All Moved In

housework is better with a bonus dog

Despite my well-intentioned panic on Friday, the weather man was wrong (as per the usual, huzzah for being back to that!) and the weekend was downright liveable.

Or at least, it would have been if we didn't start it with 8 inches of snow. And ice.

But three days of almost 50f temps later, the roads are safe!

I ditched the housework and with the help of my wonderful BOs (miss them already, not even kidding), Courage got all moved in to the new barn on Sunday afternoon.

freaking enormous stall

I'm petty excited about the facility. There are maintained grass turnouts (didn't take a pic), a large outdoor arena (also no pic), a nice shedrow with a covered aisle (sensing a theme?), two horse barns (see pic!), and get this: AN INDOOR ARENA.

Courage lives in this huge stall. I should measure it. It's like... 15x15? Maybe 20? I don't even know. Massively huge. The attached run is pretty tiny, but it's enough to let him out in the sunshine on nice days.

He does have a very rambunctious neighbor who already tore a cooler of mine (bastard!), but there is now hot tape around the top of the fencing, so hopefully that's contained.

very impressed

After making sure he understood the stall essentials, I took him off for his first-ever indoor arena experience.

As you can see, he was wild.

We did a little groundwork. Somehow I have misplaced my fancy custom lunge line and since I don't know anyone, I didn't want to start out by borrowing, so nothing too exciting.

Not gonna lie, I really wanted to hop on and ride. I guess there is a limit to how many real life responsibilities I can blow off on any given day though.

this is me going minimalist

I put Courage back in his stall and got my stuff organized in the tack room. I'm trying the whole "less stuff" thing to see if that works for me. Plus I don't want to be the jerk that moves my fancy horse in with all my toys and then stages a hostile takeover in the tackroom. You know that person. Everyone hates them.

I tried to fit all my stuff (not including winter blankets currently in use) in one trunk, one saddle rack, and a couple of hooks. As you can see, I've already sprawled onto a second saddle rack for my cooler and quarter sheet, but I'm telling myself it's seasonal.

plus Courage got a girlfriend

There are a lot of great features at the new place and everyone I've met seems really nice. I'm looking forward to the shorter drive and extra free time to allow me to start running again. Or maybe clean the house. Or something.

I'm a little apprehensive about fitting in to a new barn group and there's a part of me that wants to go running back to our old barn, but I know this is where we need to be right now.

So. Here goes winter 2014. It should be interesting for sure.
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