Post by Zala on May 14, 2018 3:10:36 GMT -3
Wow, what gorgeous weather we've been having here in forever green Washington; home to beautiful trees, mountain scenery, and lakes and rivers galore. Luckily our farm is located near a small river; actually a small portion of the Stilliguamish River which runs through Oso, Darrington, Arlington, Silvana and other cities/towns. It is a large river; not like the Columbia River mind you, but it does kinda wander all over the place! And also luckily the river doesn't flood where we're located, but boy do the horses love to play in it when they get the chance!!
We're preparing for a long show season, exercising and preparing horses and riders, finishing up breeding season with our own crop of foals and various outside breedings and breeding our mares again for next year! Everywhere there is some kind of excitement from a rider winning a ribbon to a trainer being thanked by a client for a job well done with training and horse and so on. Bavenwood Farm isn't just a stable full of horses, but a full time boarding and lesson stable with our own string of show horses from the farm horses and a variety of clients horses which they show themselves, or give lessons on. There are always young riders of all ages running around grooming, riding, taking lessons, and so on. There is always something going on in the stable yard. The stables hands are always quick to help those in need and also do their chores as assigned in a timely manner. I always thought I had the best possible stable hands I could find, and boy was I right!! I wouldn't give up one of them!! With five or six of them constantly running around to lend a hand, there never seemed to be a dull moment around here. I had to laugh sometimes watching them dart to and from the stable yard, helping a client, cleaning a stall and then running out to groom a horse or bring a horse in, then running to feed the stallions or go check on a broodmare that's close to foaling, or whatever. They always had their minds on the horses.
This day; however, was a particularly insane one! All the grooms were running here and there; I mean literally RUNNING to try and get the morning chores done. Horses had been fed and now they were letting out some of the horses who were allowed out for the morning hours, then we would switch and the remainder of the horses would go out for the afternoon and early evening hours. Yeah, its kind of a crazy schedule, but until we get some more pasture cleared of trees and brush, there doesn't seem to be enough ground to pasture the multitude of horses we currently house. It seems to work though, JT; my head groom, is always quick to point out to the other grooms; Joel, Matt, Henry, Mike and Danny, which horse is to go where. He's got it figured out to a T!! Once the first set of horses was out, the stall cleaning began with a flourish! I had just walked into the Show Barn Office to check the messages for the morning when the phone rang. It was one of our younger riders; Lorraine, who had been riding with us for a few years now. She was in tears saying she wouldn't be able to come to the stable for awhile because she had broken her leg while at school and that's why she hadn't been around. I comforted her as best I could, telling her we would be here waiting for her return before her mother took the phone. I assured her mother I would personally care for her daughters mare for her until she was well enough to ride again. Her mother said it would probably be awhile, but with her daughter being so young, she should mend fairly quickly. I thanked her for the update before hanging up the phone and heading out the door. Lorraine usually rode our mare Lazy Until Midnight BWF; or Midnight for short. The gorgeous black mare and Lorraine had instantly clicked and I knew they would be the perfect pair! They have shown some and I was glad to see them doing so well! Lorraine had graduated from riding our Paint mare Sweet Scotch Lady; or Lady, who was advancing in age, to riding Midnight. It seems to me Lorraine and Midnight are working together better than Lorraine and Lady, but Lady is an older girl and definitely set in her ways!!
