(Commanding Charm)
I cannot believe I haven't posted anything since the end of October! Bad blogger, bad! Unfortunately there just hasn't been anything really news worthy until just this past week. I've probably been able to swing a leg over Fox a total of three times in the last two months. The same old story, weather, work, energy, DAYLIGHT! I freaking hate this time of year because I can never get home with enough daylight left to actually ride my horse. But enough of that rant when there are sooo many others to expound on.
But before I go off on a tangent about blankets here's what's happening at the farm. We have a new resident! Charm, aka Commanding Charm is an OTTB gelding that belongs to a friend of mine. I met A. through COTH (thank you COTH!) about two years ago. I had been cruising the boards and seen a post about an injury to a rider. I began to read but the event was so horrific I didn't get past the details. A few weeks after reading the post I went to a dressage clinic around the corner from my house where my then friend, now coach K. was riding her young horse. There were a few other people there and one happened to be this nice girl with an obviously injured hand. We started talking and I suddenly realized THIS was the poster from COTH! We've been fast friends ever since, sharing details about our various horse related injures, woes, work lives, and rants about significant others.
A. has had a rough couple of years. She's a registered nurse but with her hand injury she wasn't able to do patient care and had to look for other work. Which she did but the stress of rehabbing her injury, the medical bills and mounting horse related bills became a lot to handle. She was on the verge of losing Charm. A. created a temporary plan to relieve some of the financial stress that would allow her to keep Charm but it was not an ideal situation and eventually barn drama and other things forced A. to start looking for a way to move Charm until he could go back to his original boarding situation now that A.'s job issues have cleared up. I wasn't able to take Charm in the beginning just too many other things going on but I offered up my farm as a temporary solution for the gelding before he moved literally walking distance down the road from me to his original boarding barn which A. and Charm both loved.
Superhubs and I arrived at the farm to pick up Charm where he literally leaped on to the trailer in his effort to make his desire to leave a stressful situation known. He traveled well and arrived at my farm around midday on Saturday where he easily settled in to the main pasture. I had moved Seneca and Cowboy to the side pasture and left Fox in the back pasture because Fox would the next day become Charm's new pasture buddy.
Although Fox seemed less than enthusiastic about that. He sniffed Charm over the gate once then went back to hanging out on the fence line that he shared with Seneca because he loooooves her the mostest. The next day A. and I put Fox and Charm together. They sniffed, they decided who was in charge (Fox) and then ran up and down the fence for a few minutes gorgeous tails flung to the wind before settling down to eat on the round bale. There has been thankfully very little drama and everything looks like it will go well until Charm moves down the road in the beginning of February when his stall opens up.
The blanket rant. I am very picky about my blankets, I'm picky because my horses are those rare combination of pasture terrorists and rollers that seem to destroy their blankets on a weekly basis. Which has me stopping in regularly at the local blanket repair shop and cruising for bargains and deals on suitable blankets. Which is difficult because again I'm pretty picky and my horses are pretty spectacular at destroying their expensive clothes.
Two years ago Rambo's Amigo line started making a fabulous blanket that I have every intention of having one for each of my equines. It is the Amigo Bravo 12 Lite/Med weight blanket. Basically it's a 1200 denier, 100 gram weight blanket that is hard wearing and so far only Fox has managed to damage his. Somehow he wriggled his around enough that when he threw an outrageously massive buck upon being turned out he managed to tear off both chest straps, one of the belly straps and mangled one of the metal buckles beyond repair. Thankfully my super blanket repair shop was able to replace all the mangled buckle and the straps.
But while Fox's Lite/Med was being repaired I need to do the blanket-go-round to make sure everyone had something to wear when the inevitable nasty weather hit. Which meant Seneca's own Amigo Bravo L/M went to Fox, she got put in her medium on the really bad days but Cowboy was unfortunately out of clothes that fit him. Off to the tack store I went to get some sort of sheet that I could toss over Seneca's old Amigo stable blanket which would make a great temporary fix for him.
They didn't have any of the Amigo L/M's and I didn't have to extra cash to shell out for a real Rambo and I really dislike the buckle system on the Weatherbeeta's. See, very picky. So I shifted through the selections. Anything less than a 1000 denier is an automatic no. I'm not spending good money on something that is just going to get wrecked in less than a week. I wanted something that hopefully had a neck cover. Which is when I happened upon a brand I wasn't personally familiar with but had good qualities on paper. It was a Shires Equestrian Storm Breaker 1200 denier, waterproof, windproof and had an integrated but not removable neck cover. The buckle system was eh, it had straps, and clips on the chest, t-buckles on the belly. But I was a little desperate as we were due for some really bad weather. This is what Cowboy ended up wearing.
It's pretty freaking nice and so far Cowboy hasn't managed to tear it or damage it in any way other than a healthy dose of mud. It does run a bit big. All the Amigos I can do a round robin with and they fit Seneca (75-78ish) Cowboy (75) and Fox (72) but I don't see Fox wearing this one ever. Which means at some point closer to spring and HOPEFULLY! warmer weather I'll have to find Fox his own sheet. He's sporting a trace clip right now but I'm toying with the idea of trying my first body clip in the spring.
