Interesting Guilt

At 3:45 I realized I had a text sent at 3 from J wondering if I wanted to ride down the road. It would have taken me 20 minutes to get dressed/tack up, but Naners has been proving difficult to catch lately, so I knew it would probably take me longer. Turns out it wouldn't have, she came to the barn as soon as she saw me. I fed and got back into the house at 4:20. I could have tacked up and gone out and we would have been able to get in a decent ride. The big reason I didn't want to go is because it was hellaciously windy out the other times I've been outside today: the wind that makes you wonder if the house is going to blow over and you have to clean the dust out of your ears when you come in. I've been very much huddled in the house, doing things like changing the fish tank filters and descaling the espresso machine. But, of course, when I went out to feed, while it is windy, it was not as unpleasant as it has been. Now I feel guilty or something. I should have gone. A little wind hasn't stopped me other days, why today? I do have a neck-induced migraine brewing and I don't yet know if riding aggravates or alleviates it. That's a legitimate excuse. Of less legitimacy, my chin is chapped from all the wind lately.

So, lots of excuses, none of them really good. That's probably the guilt: why can't I just admit I didn't feel like it? Because I always feel like it and I made the wrong decision today. We've been out in 20 degrees and wind, today it's 40 degrees and wind. J had spent time primping the pony and was ready to go, I didn't want her to wait some undetermined time while I potentially chased Banana around the pasture.*

Aruba went back to his people yesterday.  Not the people that made him skinny and didn't bother trimming his feet, the people that raised him. I enjoyed having him around: he was an excellent buddy horse. However, he colicked twice in the last two weeks. I'm not going to miss walking him around in the cold. We think he might have been eating a dead weed that no other horse has ever touched. All it would take is him taking a couple of mouthfuls of tumbleweed to upset the delicate horsie digestive system, though I've had other horses it didn't bother.

"But Pam," you say. "How can you possibly turn horses out in a pasture with weeds!" The weeds are, alas, a neverending fight. I have the ones that come up in the spring/early summer and the ones that come up late summer/early fall. I can only really afford to spray once a year (and you all would not believe how much it costs to do 42 acres.) Last year it was the early weeds, this year I'll do the late weeds. I do think we've finally (knock on wood) eradicated the Russian Knapweed, which is the only truly nasty weed we have. Luckily, while poisonous to horses, they don't touch it unless there is nothing else to eat at all. I also turn them out in pastures full of prairie dog holes. I'm a horrible horse mom or something.


*I don't actually chase her around the pasture, she'd win. We're working on this catching issue, which is sort of why it is currently an issue. She hasn't made the connection between "She's putting the halter on me more often!" with the "But she's not working me every time she does it" yet. Downside of having your pastures going directly to stalls: I could go weeks (and have) without putting a halter on anyone.