Then: |
And now: |
I boarded there for over 20 years. It was such a thriving, vibrant place at one time. We'd had countless hours of fun. People complained their faces hurt from smiling so hard for so long. Animals everywhere all the time. Horses. Dogs. Cats. Deer. Rats. Mice. Raccoons. Woodchucks.
There was packing for shows at the crack of dawn. Getting back at the end of the day completely exhausted and getting pizzas or KFC.
There was freezing cold and howling wind. And our legendary hot humid summer afternoons. We even had a tornado come across the south side of the property in August 2004. I was out working L and I could see the weather coming from across the field. I didn't see any funnel - it was just all cloud and debris. We ran for the barn and no sooner had I run L into her stall the tornado passed about 125 yards south of the barn. We all stood in the doorway watching with "uh-oh" faces.
All nighters with sick horses. I can still remember waiting on a vet one February morning. 14 below 0 at 4:00 am. Oh how that sucked!
I buried two horses there.
It was a great property. Big barn with a quarter mile training track surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of acres of fields and woods. There were actually two barns there, one of which had been an equine rehab center at one time. It was a well known place. They had trained race horses there 50 years ago.
It was spacious and comfortable. At least until the roof started to leak. Always full of light.
I can't even make a guess at the hundreds and hundreds of hours there. Of course I miss it and it's so sad to finally see it's gone.
Edited to add:
I thought about it while doing stalls today. All the training time and riding time and just "horse care". 16 or 18 hours a week at the peek of show season to 6 or 8 hours in the dead of winter. I wouldn't be surprised at all if I had 7 or 8000 hours at that barn!
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