Tag Archives: transitions

Personal Stories

Ending the Pandemic Pause

June 1, 2021 christinakeim 1 Comment

hi·ber·na·tion

noun

the condition or period of an animal or plant spending the winter in a dormant state.

“grizzly bears gorge on seeds to prepare for hibernation”

an extended period of remaining inactive or indoors.

“the fair-weather cyclists are emerging from winter hibernation”

(all definitions from Oxford Languages)

I look forward to the arrival of spring at Cold Moon Farm each year with eager anticipation. For me, the predictability of restoring the farm to a more active state after winter’s dormancy provides a sense of satisfaction; the requirement of annual chores marks the passage of time, affirms that even when snow comes in April (as it did this year), spring will prevail in the end.

April 16, 2021. I didn’t actually cry but it was close.

Step by step, the essential equipment of winter—bucket heaters, extension cords, heavyweight blankets, shovels—is cleaned and stowed away, replaced by hoses and fly masks and the onset of shedding season. Gardens are raked, the horse trailer pulled out of its winter parking spot, grooming tools and grain bins washed and aired out. Each task completed marks a satisfying check off the “to do” list and brings me one step closer to the best riding months of the year here in New England.

The arrival of robins and eastern bluebirds and barn swallows marks the end of winter’s rest for the horses; in the past, I have called this period the “deferalization of spring”. It starts with a renewed commitment to deep grooming, shedding blades and sturdy curry combs erasing the feathery remains of winter coats while pulling combs and thinners shorten manes that have become unkempt. The farrier pulls winter shoes and snow pads, making feet seem cleaner and lighter. We start legging up the experienced horses with thirty minute walks, increasing to an hour, then adding light arena work. The green beans go on the longe line or work in the round pen, hopefully demonstrating some memory of lessons learned last season.

Just another day of shedding season for this professional hair-grower. (JEF Anna Rose)

This spring, it feels as though my personal equestrian hibernation has been longer than usual. This was the first winter in years I didn’t avail myself of an indoor, instead giving all of my horses three months off. Yet in some ways my “extended period of remaining inactive” began long before the winter solstice. I haven’t competed in person since 2019, took only two lessons in 2020 and otherwise hauled out just a handful of times for trail rides. Now, as both the calendar and world around me proclaim that it is time to resume activity, I find that I am struggling to emerge from my sheltered cocoon.

There are so many reasons for this. The pandemic, of course, is a huge part of it; given the many uncertainties over the past year, it was logical to simply stay home, and I am out of practice. But the pandemic also became a wonderful excuse to simply remain within my comfort zone and avoid new challenges that might intimidate me—challenges that could also test my skills and inspire me to grow. Even though doing new or difficult things can produce anxiety, nerves and even a little fear, it is the successful completion of these small challenges that develops confidence. And having had little opportunity to achieve these small stepping stones in the past eighteen months has left me feeling less confident than before all of this started.

I recently interviewed a top hunter/jumper coach and course designer on the subject of riding under pressure; he commented that humans in general tend to move away from pressure but the most successful riders instead continuously seek it, putting themselves and their equine partners into situations in which they must manage nerves, excitement, challenge and stress. Navigating pressure—whatever that looks like for you—is where growth occurs. Living within your comfort zone is safe but will not and cannot produce new growth.

My extended hibernation was inspired by the pandemic but augmented by excuses and transitions such as horses needing to step down career wise and horses needing time to mature. It has left me feeling too familiar with my comfort zone and excessively rusty and out of practice with pushing my boundaries. Now, I have a rising 6-year-old ready to go out and see the world. Regionally, shows and clinics and other equestrian activity is on the upswing. All signals indicate that the time for hibernation is over—but after such a long period of inactivity, it is so tempting to stay within the security and familiarity of my comfort zone.

re·new·al

noun

an instance of resuming an activity or state after an interruption.

“a renewal of hostilities”

the action of extending the period of validity of a license, subscription, or contract.

“the contracts came up for renewal”

the replacing or repair of something that is worn out, run-down, or broken.

It is easy to feel inspired by spring. The annual process of nature’s renewal is manifested by drab fields rebounding lush and vibrant, buds on branches unfurling leaves with panache and perennial flowers and bushes bursting with color. As I complete morning chores, the air is filled with the trills and warbles of birds dividing territory and attracting mates. This natural cycle happens whether we will it or not, whether we notice it or not. The renewal is inevitable.

