Taking Ownership

Owning a farm is the most trying, challenging, yet rewarding thing imagineable.  It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and sadly our little farm is back to the original three at the moment.  There have been several people expressing interest, and hopefully a couple really good prospects.  But when it rains it pours, so on top of losing our boarder, we also lost our half-leaser - she decided juggling three kids' schedules and a horse for herself was too much.  Can I really blame her??!!!  We have poured our energy into the farm lately - adding a paddock to subdivide the herd, re-organizing the hay shed and feed rooms, keeping everything neat and tidy.  Then winter hit out of the blue this week, and it dropped from 60 degrees during the day, to a high of 37 yesterday.  Which undoubtedly meant the low was 21, which equals additional blanketing, breaking ice in troughs, and all the other winter precautions that are necessary.  Nevertheless, I love wintertime for the most part, and I was actually excited for it to finally arrive.  There is something invigorating about feeding on a morning that the air is so crisp it nearly burns your lungs.  Call me crazy, I know - but I love it.

April has been doing amazing since coming back from a week of tune-up with Ivy.  I was lucky enough to have her offer to keep her ridden while I was in Iowa for Christmas break.  So instead of her sitting around doing nothing, she got a few training rides to get her tuned back up a bit.  We did a short lesson the day I picked her up, and discovered I have been half-halting incorrectly.  That alone has made a big difference in our rides.  We also made some changes to her diet and pasture arrangments, and the combination of factors has come together perfectly so far.  I was hoping to take her to the Pipe Opener this month, but it is looking like finances are going to force us to stay at home.  Hopefully I can find a backup option sometime in the near future.  For now, I am trying to keep my chin up, and just keep riding.  I was proud that I fought off the urge to back out of riding last night, and I braved the 30 degree weather and rode anyway. 

So that's the way that life is puttering along at the moment.  I'm taking ownership for all the things I can control, and trying to find peace in the fact that not everything falls into place perfectly, but it will get there eventually.  I still wouldn't trade my little piece of heaven for anything in the world.