Winter Baby Ponies

 It's been a bit since I did a pony progress check in, but honestly this time of year I'm really not there as far as keeping any sort of structured or noteworthy progress. The boys continue to grow - I did actually measure and use a weigh tape on them in the beginning of December and they're both 14 hands-ish. Reggie is maybe a half inch taller than that, Buck slightly shy of the mark. Buck weighs a good 50 lbs more than Reggie. My tape says he's already 830 pounds, which is pretty darn close to Sophie's 850!

Is a solid little guy

 The internet says they're on track for 14.3ish, which is what their genetics say too. I think both Reggie's parents are 15hh and Buck's are 14.3. I'll be really happy with that. I know there are lots of really nice cobs that are bigger, but I do feel like eventually they start to be a different type to the more old fashioned ones I prefer for myself. If you've been here forever, you'll remember Ginger, who was my first cob and who made me quickly realize that my 15.3hh TBx who seemed just right the right size did not translate to me needing a 15.3hh Welsh D. Eventually 14hh Bridget came along and that was a much better fit (and still a 'bigger' feeling ride than that TBx mare!)

It's been so wet...we resurfaced this paddock last summer. The base is still solid but the top layer is not holding up and I feel guilty about having muddy ponies.

This winter has been brutal so far (I mean as far as winters go here, I realize this area isn't known for a typical Canadian winter). As I write this, the wind is howling, the ferries are cancelled, the airport is closed and I can hear the gutters overflowing outside the window. It feels like it's been storm after storm with very little break in between. I've had time off work, and even had some fun ideas for pony outings, but the wind, rain, and short daylight hours haven't cooperated with my plans. Our poor community horse facility had a tree come down and squish the jump shed and part of the arena, so it has been closed due to safety issues. The neighbourhood trails I use have also been off and on blocked or questionable as far as trees down and flooding, so in the end it's just felt easier to stay close to home. 

Spa days whenever I can. One of two sunny days so far this month, but those white socks don't clean themselves :)

This guy would love to be groomed for hours a day. I've never had a horse that truly enjoys being groomed (it's always been shades of 'tolerates it' to 'sometimes likes it, depending') so I'm fulfilling all my My Little Pony childhood dreams now.

The big silver lining is that while of course I miss socializing at the club facilities and having horsey things on the calendar, the boys aren't even two and don't need to be doing much of anything this winter except growing up. I'd hate to be in a position of trying to prep for spring shows or trying to keep a regular lesson plan. I've been saving my sanity by watching equine vlogs and videos from the southern hemisphere and enjoying their summer sunshine secondhand. I've even gone to the dark side and been envious of snow...Instagram has been baiting me with the winter sleigh videos and I watched a few so now that's all I get suggested :)

Worst Barbie Princess horse ever hates being pampered and groomed, but also does not like staying clean or dry in her stall. Luckily can be bribed to tolerate attempts at cleanliness with alfalfa

 Everyone here is getting their 3 or 4 meals a day, grass turnout as weather permits, and even twice daily mucking out and scratches (only because I am spoiled and G does paddocks mid morning most days if I'm working). But everything else? Completely up in the air. I try to prioritize a good grooming, especially if their coats are dry (no one is blanketed this year) and after that it's completely random. Most days I'm well and truly out of daylight and dry raincoats after just the basics, but that's one of the really nice things about babies. Yes, they thrive with consistent fair handling, but also their bodies and brains aren't ready for real jobs and a check in every day is more than enough.

Reggie did need a small groundwork intervention the other day and was horrified about it and spent a bit of time spinning around. Baby horse bodies and dramatics on a lead not a thing I want, but then I remind myself...

this spinning in circles trying to bite each other's legs is their number one favorite game of all time, so overreacting and spinning around me on a leadrope once better not break him

I try not to think too hard on how rough they play. The social benefits outweigh the risks, right? :)

Sophie keeps an eye on the boys but prefers to hang out up by the road and chat to the other adult horses across the street instead.

Despite my despair about us receiving an actual west coast winter this year, I do feel like progress continues to be made with baby pony training. They're both on the sensitive side, but overall good boys so it's not like there's any big milestones or drama I need to mention. Just little things, like how they were both unsure about their feet but now calmly offer them before I ask. I was trying to remember the other day which one I need to be gentle with as far as spray bottles, but I think I forgot because the answer at this point is neither. Things like that. 

Someone is still dramatic about deworming tubes but your hint here is that it's no longer either of the babies.