Rabbit the Barn Cat poses with the posies.

For me, the first true days of spring, when the sun is finally strong enough and warm enough to kiss the skin and warm the soil, are a tonic for the ache winter leaves behind. The smell of fresh earth, the feel of heat on your cheeks, the chirp and whistle of a vivacious cardinal, all demand to be experienced.

Spring is a time of inspiration and action. I make promises to myself, set goals, make lists. I think about which projects need versus would be nice to complete on the farm. I make more lists and set timelines. On a separate page I write each horse’s name. I list activities for them, too. I am a planner, and these lists are a road map directing our progress through the weeks ahead.

But even so, as imperceptibly as Mother Nature restores her environs from dormancy to activity, my inherent drive toward achieving my goals has changed. This year, I am finding the renewal offered by the change of season insufficient to fully offset my inertia.

There was a time when each spring, I highlighted activity after activity on the print out of the West Newbury Riding and Driving Club’s calendar of equine events. I was out on the road with my horses to compete or clinic two or three times per month, borrowing trailers and occasionally entire rigs from generous friends (what amazing trust they had in me) or bartering rides. When I later acquired my own trailer, I became even more mobile. I shipped out for weekly jump lessons. We hauled to competitions all over New England and New York. I let little stand in my way in pursuit of participating in those activities I had set my mind to.

For most of the early aughts, I kept two or three horses in full work year round, while also stabling two of them on rough board, finishing a Masters degree and holding down a full time job that often required evening or weekend commitments. My days started early and ran long. I had an internal drive that was impossible to ignore and compelled me to push through fatigue and frustration. I was motivated at least partially by catch phrases which are probably now memes, expressions like ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’ or ‘shoot for the moon because even if you miss you will land among the stars’.

I didn’t make this meme….but I could have.

But what used to be a raging inner fire to ‘go out and do’ seems to have tempered to a gentler glow. Where I used to wring my hands over a missed ride or schooling set, now I sigh and think, ‘well, another day’. I see photos on social media of friends who have eagerly returned to competition after vaccination (as well as those who never hung it up to begin with) and think ‘good for them’.

Yet my own calendar remains blank.

I will admit that in some ways, I have had a discouraging few years. In 2019, I made the decision to retire my distance horse, Lee, from competition and have had to step back from a new sport I really enjoyed. In 2020, after pushing and pressuring Anna for several years, I finally had to admit that it is unlikely I will be able to finish my USDF Bronze Bar with her.

But these minor disappointments cannot take away the many years of success and fun we have had together. I have partnered with each of these special mares since their 6-year-old year; in 2021, Lee will be 22 and Anna, 17. Looking back at all I have experienced with them is an amazing trove of memories and moments. They have each immeasurably shaped my journey as a horseman and trainer and I consider myself lucky to have them both living in my front yard, sound, happy and useful animals, albeit in different ways than before.

The long partnerships I have enjoyed with Anna and Lee are perhaps why the thought of starting new journeys with Izzy and Nori is, at times, overwhelming. Each of these youngsters was less than two when they arrived here at Cold Moon Farm, and so of course there was much for them to learn. Izzy, now 6 years old, is at an age where she can be expected to manage more both mentally and physically. Nori, now 4, is also ready to build on the foundation laid in the past two years, which will hopefully include being backed this summer.

Nori, during an early spring grooming session (after she was too sassy to manage her patience in the barn.)

My younger self would have proceeded forward with a ‘just do it’ mentality, but today I hesitate and worry too much about the ‘what if’s’. And after over a year of easy excuses to avoid taking young horses out in the world, it is hard to be brave enough to tell my monkey brain to be quiet and take a seat.

Someday, maybe someday soon, I will have no excuses left. And I will have to either decide to ‘just do it’… or out of fairness to these young horses’ future, hand the reins over to someone else who can.

met·a·mor·pho·sis

noun

(in an insect or amphibian) the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.

“the persistence of the larval tail during metamorphosis”

a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.