I walked out to the pasture to where Midnight was pastured alongside her stable mate Radical N Roses BWF; or Rosey. Both mares eagerly trotted up the fence for some loving. I had hoped to one day breed these two girls and maybe even sell one of the babies to Lorraine if her parents agreed. I would propose the foal stay here to be trained and readied for her to ride once it was old enough. I just know these two girls would produce some stellar babies! But who to breed them to was my next obstacle! There were so many fantastic stallions out in the world, who could I possibly choose to best compliment them?! Both mars had amazing pedigrees and were winning in the show pen, but I guess it all comes down to timing and researching bloodlines and all that fun stuff before you can get a stellar foal!! I patted the girls once more, fed them the carrot pieces I had in my pocket and headed back to the barn office. The phone was once again ringing off the hook. I signed heavily and sat down to pick up the receiver. "Hello, Bavenwood Stables, Zala speaking." I began, "Hello Mrs. Osborn, we just wanted to update you on a certain matter of a fugitive who has escaped from prison and might be in your area. Please be advised this person may be armed and is highly dangerous. Please call 911 if you see or hear anything about this person." A police office said over the phone, "His name is...." I wrote the guys name down and the information the police office game me, and I asked if they could fax me a picture of the guy; just in case. I really highly doubted a fugitive would come into a stable yard to try and hide out, but you never know. Those guys are crazy when they escape and will hide just about anywhere, and at a stable there are loads of places to hide! The police officer thanked me and we hung up. A few minutes later, the fax machine started making noise and printed out a picture of an older man with thinning brown hair. I did this just in case we had any kind of an incident. We did have an incident involving a young man once who claimed he was some hot shot trainer, and he couldn't ride a horse to save his life. He got on one of our hottest Thoroughbreds and proceeded to try and ride until he lost control and fell off the horse. He tried to sue the stable, but we were able to identify him from a local news article and other sources we had researched and the guy was later sent to prison where he would be spending some time behind bars for a variety of thefts and other criminal charges he had racked up against his name. Not a very smart move on his part! And after him, we had one of his buddies come by and try to steal a couple of our horses as payback for us sending his buddy to jail. And that guy to got sent to prison for a time because of his criminal background. Well, the world isn't perfect, and we've proved it a number of times!
My cell phone rang a few minutes after that, it was my mom wishing me a Happy Mother's Day. I smiled and said the same to her. We spoke for a little while until she had to go. Something about dad wanting to go to another storage unit auction. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the thought. Yeah, he had made some money on a few of those, but is it really worth it with all the junk you have to take to the dump, or stuff you have to take to second hand stores or give away online? I didn't think so, but they had gotten some interesting stuff in the past. As I hung up my phone, I heard gravel crunching in the driveway. Apparently someone was pulling up in a car, a sports car as a matter of fact. I raised an eyebrow curiously and proceeded to the vehicle. JT suddenly appeared at my side with an amused look on his face. I couldn't help but chuckle under my breath at his look, lol. I kind of view him like you would a watch dog, always cautious, always curious and always protective! The man behind the wheel stepped out of the vehicle and started yabbering about some drawing coming up at a local car dealership and how we could win several thousand dollars or a new car or something if we participated. JT told him we had more important things to worry about, but the guy just kept blabbing about the drawing and what was offered and all this other stuff. I lost it and couldn't help laughing as JT got more irritated with the guy. The guy just kept talking louder and louder, running over the top of JT until JT just snapped and told the guy to get the H off the property or else. "Who's in charge here anyways?" The guy asked. JT looked over at me and pointed. "Well well, what do you think about my offer miss?" "Not interested," I said simply "As my head man said, we have more important things to do than go to events of that kind." "You wouldn't want the chance to possibly win some money, maybe to help spruce this place up a bit, I mean, look at it." "Look at what?" I asked, "Its a horse stable, not a plushy mansion with a twelve car garage." He thought it might nice to fix the barns and house up like what the European do with rock and stone and all that stuff. He still couldn't get it in his thick skull that we weren't interested and kept talking until my cell phone rang again. I looked at the screen to see who it was, it was another of our riders calling. "I have to take this, excuse me." I said politely while swiping across my screen with my finger to answer the call. Maddy was sick with the flu and wouldn't be able to make it to her lesson, but she was hoping to be here for her next one. She asked if I could pretty please assign her another evening for a lesson a week in advance. I noticed as I spoke with Maddy, the gentleman in the sports car kept talking about something else which was irritating JT again. I told Maddy I would do that and would email her or text with her new lesson date and time. She was really excited before hanging up the phone. My phone rang again with one of the grooms saying one of our boys was down with a slight bit of colic. I said I'd be right there. "This is where we say good bye," I said loudly over the man as he kept talking, he stopped and stared at me. "I have a more important matter to attend to than this silliness." "Silliness? What silliness?" "THIS silliness of wasting my time when I have horses to care for, not stand around and gossip about the latest home and barn style. Now I am asking you to please leave, we are finished here." I said firmly and turned to walk to the stallion barn. JT told the guy to get or else, and went back to work. I didn't even turn around when the guy started fuming something and went speeding down the driveway. "Idiots." I said to myself, shaking my head, "Always have to have an idiot interrupting you when your so busy you can't even think straight as it is."