I'm unlikely to update again before New Years, so I'll wish you all the very best now. I'm opting for a very quiet season this time, likely just extra pony visits and some much needed rest. Netflix and Kindle subscriptions, I'm coming for you. It's been a lot the last few months with work, house renos, property acquisition stress, and arguably too many horses. I'm feeling ready for a slower week or two. I hope you're all able to spend your holidays however you'd like to and I'll see you again in 2025!

This week in the life

 Update to last post: the bear has not bothered us further, but he broke into a neighbour's livestock barn and did a bunch of damage so conservation service needed to be called. I'm not sure what the end result of that was (it's a bit of a divisive issue so public updates aren't always a thing) but I haven't seen him around for a bit. Maybe he moved on, maybe he is no longer. It feels mean to say but either way it would be a relief.

I'm struggling again with the weather and the dark here in the ever gloomy winter raincoast. The rain didn't use to bother me badly because I'm still happy to be out and about doing things and the temperatures are normally nice and moderate, even if a bit damp. The past couple of years though, the never ending rain has felt a bit more personal. Trying to maintain a tiny horse property of our own has me worrying about fun things like paddock footing and arena drainage, along side the 'normal' wet climate horse things like preventing mud fever and rain scald and keeping my tack from molding. 

Another dark and stormy night

It's more the dark days that really get to me, especially combined with a 9-5ish job that has me indoors while it's light out. I've shifted my hours to start earlier in the morning which means I can normally be done by 3:30. Having that little half hour to an hour of daylight this time of year really helps.  I'm forever grateful that my 9-5 office job evolved to work from home/remote with much more flexible hours.

pony grooming in the daylight, I love my weekends right now

attempting some cheer on a gloomy night

I know I said we were scrapping the idea of purchasing a bit more pony real estate, but the owners came back to us and it's back on the table. There are a bunch of things on their side that need to happen (planning approval from the city, for one), so we'll see. I know I should count myself lucky to have the option (and the support of G in this) and let what will be, be, but I'm finding it quite stressful. This wasn't on the bingo card at all and the timing honestly stinks, but it's just too perfect a situation to not at least try. 

When we bought the babies with the current space we have it meant Sophie would be moving to a new home eventually. I was OK with that, but now with more acreage possibly in the future, I've been holding off on that and found myself making tentative plans involving keeping Sophie. So, I feel like I've inadvertently wrapped some of the emotions around Sophie into things. I really am going to be OK either way. I'd just like to fast forward to the part where we know how it's going to turn out so I can start planning accordingly :)

In related news, Black Friday happened right when I was feeling very anxious about things, and I totally succumbed to some retail therapy. I feel sort of icky about that because normally I plan and budget purchases very carefully and I wasn't actually going to buy anything. But, for the most part it was things I had bookmarked as wanting/needing and they were on great sales. I got a nice longeing cavesson that I can use now for Sophie, but also will be really nice for the boys when I start ground driving them.

Kieffer lunge and ride cavesson I had this filed under 'nice to have but don't need' but after borrowing a friend's I was sold. It's so more stable than using a halter or bridle to lunge and nice for groundwork too. It comes with bit attachments as well, which solves my baby horse dilemma of wanting a halter to lead from and a bridle to ride with on ride and lead trail adventures.

Also acquired, better headlamps for mucking paddocks in the dark. LED spotlights for same. Haynets because a bunch have mysteriously disappeared. Waterproof saddle covers, because see above about wild winter weather and damp/moldy tack. There were some frivolous things thrown in though too - did the boys need fancy browbands at this stage of their lives? No, not really. But I'll be ready when they do!

Load of hay delivered too, which is the biggest expense these days. It's running about $1000 a ton and Sophie wants it, current fence testing situation below.

(Yes I know these taps don't need insulation but I'm baiting my stepdad ;) Relevant part of the story is that Sophie's door latch is to the right of this tap and she knows the door latches somehow...but she's not quite figured out how she's opened it herself previously. Does it relate to the tap? Hence the teeth marks and my sad little misting hose torn off - I think she's now decided pulling that potentially leads to releasing the door latch. She took it one step further hay delivery day and bit through (unplugged) electric fence wire and started pulling on that and then checking the section of wooden fence behind to see if it would open like a gate. Her brain is a funny thing.

A Proper Raincoast Break and Enter

 The wild winter weather has continued. So, when I walked around the farm to feed dinner late one exceptionally rainy and windy night, I was surprised, but not *super* surprised to see the barn doors hanging off their tracks. Weird, because they latch and have stoppers and windy days normally barely rattle them, let alone completely rip them off the building. Did I forget to close and lock them?