“his metamorphosis from presidential candidate to talk-show host”

There are many lessons humanity ought to take away from the experience of a global pandemic, and it seems impossible that any individual who is remotely connected to the mainstream can emerge from the past eighteen months truly unchanged. Personally, I struggle with the idea of a “return to normal,” as neither I nor the world around me are the same as before.

In a March 2020 blog post, I wrote:

“The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic will change all of us in small and large ways. I fervently hope that for many Americans, this time of challenge will allow nearly everyone the opportunity to reset their compass and focus on those pieces of our lives that matter on a deep, fundamental level. I believe that most equestrians did not start riding to win ribbons; we started riding because we felt inexplicably drawn to these powerful and majestic animals. Those of us still lucky enough to have horses in our lives after the dust settles have a responsibility to remember that magic and to share it with others.”

I’m not sure I fully recognized it then, but perhaps this sentiment was an early stage of what I can only call my equestrian metamorphosis. Increasingly, I am more interested in the positive impact that horses have on those they touch than I am in personally pursuing upper level sport. At whatever point in the future my own career comes to an end, I don’t want it to be defined only by my competitive success (or, let’s be honest, lack thereof). Instead, I hope that I will be recognized as a practitioner of compassionate horsemanship, as a model of affordable, sustainable horse management practices and as a teacher who took the time to truly listen to her students and their horses, celebrating the victory of establishing the correct foundation that makes a lifetime of enjoyment with horses possible.

Spring Hollow Marquesa on an early spring ride.

For a caterpillar to become a beautiful butterfly, it literally obliterates its original form, then rearranges cells and tissues into new patterns and connections. If the chrysalis is cracked open before the process is complete, the cycle may be irrevocably interrupted. Metamorphosis is messy and destructive of old forms and behaviors. But going through this process is essential for the caterpillar to become its highest evolved self– a butterfly able to offer its services as a pollinator, visiting spring flowers and perpetuating the cycle of renewal.

Perhaps instead of considering the Pandemic Pause a set back to my continued evolution as an equestrian, I need to think of it as time spent in the chrysalis. As with the caterpillar, old models of doing things must be dismantled for new forms to emerge. Perhaps my slow return to full activity is more about testing new wings, recently unfurled, than it is about not living up to old, outdated expectations of myself. Perhaps this metamorphosis is about cementing that my horsemanship journey is and always has been about the relationship I enjoy with each horse specifically. It is about shedding the weight of expectation that I have been so accustomed to carrying so that I can instead move more freely from one beautiful moment to the next.

Horse Care and Management, Magazine Articles, Personal Stories

Growing Pains

March 25, 2021 christinakeim Leave a comment

Spring Hollow Or Noir, who goes by Nori at home, is a rising 4 year old Morgan and the youngest horse at Cold Moon Farm. I recently learned that she is the first foal of her sire, Spring Hollow Statesman, and many eyes besides my own are eagerly watching her develop. I adore her, I admire her and I am excited about her future. But at the same time, raising young horses isn’t all sunshine and lollipops, and that is what I want to talk about in this blog.

When it comes to raising and developing a young horse, I think it is important for equestrians to share stories of challenge and setback and to be honest about the ups and downs of the training process. Sure, sharing the victories feels pretty sweet and I appreciate hearing about those moments– but let’s not pretend that getting there didn’t include hitting a few potholes along the way. Otherwise, it is too easy to scroll social media posts and feel as if we are being left behind by our peers, progressing too slowly, or are otherwise doing things wrong.

When it comes to Nori, I feel this like whoa, especially when it comes to the past year.

Separating Your Seedlings

In theory, I would have liked to back Nori this past summer, when she was 3, as I did with Izzy; here, “backing” is defined as me sitting on her in a saddle while being led around by a ground handler. Compared to Izzy at the same age, Nori looked much more physically developed yet mentally, she seemed much younger. I decided to hold off.

That choice was a good one, because as it turned out, Nori had her own plans for what she wanted to accomplish in her three-year-old summer.

For the better part of two years, Nori and DRF Isabela, (two years older and better known as Izzy) were the best of friends. They shared hay piles, took naps together and scratched each other’s backs. But as Nori matured, small cracks began to form in their relationship. From day one, the herd ranking had clearly been Marquesa at the top, Izzy in the middle and Nori at the bottom. But by summer 2020, Nori began subtly staking her claim on a higher social rank. The symptoms were so understated at first that I almost missed them—slightly more frequent squeals, small bite marks, an occasional challenge for a prime sleeping spot—but by early summer there was no mistaking that in Nori, we had a ‘social climber on the rise’.

