Stalliversary

Olive and I celebrated our eleven month anniversary on the fifteenth. I didn't write a post because that was also the day of Heather Malone's Eerie Equine Live show. 

photo by Margaret Balch

Also, there wasn't much to report, at least not on the riding front. At this point, we're pretty settled into a routine. We ride in the ring, we go on short trail rides. Olive is consistently low standards perfect.

One thing that has changed is that one month ago, Olive moved into the White Barn.

With its narrow center aisle and decidedly weather beaten appearance, this barn doesn't look like much. However, it's actually the best stabling on the property. It's cool in the summer, warm in the winter, the horses are fed inside and each has their own attached run.

This is a full care facility in that the horses are fed twice a day and stalls are cleaned regularly. Anything beyond that, is up to individual boarders. The previous occupant of Olive's stall left it really dirty, so the first order of business was a good cleaning. Here's the before, which was actually taken midway through the cleaning process.

Here's the after. So satisfying.

I don't think Olive has ever lived inside a barn before, and initially, she was very concerned about the stall.

She spent most of that first day watching me work from the run.

The first dinner was a lot of grab...

and go.

Poor nervous pony!

It took a few days for her to settle down and then another couple weeks for her to really get comfortable. 

Now she spends most of her time in the stall.

photo by Therese Gould

She lives next to Rhino...

and across from Thunder.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to walk down the aisle and see her there with all my other favorite horses.

Here's another thing that makes me really happy. Olive's stall comes with its own private tack room.

This tack room was not much to look at when we moved in, but Seth and I have been working hard to transform it from shed to palace. I'll share pictures in a future post.