Month: June 2022

Why Now?

So why now? What happened to make me nudge that eyelash and come at my goal of bringing Leeloo home in a different way?

Leeloo has lameness issues, and no, I don’t mean she thinks fanny packs are cool, though apparently fanny packs are cool again? Lame as in not sound enough to ride. I’ve been attempting to get to the bottom of her ongoing lameness issues for years and have spent a lot of time, money, energy, and hope – all followed by heartache – and gotten nowhere. Last summer, when I was adjusting to the fact that the cost of my barn had apparently gone from x to 3x and silly me I had only saved up x (if you are asking yourself, wait, didn’t you say it was 5x – you’re thinking of the price quote I got this year; 3x was the quote I got last year – isn’t our current economic state fun?), I decided that the barn dream was clearly being postponed so I would instead focus on getting Leeloo sound in her current living situation. This led to yet another very expensive vet visit, which I’ll detail further in a future post in case anyone wants to nerd out about equine lameness checks, but the end result of that visit was a decision to inject her right hock. Did the injections help? Who knows! We spent the next several months going through round after round of hoof abscesses – which are just as much fun as they sound. One hoof after the other, round and round, for months. I would maybe get two or three weeks of soundness before the next round began. But then very early spring this year she was lame again and it wasn’t an abscess. The vet was back out and we tried another set of injections (they wear off between 6 months and a year and we were at 9 months). And what did they do this time? You guessed it, nothing. Right around this time my farrier was out for our regular trim, and I was expressing my frustration as he was looking at her back feet and asked “How much does she move? On a scale of 0 to” – ZERO. She moves not at all. The way her current situation is configured the round bale (giant bale of hay) is under the shelter and right next to the water. Leeloo also happens to be the most dominant horse on the entire property, so nobody moves her. She can camp her butt at the round bale, pivot to get a drink of water and then pivot right back to shove her face in food. All day, every day. When the weather cooperates the horses do have a pasture they all go out on, but there is only one pasture so the barn owner is very protective of it and that means once the spring thaw starts the horses don’t go out at all until the ground is firm and the grass is established for the year. I mentioned to the farrier that I come out to the barn regularly to exercise her and his response was – “It doesn’t matter, you could work her every day, what she needs is constant low level movement – lots and lots of walking and even with that there is no guarantee she’ll be sound, but it’s just not going to happen in her current situation.” After that fun pep-talk I was leaving the barn and sitting at the top of their driveway staring at my own house (I live very close to where Leeloo is currently being boarded) I saw my own patch of yard around our house, surrounded by a tilled field and thought… maybe, just maybe, I could figure out how to bring her home now.

 

Perspective

My dream is expensive. Really expensive. I recognize that we have more than enough to live happy, healthy, fulfilled lives and that not only are all our needs met, the vast majority of our wants are also met. Except for this one really big want – a barn. And when I say a barn what I really mean is an indoor riding arena. I recognize that this is a pretty extreme and ridiculous want, that in terms of resource usage an indoor riding arena for one person to use is ludicrous. I know this. I still want it. Horses, riding horses, raising horses, some version of this, has been my dream since I was very little – but I hate the outdoors. I hate being hot, I hate being cold, I hate being wet, I hate being muddy, and above all things I hate bugs – HATE BUGS. Being outside is the worst. I am an indoor cat with an outdoor hobby. Having an indoor riding arena is how I reconcile my love of horses and riding with my extreme dislike of the outdoors. Is it practical – no. Is it necessary – no. But it is my dream so that is what we’re aiming for and we’ve given up a lot of other wants in pursuit of this one giant want.

I am pretty frustrated with the current state of our economy, prices, inflation, etc. because in the summer of 2019 the price for my dream was X and now it is literally five times as expensive (that would be 5X if you are setting up an equation). I have had three builders tell me not to build this arena now because it simply is not worth it. (Yet these builders are also scheduled out almost a year in advance, so clearly SOMEONE is building these buildings at these outrageous prices – who are these people?! Why won’t they share their money, clearly they have enough!). What this means is I’m going to be grousing about money in some of these posts – but know that I know that I’m not actually in any sort of financial hardship. I know that I am lucky beyond words to be in the position I am – that I have any chance of all at going after this dream in any way at all is a huge privilege and I am truly grateful – though I might not always sound that way.

 

Eyelash Wishing

Did you ever do that thing when you find a loose eyelash and you blow it off your finger and make a wish? I have no idea where I got that habit from, but I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember. For years now when I would blow that eyelash off my finger my wish was some variation on “I want my barn” and for a really high number of tries the eyelash wouldn’t float away, it just sat there, no matter how hard I blew – this is very bad luck. So, I would give it a small nudge – I would NOT push it off my finger myself, that would be terrible luck – but I would just shift it a bit and try again. Sometimes it took a few shifts before it would blow away. Anytime I had to do this I would tell myself I am not doomed to failure, it’s just that sometimes you need to make some adjustments to reach your goals. – Well friends that is what is happening. We’re making some adjustments to reach my goal of bringing Leeloo (our horse) home. Plan A – part 1 (the dream) involved a large indoor riding arena with a “barn” on one end with stalls, tack-room, bathroom, hay storage above. This would be centered behind our house. Then there would be pastures and a paddock paradise track system to our east and a hay field to our west. Plan A – part 2 also involved another outbuilding for a tractor and hay making equipment and more hay storage. That is still my dream but with the current state of the economy, inflation, prices, etc. it is still a very distant dream and meanwhile I am getting older, my horse is getting older, and every new election is a chance that my zoning could change and bringing my horse home would no longer be an option. So this spring, after much discussion, Nate and I have decided to make some adjustments to the stages of that dream – we’re nudging the eyelash a bit – so we can bring Leeloo home this summer! You can follow along on this process here.

What have I gotten us into?!