The Funny Thing About Horses
Not going to lie, I have spent the last few weeks dealing with the drama that is owning and running a livery yard. Unfortunately we have had a bit of a spat of injuries with horses coming in with the odd cut and scrape, which on the surface should be straightforward but in actual fact have been lengthy and complicated. Thankfully everyone is on the mend now, but my poor head is pickled and I am genuinely exhausted. I have buckets full of empty sachets of antibiotics and pain killers and almost a pharmacy worth of dressings and creams and have learned a whole lot about scanning and dressing a variety of wounds!
However, now that we are through the worst of it I am back to the day to day of just managing the yard, which at this time of year can be a bit of a challenge! My yard is covered in mud, I am squelching around with a leak in my boot, causing me to have permanently wet and cold feet, which is making me a little bit grumpy to say the least.
New boots are on order but in the meantime I have to deal with the quagmire that are the fields and the ponies who insist on rolling in the wettest part of the field, resulting in all of my jackets being covered in mud, a constant dishevelled look and mud smears across my face.
Only yesterday I narrowly escaped face planting in the field. One of our mares got a little too enthusiastic when being turned out, so in self-preservation mode I stepped back out of the way, only to find my foot continued to move further and further away from my body, sliding its way down a slight slope towards the fence. There was a moment of slight panic, I’ll not lie, but thankfully I managed to right myself and find my balance, which however ended up in me actually doing the splits, something I haven’t been able to do since 1996!
So now, not only am I squelching around the yard, I am limping too as my poor muscles don’t know what has hit them! But I will carry on in the vain hope that the frost will come and things will become more solid again, my yard will stop looking like a bog and I will no longer look like Stig of the Dump, rather the Michelin man when I am wearing fourteen layers to stave off the cold.
And no, I promise I am not complaining, I love living with my horses just yards from my front door and being able to pop out in my jammies and check everyone is warm and cosy, however I do relish when they are all tucked up for the evening and I can come inside, put on dry clothes and sit in front of the fire with a large glass of something yummy.
Roll on spring, or even January, in fact let’s just get December out of the way so I can start to count the extra minutes of daylight we have and that feeling of optimism that spring is on its way and the mud will be a distant memory (well at least until April!).
I’m off to do yet another load of washing full of mud ridden waterproofs and soggy socks. Stay safe out there in the mud and remember, the summer sun makes the winter bearable, or so everyone keeps telling me!
