Cold Cold Cold Weather and my Super 'Glamorous' Horse Work

I mentioned in my last post that I hate the cold. Amazingly it's still true. Actually it's even more true. Earlier today weather.com said it was 7 degrees but felt like -2. In Arkansas. What the hell?! I mean, I know we had a mild summer but this is ridiculous.

I pulled Moose's blanket off him to work him today (bareback of course- it's cold and he's warm!) and I swear he shot me a 'what the fuck is wrong with you?!!' look. We made it exactly one lap around the pasture before I admitted defeat. My face was dying from the wind and I realized if he decided to act up I really, really did not want to fall off of a 16.2 hand horse onto the frozen ground. Sure he was being good today but do I really want to take that risk with my personal safety? *Innocent look*

In this cold weather we wanted the horses to have access to hay all day instead of getting fed morning and night and since I knew it was going to be extra cold this week they even got high protein content bermuda to munch on. At $40 a bale they'd better be happy...  And thank god for water heaters....

Also we made a hay saver out of cut down hay pallets. It's worked amazingly- it's stopped them from pulling a lot of hay out and peeing or pooping on it. It was easy to make and works better than the metal hay rings, doesn't pull out the horses manes and it's super cheap to make. Just some pallets and wire for materials. As a bonus if it rains I'm going to convert my 'practice poles' into a 'tarp' poles to keep the rain off.

The budget horseman's hay saver! We're in the process of making slow feeders as well.

Anyway, I was catching up with a friend earlier and I was telling him about what I do and he mentioned how cool he thought my job was. I get this reaction a lot. I was in Miami (in the upstairs of an art exhibit/studio for a friend's birthday) and people who worked as professional dancers and instructors, artists and fashion designers all said how cool they thought what I do was. I don't really know WHY since most of my job is manual labor.... rather gross manual labor. It's not exactly glamorous work.

 My usual look when I get the 'Wow! Your job is so cool and awesome!' exclamation from non horse people.

I think all they think working with horses is petting them, cuddling with them and riding around in pretty white breeches. Probably. ( Also I just bought several pair of breeches and a pair of half chaps in preparation for my time abroad.) This is NOT what I think of when I think about my job.. In fact I think a lot of these following things are true for most horse owners who have non horse people friends.

When I think about what I do, I think about:

Getting dumped on my bum and being sore for a few weeks.

Horses eating my money... most of the time not literally. Also how much everything related to horses costs...

Horses injuring themselves on anything and everything. And the vet bills that come from treating them.

I came to work one day to find that one of the horses had impaled himself on a T post. (He didn't have caps.) This is why T post caps are a good thing folks. I had some guests complaining that their ride wasn't on time.  I tried explaining that I was doctoring a horse who I'd just found injured. (My boss refused to take him to the vet. I threw a fit- I was so mad.) When I led him up and said that this was the horse they turned green and shut up. As a side note he healed fine and didn't even have a scar. 

Getting dumped by a horse who took off- with my car keys, water bottle and cell phone. (I literally put them in the saddle bag for remounting when he started bucking and ran off. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find him. (In 5000 acres of trails....) That day made me hate my riding boots, although I guess there's a reason they aren't walking boots.

RIP pretty shiny bridle, bit and new reins... This is me after I finally captured my horse. After walking the trails for several hours. Then borrowing a horse from a stranger back at base camp and riding out with them to try and find my horse. Then driving around in my moms car (after I called with the nice peoples phone) and yelling until I lost my voice. Then as we were giving up for the night guess who we ran into wandering back to camp? Yep. So I lured him with a bucket of dirt and grabbed his halter... then he drug me for about 15 feet before giving up (because there was no way in HELL that I was).  Fun day. Fun job.

Super fun times... 

Me after getting bucked off, spraining about every finger, getting a concussion, cracking some ribs etc.  Oh and I had the flu. I still had to go to work even though I was throwing up off my horse. Then I got my wisdom teeth out the next day.

This part of horse work every horse person knows: manure. Lots and lots of manure and horse pee.  In your boots because you forgot your muck boots.  Also the moment when you're trying to muck out your pasture or a stall and a nugget of  old manure flies up off the pitchfork and hits you in the face

Then there's riding and feeding in the freezing cold. 

Also riding and spraying down horses when it's 115 degrees outside. 

Blanketing with frozen hands and a burned out barn light. 

Horse fly bites. Especially those big black suckers where the bite swells up, gets hot and itches for a week or two. 

Fly spray getting into your mouth when the wind changes direction suddenly. 

Chasing horses that don't like being caught. Bonus points if you're trying to catch them to blanket them because it's freezing and raining.

Staying up all night with horse with colic when you're exhausted and want to die.

Unloading bales of hay when you're super hungover. 

Horses spooking at goblins and invisible monsters. 

Riding with sore muscles and a butt that's so sore from constant riding that you need lady anti monkey butt powder. (It's a real thing.)  

Hauling 50 lb bags of grain around.

Never having nails- and never being able to have them  unpainted because of all the dirt under them. 

Trying to teach two huge horses what personal space means.

Horses dropping your cell phone into the water trough. 

(I had my phone in a fanny pack and I placed it by the gate while I was working another horse. I came back and couldn't find my fanny pack. Then I looked in the water trough..... It'd been in there for about an hour. Amazingly my phone still worked after it dried out, but this is why I leave my phone in the house or the barn now.)

Always smelling like horse and being covered in horse hair. 

Constantly rocking helmet hair combined with leg and butt sweat from riding bareback. 

Going out at 3 am because it's cold outside and you heard rain on your window... which means you need to give the horses extra food in hay bags in their stalls (because they won't go in on their own) and putting on blankets.

Or if you're me in college: leaving a party or being late for a party because you had to rush home and take care of a horse thing. 

Turning people down who want to hang out because you have to do 'horse things'. I learned this when I was a teenager. 

Owning a 'magical' white horse or a paint... who's usually an attractive shade of brown or green. Then spending several hours scrubbing them clean. 

Falling asleep on the couch at a party because you had to get up early for work and because weekends were your busiest days. 

Warming a frozen bit in your hands or against your stomach because you don't want your horse to get a mouthful of cold metal. 

Trying to convince your friends or strangers with kids that no really, you cant and don't want to ride my horse... No, I don't have any horses that your kid can ride right now. No, I'm not just being a jerk or lazy. 

Cancelling plans, that'd been made well in advance, to show a horse to someone who just called and wanted to come out right away.

The sheer number of people that say they're coming to see your horse- who flake out with no call or email.

People who promise they know how to ride and can handle an experienced rider only horse, who show up in flip flops and complain that the horse is too much horse for them... 

Horses who have always been calm and not spooky suddenly turning into hot flighty messes when people come out to try them. Then turning back to themselves once the people leave. 

(I once had a horse who figured out when people came to see her and would act up something awful until they left. The second they started to pull away she'd go back to normal. Most frustrating horse to sell I've ever had.)

All of the idiots you meet trying to sell a horse. Also all the idiots you meet buying a horse.

A totally not steady income and no workers comp if you get injured and can't work.

There are lots more, but that's what comes to my mind when I think about how 'super cool and awesome' my job it. Looking at all those things listed out, you want to know what I really think about what I do?

I think I love my job. I don't know what I'd rather do than work with horses. 

I've met some of the most amazing horses and some truly wonderful people along the way.