Our First Horse

You’ve heard us talk about it before (Getting Out of Barn Duties and Bill takes over horse duties for the day) but now I have a new pondering about managing horses when you’re sick. Up until now, it’s mostly been either Mikki or me who has been sick. That’s not so bad because the other can pick up the slack and there really isn’t that much work that has to be done. Tuesday night Mikki and I both got sick with something harsh. We think we both have the flu. Now everyone eventually gets the flu and we’ll make it through but I have to tell you…it’s a pain in the butt doing horse chores when you have the flu! Today we compromised a little but doing the worst horse stall housekeeping job ever. We finished our nighttime routine of feeding the goats, filling water troughs, filling hay troughs, sort-of cleaning stalls and feeding oats in a new record of 12 minutes flat. I should be in bed right now moaning about how achy I am but instead, I wanted to share these thoughts in the off chance I’ll croak. Let the world know we risked our lives taking care of our beloved horses. 🙂

But seriously, I hope our horses can forgive us for sort-of shoveling and sort-of raking manure to the sides of their stalls in our rush to get back to bed. And while our horse friends insist our horses will be just fine if we left them in the pasture overnight, we’re not ready to give up pampering our horses.

Poor Bill. Little did he know that buying a horse for me would mean so much work for him. In the 9 months we’ve had Valentine, he has had to take over barn duties for more than one day five times. I’ve had to do it on my own only three times, each time for one day when he traveled on business. So if you’re tired of barn duties and want a break, here are some good ways to do it:

Get sick. I had a really bad allergy attack in March that I thought was a cold. Then I really did have a cold at the beginning of this month, right after a week of what was probably bronchitis. That’s three times I was laid up right there.

Travel. Bill only goes for a day or two, but I was gone for 9 days. I really do feel bad about that. But he’ll be gone for over a week in January, so he’ll get some of that back.

Injure yourself. On Monday afternoon, I had an unfortunate accident with a kitchen knife. No stitches, thank goodness, but it will take a while to heal all the way and it was, of course, my right hand. I was able to muck out the stall last night (only two nights off), but I was really slow.

Actually, I don’t really advocate any of these methods. Except for the travel, they’re not that fun. And I missed my horses while I was gone, so going away isn’t all that great, either.

Bribery, on the other hand, isn’t too bad.