back to normal work days

The day was exhausting again. After a night full of hard time to breath and weird dreams, the started full speed. Feeding, put blankets on the horses and turn them out.... the next thing is cleaning stalls. It felt like it takes forever to clean the first 10 stalls. My cold /flu is still active in my system but there are signs that my immune system wins ;) I was soooo hungry at lunch time, I never was for the last 2 weeks. And I was in the mood for soup !! So, I guess I am getting back to normal soon. Stupid bugs !!! I always amazes me how such tiny things can pull down a person in a short time. All I have to get rid of now is the cough and the stuffed nose. Both are pretty annoying. Otherwise, there are not much new things to say. I only work tomorrow and then I have two days off ;D

exhausting weekend

Tomorrow is already the last day of February! I can't believe it. It's good, I am sick of winter, I want spring. To my pleasure I saw trees with buds on their branches today :D I really hope that spring is not too far away. I always wanted to experience a Canadian winter with all the cold, wind and snow. So that's what I did and now it's time for spring (without mud). I can't wait for the snow to melt, the geese for returning, also the cranes. It seems such a long time ago since there were geese everywhere.... We just had a two day Western Performance horse clinic here at the barn. A lot of bling and girls.... I was watching during my lunch break yesterday and today, most of the time I had no idea what they were doing or what the clinician was talking about, all I understood was pulling and kicking.... I just look forward to Chris' clinic this year some time. But first I have to work with Ben a bit and improve my skills ;D I am still sick, now with sore throat and coughing.... awesome !!! So I will wait til this is passed too and then off to work with Ben.

31. Birthday

Its my Birthday today !! And I turn proudly 31 years :D I cant believe it. I just turned 30 last year... I better believe it ;D I was working today, took it easy, cause I still have this freaking bug inside me. And of course I have a sore throat now too. I just hope its not an Angina. I have to hold the flashlight in my mouth and check if there are some white spots. There are better no white spots.... !!! It was a nice sunny day and unfortunately there had to blow a nasty cold wind :( The best thing would be if I could hear a wolf howl today, this would be the best Birthday present ever :D but it would also mean they are way too close... I still wish to never run into a cougar during night check. This would be just aweful ! As much as I would like to see one this would be way too close. I realized today that this is my first Birthday away from home and it feels weird and great at the same time. :)

freaking bugs !!!

A lot happend again and I dont have the time to write it all down everyday. My life is just flying. Unfortunately, I caught a nasty bug which gives me fever til almost 39 degrees C. It started on Wednesday with a huge head ache and totally tired. Then Friday and Saturday were my days off which I spent at Charlene`s place again and then this sh... hit me pretty bad. So, I spent Friday half day in and half day out of bed. And when I was out of bed I was hanging in a chair.... GREAT !! Oh how I hate beeing sick. Saturday wasn`t better and when the time came to make a decision about going back to Double W I just couldnt picture myself going to work the next day. Which I didn`t... But today I was working again after a hell of a night. Three sweat bath in bed, three times changing my clothes and then the night was too short to recover from that. I had enough of this fever thingy going on and put acupuncture needles in my arm, I am still warm but not that hot anymore. I hope what ever that whole thing got going (i can imagine what it was...) should be over now. My life is peaceful again.

first ride on Ben

It's already middle of Feburary, soon is my birthday. A lot happend here, work and private, good and bad... I rode Ben yesterday after work. He thought it's not time for work now (around 5pm) it's supper time. So, I had a hard time to catch him first. And his friends were not helping at all, running with him. I put hay for them on the ground and could come close to Ben, first with halter then without and in the end with only a rope and then it was no problem to catch him. Brat !!! Project : catching. I only rode him around 20 min 'cause he is not in shape. The first rounds were pretty nice, he tried to figure me out ;), that's good i tried the same. Then the fun started when he threw his hissyfits like cro hopping, back up and try to lift his butt or get light on the forehand. I saw that before, Alberta can that pretty good too. ;D The next time I will lunge him first and we need to change his work ethic. Now, I have time to work with Ben. And I will do massage on his back too, it's pretty tense.

