January 4th

Today was generally great. Work up early, did barn chores (faster then normal apparently), ate breakfast, groomed a bunch of horses, did more chores, sat around for 1/2 hour, groomed more horses, rode one mare and then sat around for 2 hours, ate dinner, did more chores. We do chores often, but honestly, the work is not bad and is very logical and I'm enjoying just hanging around working with a bunch of horses grooming and riding and whatnot.

My ride was super easy, on the chestnut shire mare "Chablis". We just walked and did some trotting outside around one of the barns where the footing was good. She was sweet and willing, wanted to be crooked and lookey but was simple enough to bring back. She had one moment where she bucked? or just launched foreword when they pushed a bucket off a sled that Willie was pulling and the babies started to run, but she came back in maybe one canter stride and it was totally not a big deal. I knew it was coming since she had been getting riled up at the machinery outside just a little before, so the loud noise and babies running was the straw the broke the camels back, so to speak.

I also got to groom the 3 babies today, which was fun! It was their first time on cross ties and they all did fairly well. The first filly (Sounder) stood like a rock the whole time and was spectacular. Bailey, the colt, was less fine and moved around a bunch pushing the limits of the ties to see what happened but didn't act poorly and was easy enough to deal with. The last filly (name starts with an r) was built with a super ewe neck and I understand why after having her on the ties, she kept herself as far foreword as she could with her head up in the ties. She was the most nervous but was fine if I kept a hand up near her front end. I'll keep pulling them out and grooming them on the ties each day and I'm sure they'll all be perfect by next week this time!

Tomorrow my boss will be in town at her real job so it'll be me and the 2 guys doing everything. I'm writing this for my benefit too:

feed/water/turnout/clean

groom everyone (esp. babies)

super groom Onyx's tail(& tail head)

walk Jenna

walk Lady G

ride Chablis

ride Elsy

ride Crosby & Onyx if we want

Clean tack if I want

Letterbox:

I have no idea what this means? I guess I'll quickly talk about how great writing letters really is! I never, ever wrote letters until I went to school and some of my friends started writing letters, honestly, its really great getting mail so its worth it just for that! Its nice to have that extra line of communication to look foreword to that isn't instant and distracted as much communication is today. I enjoy knowing that what I write will bring a smile to someones face, and I love getting that same smile when I get mail!

I was responding really consistently to the two people who actually correspond but I started to slack at the end of the semester, I plan on starting/keeping that up again when I'm back to school the end of January.