Well. I knew it had been a while since I shared a blog post on the site but I didn't realize it had been quite this long... my apologies for the 6 week break! It's been a busy and often stressful month and a half and I'm just finally getting to the point where I'm ready to stop and reflect on it.
Most significantly, shortly after doing our foaling recap and celebrating the joys of a successful year of foaling we were hit with one of the big lows of farming when we had to make the call to put a foal down. Not just any foal, but our sweet Thumper who we had nursed through all kinds of issues following his premature birth. We never expected his story to end with a call that what looked like a simple pasture bump and a limp was actually a serious injury with poor long term outlook. I'll be honest- that one hit hard. I know that it was the right call to make but losing a baby that has taken up so much of our time and our hearts was devastating. It kind of threw a fog over the usual late-summer activities which is finally starting to clear and let us enjoy the wins in farm life again.
Along with the sadness of losing Thumper, we were faced with more medical challenges when we had two young foals put on stall rest. Their issues were easily treatable, although requiring time to fully resolve, but with our recent loss it felt extra nerve-wracking trying to nurse them through the treatment process. And as if constant medications and hand walking weren't enough, we ran out of space in the barn and had to build another! I'm so grateful for Dehan's skills and drive as it took just a week to go from an idea to a functional pavilion-style barn.
Those feel like the major projects of the last six weeks, but plenty of other things were on the list as well. Second cut hay is nearly wrapped up, with the final fields drying now. We had family in town for a visit and got to show off the joys of farm life to a very enthusiastic little girl. Breeding season wrapped up with successful pregnancy checks on all but one of the mares we had planned to breed. Weaning has begun for the first round of foals and baby boot camp is soon to follow. And now that I have a few spare moments I've been enjoying doing some short refresher rides on a mare that will be for sale later this fall. I've missed my saddle time a lot with all the chaos of keeping a farm running so that is an exciting addition to my schedule.
There have been a lot of joys mixed in with the challenges of the summer and it's good to stop and think about those as well. As the old saying goes, when you fall off the horse you have to get right back on... and so here we are, plugging away and hoping for a few months of a rocking-horse instead of a bronco!
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