First Day Stablehand

(For Saturday, January 17, 2009)

Woo today was, well, cold, to be quite frank. I had my 'training day' today at my new job, Terrapin Horse Center ( http://www.terrapinhorsecenter.com/ ). Pretty cool place, privately owned, but the woman who owns it runs an herbal business, a boarding/leasing/lessons/training business, and does natural rehabilitation for horses (and their humans). It's really neat since she mixes all her own herbal stuff that she sells and uses on her horses. She told me that when she started using all natural medicines and foods for her horses, her vet bills went from $10,000 a year, to get this, $300 a year. Now that, people, is saying something. But anyway, I'm a stable hand and had to go in for training with a friend who already has been working there. We're in Coastal North Carolina. It was 19 degrees this morning at 8:30 eastern time. 19 degrees! And I can guarantee it never reached over 32 because all the ice that we pulled from the water troughs in the paddocks and that was in the water-filled puddles never melted. We had to break the ice in the troughs with a metal baseball bat, that's how solid it was. The ice had to be at least 1" thick. I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes for most of the day, which is bad considering you use your hands an awful lot. And her house, which is on the property, is an old farm house so the plumbing and such isn't all that great. Her toilet water was frozen. The spickets outside were too so we had to use hot water from the kitchen inside in the horses feed. Even our house, which is relatively new, had its own problems because of the cold. My boss said that this was the coldest it's been in 5 years and that she moved down from Connecticut to get away from it, but I guess it finally caught up to her.

Any who, the barn has 11 horses right now, and two are self-boarders, and I met their owners today. Along with the help from my friend I had to muck 9 stalls, sweep the main isle which is huge, de-ice the water containers inside the barn and out, feed them, dump the manure, and take hay out to the paddocks. All together, because of the water crisis, it took about 5 hours. That's a long time to be unable to feel your digits. But regardless, it was a good experience and I go tomorrow for my real first day. She leases two of her horses out to people and since even though we were thinking of rescuing one, I'm thinking, for financial reasons, it would be best to lease one of hers so I can ride, and show with the 4-H team around here that I'm hopefully joining. The one I'm hoping to be able to lease is Ben. I'll have more on him later. For now, off to go do some things around my own house.

Keep On Riding Free