New Adventures

You know the old saying that all little girls like horses?  Well- I was definitely one of those girls.  Every book ever written with a horse as a main character I read. Two (maybe three? I forget) summers at the now gone Bortell's Riding Ranch.  A mom who told me stories about the horse she had as a kid.  I loved horses.  But we lived in the city, and horses were something that country kids had.  I don't remember ever thinking that I could have a horse.  But wow were they beautiful.  Time passes. Did little bits of riding here and there, and in my early 20's discovered I had developed a pretty severe allergy to horses.  Not just the sniffley nose type-  the full out, my lungs close down and I can't breath" kind of allergy.  Interestingly, riding itself is fine because I'm above the dander, but brushing or petting a horse became dangerous to my health.  Not only that, but I choose a career that didn't leave me time enough for my dogs, a horse was an impossibility.  It isn't to say that I put away my dream, I just thought horses were something other people had.  And then I met T. Who has a wonderful 16 hand Andalusian/Thoroughbred mare. When I met her, I decided I wanted to do a little research to see if there were ways I could reduce the severity of the allergy, and during my research, I stumbled across Curlys.  A bit like hypo-allergenic cats, Curlys have a different protein (at least that is the current theory) in their coats that make them non-allergy triggering.  Over the last couple years, I've ridden T's horse a couple of times, and fallen back in love with horses in a bad bad way.  Knowing I'm going to be moving to Nebraska in May to be with him, knowing that I'll be leaving the career I've worked for 15 years to build up (for a lot of very good reasons), knowing that I'll be leaving a stable (if pathetic) paycheck and I may or may not have a job when I get there, it seemed like some patience was in order.  Not in any hurry- I made a decision to start looking at Curlys and when I found just the right one, hopefully I would be in a good place to buy/adopt it.  Much like going to the pound with a child "just to look", it didn't turn out quite as I had planned.  I found an amazing curly in fosterage with a Curly rescue organization that was being fostered only a couple hours away.  He had been there for over a year and they were starting to really publicize him because the foster farm needed to reduce their herd before winter due to poor hay production this year.  Not much is known about his history, but he appears to be well broke to ride, and a very sweet guy.  I'll admit, I didn't consider him at first, having the completely unrealistic and naive idea that training my own horse was a great way to learn to ride.  After doing a ton of research and reading a bunch of blogs, I realized that this was a really bad idea.  A much better idea would be to work with a horse that already has basic training, and with whom I can go riding with T.  I went back to browsing with a different eye, and this time, the curly I mentioned stuck in my head, and stuck hard.  I called T and said... "talk me out of this".... I'm not ready, I'm not in Nebraska, I haven't had time to save my pennies, and you would have to take care of him until I move up.  T took a long and hard look at the horse and told me that despite his initial thoughts, it almost looked like the horse was tailor made for me.  So we decided to go visit him, and see what happened.  The weekend of my birthday (mentioned in the last post, but it's been a while), we went to visit the horse and I fell in love.  You were waiting for that, right? I contacted the rescue and started making the appropriate arrangements.  We gave ourselves a month to get ready, and the foster people will be delivering him to Nebraska on Saturday. 

And I have no idea what I'm doing. 

T asked me a couple of weeks ago if I was ready or if I was scared.  At that point, I was still excited.  Now.  Terror.  I have a thousand pound (ish) horse showing up, and I have no idea how to care for him.  I've been reading everything under the sun, and learning as much as I can...  but a bit like the difference between babysitting and actually having a child, the differences are enormous.  I'm learning about hoof health and feeding techniques and sheath cleaning (ick) and assorted styles of training and horse behavior and body parts and....   wow.  I'm so thankful for T, with out whom I never would have even considered this... but I'm also terrified.  I know it will be ok... in fact wonderful...  but I really have no idea what I've gotten myself into.  I can't even decide on a name for the poor fellow!  This will be an amazing journey!