You can't let one precious day slip by

Here is my muddy Foggy boy grazing last evening at sunset.  All these mud speckles and this is after I groomed him!  

I have been taking my time with Foggy.  Not that I didn't take my time with Pie and Sovey, but it is different this time around.  I am just more relaxed with Foggy.  

Every day when I walk in the barn I see their snack bowls lined up on the stairs and I get the giggles and  think that they are "my three sons".  I've heard parents of multiple children say that they were more relaxed with the younger kids. I am definitely seeing that with my retraining of Foggy.  Pie and Sovey were in the barn together at night back when they arrived in February of 2009. Each morning, I would work on cross-tie practice with one of the horses and the other horse was right there, in his stall looking on. Foggy is alone so his program has been a little different, and, a little less structured.   

This is a rough outline of our schedule:

Pie and Sovey are outside and Foggy is in his stall all night.  My mom feeds all the horses hay at 7am and Foggy gets a little grain too.

I arrive around 8:30 am if the weather is nice and pick up manure in all the pastures to warm up.  Pie and Sovey usually help me when they are finished with their hay.  I bring Foggy outside.  I haven't tried him in the cross-ties yet because he is anxious to get out and see his friends.  I practice leading him around the farm. He leads very well.  He rushes a little if the other horses get out of his sight, but not too bad.  He grazes and I groom him.  Then I stick him into a small ring pasture with water and hay and more grain.

I put Pie and/or Sovey in a nearby paddock depending on who I am not riding that day. The horse in the paddock has hay and water.  I hope to one day leave the two horses that I am not riding out together, but for now I am trying to fatten Foggy up and he has some grain and rich hay out with him.  

I groom and tack up the horse du jour and off we go on our cross-country trek.  I rode Sovey on Sunday bareback and Pie yesterday with a saddle (it rained Monday).  Pie is screaming much less when I ride Sovey so that is great that he knows he has Foggy "with him".

Yesterday, when I rode Pie, he wanted to investigate a neighboring field east of our property.  I let him decide how far out he wants to go.  He was very willing to keep going which makes me happy.  Someday I am going to just keep going and never stop.

After my ride there is post-ride grazing and grooming/massage. This is the best part for the horse and can be nice for me in the sunshine.  Usually it is freezing though!  We had some considerable shedding from Pie yesterday - much relief that spring has sprung.

I put the horse I rode in the big pastures and add the paddock horse.  Then, I bring Foggy in to be with everyone. They all seem happy.  

I leave them out all day with more hay.  I used to have to clean Foggy's stall, but now my wonderful farm helper, Melanie, is doing his stall and buckets so I go home.  Melanie feeds hay in 8 separate piles at 4:30pm.  I come back around 6 or 7 pm and put Foggy in the barn for the night.  Removing him from the pasture at night seems cruel to me and I don't know why he lets me do it, but he doesn't have enough winter coat or fat to stay out all night. Around mid-March, I should be able to leave him out with the boys 24/7.  He walks into the barn and his stall willingly.  Last evening, when I got him out, I grazed and groomed him.  This was surely a terrible mistake.  I doubt he will forget - and now I'll be expected to do that every night!  

I have moments when I panic and think that I am not "doing" anything with Foggy.  I see when I go back and read my blog from 2009 that I was further ahead with Pie and Sovey at this point (they arrived February 22nd) than I am with Foggy.  Pie and Sovey had been at a Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation farm for 3 months before they came to us.  Foggy came straight from the track. He isn't showing any signs of nervousness or worry, but it just feels right to let him relax and fatten up and "do nothing" for a while.