Welcome Home!

I apologize for my radio silence over the past few days - we've been running around like crazy people trying to get everything together for the purchase of our first ever home. It feels so awesome and weird to say that - we're proper adults now, with a proper piece of land to call our own! If you've been following this journey along since the beginning, you first met me as a broke kid who was barely out of college - what a crazy journey this has all been.

Our new property is awesome, and gorgeous. The house is plain on the outside but lovely on the inside, and the land and terrain is just awesome. I'll spare you all the gritty details of the property, but in terms of horse stuff, there are two pastures that are already fenced with good sturdy pipe, a huge run in shed, and a tack room/storage shed. The front pasture is good grass with lots of shady trees, and the top pasture is more rugged, complete with hills, rocks, grass, and lots of beautiful yuccas and cactus at the top of the hill. It's basically a tiny little piece of heaven.

They are super prickly and the horses don't go anywhere near them!

We officially closed on the house on Thursday, and Friday I brought the mares home. I trailered O over first, then went to go get P and Pax. Pax was a holy terror to lead to the trailer, and spent the majority of time walking around on her hind legs trying to punch me in the face. I'd be lying if I said she didn't get a solid little beating for her bad behavior. That said, it only took a moment for her to think about the trailer ramp and decide to hop right in, so that was great. She trailered super well, tucked herself right in front of P and stayed steady the whole trip.
When we got there, I released the hounds so to speak - everyone out together in the front pasture. It was the first time O had been out with P and Pax, and Pax's first experience with living out 24/7 (which should be the majority of the rest of her life). As expected, O went, "oh hello my tiny friend," and off they all ran. They ran and rolled and ran and roll, and grazed and ran and rolled. Everyone was very pleased, myself included.

"I love you, tiny friend"

I swear I saw the tiny red one come out of the big brown one!

Voila, ready to hitch!

Everyone weathered the night in the front pasture well. The following day, Future Hubs and I went and fixed up the top pasture to make it more horse-safe. 90% of the fence is good sturdy pipe fence with no climb, but there is a small section near the top pasture that is not. It had a strand of barbed wire above the no-climb at the top of the hill that had to be removed, the t-posts needed to be capped, and there was a pile of the old owner's fence posts in the corner of the pen that he still needs to come retrieve (everything is too wet right now to get his truck back there) that needed to be fenced off so the mares couldn't get in there and trash his stuff. Future Hubs and I did all of this in about an hour, and then opened the gate to let the girls go explore.

Pax is a brave little beast - she led the herd most of the way around. I love that we have a rugged little patch of proper Texas terrain for her to grow up on - hills and tough plants and rocks. She'll grow up strong and surefooted with this kind of land to live on.

I am super, super exhausted right now - I have a foster litter of bottle baby newborn kittens that is keeping me up all through the night with feedings. Between that, the move, and work, I don't have much time for anything else right now! Speaking of which, I should get to SLEEP! So much to to do, so little TIME!


By the way, here's a fun comparison: Pax on the left, O on the right. Both out of bay mares, weirdly enough!

Day 346

Day 346 has come and gone, and we're still cooking! Her bag is quite full, and her pH is steadily dropping - perhaps we will go in the next week!

You'll notice the change of facilities. The girls are currently bunking with L while we are in the process of moving to our new home. There's some Class A bullhonky behind it, which I won't hash out here in public. If you want to know more about it you're welcome to message me, but here we'll just leave it as it is. The really good news about the whole thing is that Future Hubs and I have finally found the perfect house - we were trying to keep this under wraps in order to keep the current situations from inevitably imploding, but unfortunately it all went down as expected. Ah well... what can you do, besides bolt across a burning bridge and make it safely to the other side!
The house and property we're buying (pending appraisal) is AWESOME. I'll have more on it later - but it has great little horse facilities, and finally my beasts will all be in my backyard again. I've been desperately waiting for YEARS for this, and it's all finally happening. It's really happening!

Pending everything, we're closing May 15th. The timing of this whole thing was well engineered for maximal suffering for both myself and the mares - I obviously would never, ever move an overdue pregnant mare for any reason unless it was out of utter desperation or total disaster. I am thanking my lucky stars that if it had to happen to any horse, it was at least P - she is extremely nonplussed over this sudden uprooting, and is completely fine. We're still watching her like hawks, but she seems perfectly content to keep cooking her tot until further notice.

O is much less happy about the move, but I suppose it's as good a time as any to give her a little break. It's been storming like crazy here, my cart and trailer are now stored at home (our current home) temporarily, and she is back in heat again, and therefore somewhat insufferable. The next show is on the 26th - the first of the games days series. I feel perfectly OK with just pulling her out and heading off to the show after two weeks off, if it comes to that, because she'll be quite fine and capable of handling that show without issue. Everything is sort of floating around in the air in limbo right now - we'll have to play this all day-by-day while we move.

Cross your fingers for us... this is a really exciting time!!!

Front yard, with view of one of the pastures behind it. Cross your fingers!