And whoa. Somehow the wind blew one of my (full of grain) feed bins out of the building and halfway down the yard?

Pre break in when I was feeling a little smug about my storm prepping organization

When I walked into the feed room side of the barn, the actual cause of the chaos became a little more obvious. Muddy bear prints everywhere. In retrospect walking into the barn on a dark and windy night with fresh muddy bear prints all over it maybe wasn't my wisest decision, but my brain needed to catch up to the evidence.

The good news is that I think I might have interrupted the burglary in progress, because aside from my feed bin and a few things rummaged through or tipped over, everything inside the building was undamaged (note a few days later - the oil I top their feed with had one tooth hole in the container and slowly leaked everywhere before I noticed. RIP to that and all it touched)

No actual pictures of bears or barn mess in the moment because it was late in the evening in a 'bomb cyclone' and I was just trying to get everything patched back up to survive the night. This is from a couple of nights later. My other excuse for poor media is this is the light situation after work days. Check out how flooded everything still was though. It's dried out a bit since, but it still is so grim around here this time of year :(

The doors sustained moderate damage - the latches were broken and needed replacing, and he spent a bit of time trying to pull the bottom of the doors apart so the frames needed repairing and reinforcing and some boards reattached. Again, no photo documentation because there I was at midnight in the dark, wind and rain, fixing them so I could lock everything up again. I think my cheap sliding system on the top of the doors might have had an unexpected bonus because the bear was eventually able to simply lift the door off the tracks rather than continuing to try to break through them. He’s strong though, it was a two person job to re hang them all! 

All reattached and repaired and you can't even tell it was a thing. Surprisingly gentle bear, my cat scratched a door in our house worse than this :)

So, more good news, because it turned out to be an easy enough fix.

The bad news is that a freaking bear took the doors off my barn looking for snacks.

Sophie has this gate behind the doors (I leave them open in summer for airflow) so while she was understandably concerned, there were no pony escape worries.

He found nothing, apparently hay and horse vitamins are not to his liking because my bag of feed was taken out of the bin and dinner feed buckets tipped over, but no contents were eaten. In addition to my hay stall door he ripped Sophie's stall door off too and moved the black planters around. Although logically I know he is not looking for horses to eat...what if he is looking for horses to eat? *cue sleepless nights*

Electric wire around the back of the barn until I figure out how to make the perimeter yard gates people friendly but not bear friendly. Electric wire across our front yard gate would be the most practical, however maybe not the most inviting for visitors and deliveries:)

Sort of good news (for me, not him) is that he's young and little-ish and his MO is breaking into people's sheds looking for garbage or freezers of food. So this might have been an exploratory thing rather than targeted and now that he knows we aren't worth his time I can hope he stays away. It’s pretty late in the season though, so I’m worried. We have careless neighbours and if he’s finding enough elsewhere to hang around this winter, I am worried he might get himself in trouble.

Sophie helping with fence repairs. Between her scratching her butt, rambunctious yearlings doing their thing, and Yogi climbing over everything, our fences/fence posts took a beating this year. I'm so weird about things that it's going to annoy me to no end to have new posts and rails that don't match the rest of the fences (until I can stain them in the spring) Not to mention the mud and bear scratches all over the back of the barn lol, why is my brain like this because I REALLY want to clean and paint it now.

Harvest Gold

 Sophie's winter coat is always extraordinary, I'm reminded of those facebook posts you see ranting against crossbred dogs and the hit or miss nature of what traits the puppy will have. Normally mentioned are the sometimes unexpected grooming requirements for doodle breeds. In Sophie's case, she's the pony equivalent of that doodle. She's got a Welsh pony dad and a TB/WB mom. Take your standard extra thick and long welsh pony coat, but make the actual hair TB fine. She is very very soft, and stays very warm and dry under there, but also there isn't a curry comb in this world that will easily get to the bottom of it. 

So soft, so luxurious

Today marked the first official day of 'these brushes are no longer working' winter coat. 

In a related side story, years ago we were doing some work on one of our houses and in the closet I found a box with a 1960's shag rug rake. I don't even remember what we did with it. 

But, today while I was complaining about the inefficiency of my grooming tools, pondering whether a nice long hair dog coat brush might be the thing for her more sensitive spots, I suddenly remembered that thing.

So, I googled to find a pic to show you in the context of 'here's something that might work on Sophie's unclipped winter coat, ha ha'. And of course the requisite vintage shag carpet room pictures popped up. 

