put together. Very nicely put together, considering his age and that draft crosses tend to have conformation that I dislike.

I waffled for a day and then emailed his owner for breeding information. Apparently, his dam was a Shire cross and the sire is a mystery.

A little more emailing back and forth, and she sent me a brief video. I figured the video would put an end to my interest, to be totally honest.

Instead, the video showed a sensible youngster with, really, quite a nice trot considering he wasn’t doing more than amble about.

The next thing I knew, I was heading to check him out.

He has an average walk, but it’s clearly four beat with no lateral tendencies. His trot is much, much better than the video suggested. He canters both directions and it’s nice and balanced, with decent reach underneath himself. Out in his paddock, he did flying changes on a straight line.

He leads, he stands patiently (very patiently, for a baby), and ties. He let me walk right up to him and handle him, gave all four feet, and let me check out his mouth.

Also: he loads and trailers. I confirmed those last two after money changed hands, obviously.

The bad news?

His feet are a mess. I’m taking a risk here and assuming they can be cleaned up and managed.

It freaks me out a bit, and I actually left him there on Saturday because of his feet, but I decided to throw logic out the window and see what we can do. I tried to get ahold of my trimmer, but no luck. However, one of the guys at the barn trims/shoes his own horse and took a quick look—he didn’t see anything too concerning, and he does a good job on his horse, so I feel a little better about the situation now.

So. I own an 18 month old grade draft cross gelding. I think I’m naming him Aiden.

Pictures/video to come—my camera battery was dead today.

(Ro is unamused. Despite exaggerating her reactions on this blog, I’m not one of those people who thinks horses actually have human emotions—but if horses can feel jealousy, then she is jealousy incarnate. Poor thing. She was not happy with the amount of attention I was giving him, or the amount of attention he was getting in general. But she’s going to have to get over that, and quick.)

If I look at the pictures of your $$$ stud and the first thing I think is “Wow. That is a truly awful Photoshopping job,” there is something wrong with your marketing.

Signed,

If Real Invisible Aliens Were Involved and the Foals Will Come With Their Own, Get Back to Me. That’s Kind of Awesome.

When she’s in season, she’ll throw herself at any gelding on the place—and even some of the mares (she’s a modern, open-minded hussy).

But this is merely lust.

Over the past couple months, Ro has discovered love.

The barn manager got a weanling filly. Last month, we got quite a bit of rain (relatively speaking), and there were stretches where the paddocks were too wet to turn out in. As often as possible, I kicked Ro out on the property for an hour or two to at least let her stretch and wander around some.

More often than not, she disdained the grass (it was wet) and tried to wander back in the barn.

For a while, I thought it was coincidence that she was at the filly’s stall every time I caught her.

Then it became clear that she wasn’t stopping by to say hi to the filly, she was stopping by to do the horsey version of “Ooooooh… wook at de pwecious baaaay-beee! Whoooza cootie pie, den?” (Sorry… I don’t do googly baby talk. They all look like Winston Churchill to me. But you get the gist of it.)

When I would go to kick her back outside, she’d balk—something she never does normally when I kick her out—and look back to the filly.

Ro is fascinated. Entranced. In love.

It’s kind of cute, until I imagine her bringing up baby… “Oh, no, sweetie. We don’t go out in the mud and the rain. Mud and rain are for common ponies, and servants like Lady Who Feeds. Let’s go down the barn aisle and clean up any hay or grain offerings from the other ponies. They know it’s their duty to tithe to us…”

With fireworks, to be precise. A whole week of them.

And thanks to the neighbors and their exuberant pyrotechnics, it also went out with two colic episodes.

Fortunately both were pretty mild and, given her history with fireworks (not good), I was at the barn keeping an eye on her anyway. So I caught them very early, and sedatives and Banamine resolved them both pretty quickly. She bounced back like nothing happened, but this only confirms (as if I needed confirmation) how much I hate fireworks.

Now on to the good news.

Over the Black Friday sales, I picked up a mid-range H/J saddle for a steal. The price was good enough that I knew I could resell for a profit if needed, but it’s a surprisingly good fit for a leap of faith buy. Ro likes it well enough; I’m trying to figure out if *I* like it, but I think it’ll do just fine to get us going.

The only real problem with the saddle is that my tack box had no room to keep two saddles in it. The saddle rack I was using took up half the box and was so tall I could only fit one saddle on it before hitting the roof of the box.

Enter one of the awesome ropers—we talked for a few minutes, he made some measurements (using baling twine, natch), and the next day showed up with a fabulous new stand for me. It’s welded pipe, very simple—V-shaped base, post at the back, two arms. It’s actually smaller than my other stand but will let me keep both saddles in my box. I just need to cap the pipe ends so I don’t accidentally scratch my saddles on them.