I headed into our twenty stall stallion barn; which needed some improving and an additional wing for more stallions. Walking quickly down the concrete aisle to investigate what horse was down, I sighed miserably when I saw Joel's hand waving out the doorway. It was Latamigo, and this was his second bout of colic in the last week. Luckily Joel had him on his feet and was walking him around his large stall. With Latamigo's advancing age, we had to be particularly careful with what he ate, his exercise amount and so on. He wasn't ridden anymore by anyone but myself once in awhile, and only bareback as the old boy couldn't handle my heavy western saddle or the old Dressage saddle I had used while showing him. I knew it probably was a matter of time before he left us as he was 25 now and his health wasn't the very best as he had been losing weight left and right and I thought we had his colic whipped! Joel told me Danny had given Latamigo a little more feed the other night in hopes of putting more pounds on the old boy. I told Joel to tell Danny if he messes with the old boys feed again he would be finding himself a new job as this wasn't the first time he had done something like this. I have a specialist go through each horses feed chart and nutritional needs, and its not Danny! I asked Joel to hold Latamigo as I ran my hands down his back and put my ear to his barrel. I had conveniently forgot to bring my stethoscope; thanks to the car dealer dope, but I heard a slight rumbling, so something was definitely going on. I knew that was a good sign and I opened up the old boys stall to his personal paddock and asked Joel to just walk him up and down the fenceline. Having more room to walk might just do the trick for the old guy. It had worked before and would hopefully work again! Joel headed out into the sunshine with Latamigo in tow and walked up and down the fenceline for a good hour or so until the stallion stopped and raised his tail. Definitely a good sign, if the guy has any sign of gas or manure, he was pretty much in the clear. He did drop a little manure, so I know his gut was working. I stood within the door way for awhile longer to make sure the old boy was going to be okay, but decided to check his gut sounds again real quick before I headed to the Show Barn again. I had shut the ringtone off on my phone and it had been vibrating like crazy the whole time I had been here. Latamigo's gut was definitely making noise now, Joel and I smiled and exchanged a high five, knowing Latamigo would be okay for the time being. But Joel decided to walk him around awhile more; mostly because he felt sorry for the older stallion and wanted to spend some more quality time with him. As I headed out of the Stallion Barn, my phone rang again, this time it was a solicitor. "Really dude? I don't even have a credit card, get a life!" I yelled into the phone and hung it up growling. "Idiots, more idiots!!!"
We're preparing for a long show season, exercising and preparing horses and riders, finishing up breeding season with our own crop of foals and various outside breedings and breeding our mares again for next year! Everywhere there is some kind of excitement from a rider winning a ribbon to a trainer being thanked by a client for a job well done with training and horse and so on. Bavenwood Farm isn't just a stable full of horses, but a full time boarding and lesson stable with our own string of show horses from the farm horses and a variety of clients horses which they show themselves, or give lessons on. There are always young riders of all ages running around grooming, riding, taking lessons, and so on. There is always something going on in the stable yard. The stables hands are always quick to help those in need and also do their chores as assigned in a timely manner. I always thought I had the best possible stable hands I could find, and boy was I right!! I wouldn't give up one of them!! With five or six of them constantly running around to lend a hand, there never seemed to be a dull moment around here. I had to laugh sometimes watching them dart to and from the stable yard, helping a client, cleaning a stall and then running out to groom a horse or bring a horse in, then running to feed the stallions or go check on a broodmare that's close to foaling, or whatever. They always had their minds on the horses.