Nori (left) and Izzy (right), before the troubles began.

One day in early July, I came home from a day of hiking to find Nori a bit more banged up than usual; she had a few new cuts, all small, and a front leg was a little puffy. Then I realized that she was intermittently locking her stifle. Ugh. After a video consult with my vet, we deferred further investigation of the injury until the next day. Dr. Monika’s exam revealed that Nori had overextended her left stifle, resulting in some inflammation and a possible teeny tiny avulsion fracture where a piece of ligament had pulled away from bone. Stall rest was out of the question so we opted to do a round of NSAIDs and to try to keep Nori as quiet as possible in her paddock. Thankfully, the swelling resolved and the stifle stabilized after only a few minor setbacks.

One of several photos I texted to Dr. Monika as we tried to determine “Red Alert” injury vs. “can safely wait until morning”.

But the die had been cast. Over the next several weeks, while Nori was supposed to be “resting quietly in her paddock”, the tension between her and Izzy escalated. Sometimes, the two were their usual inseparable selves. But increasingly, I heard scuffles in the paddock, their intensity growing with each skirmish.

The final straw came one morning at 5:00 AM. I awoke to the sound of a significant altercation between one or more horses, accompanied by worried whinnies from the rest of the herd. I ran out in my pajamas to find that Izzy had cornered Nori and was trying to kick her over and over. I grabbed a halter and lead and ran into the paddock, swinging the rope and yelling like a crazy banshee woman (it is perhaps a good thing that my closest neighbor is also an early riser). I’m not sure this was the smartest move–nor do I know what I would have done next had it proved unsuccessful– but it distracted Izzy long enough that Nori could get away. I threw everyone some hay, checked over each horse and headed back into the house.

However, I knew the reprieve would only be temporary.

Looking majestic while on a hand walk fall 2020. Two halters because I sometimes don’t trust the rope one!

Over coffee that morning, I commented, “You know, if I was boarding somewhere, I would be all over the barn manager to get my horse out of that paddock. NOW.”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single readily available location on the property to put Nori, or anyone else, without significant reconfiguration. While I finished my own breakfast, I worked out a short-term arrangement that would at least get us through the day. I moved our elder statesman, Snowy, to a grass field where he spends most mornings anyway, then moved Nori into Snowy’s “Bachelor Pad”– a dry lot attached to a two-stall shelter. As I slipped her halter off, I exhaled a sigh of relief. For the moment, at least, the situation was stabilized.

Later that day, we subdivided the Bachelor Pad in half with three strands of electric rope, added a new gate and voila– Snowy and Nori became neighbors. Despite neither horse having tons of room, they adjusted well and we worked hard to ensure that each horse had extra “out of paddock” time. Snowy spent four or five hours every day in the grass turnout and went for regular rides, and Nori went for hand walks in addition to daily groundwork training. I was relieved that Nori was indifferent when Snowy left to go do things without her; she seemed to enjoy supervising activity in the riding arena, located just adjacent.

But with fall rapidly approaching and winter on its heels, these two tiny turnouts could not be a permanent solution. After several rounds of brainstorming, we spent the rest of the summer and early fall building an additional in/out stall with its own fenced dry lot area off the side of the barn. In early October, the new “Nori Habitat” was finally ready and she moved in.

Seedlings Up Rooted

In a perfect world, a young horse has other young horses to play with. Though Nori seemed quite content in her own space, I worried that she would need additional sources of psychological engagement now that she wasn’t directly next to another horse. But ultimately, I felt the separation was a sacrifice I had to make to reduce the risk of serious injury. I made an effort to spend time with her every day, even as the weather grew colder.

One Saturday afternoon in mid-December, I was sitting at my writing desk and staring out the big window that faces the Nori Habitat. Suddenly, there was a loud “whoosh” and a second later Nori slammed full bore into her heavy duty gate, bending the metal and knocking it off the top hinge. Snow sliding off the metal roof of the barn had startled her, and she did what many startled horses do; she ran. But the paddock is just a few strides long, the footing was slippery from early snow, and she couldn’t stop in time. That night, we had to use the tractor to flatten the gate in order to get it reattached correctly. Fortunately, Nori was uninjured.