This also solves my other saddle problem—I have two saddles at home that Ro outgrew (narrow and medium trees). They’ve been sitting on the floor of my closet, so now I can bring my old rack home and store them on that. I ought to sell those saddles, but you know what they say—as soon as you sell a saddle, you buy a horse that it would have fit.

And, finally, I’m starting to leg Ro up in earnest. We are both horribly out of shape after two months with no real work (walking around behind the steers doesn’t count), but I am thrilled to say we did not backslide as much as I expected. In particular, Ro came right back into work with a horse trot. We’re both suffering from a lack of strength and we both need to relax and unlock our bodies again, but we haven’t gone all the way back to pony trot territory, so I’m very happy about that.

So on to 2012 we go. No resolutions—trying to plan for the future was a total failure last year, so we’re just going to take things a day at a time and see where we go.

Ok, one resolution: I’ve been a lazy slug the past couple months, and I need to fix that. After I eat this last bag of M&Ms.

I’ve never been so happy to throw on wellies and push the wheelbarrow through mud, mud, mud to get to the muddy, muddy manure pile. Or through mud, mud, mud to get to the shavings pile.

The mud and I, we are like this.

The mud and Ro, they are… well…

Ro doesn’t do mud, you know?

Her paddock is currently standing water, so I’ve been giving myself enough time in the evenings to let her out on the property for an hour or two. It gets her out and lets her stretch a bit. More than anything, it gives her a mental break—something new to check out.

For the first few days, she was all about that, since she got to nibble on grass.

But when I kicked her out last night, she was back in the barn in five minutes, giving me a disgusted look. It was wet out there. Like standing water wet. Her feet were getting wet and the grass was wet and did I not understand? WET.

I kicked her back out of the barn.

I kicked her back out of the barn again.

I kicked her back out of the barn. She moped by the big paddock, trotting up hopefully to me every time she saw me: “Hey, you have a full wheelbarrow? So my stall is clean? I can go back in?” “The wheelbarrow has shavings in it? You’ll have my stall done in five minutes? I can go back in?” “You’re putting everything back? Everything’s done? I can… Oh, f-you, anyway. I’m calling Animal Control.”

She was entirely unamused.

I’ve had to hang buckets in her stall because her water trough is out in her run. I know she was going out there sometimes, since her feet are muddy every time I show up, but she was not going out and drinking enough, since she was showing signs of slight dehydration. So… now she has her own personal hay washing machines again, which she uses gleefully. (Actually, she only dunks hay in one bucket. She drinks out of the other one. She is that much of a princess.)

Still, like I said: I’ve never been so happy to pull on some wellies and deal with the mud and all the inconvenience. We need this rain so badly, and I think our local area may even have dropped from the Exceptional to Severe drought categories. The Flying Spaghetti Monster could not have sent a better holiday gift.

I hope your holidays are as happy and squelchy as ours!

Someone, please, knock some sense into the humans.

First they brought the Smelly Things into my vicinity. That was pretty uncool, but I managed to rise above the indignity.

Then they let the Things hang out by my arena. Although, come to think of it… who wouldn’t want to hang out by the arena and watch me?

But then… I don’t know. The humans can’t figure out how to keep the Smelly Things in the pen, which just makes no sense to me. They keep me away from the grass. How hard can it be to lock up the Things?

But they keep escaping from their pen and the humans chase them across the arena. Sometimes they even catch one, and then they are so surprised they let the rope go loose and the Things escape again.

I just couldn’t stand the stupidity any more, so I tailed along behind one of the smarter horses and he showed me how to herd the Things around. It’s not very hard, really. They are almost as dumb as the humans.

I let the other horses know I had it, and I waited. And, sure enough, the Things got loose again.

Well, I showed them what’s what. After the humans let the ropes loose…again… I got those Things back in the chute, and I marched them back down to the pen, double time. Once they were back where they belonged, the humans rightly showered me with praise. As they should. There I was, fixing their mistake, putting the world right again.

And oh. my. god. They let the Things get loose. Again.

I lose count of how many times I put them back. At least the Things were trainable. I told them where to go, and they went.

Teaching the humans to close the effing gate… that’s a whole ‘other problem.

I even hopped on for about ten minutes, since the steers were hanging out in the chute, and walked her around the arena. She’s quite happy to be back in work, and was very willing to walk right up to the fence by the steers. She doesn’t like turning her back on them, but not even to the point where I felt I needed to pick up the reins.

So, I think we’re good.

Next time I catch a practice, I’ll saddle her up and get her out there. Given what I’ve seen of their practices so far, I can make this part of the legging up process. And in the meantime, we’ll start working on getting both of us back in shape. I’m just as bad as she is…