I am finding it hard to believe we are a quarter of the way through 2023 already, it feels like time has flown by, equally on reflection, I don't even know where to start with the small steps towards big goals!
The last week has been a bit of a soggy one - although I have enjoyed seeing the rainbows, with the fields looking more like a marshland than grazing paddocks. I’ve put the horses out when I can and luckily, they haven’t galloped about much – I think they were grateful to be out!
There was great excitement on the yard last weekend when a new resident arrived. Charlotte, the yard owner, had bought a two-year-old mini Shetland pony filly. Charlotte fell in love with Shetlands after getting to know both Diva and her friend Peanut the mini Shetland who also lives at the yard.
That was a bit of a chilly one last week – did many people get snow? We weren’t hit too bad the first day, however, when I woke the next morning, it was a different story! There was a thick layering with more to come. Cue an early wake up call to the other half to come with me to the yard. You wouldn’t believe that it snowed most of the morning as by the time I finished work it had all melted and evaporated.
It is important when you have horses and ponies – or indeed any type of animal under your care, that you have contingency plans for if you are ill. We all think of what we need to do if our horse or pony is ill, but do we put the same level of care into planning what happens when illness hits us?
After my painful dismount at the show, I decided that we would have a couple of weeks away from competition and start having a few lessons in between. Annoyingly injuries, plans/events and money had meant we hadn’t been able to schedule a lesson in for over eight weeks. I didn’t even realise it had been that long!
As the days get longer the horses and ponies begin to lose their winter coats. It is the light that triggers this rather than, as you would assume, the warming weather. Mabel is usually the first to begin to moult in earnest, whilst Diva very sensibly waits a little longer, but by the end of February both are doing their best to cover me from head to toe in their cast-off hair.
After the kerfuffle we had the week before with trying to get Bob out to a show, I’m pleased to say we managed it for the next one, hurrah! He still pranced about a bit on the yard but was not as naughty and didn’t have zoomies up and down the yard this time!
The recent prolonged cold spell brought numerous challenges to those of us with horses and ponies. Suddenly, providing the basics of care was so much harder – the biggest of these probably being water supply. Horses need a lot of water per day and can get impaction colic if they don’t receive it.