A month later, Nori spooked and knocked the gate off its hinges again. The damage was less severe this time, but as we worked to get the pieces reconnected, I felt the first twinges of concern brewing in my subconscious. Is this going to be a “thing”? Will this horse learn to practice self-restraint? Will she desensitize to the noise before she causes herself serious injury?

Then one evening in early February, Nori spooked and ran a third time. Learning from her previous mistakes, she turned to avoid the gate but instead she slid into the wooden fence itself. Her momentum broke a 4×4 post as well as a three board fence lined with strands of aluminum wire. Now loose, Nori ran to the gate of her original paddock, where Izzy and Marquesa stood, whinnying their worry.

It is a true miracle that Nori escaped from this with not even a scratch.

I was incredulous when we caught her that the filly had emerged unscathed. Not even a tiny tear on her Horsewear blanket revealed that she had just demolished a fairly significant fence line.

By headlamp and tractor light, that evening we managed to reconstruct the fence. The broken post was partially frozen into the ground and we had to pour hot water around the stump, fastening a chain to pull it out of the earth. By 8 PM, Nori was back in her Habitat. But I was a mass of nerves.

Nori loves to hang out in the snow. The Bachelor Pad is in the background.

This situation is a time bomb, I thought as I tossed and turned that night instead of sleeping. We have been lucky so far. But if she keeps hitting the fence, sooner or later, our luck will run out.

I started to worry that, despite my very best efforts, I was failing to meet this horse’s basic needs.

About two weeks later, on a warmish sunny February afternoon, I went out to throw lunch hay to find Nori soaked in sweat on her chest and flanks. She had been totally fine just a few hours earlier, when I had groomed her, but now she was anxious, pawing and wanting to roll. I immediately assumed she was colicking, but then I heard the roar of snowmobiles and the accompanying cheers of their riders coming from the powerline trails behind the farm. Whenever the machines raced past, Nori’s eyes grew bigger and her anxious behavior increased.

Still wondering if she was starting to colic, I haltered her and took her out of the paddock. She had a good roll in softer snow and immediately started nibbling hay in between anxious spins. I walked her around and tried to soothe her, but she was inconsolable. I finally put her back in the paddock and watched her helplessly.

I AM failing this horse. No matter what I do, she isn’t happy.

There probably isn’t a worse feeling in the world than knowing you have a problem and trying every solution you can think of, only to have the problem get worse.

Maybe she just needs a little more space?

I briefly debated putting Nori back out with her original herd, but with winter footing and the memories of earlier issues still clear, I quickly crossed that idea off the list. Then I looked at Snowy, sleeping in the sun in his Bachelor Pad. Without the divider, it was maybe a third larger than the Nori Habitat. The position of the double sided shed provided a buffer from the noises out back. Snowy never reacts when snow comes sliding down off the roof and at 26+ years old, prefers to only amble slowly.

Creeping on Nori while walking solo on the power line trails.

Within a few minutes, I had traded the two horses—Nori went in the Bachelor Pad (perhaps now a “She Shed”?) and Snowy in the Nori Habitat. He quickly busied himself cleaning up her hay. She spent the rest of the afternoon pirouetting and bucking, pacing and prancing. But she could do so without sliding into the fence, or the gate, and eventually she seemed to burn herself out and settled to eating hay, too.

And this arrangement is where each horse is currently located. Whether it will work long term—well, at this point, who really knows? It is working for now, and with improving weather and footing, Nori will only be getting more interactions and activities to keep her mind and body busy. All I can do is hope.

But that day with the snowmobiles was, for me, a personal low. It was a day where I doubted if I have what it takes to work with this talented, athletic, sensitive mare and wondered if she would simply be better off with someone else.

I want my horses to be content, to feel safe and secure in their environment. What is this mare trying to tell me she needs that I am not giving her?

This season, it is one of my goals to try to figure that out.

