Moving Day!

First, I am so tired that I could throw up.

Moving day was today. I got up at 6:30 because I couldn't sleep anymore, and puttered around the house until 9 when I decided to say "screw it" and went to the lesson barn, where I was meeting Regina to lead her to Lex, a little early. I pestered the farm assistants and snuggled with horses until Regina arrived. She hitched up, and off we went. I was super, super anxious. Anxiety is a major issue with me, and pretty much the only time I'm totally free of it is when I'm actually on a horse.

When we arrived, the girl who fed the horses had left both Lex and Duchess up for us. Why Duchess too? Well. Last night, Kris had told me that if I ever wanted to do anything with Duchess - like take her anywhere or use her for anything - that I could do it. So just before we left the lesson barn this morning, I mentioned to Regina that she might want to look at another horse while we were there. So I pulled Duchess out for her and explained about how she's the best horse in the world, and that I thought it was worth seeing if she might be able to earn her living by doing some light lessons at Haile. Regina was game, so I called the barn owner to confirm that it was okay, and she said, "YES OH MY GOD TAKE HER," basically.

So it turned out to be twice the moving day it would have been otherwise, which definitely contributes to the aforementioned exhaustion. I was really happy to get to bring Duchess, because I'll get to see her every day now and keep a very close eye on her, and the horses at the lesson barn are cared for beautifully. We dropped Duchess off first. I felt bad because I couldn't stay with her long, but we made sure she was in a nice paddock with water and hay and that the farm assistants would look after her.

Then we zoomed up the road to take Lex to the boarding barn. When we got there, the poor baby was totally drenched in sweat, so we took her right to the wash stall for a shower. She was afraid to go into it - she was shaking - but with some gentle coaxing, she did go in. I held her while Regina gently sprayed her off and scraped her, and then we got her settled in her stall with a huge pile of hay and some water. She went right to work on that, which was great.

The pony approves of the service at this establishment.

I let her relax for awhile while I unloaded all our stuff and set up our little spot in the tack room (and it's little! I'll have to figure out how to stash all my stuff more efficiently). Then we went for a little hand walk and she got to check out the sights, including the ring, which she rolled in. I didn't realize what was happening until she was down, and then I had a brief "is she colicking?!" moment, but no - it just felt good.

They make grass here, too!

Once she was back in her stall and munching hay (I stayed to watch her for awhile, and she kept coming to check on me, like "Are YOU okay?" which I took as my cue to leave) I went home to let my poor dogs out and eat.

No, seriously, Mom. You can go.

I tried to take a nap, but that wasn't happening - too anxious about my girls settling in. So before too long I went back to the lesson barn, and checked on Duchess, who was doing just great, sniffing the other horses over the fence and generally being her usual adorable self. I gave her a bath and let her hand-graze for awhile, and she was perfect. I love that girl.

Post-shower Duchie!

Back to the boarding farm! Unfortunately, it's much farther from where I live than where she was, but I think I'll feel like I don't need to check on her every second of the day - eventually - so that will be good. The good news is, the lesson farm and the boarding farm are both in the same direction from my house, so at least I'm mostly only heading west.

She seemed a little anxious when I got there, but I fed her and she ate up all her grain. I'd have liked for her to have consumed more water, but what can you do. We tried putting her in one paddock with two geldings, and she did great with the first one, but the second one was tormenting her. Both the geldings' owners were standing next to me, so I asked if the boys had back shoes, and they both did. I was like, "WELL, that will never do," so I pulled her out of there and we put her in a paddock with one mare and one gelding, and that was much more peaceful.

All is well, I think, except that when I was leaving I stopped to check on her and her right eye was kinda swollen and runny. I couldn't see any problems with it, so I'll check on her in the morning and see what she looks like. If it's still bad, I'll call the vet. I just really hope it's nothing, because if I moved her to a place where I thought she'd be safe and she hurt herself somehow, or another horse hurt her, I will never get over it, heh. I'm such a worrier with her, and I don't want to stay up all night worrying that she's going to be blind in that eye. She'll be FINE. She probably just got some hay in it.

I'm glad to have this day over. I was talking to my mom on the phone on the way home from the barn, and I was almost in tears because I was so tired and hungry and worried about Lex's eye. Mom pointed out that I've had a WHOLE LOT of change in my life in the past couple months, starting with buying a horse nine weeks ago out of the blue, and I just need to get settled so I can relax.

I never used to worry about my horses this much. I did not freak out when they were injured or spend all my time getting myself concerned that they were going to be disabled for life or feel like I had to check on them constantly. I'm not sure what switch got flipped in my head, but I need to un-flip it. My BFF said today that my worrying about Lex is taking all the fun out of owning her, which is entirely true. It's probably annoying the hell out of him, too, because he has to listen to me all the time!

Deep breaths. I'll go check on her tomorrow, see that her eye is fine and she's happy, and then go ride Duchess and introduce her to the lesson ring. It'll be great fun.