Our barn has fairies. Invisible little helpers that turn up when no one’s watching and suddenly your box is clean and the hay’s been put out for the evening. We’re debating hiding little chocolatey gifts for the fairies to attract more of them. Barn fairies are nice.
Barn fairies are the kind of horse owners who not only do their own work at the barn but also step in when they know someone else is busy or stressed or not feeling too hot. They don’t announce it. They don’t expect anything in return. They just like to put a smile on someone else’s face and they weren’t doing anything else at the time.
I like barn fairies. A barn that has barn fairies is a barn that has the mental surplus and capacity for people to look not only the horses but also the other people. It’s a good place to be. It’s a healthy place to be.
The world needs more fairies.
Our barn fairy this week is named Karina. Boxes keep on magically turning up clean.
Have you ever seen one? A monstrous, white dinosaur that reaches all the way up to your knee while it fluffs its ominous black tail feathers and gives you the death glare?
Emilie isn’t usually afraid of chickens. There were chickens on the farm we bought her from, two years ago. Chickens aren’t frightening. Heck, when we moved to the new barn two weeks ago, she seemed happy to see chickens again. Chickens were a comforting sight.
The arrival of another new pony this week changed things. The new guy is extremely stressed out and has little to no experience being handled by humans. He seems to never really have learned how to socialize either, whether with horses or humans. New guy is neither dumb nor mean but obviously, there’s been elevated stress levels in the herd (since then, he’s been put in a separate pasture with two older geldings to help him settle in).
I’ve probably mentioned that Emilie is firmly convinced that she is a boy. The other day she went into full stallion mode as I was walking her in from pasture. Those who’ve seen me walking Emilie on a lead know that in our case this means, she walks, I kind of lean in over her for support, and she paces herself to be my living crutch. She’s a very caring horse that way. And protective.
Particularly against devilsaurs.
The farm’s chickens had decided to nap out in the courtyard. Emilie came to a crashing halt, puffed herself up with tail high and round neck like a stallion defending his herd. Then she shouldered me away until she was firmly between me and the vicious raptor gang. We walked sideways to the barn door, her shielding me with her own heroic flesh.
I’m still giggling gratefully. Giggling because it looked friggin’ hilarious, and grateful because I own a horse who sees me as a herd mate that she wants to protect.
Whenever I visit barns there is one thing that always draws my eye: The tack rack. Are the bits clean? Very often the answer is a resounding no. To me, that’s a deal breaker. If you can’t be bothered to get your hands dirty cleaning the bit after riding, you have no place using a bit to begin with. Don’t go telling me your horse is your best friend if you’re willing to force your best friend to suck on a bacteria-infected, filthy piece of metal.
I’ll be honest: I hate washing bits. So this is one of numerous reasons I ride bitless.
Mouthguards suck. It’s a pretty big pasture!Self proclaimed herd leader Tush on the left, guarding Emilie, Gäskir and little grey Blomme on the right.
Emilie got to be out with the herd for an hour today, introducing her to most of the other horses at the new barn. She immediately formed a group with her barn neighbour, Icelandic horse Gäskir, which was then joined by little grey Blomme who seems to love everyone as long as they have four legs. Pinto herd leader Tush allowed her into his herd but kept her separate from the other horses for now.
Fjord horse Loke took one look at Emilie and went for a nap — and he’s supposed to be the grumpy one!
Emilie will only be doing 1-2 hour pasture visits this week so that we can be sure that she doesn’t eat enough through the mouthguard to cause her laminitis to flare up again. But from the looks of it, she’ll fit in just fine.
Emilie has been safely moved to a barn that’s just 2.7 km from our back door. The trip went mostly smoothly; the vet gave me a bit of painkillers for Emilie so that her laminitis and hip wouldn’t act up, and she was fine. Unfortunately, however, she slipped on one hind leg during unloading, and the lead rope tore up the driver’s hand. I feel rather bad about that. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but I hate seeing people getting injured.
Emilie is settling in fine though she is quite unhappy that we won’t let her into pasture with the others yet. Laminitis baby needs her new mouthguard before she gets to run free again! Apart from that she’s settled in fine. Her new box allows her to pop her head out and say hello to people who walk by, and my hyper-socialized horse is abusing the heck out of that. Piiiiity me, the poor locked up priiiiisoner …
