New Year, New Places

There hasn't been much happening in our neck of the woods. Winter arrived with a vengeance, bringing a bunch of snow, freezing temperatures, and when it did warm up, freezing rain.

It's going to be a long winter.

When I arrived at the barn on Saturday morning the geldings were being quite rambunctious. I'm guessing that that was when Stitch's blanket took a hit because it was perfectly fine when I put him out the night before. The industrial sewing machine came to the rescue. Also, Phantom's 75" blankets now fit him quite nicely.

But there are some changes coming up.

Stitch is moving to new digs.

The original plan was to move him in the spring. Since I'm not riding over the winter, I figured I could manage one more winter without a heated arena, and that we'd move when I was ready to start riding him again. One of the things that I want to be able to do is get him out of the arena regularly, and it's a bit tough to do that at my current location. I could pay to use the neighbouring facilities trails, but for reasons, I don't want to.

With the early cold this winter, I have been lamenting the lack of heat in the arena. It's been too cold to even spend too much time standing in the middle while I encourage my horse to run around loose. My face starts to hurt after about 15 minutes.

Look who's almost looking level again!

There have also been some changes to who is using the facility that I'm not in love with. I understand that the owner needs to pay the bills, but I'm not down with how this new "trainer" appears to operate.

Thus, I made the decision to leave sooner than planned.

The plan is to move on January 1st, weather permitting. If the roads are crap then I'll hold off a few days. 

The new place has a much more stringent biosecurity protocol, so Stitch had to get some booster shots last week and another just before we leave.

I know that the lighting is different, but winter Stitch face is much darker than summer Stitch face. It's much more multi-toned.

My farrier was out today and she'll be good to continue with us at the new place, although if that doesn't work out long-term there are two other fantastic farriers that visit regularly - one of which is my old farrier and the other was my current farrier's mentor. So no worries there!

My biggest concern is where the heck am I going to put all my stuff? The lockers are an ok size but much smaller than the space I've been working out of for the last few years. My trailer will be serving as back-up storage, but it's not that big and anything stored in it needs to be able to be removed when I haul.

The next couple of weeks will be spent trying to get my stuff sorted out and ready for the move. The weather is supposed to be fairly mild starting this weekend so I need to buckle down and get most of it done next week. 

I think you have a little something on your face.

Then off to new adventures!