Blogger’s Note: In addition to all of the above, Nori has also intermittently experienced Free Fecal Water (FFW), a messy and unsightly condition in which excess water is passed alongside normally formed balls of manure. My article, “When Passing Manure Becomes a Messy Predicament”, from the March 8 & 15, 2021 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse, takes a closer look at what we know (and don’t know) about this syndrome. One advantage of Nori moving into her own space has been being able to customize her diet; with these adjustments, her symptoms have almost wholly resolved. Fingers crossed!

Equestrian Land Conservation, Horse Care and Management, Personal Stories

The Four Seasons of Cold Moon Farm

January 2, 2017 christinakeim 1 Comment

This past September marked my first full year here at the farm, and overall Mother Nature was kind to me in my rookie year (thank Gaia!). Each season brings its unique positives and challenges to horse keeping. I have worked on farms for decades but it is certainly a different experience when you are the one making the decisions and doing most of the work. Now that I have had a full year under my belt here, it is time to pause and reflect on what I have learned so far.

Winter is here in New England. A few days ago, the farm was buried under 10” of heavy new snow, and now we have huge plow piles, tunnels to gates and waters and temporarily shorted out electrical fencing. Last winter was relatively mild, which was much appreciated as my learning curve with the new property was fairly steep. This winter already seems as though it will be more intense; we have had more snow, more ice and more crazy temperature swings before the end of December than I think we went through all season last year.

Winter is certainly a challenging time for horse keeping. All tasks are made harder due to the cold, the snow, the frozen patches…if you have dealt with it, you know. If, after doing all the work to take care of your horses, you still have the energy to ride, it is still freezing most days, and I personally dislike having to wear layers and fat gloves and heavy boots. But here is the thing–in New England, our ecosystems NEED winter. The snow allows underground aquifers to recharge, deciduous trees, grasses and shrubs rest, and we all have a respite from most of the creepy crawlies that plague our horses the rest of the year. Days are short, temps are low and the footing is questionable, which means that serious training can really only occur if your horse is stabled at an indoor. One lesson I have learned from the distance riding community is that a little rest for your horse is almost never a bad thing. No athlete can maintain peak performance year round. Here in the snowy north, winter is the best time to allow your equine athlete the opportunity to rest and recharge. After all, nature is doing it, right?

Winter can also be a time of astounding beauty. As much as I curse the mounds of snow after a storm, there is something utterly peaceful about being outside with the clean landscape, tree boughs heavy with accumulation, and horses happily rolling, leaping and playing, whiskers and eyelashes frosted. It doesn’t seem to bother them anywhere near as much as it bothers me! With most riders spending less time in the saddle, winter is also a perfect time to thoughtfully make plans and set goals for the upcoming season.

February Sunset 006.JPG — A February sunset (2016).

In spite of my efforts to maintain a positive outlook towards the season, winter nearly always outstays its welcome, as far as I am concerned. I eagerly look forward to any early signs of spring, especially as the days lengthen and winter’s piles lose their resiliency to the strength of a sun which rises ever higher in the sky. I love the smell of the damp earth as it emerges from beneath the snow’s protective blanket and the sun begins to awaken all of the sleeping entities lying beneath the topsoil. Seeds sprout, the grass becomes brighter and tree leaves begin to unfurl with reckless abandon.

from-solstice-067 — Getting legged up April 2016.

Spring means that we can finally give the paddock a good cleaning, knock the cobwebs down from the corners of the barn, and begin to launder blankets and stow the shovels and scrapers. We trade snow suits for being covered with the shedding hair of our equine friends. Spring is the time to put all of the plans which we schemed during winter’s lull into action, the time to start to condition our mounts and prepare them for the upcoming active season.

Marquesa comes to Cold Moon 019 — Marquesa and Lee enjoying spring grass in May 2016.

Songbirds return. At Cold Moon Farm, there are multiple micro habitats and a lot of edge, and the color and activity of birds just returned from warmer southern climates brings a feeling of lightness and joy. The grass begins to stabilize and the horses can begin the slow, gradual process of acclimatizing to grazing.

But spring is not all sunshine and buttercups. Winter clean up can be onerous, from replacing torn sod to fixing broken fencing to removing downed tree limbs. Dirt paddocks quickly turn into quagmires as snow melt runs off and April’s showers saturate (hopefully within the next few years we will have a proper, improved drainage in the sacrifice area). Perhaps most annoyingly, fly season officially gets underway in April with the appearance of hordes of blackflies. And worst of all, ticks are seemingly everywhere, emerging as early as possible. Yet just as you think you can’t take any more of the mud and the bugs and the need to clean up yet another area of the farm, the season changes again.