feeding at minus 39 degrees

A new temperature experience for me : minus 39 incl. wind chill. I was feeding outside today in the morning and thought its a little bit chilly.... Good thing I was driving the gator so I wasnt right in the chill like I would be on the quad. Well, weather like that makes you hurry up to get inside pretty fast. :D And its easier to feed square bales then feeding from the round bale. To fork hay and drag or load it in the gator and bring it to the horses takes more time then just cut the twin on a square bale and throw it over the fence. So I was done in around 30 min. I never fed squares outside and so I had no idea how many bales I would need. There are around 13 horses outside and so I calculated around 6 bales. I used 5 bales ;) I dont know if this is too much or right... on the other hand the horses get more hay when its that cold. The flakes from the squares are easier to spread all over the place so every horse gets his share. Later, someone brought some of the outside horses in the barn. I knew the one which is always screaming is Rosie and the other one must be Ben. And Ben is the horse i can ride :) I never saw him close before only out in the field when I was feeding. I need to take a picture of him soon. He is a real cutie !!! A black and white paint horse. I took the chance and went in the area with him to lunge him. Ben is not in shape so we took it easy and did only a bit walk and jog on both sides. He tried a few times to face up and so we need to work on not facing up anymore. And I guess I also will work on leading with him especially on the right side.

not a good day

Back to work after my day off. And that means back to a confusing work day. There are still some thing unclear and I hope we can straighten this out tomorrow at the staff meeting. Well, I am used to in a chaos and just take orders from left and right, in this way, you can't do something wrong 'cause you just followed orders. Talking about follow orders... I had to get the Quarter horses in from the paddock, but there were three Warmbloods in the paddock beside them. To get the Quarter horses in the barn I have to lead them through the paddock with the warmbloods and since i know that the Quarter horses are pretty expensive I didn't wanna take the chance to get them hurt when the Warmbloods would like to come for a visit. So I decided to bring in the Warmbloods first even I knew they were out only since a short time.... I took the first on in the barn and put him in the stall. Of course, his owner saw that and soon someone comes up to the stall and asks me why he is already in the stall. So I explained the situation and she agreed that this would be the only way. But the owner wanted the horse to be out longer... Awesome !!! Sometimes I really wish people would let me just do my work !!! We put the warmblood out again, caught his two friends, took the four Quarter horses out of the paddock and put the three warmbloods in the paddock where the Quarter horses were. Everybody was happy !!

snow mobile ride on a day off

It's my day off again. I am at Charlene's place for a change again. It's just snowing like crazy at the moment, with wind. Almost a blizzard according to Rob. It's hard to see down to the field where the horses are. The flurries are big one time then small again.... Yesterday it was windy and raining and today a snow storm... The temperature is 0 degrees. This is Alberta weather. :) I wonder how it will continue. There was one horse on the other side of the fence where it shouldn't be. So, Rob, Marc and I hopped on snowmobiles and drove down there to check. Holy, there is around 60cm of snow on this field !! It was a bumpy ride. After we got the horse back in the field where it belongs, we took a different way to go home. It was on the other side of the fence (where the horse was) and went for a little snowmobile ride. It was my second one. Unfortunately, the snow is wet and deep so Marc and I got stuck twice. :( I ended up with shoes full of snow, wet pants and socks, I didn't come prepared for a snowmobile ride. :) That's part of the fun. After we came home again, I had change my cloths. Unfortunately, my shoulder was hurting like crazy after I was back in the house again. :( I couldn't turn my head to the right, move my arm or lean on a chair. Just nasty !!! So I tried to move as less as I can which wasn't the best idea. The less I moved the more it hurt. Now, I am home and after a hot shower and put some cooling / hot gel on it's not too bad. I just hope I will have a short and sweet night check so I can go to bed.

sore neck :(

It's already Febuary ! I can't believe it. Soon is my birthday :) My first birthday away from home ;) I woke up this morning with a stiff neck on the right side ! Awesome !!! That's what I really needed !!! So I went to work and it went not too bad, the feeding, cleaning stalls, turning out horses,... well, here was the problem. The one horse, no both have no idea about space ! So all I do when I lead them out in the paddock is checking left and right that they keep the spot I give them. And these two have no idea how to go through a gate properly. All they wanna do is pushing through as fast as they can. Not with me, guys ! We reached the gate before their pasture starts and I wanted to open it, of course the two horses were all over the place. And as soon as you open the gate they just plow through doesn't matter if you're there or not. So, I was fighting with them to stay back and the one horse was just fooling around and pulled too much on my right arm and of course it hurt like crazy... Here I am, two horrible horses on the ground and me with a sore shoulder ! After this, my shoulder was just one big hard knot and hurt like crazy. And now a headache sneaks up too. I hope my night check will be short and sweet so I can go to bed. That would be cool.