This day; however, was a particularly insane one! All the grooms were running here and there; I mean literally RUNNING to try and get the morning chores done. Horses had been fed and now they were letting out some of the horses who were allowed out for the morning hours, then we would switch and the remainder of the horses would go out for the afternoon and early evening hours. Yeah, its kind of a crazy schedule, but until we get some more pasture cleared of trees and brush, there doesn't seem to be enough ground to pasture the multitude of horses we currently house. It seems to work though, JT; my head groom, is always quick to point out to the other grooms; Joel, Matt, Henry, Mike and Danny, which horse is to go where. He's got it figured out to a T!! Once the first set of horses was out, the stall cleaning began with a flourish! I had just walked into the Show Barn Office to check the messages for the morning when the phone rang. It was one of our younger riders; Lorraine, who had been riding with us for a few years now. She was in tears saying she wouldn't be able to come to the stable for awhile because she had broken her leg while at school and that's why she hadn't been around. I comforted her as best I could, telling her we would be here waiting for her return before her mother took the phone. I assured her mother I would personally care for her daughters mare for her until she was well enough to ride again. Her mother said it would probably be awhile, but with her daughter being so young, she should mend fairly quickly. I thanked her for the update before hanging up the phone and heading out the door. Lorraine usually rode our mare Lazy Until Midnight BWF; or Midnight for short. The gorgeous black mare and Lorraine had instantly clicked and I knew they would be the perfect pair! They have shown some and I was glad to see them doing so well! Lorraine had graduated from riding our Paint mare Sweet Scotch Lady; or Lady, who was advancing in age, to riding Midnight. It seems to me Lorraine and Midnight are working together better than Lorraine and Lady, but Lady is an older girl and definitely set in her ways!!
I walked out to the pasture to where Midnight was pastured alongside her stable mate Radical N Roses BWF; or Rosey. Both mares eagerly trotted up the fence for some loving. I had hoped to one day breed these two girls and maybe even sell one of the babies to Lorraine if her parents agreed. I would propose the foal stay here to be trained and readied for her to ride once it was old enough. I just know these two girls would produce some stellar babies! But who to breed them to was my next obstacle! There were so many fantastic stallions out in the world, who could I possibly choose to best compliment them?! Both mars had amazing pedigrees and were winning in the show pen, but I guess it all comes down to timing and researching bloodlines and all that fun stuff before you can get a stellar foal!! I patted the girls once more, fed them the carrot pieces I had in my pocket and headed back to the barn office. The phone was once again ringing off the hook. I signed heavily and sat down to pick up the receiver. "Hello, Bavenwood Stables, Zala speaking." I began, "Hello Mrs. Osborn, we just wanted to update you on a certain matter of a fugitive who has escaped from prison and might be in your area. Please be advised this person may be armed and is highly dangerous. Please call 911 if you see or hear anything about this person." A police office said over the phone, "His name is...." I wrote the guys name down and the information the police office game me, and I asked if they could fax me a picture of the guy; just in case. I really highly doubted a fugitive would come into a stable yard to try and hide out, but you never know. Those guys are crazy when they escape and will hide just about anywhere, and at a stable there are loads of places to hide! The police officer thanked me and we hung up. A few minutes later, the fax machine started making noise and printed out a picture of an older man with thinning brown hair. I did this just in case we had any kind of an incident. We did have an incident involving a young man once who claimed he was some hot shot trainer, and he couldn't ride a horse to save his life. He got on one of our hottest Thoroughbreds and proceeded to try and ride until he lost control and fell off the horse. He tried to sue the stable, but we were able to identify him from a local news article and other sources we had researched and the guy was later sent to prison where he would be spending some time behind bars for a variety of thefts and other criminal charges he had racked up against his name. Not a very smart move on his part! And after him, we had one of his buddies come by and try to steal a couple of our horses as payback for us sending his buddy to jail. And that guy to got sent to prison for a time because of his criminal background. Well, the world isn't perfect, and we've proved it a number of times!
