As of yesterday the boys are all moved in and settled at their new home! I know… that probably seemed fast to y’all, since I kept hush-hush about the whole situation until last week. But the previous barnowner has known about it for a couple months, I just wasn’t really sure if I’d be moving them in October or November. Once we’d talked through the turnout scenarios and logistics at the new place there was really no point in staying, since there was already someone else lined up to take my stall. And since October 1 fell on Tuesday, I figured we might as well go ahead and get them moved the weekend before.

On Saturday I moved all my jumps over, since they’re a trailer load in and of themselves. They’re looking pretty sad these days, so my winter project will be to repair and repaint everything… something that will be a lot easier to do when I’m on site. Tell you what though, after loading all those stupid things in the trailer I was starting to question just how important jumping really was to me. Just kidding. But for real though it was like 100 degrees (this is the neverending summer from hell) and those things are heavy.

On Sunday it was the boys’ turn, and I rode Henry early in the morning then loaded all my stuff up (which only took 4 trips to the trailer, let me be proud of myself for a second) and away we went. We unloaded them and took Henry to the barn, while Presto went over to the front pasture and went out with an older mare and a yearling. As predicted, he and the yearling were fast friends. I think it took all of 10 minutes for them to engage in their first game of Bitey Face.

I think the best part of this new friendship is that the yearling, JB, has even less awareness of personal space than Presto does, so Presto actually finds him a little bit annoying. Talk about a major role reversal from the norm. At one point JB was actually eating grass out of Presto’s mouth and Presto had this exasperated look on his face like “Bro, I’m trying to graze here.”. As you might expect, after watching Presto annoy the shit out of every horse he’s ever met in his entire life, I find this to be HILARIOUS. The mare (who’s official role in this situation is “referee and voice of reason”) wants nothing to do with either of those idiots.

After making sure that those guys were getting along, I started unpacking my stuff. The tack room here is nice and big, plus there are auxiliary storage spaces, so I took this as an opportunity to sort of re-vamp my storage spaces. At the other barn I had all my stuff crammed into my tack trunk, which is kind of hard to keep neat. It inevitably turns into a big black hole and I end up digging around for things all the time. Since I don’t really need all that stuff on a regular basis I went and bought a set of drawers, to hold the regularly used items like boots, tack cleaning stuff, ointments, a fly bonnet, etc.

Everything fits with room to spare, with my bathing bucket and grooming bag stacked next to it. I think this will be easier to work out of with the daily items, and the tack trunk with all of it’s less frequently used stuff is over in the storage barn. It’s nice to have the drawers to keep thing separated and easily accessible.

While Presto is really good at handling whatever life throws at him, Henry is a much more anxious type, so I was a little more worried about how he would settle in. There was a bit of neighing at first, but not bad, and he seemed happy enough eating hay in his stall and watching the goings-on. Since it’s still so hot he’ll stay in the barn during the day with Toni the stallion (the two huffers and puffers) and go out at night in the pasture next to Presto’s. The other horses in the barn go out during the day and are in at night. Henry does best being turned out alone anyway, so it works out well. Once the weather cools down (IF it ever cools down) he can go out during the day too, and they can all be in neighboring pastures. There are plenty of pastures to go around and rotate through here!

Both of them ate dinner well last night and seemed content. JB and Presto are totally two bros in a pod, and Henry isn’t being a screaming idiot so that’s definitely a bonus.

Everyone came up for nightcheck and ate their cookie (I think these boys will quickly become fans of THAT particular perk) and all were happy and well. So… here we are… the new adventure has officially begun, and it’s off to a great start. I think we’ll all be happy out here.