
The Not-So-Secret Diary of Diva the Shetland Pony - Holidays
26/05/2022With the summer fast approaching, the time comes for us humans to plan for going away on holiday. For those of us with horses. this can present a challenge.
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!
With the summer fast approaching, the time comes for us humans to plan for going away on holiday. For those of us with horses. this can present a challenge.
The trio have been raiding my bank account the past couple of weeks with a full hay delivery, 20kg bag of treats (lasts the a fair few months), farrier, and they were also treated to a back session each with a McTimoney practitioner as I wanted them given a good once over (think I need one too at this rate).
I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it to the East Anglian Shetland Pony Group’s spring show. It was being held at the World Horse Welfare, Snetterton which is quite a drive from Rutland and I wasn’t keen on heading off for a long day on my own.
We had our first outing int the new horsebox over the bank holiday weekend, and although I was a bit nervous (despite a test run the day before without a horse) it all went well!