My cell phone rang a few minutes after that, it was my mom wishing me a Happy Mother's Day. I smiled and said the same to her. We spoke for a little while until she had to go. Something about dad wanting to go to another storage unit auction. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the thought. Yeah, he had made some money on a few of those, but is it really worth it with all the junk you have to take to the dump, or stuff you have to take to second hand stores or give away online? I didn't think so, but they had gotten some interesting stuff in the past. As I hung up my phone, I heard gravel crunching in the driveway. Apparently someone was pulling up in a car, a sports car as a matter of fact. I raised an eyebrow curiously and proceeded to the vehicle. JT suddenly appeared at my side with an amused look on his face. I couldn't help but chuckle under my breath at his look, lol. I kind of view him like you would a watch dog, always cautious, always curious and always protective! The man behind the wheel stepped out of the vehicle and started yabbering about some drawing coming up at a local car dealership and how we could win several thousand dollars or a new car or something if we participated. JT told him we had more important things to worry about, but the guy just kept blabbing about the drawing and what was offered and all this other stuff. I lost it and couldn't help laughing as JT got more irritated with the guy. The guy just kept talking louder and louder, running over the top of JT until JT just snapped and told the guy to get the H off the property or else. "Who's in charge here anyways?" The guy asked. JT looked over at me and pointed. "Well well, what do you think about my offer miss?" "Not interested," I said simply "As my head man said, we have more important things to do than go to events of that kind." "You wouldn't want the chance to possibly win some money, maybe to help spruce this place up a bit, I mean, look at it." "Look at what?" I asked, "Its a horse stable, not a plushy mansion with a twelve car garage." He thought it might nice to fix the barns and house up like what the European do with rock and stone and all that stuff. He still couldn't get it in his thick skull that we weren't interested and kept talking until my cell phone rang again. I looked at the screen to see who it was, it was another of our riders calling. "I have to take this, excuse me." I said politely while swiping across my screen with my finger to answer the call. Maddy was sick with the flu and wouldn't be able to make it to her lesson, but she was hoping to be here for her next one. She asked if I could pretty please assign her another evening for a lesson a week in advance. I noticed as I spoke with Maddy, the gentleman in the sports car kept talking about something else which was irritating JT again. I told Maddy I would do that and would email her or text with her new lesson date and time. She was really excited before hanging up the phone. My phone rang again with one of the grooms saying one of our boys was down with a slight bit of colic. I said I'd be right there. "This is where we say good bye," I said loudly over the man as he kept talking, he stopped and stared at me. "I have a more important matter to attend to than this silliness." "Silliness? What silliness?" "THIS silliness of wasting my time when I have horses to care for, not stand around and gossip about the latest home and barn style. Now I am asking you to please leave, we are finished here." I said firmly and turned to walk to the stallion barn. JT told the guy to get or else, and went back to work. I didn't even turn around when the guy started fuming something and went speeding down the driveway. "Idiots." I said to myself, shaking my head, "Always have to have an idiot interrupting you when your so busy you can't even think straight as it is."
I headed into our twenty stall stallion barn; which needed some improving and an additional wing for more stallions. Walking quickly down the concrete aisle to investigate what horse was down, I sighed miserably when I saw Joel's hand waving out the doorway. It was Latamigo, and this was his second bout of colic in the last week. Luckily Joel had him on his feet and was walking him around his large stall. With Latamigo's advancing age, we had to be particularly careful with what he ate, his exercise amount and so on. He wasn't ridden anymore by anyone but myself once in awhile, and only bareback as the old boy couldn't handle my heavy western saddle or the old Dressage saddle I had used while showing him. I knew it probably was a matter of time before he left us as he was 25 now and his health wasn't the very best as he had been losing weight left and right and I thought we had his colic whipped! Joel told me Danny had given Latamigo a little more feed the other night in hopes of putting more pounds on the old boy. I told Joel to tell Danny if he messes with the old boys feed again he would be finding himself a new job as this wasn't the first time he had done something like this. I have a specialist go through each horses feed chart and nutritional needs, and its not Danny! I asked Joel to hold Latamigo as I ran my hands down his back and put my ear to his barrel. I had conveniently forgot to bring my stethoscope; thanks to the car dealer dope, but I heard a slight rumbling, so something was definitely going on. I knew that was a good sign and I opened up the old boys stall to his personal paddock and asked Joel to just walk him up and down the fenceline. Having more room to walk might just do the trick for the old guy. It had worked before and would hopefully work again! Joel headed out into the sunshine with Latamigo in tow and walked up and down the fenceline for a good hour or so until the stallion stopped and raised his tail. Definitely a good sign, if the guy has any sign of gas or manure, he was pretty much in the clear. He did drop a little manure, so I know his gut was working. I stood within the door way for awhile longer to make sure the old boy was going to be okay, but decided to check his gut sounds again real quick before I headed to the Show Barn again. I had shut the ringtone off on my phone and it had been vibrating like crazy the whole time I had been here. Latamigo's gut was definitely making noise now, Joel and I smiled and exchanged a high five, knowing Latamigo would be okay for the time being. But Joel decided to walk him around awhile more; mostly because he felt sorry for the older stallion and wanted to spend some more quality time with him. As I headed out of the Stallion Barn, my phone rang again, this time it was a solicitor. "Really dude? I don't even have a credit card, get a life!" I yelled into the phone and hung it up growling. "Idiots, more idiots!!!"
