I realize I don’t give too many updates about life on the home front.
Nahe and Augie are living their best retired lives. It’s crazy to me to think about Nahe and realize that by now he is solidly into his 20s. I believe he may have been a couple years older than we believed but the teeth aren’t 100% reliable. Since he’s been retired he is starting to lose his topline and his gut is feeling it’s gravity. It’s difficult to not take it personally…tell myself I should still be doing something to keep him fit in his retirement years. But he seems happy.
In the past few weeks I’ve noticed him taking more and more naps…usually when it’s 70 and when he’s naked. The obsessive in me worries he’s sick or in pain, the other side of me reminds myself that he loves napping especially in the sun. As many times as I catch him napping I see him buck and rear and play and he’s always excited for food. Either way I’m probably going to pull blood at his next visit to make sure he’s still healthy. This horse is so incredibly special to me and he knows it.
This past winter sucked to say the least. It was cold, we often had bad weather, and the boys LOVE to pull hay out of the net and toss it on the ground to make a bed.
I gave up cleaning it for the winter.
Just this past week I took a metal pitchfork, my giant Gorilla cart and the ATV and I removed TWENTY loads of the wasted hay. It was 6-8″ thick and came off if stubborn SHEETS. But since I have a nice stone base laid out I was able to get most of it. There was a single patch of ice buried under part of it that I was able to reveal. By next week it will be fully thawed and ready to be fully clean.
But that only took care of the wasted hay. My next task is to remove all the built-up manure from the barnyard. The barnyard is small (a sacrifice area adjacent to my paddocks but they mainly stay there all winter by choice). That task will be accomplished with my manure vacuum, fortunately.
Aside from the boys we are eggstra happy we added more hens to our flock last year. The latest egg fiasco hasn’t affected us as we currently get 3-4 eggs each morning. The girls are all doing really well and are happy to have the nice weather coming back.
Bardi is doing fabulous. The vets are always excited to see him for his routine visits and they can’t believe he’s 11…he has as much energy and vigor as he did at 5. Until the evening at least. To Zac and I we can see his aging. He’s slowing down and at night after a full day of bird patrol he can be pretty stiff. He’s still the face of my woodworking business and every customer is excited to meet the famous boy when they pick up their order.
A few weeks ago we had to say goodbye to our girl Shadow “Miss.” She was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism in 2023 and the transdermal cream worked miracles getting her back into amazing health. Recently she began to start looking worse and worse. She became less interested in food. Sleeping a lot. We knew the time was running out and we would buy ANYTHING she was willing to eat. I have read that hyperthyroidism (and heart disease) are both quite taxing on the kidneys…and she was showing signs of late stage kidney failure. The day finally came when I had to go looking for her, she had retreated to a closet. I disturbed her peace, picked her up and put her on my lap. She didn’t move. Zac and I were both home and we cried together knowing that this was it. We called the vet and let her go peacefully. We laid her next to Kain, Blade, and Sassy Pants pony in a peaceful quiet place on our hill. Ten years ago she came to us…we thought she was only a year old, but she looked only 1 year old right up until she was sick. She was tiny but fierce, loved to chase the “ghosts” around. She was a killed huntress. A daddy’s girl. She was perfect and complex. We are going to miss her so much.
On a positive note our young boys are doing fantastic. Mango (Mango Bub Coo-Bear) and Mingus (Mingus Bum Biscuits) are not yet 1 year old but are looking like full young men. With the passing of Miss we’ve begun to feed them using a puzzle feeder so they don’t gorge themselves. They are so clever they slide buttons and lift levers with ease to get their food. They cuddle hard, they play hard. Mango sleeps on my head most nights.
Our animals thrive, the depend on us and it’s both our pleasure and our duty to do so.
As for us, Zac and I are doing as well as we can. We have some fun days and we find joy in the small quiet peaceful moments. We don’t usually talk about it publicly, but we are also inundated with projects, work, and some other personal struggles that I’d rather keep private for now. The beginning of this year has been unkind to say the least; one that can test even the most positive of minds. It’s been one of loss, complications, and uncertainty. Zac and I are an amazing team, however; stronger than ever with a foundation built on love, trust, and mutual respect so I know we can get through absolutely anything. I don’t know yet what this year holds, but it is all about flexibility and adaptation. Learning to grow, support, sustain. Putting your facemask on in the midst of crisis. Learning to not let what happens to you define you.
“we must all care for one another—this is our task in life. But also we must care for ourselves, which means we must be careful in our decisions, careful in our relationships, careful in our statements. We must manage our lives carefully, in order to avoid becoming victims.”
― Andre Agassi, Open
The Green Horseman 
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