And I need to tell you that I have discovered that Sophie is currently a near perfect match for Harvest Gold shag.

Find the pony! I'm sorry but I had to do it

 

What’s Up

I've written a novel of a post on so many things lately, then left them all sitting in my drafts folder. This TL;DR version of it all feels like something I’ll actually hit publish on.

- I’ve been enjoying some annual leave time! I got a ton of work done on the new kitchen in between spending many hours of my day giving pony scratches. Time well spent! 

This still looks depressingly in progress this week but I promise the hard parts are done.

Next project is to turn this storage loft into my new office hideaway. The centre ceiling is only 5'8" but I am 5'2" so why not. Husband is 6'4" so he's denied access :D

If you were wondering why I wouldn't just utilize a normal space, it's because this is the view out the window and seeing the horses while I work overrides the negatives.

Ponies getting spa days, it felt pretty luxurious to walk out of the house at any time of the day and 'waste' an hour or two with the horses.

- The above (you might argue excessive) enjoyment of AL has confirmed a need for some change. I’ve got most of the time between now and New Years off, then in 2025 I'm going to keep my actual work hours scaled back at part time and take on some more side jobs when I’d like extra money and tire of scratching ponies. This feels like a nice compromise between being a responsible person with a reliable income and medical and dental plan and all those other adulty things, but adding some more variety and interest. Hard to make that call when on paper there is literally nothing wrong with my job to justify changing - I am just bored. But the time feels right to start opening some new doors.

- Ponies being ponies. Tradey got cuts/scrapes just under his eye (likely playfighting with Buck), one of which ripped his lower eyelid and swelled up pretty bad. That gave me a heart attack for a few days there...but it's healing well and it even looks like it might only leave a tiny scar. Both of the boys had/have (we are awaiting results after a further autumn deworming) ascarids AGAIN. Do I want to put that on the internet? Not really. But if it helps someone else, then yes. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned they arrived with some drug resistant friends (not unusual these days nor anyone's fault) and it's been a bit of a thing to keep on top of.  Advice: get your vet involved, send in manure samples on whatever schedule they recommend and treat with what they tell you to. Some horses are naturally more prone to less than ideal parasite loads than others, and there seem to be a lot of resistant worms out there so your go to protocols might not be working as well as you might hope anymore. 

- The property with the field the horses use in summer is coming up for sale. We love having it, so considered purchasing (G was actually the one really pushing for it, so for a while there I thought I'd be telling you about our new house!), but ultimately we made the call to let it go.  I get the whole 'real estate as an investment' aspect but I couldn't wrap my head around being so financially committed here. I’ll be sad to say goodbye, but maybe we’ll acquire more horsey neighbours? 

I'm very sad. But, fingers crossed, I have been offered other neighborhood options in the past, so hopefully something else will come up to borrow or lease. I think the big lesson learned was that at the end of the day we're happy with the status quo.

I got more sand for the ring a couple of weeks ago and it's starting to look really perfect. So we have to stay here, at least until the yearling cobs are old enough to ride :D

-The weather. I can't not mention it because we continue to get the brunt of storm after storm. Currently we're awaiting a 'bomb cyclone' arriving tomorrow, which (fingers crossed) should actually be less dramatic than the storm last week. The general state of things means the ponies get minimal turnout that's not on a gravel or sand surface - there is water everywhere. We also have been losing power regularly so I'm getting good at doing pony chores in the dark. I'm grateful we have the place set up in a way that suits us so well. Besides the weather being depressing it's not impacting the horses too much at all - the gravel paddocks with enough room for them to run were a really good investment. The last place I boarded it would be a different story right now. 

Running errands before things get worse and we risk falling trees and power outages - another lovely day on the west coast

Terrible picture but he looks pretty cozy

It was a dark and stormy night  4:45pm ;) Battery powered floodlights for the win

Current grass status: green but is a swamp

She's so dedicated to being a bog pony I caved and give her this little area on the worst days. Her normal grazing area has huge trees that regularly lose giant branches that make me nervous when the wind picks up. The boys are quite content to stay in their paddock, but Sophie stands at the gate looking longingly out, even in the worst of weather.

Whew, that was still almost a novel. But I think we’re all caught up? 

damp, Dark and bear infested

That's my 'zero stars - would not recommend' review of this autumn. It's normally my favorite time of the year, but the weather just didn't cooperate and we had what felt like endless rain and wind storms. Endless rain isn't breaking news around here, but this year it just feels like more than normal. I don't have any data to back that up beyond the fact that our property is so, so wet and muddy and there doesn't seem to be time for it all to drain before the next storm comes. I've been spending time mitigating the mud and improving drainage where I can, but when the entire stormwater systems are backing up into the road there's just not a lot you can do.

