2 New Additions, Missing Fur Trees & Build Update

Wow... I wanted to write a blog / vlog / thing whatever they are called! (yeah in case you haven't noticed I am a horse rider not a social media guru) around twice a week but have you ever tried to make time to do something like that?!? I mean gathering "inspiration" is bad enough when you are running after two kids under 7, running the business and dealing with missing fur trees and people throwing rabbits. (more on that later) I remember being young and having inspiration and artistic motivation oozing out of me from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. Where did that go? what happened to my MOJO?!? I blinked and got old and seemed to have miss placed my MOJO!! lol 

Anyway I digress as usual.. so these last 3/4 weeks have been slow, the spring wanted to come then didn't want to come then came again, then didn't... arrrrgggh!! which kind of left me feeling like I had started the race but then realised I had forgotten to take my yard boots off... two steps forward, three steps back if you know what I mean. Finally, this last week has been full of sunshine and we managed to get some things done on the yard and also inherited 2 new additions in the form of a horse and a pony. They are respectively called Equador and Crystal not our choices they had the names when they arrived. So without further a do here they are standing in our brand new paddock which we are super pleased with.

Who ate all the pies, who ate all the pies.... lol Yep, Crystal needs to lay of the grass somewhat. :-)

These lovelies had been staying across the road from us with a local village character who had been enjoying them as pets but didn't ride and also didn't have a lot of time to do anything at all with them. The facilities they were in weren't ideal, the boxes were kind a home made and very deep the horses had to step down about 2 feet to get into them and the drainage not sufficient. Anyway long story short we offered to take them both which we have. Here is a photo below of both Crystal and Equador they have been with us for about a week and a half now and I have them on HOCOR Complete and HOCOR Regen which is literally a miracle supplement and also HOCOR natural feeds which unfortunately are only available in Europe presently. In the 10 or so days they have been with us the improvements are huge and visually noticeable particularly with Equador.

We are thinking due to the current and continued financial pressures of getting a new roof on the stable we might book in some adult riding lessons on Equador as he is very easy and loves mooching around the arena in walk/trot. We already have our own horses contributing to their upkeep in the same way and are thinking that this could be a great way to help with the re build and also to pay for improvements to the facilities so all parties benefit. We shall see and I will keep you updated on what we decided and perhaps if we do go in that direction also upload a few videos to keep things interesting. :-)

On this subject we wanted to give a little shout out to one of our awesome customers Geraldine Fitzgerald who donated to our project to rebuild... we really, really, really, really appreciate it!! 

Now on to "Missing Fur Trees" Have a look at this awesomely professional video "lol" made by me courtesy of samsung mobile phone. Notice anything odd...

 SERIOUSLY THOUGH, someone actually came onto the yard and pulled up 30 of our little fur trees and made off with them. I mean we only paid around £1.50 for each one 2 years ago and at the height they are now they go for around £5 each, that's a £150 ($200) kick in the groin we really didn't need! what is wrong with people?!?

I said I would try to keep you guys up to date on our stable rebuild, I wont go over the whole thing again because most of you have read about it already but if you are here and reading our blog for the first time.. long story short our stable burned down nearly 2 years ago and we got stuffed on the insurance and so we have been trying to get it back to it's former glory bit by bit and with help here and there from friends, family and a Just Riding customer or two. 

Many of our customers contacted me after I posted the video of the fire and were super supportive and so nice. So I said I would try to post little updates here and there when I have a spare few minutes to write something or take a picture or two.

So the update is that we still dont have a roof, although we have had a couple of quotes and have found the best possible price so at least now we have a financial target.

However, we have done some pretty cool "other stuff" on the yard, we put up a big paddock on what we thought was unusable ground for grazing, after 4 years of care, treatment and rest the work we did on it has paid off and the ground is so nice we are really pleased and looking forward to having that extra bit of turn out for the guys and girls. We also managed to replace the small fence around the play area which wasn't in a good way and put down some more bark on the play area itself. Inside we haven't managed to do anything more than when I last posted. We tried to plaster some of the walls but without the roof, even though we now have a good concrete ceiling the plaster became very damp and just fell off.. so we wasted money and time, lesson learned. We will start to repair the inside once the roof is on.

Photo's here below of the little fence.. small steps.. etc. :-)

Well I think that sums up our 2 new additions, missing fur trees and a bit about the build. I will try to get on again in a week or so, knowing me it will probably be 4 weeks again... but hey ho, I will try.

As always my heartfelt thanks to all Just Riding customers for your continued and loyal support for our family run business without you guys we would just be a website with some pretty pictures of clothing... :-) xxx

Extra Update: I'm not sure if any of you read my previous blog post about the little pony who just appeared on our yard one day, well unfortunately despite our best efforts in screening the owner who we released him back to we heard that he has recently been removed from her "care" by the local authorities.

Apparently neighbors had called the authorities when they spotted the lady throwing rabbits around her field! Yeah, you heard correctly... "throwing rabbits" needless to say that lucky (named by us because he wondered into our yard and was treated like royalty for a month) has now been re homed and we are assured that the new owners are not in the least bit interested in using animals as any form of projectile, which is always good we think. :-/ 

Seriously though all joking aside if anyone witnesses anyone doing any such things please report immediately to your local animal welfare office, rspca etc. Thank You. :-)