Taking on our small holding has certainly been a challenge, with the cost (another thing to 'thank' Covid for!) rising by the day for materials, availability and stock being hard to come by, companies being nearly impossible to book in, and the yard duties obviously not stopping for any of that!
With all these things on top of 3 horses, 2 I was trying to keep in work, and 1 yearling I am determined to get as much life experience as possible before breaking, sometimes one of those spinning plates drops!
We are currently trying to clad the outside of our house, thankfully it is single storey, and thankfully it is half way up with brick - done by more talented people than us, but it is still a massive task for 2 of us who quite honestly are learning on the job. The weather has also decided to stop play, and off course after all the nice weather we had, when I did nothing but hope for rain, it came, and it came exactly when we didn't need it!
But what that rain did do, was make the grass grow, and WOW did it grow! Soooooo, now I have a hay field! A hay field I wasn't expecting, a winter field that got so worn out last winter, that I was worried it would barely recover all year, and yet here I am with a hay field, not enough horses to eat the grass, and no one available to even make it into hay! But that is OK, because I have sheep - Finally I thought, they can be of some use, oh but wait - It only has electric fencing and no stock fencing because I ran out of soft ground (and money) to get the posts finished. Although on the flip not having the fence up meant it was easier to put a drain in where my arena will (soon?) so wings and roundabouts? Or maybe at this point I am juggling spaghetti junction!
On a really positive note, all the animals are pampered, and have no idea the mayhem behind the scenes!
I find this one of the toughest topics in the horse world, as everyone does something different. There are thousands of products on the market – all claiming they can cure everything – and nutritionists are often affiliated with a feed company, making any advice potentially biased.
I can say I’ve been able to tick something off my bucket list now: I managed to mount and ride a camel – a brilliant experience. I had great fun grooming my one, named Baxter, and I think the people running it were happy they had people that were used to dealing with big animals and weren’t afraid to get stuck in.
I thought in this first blog post I ought to tell you a little bit about my horses and me, and give you an insight into what you might see from us going forwards. Firstly, my name is Emma. I’m 29 years old and I’ve been riding for as long as I can even remember.
I am currently lightly backing my three-year-old American Quarter Horse before turning him away for the winter. In my previous post, I explained the setbacks this year, and frustratingly I had to start the process much later in the year than I’d anticipated. But things were going well, too well…