Early Summer 20156 002.JPG — The hazy days of early summer. June 2016.

Summers in New England are short and intense. There are really only maybe eight to ten weeks of true, full on summer, and we try to make the most of it. I think I must be part cat, because I just revel in the sun and want to absorb as much of it as possible. I love to get up early and feel the cool, fresh air in the morning, and I can’t wait to get out and about for the day. My favorite thing is to ride first thing in the morning, before the humidity builds up, then sip on an iced coffee and teach for the afternoon.

This past summer was super sunny, which I loved for my own purposes, but in reality, it was not the best thing for the ecosystems of the northeast. Between the light snow season and the lack of rain, New England soon found itself in a drought. I began to hear stories of wells running dry–I soon learned that these were mostly dug wells, which go down 9-12 feet, as opposed to a drilled well like mine, which is usually 200 feet or more and taps into an aquifer. But it was stressful to know that homes around mine were experiencing problems with their wells, so I worried about what I would do if water ran out at the farm.

The drought also meant that the grass went dormant far earlier than usual. I had to pull the horses off their grass fields in August and switch to feeding hay, almost a month earlier than I had anticipated. On the plus side, I barely had to mow the lawn and I got away with not having a brushhog yet for the fields out back. But as the grass began to crisp and the streams and water crossings out back ran completely dry, it was clear that the unusual weather was taking its toll. Late summer can be a good time to spread lime on your fields, but that requires a heavy rain to help flush it into the soil. I got lucky in the timing of an application right before one of our only big storms in August. Just as I thought that the fields and the yards and the trees couldn’t possibly take another sun soaked day, deprived of water, the seasons changed again.

Fall here is simply stunning. There are many maples on the property, which flamboyantly flash red and orange as the overnight temps cool and days begin to more obviously shorten. Beech trees and a few oaks mix in as well, offering a later surge of color. Lower in height, shrubs like sumac and dogwood are also not to be missed. The trails out back offer a range of color displays, in every direction. The drier air feels like a relief and this year, the fall brought with it some blessed rain to help begin to reverse the effects of an overly dry summer. Late summer flowers bloom amidst the falling leaves, lending a competitive sense to the changing seasons.

fall-2016-023 — The view from between Anna’s ears. October 2016.

Later Fall CSC and Dart IHSA 2016 008.JPG — These two things don’t seem to belong together (October 2016).

Fall on a horse farm means it is time to prepare for winter. The first order of business was stocking the hay barn to the gills with as many bales as will fit (here, close to 300). Later in the season, it was time to put away the fixtures from the grass fields, which are closed for winter, then to trim the shrubs around the barn, put away the jumps and rails, and set up the heaters for the outside water. And of course, autumn is nicknamed “fall” because of the leaves. I have been lucky so far to either use the mower to mulch them or to allow strong winds to blow them off into the tree line; I certainly don’t relish the idea of hand raking the entire yard!

Later Fall CSC and Dart IHSA 2016 001.JPG — Yes, I mowed over these, or at least the ones that didn’t blow away. October 2016.

As fall winds down, winter begins again. And the cycle continues.

Each year, the seasons come, the seasons stay, the seasons change. Each season brings its positives and its negatives, but without that yin/yang balance, it would not be as easy to appreciate the variety for what it is. New England is a dynamic place, and to successfully maintain a healthy place for ourselves and our horses, managers must consider the unique challenges faced during each change of the weather.

frosticlemarquesa — Marquesa shows off her “frosticles”. Winter Solstice, 2016.

So as I trudge outside yet again in my full Yeti suit, I will try to take the good with the challenging, and when it starts to get to the point where I think “I just can’t stand this (insert problem word here; examples could include mud, ticks, snow, ice, wind, torrential rain) anymore” instead I will try to say, “this too shall pass”.

brr — “You are so lucky to work outside,” they said.

Happy New Year.

The Academic Equestrian

Tag Archives: transitions

Ending the Pandemic Pause

Growing Pains

The Four Seasons of Cold Moon Farm

Celebrating the incurable addiction which is being an equestrian