Goodbye and Good Riddance, 2011

4 January 2012 1 Comment

2011 went out with a bang.

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.

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