I bartered!

Okay it may seem strange that I'm excited enough to title my post that, but I have ALWAYS wanted to be able to barter for horse items and I finally had the chance. So basically I had two older but still good condition waterproof turnouts that are always too big for any horses I own and I traded them for hoof work on Sheza and Desire this week. It gave me a little thrill, call me a dork. Desire's hooves are recovering nicely. She grows hoof like its going out of style. Sheza is having a MAJOR growth spurt and her hooves had grown an insane amount in 4 weeks. Like, she was overgrown and should have been trimmed at 3 weeks! Amazing. I had no idea that much growth that quickly was possible. So I will be keeping a closer eye on that. Sheza did really well for her hooves again, she tried pulling away a couple times but D the trimmer is very gentle but firm and there were no shenanigans allowed. She also made a really interesting point about Desire that I am still mulling over with delight. We were talking about how tense Desire is in the cross ties and she said "clearly Desire has never been a little girl's horse" I asked her to explain because I couldn't quite wrap my mind around that and she said that Desire was obviously trained and did everything she was asked but wasn't very sure about things and didn't know how to be spoiled..yet. Key word yet, because as D and I acknowledged she will definitely become a "little girl's horse" here with me. Its such a GREAT point because Desire does exactly that: what you ask, but isn't sure of herself and always retains some low level of tension/anxiety. I think and hope that she will settle down here and really bond with me and maybe find another level of relaxation, but as it is I am enjoying her and she is at worst an interesting new challenge to deal with. But really at best, a fun, forward, slightly nervous mare! I feel like I ramble on about her a lot but I've just become so used to Blaze in the last few years that discovering a new horse, and a mare again at that, is exciting to me. I always have my closest bonds with mares, my highest highs and lowest lows. Here's to some exciting years of highs with Desire!

In other news, I mailed the saddle back yesterday. I'll be getting my deposit back and waiting to order the whole kit, probably til mid December. The saddle prices have gone up and while I could squeeze the money out now I think it was good I got a chance to trial the saddle with some (mostly) decent weather and now I will wait for another few weeks to order it when finances are more comfortable. I'm going to order the Eurolight with a bigger seat size than the one they sent me, western fenders, 2 shim kits, 2 different fitting cushions, and the suede seat. In the spring I will order the fleece seat and fleece fenders for summer riding. I also want to order one of the pads like the one they sent with the trial saddle, I assume its the standard fleece Specialized pad. Or I might try a Haf pad if GETC recommends that higher, I haven't used either but I really like the shape and ease of use of those pads in what I've seen and heard.

Horses got de-wormed this week as well, the vet said I could switch Sheza to Ivermectin especially with the bot eggs out and about. So far Sheza still takes her wormer better than Desire does! Hopefully that lasts. I'm thinking I might start getting a flavored wormer so Sheza takes a liking to it which I'm sure her little piggy self will. The more she likes the experience the better and I know she likes anything tasty. It might be to my benefit to get her hooked on it, LOL. Leading youngsters astray with apple wormer addictions, what would my mother say.

My husband just walked in and said he had run a bath for me! How random and nice! Or maybe I just smell..