A rare sunny day reprieve. The horses live in the little residential/farm area in the centre of this picture, it's a beautiful spot. Except during heavy rain when all the water run off from this hill and the ones behind it flows through our neighbourhood on it's way to the ocean:)

Is part seal, and doesn't care about weather

The clocks have gone back as well this past weekend and now sunset is early and creeping towards 4:15pm towards the end of the month. How's that for a doom and gloom post intro? :)

In good news, I think the bears have mostly vacated the area and gone off to hibernate. Despite all my attempts at fencing them out and beefing up the electric perimeter, they figured out the front gate and an alternate route in/out via climbing on a neighbour's shed roof and then dropping in to my yard via overhanging trees. They are ninjas, but despite my worries they didn't break any horse relevant fencing or seem to bother them too much.

Stall mats also came on sale in a timely fashion. I expanded my grooming area. Load of sand/gravel to tackle the rest of the mud is incoming later today.

These two also got an expanded area. We were having issues with the ditch on the other side of the barn backing up and flooding the gate area. The city came and dug out the relevant things on their end, so I think that's all resolved, but adding some mats as extra mud protection and a bigger lounging area for the boys seemed like a useful thing.

Halloween came and went without issue. The weather was awful so I think that toned down the fireworks and general shenanigans. I wrote about them a couple of years ago, surprised it was such a thing here. You all made me aware fireworks and halloween aren't normal anywhere else, but here we are. I did a little research and it seems our little melting pot of cultures has created a Guy Fawkes/Diwali/Halloween holiday tradition. Fun for everyone, just maybe not the horses.   I was worried, but didn't need to be. The horses were a little on edge, but the current dynamic is a good one, with the boys normally being much more sensible than Sophie, and her happy to take a lead from them. Surprisingly, I think they were happier last year when the louder fireworks were closer and they could see them, this year the fireworks displays were just far away for it to be out of sight, but still loud.

I swear he gets more handsome by the day

Not impressed with the Tradey photobomb

get yourself a good camera lens, it makes it look like there's proper sunshine

fall colors and a Sophie butt

part of the reason for the mud situation - they play, sleep and eat. And that's it.

Yard pony

Other than that, I'm busy as always. I have a week off to install our new kitchen (yay!). Sand is getting delivered today to top off/finish the ring (also yay!) so I'll be spreading sand for the foreseeable.

One Year

I'm not sure how it's been an entire year since we went to the city to pick up two little colts from a cross Canada journey. That also makes it slightly over a year since I was sat on a ferry having an actual panic attack over all the impending changes in my horsey life. While the fun of having new babies incoming was super exciting, my heart wasn't sure I could actually part with Bridget, even on a lease to a friend. (And awkwardly, my ferry trip companion that day was said friend who I'd already promised B to, lol)

It's hard when things are happy and comfortable, but not leading to the more quantitative things you hope for. Sunk cost fallacy is also a thing, I had a very real feeling of not wanting to change my existing path because I had invested so much time and emotion into it.

 Bridget and Sophie dynamic duo throwback

But, if we're being real, I didn't/don't feel done yet with some small-ish eventing and dressage goals. While I was OK with staying involved, but putting those off to a future time (where I currently live is not conducive to showing/lesson goals), when that whole issue with compressed discs in my back came to light I suddenly felt like time maybe isn't on my side as much as I might have wanted and a Plan B might be warranted.  Besides, I'm not sure if my Plan A of 'waiting until things are easier' was a valid plan for goal getting, anyway.

B fulfilling some dreams - my very first horse trials!  circa 2016-ish. 

 While I admittedly miss Bridget and have small regrets about leasing her out vs just trusting my gut and selling Sophie, it's definitely a case of everything working out the way it needed to. I'm a broken record over here when I say I'm still so, so happy with the boys and the decision to go for youngsters. Baby horses are fun, I like a good project, and having them from foals also fills the want for me to know a horse's history. I think my looking off and on for years at older horses already doing the thing and not finding 'the horse' was a sign that I what a really wanted was a Welsh Cob foal (or two!) :) 

Their little faces when they arrived! Luckily for him was not a fan of being touched back then, so risk of me overly squishing him was minimal

So cute

Change is hard, but I also think change also needed to happen and I'm still pinching myself that I have not one, but two amazing future partners.

two very goofy partners :)