At least, we hope that's how he chooses to see her, as opposed to The Woman of His Dreams! It's always a risk having a mare and a gelding in the same family, but we're confident that he'll only be well-behaved about it and suspect that her little tomboyish personality will lend itself well to the "friends" rather than "lovers" situation. We introduced them the other day for the first time (they're being stabled at farms less than a mile up the road until one barn has 2 stalls available next month) and though Big G. looked at her with googly eyes, she really didn't even seem to notice him standing there. When he got in her face, she pinned her ears and gave him the Stink Eye.... Poor fella.
Our little family feels complete now that we have two horses to love on and learn from and grow with. It's been fantastic having Guinny in our lives since March and we're very excited to be moving him and his sister to our own property in a few months when the barn is up and the pastures are all fenced. Since the new house is finally officially ours (it took more than 6 months from offer to close on this amazing short sale property) we've been working like crazy to get the place horse ready. And shortly both horses will be right there in the yard, only a stone's throw from the 18-mile Tolt Pipleline Trail that meanders by our front door!
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| Our new zoo.... er, home! |
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| The back yard, soon to be lush pasture for Guinny & Jessie! |
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The front yard as seen from the house
(and the 18-mile equestrian trail is just behind those trees!) |
Unfortunately our ride together on our own two horses for the
very first time wasn't properly documented with photos (wtf?!), but we
do have a few pictures of the adorable Jessie. It seems weird and
blasphemous to talk much about Jessie the Little Sister on Guinny's blog
but in an effort to conserve time and Internet bandwidth (for now)
we'll do so. We're pretty sure he won't mind.....
In a moment of serendipity Shanna noticed a beautiful mare on DreamHorse (where we first learned of Guinness) from a barn in the same town as Big G. When we decided to go meet her we asked Shirley and Stan if they'd be willing to meet us -- not only would it be great to see them again but they obviously have an eye for a good horse! And it turns out the barn was literally 5 minutes up the road! So Erin and Shirley met to have a look at darling Jessie. She's a 15.3 gorgeous bay Hannoverian/TB (like Guinny!) eventer who has excellent dressage and is a jumping machine. She and her former owner, Lucinda, made an awesome team and we are thrilled to know such a sweet woman as Lu. She and Jessie obviously adore each other and we're looking forward to being a 1/2-way stop for Lu at the new house when she's road tripping during college breaks. It'd be perfect for her and Jessie to be able to hang out together on the trails!
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| Look, Guinny -- your little sister isn't afraid of flowers! |
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| Not afraid of much, it would seem! |
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| We're excited to bond with Jessie and learn to ride her this well! |
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So, there's been a lot going on lately between getting the new house habitable for horses and humans (and dogs, cats and birds) and trekking down to Wilsonville, OR to pick up Jessie. Then Shanna had surgery (which sucked but means a pain-free abdomen from here on out!) and Erin left for a 10-day trip. Thank goodness for our trainer Rachel, who loves riding both horses and is keeping them exercised for us this week. Shanna is able to get out and love on them every day, adjust Jessie's blanket (the poor girl doesn't like our Junuary weather), stuff them full of treats and gently keep their coats looking nice. Good therapy for everybody!
Now, since it's his blog, back to Guinness. He had his first massage since he's been with us -- Kim worked on him for 90 minutes and discovered all sorts of things. The poor fella's got a lot of knotty muscles -- pretty legit reasons for his Ugly Girth Face! His fanny is tight and sore too. So we've stopped taking him up the logging road hill for now. :( Once we work on some of his soreness those will resume, but for now we're focused on keeping him straight when under saddle (he still wiggles a lot) and building up his rear end. He's such a good boy for his rides and though we really miss the hack up to the meadow, pretty soon we'll have miles and miles of mostly flat trails to ride along!
It's been tough to plan a show so far this season with what feels like a million different obligations -- we need clones! And Erin's had a tough time managing to get weekends off with work, but July is looking promising for a schooling show for both horses. Most of our time will be spent working on the house and barn, but our plan is to be moved into the new place and living there the first week of July. If our fathers are willing to fly across the country for a week of hard physical labor, we expect to have the barn up and ready for Guinny and Jessie by the end of July. Fingers crossed! But all work and no play is really a drag, so we'll likely hit a local show of some sort soon. Jessie is really chilled out and relaxed by nature, so we think her personality will be a positive influence on her more lively brother! Maybe she can talk to him about those plastic flowers....?
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| Guinny loves hacking along the logging road to visit his little deer buddies |
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| The view at the top of a hilly gallop! (no worries, we pulled his mane after this shot!) |
