In Other News...

Alright, so this news has been in the works for a little while now, and I almost let it slip in my last post.

Penn is going to be staying at Winter Barn permanently! So what was Home Barn, is now Trainer's Barn, and Winter Barn is now Home Barn.

A couple weeks ago, I chatted about it with BO. She had mentioned if I wanted to stay it would be totally cool, and we could come to an arrangement on board - this barn was supposed to be temporary partly because it's more expensive than Trainer's. Basically, I could work off the difference. Works for everyone - I still pay what I was before and they get more help for stalls!

Trainer messaged me out of the blue two days later and we chatted about me staying. I needed to think about it, because I know my spot at Trainer's would be filled about 2.5 seconds after I let her know (she has a VERY healthy training horse business, enough that she's building a stall expansion on her current stall expansion).

Everyone who needed to be told first now knows, so I'm free to tell you all!

I like this pic even though Penn and I both leave something to be desired.

I'll have both Trainer and DT available to me - not that DT wasn't before, I was free to haul there if I wanted, but now they'll both be coming to me once or twice a month each. It's s little more per lesson to have them travel to me, but that's ok. There won't be weekly lessons, and I haven't done weekly lessons in ages anyway. If I need an ad hoc lesson, I can always haul to Trainer's Barn and get one.

I have a few mixed feelings about not being where Mikey is buried, and I still want to plant a tree there for him, but I won't be there to actively take care of it in the beginning... so I don't know if I'll still do that. I'm sure I can come visit his grave any time I want though.

A large reason for me staying instead of going back to Trainer's Barn are the number of people that always seem to be hanging around this barn. Not that Trainer's Barn didn't have people there, but I would usually ride completely alone in the evenings. She has a bunch of training horses, her own competition horses, a handful of retired/lightly working horses, and the rest are students who show and take lessons... In winter, the barn is kind of abandoned since there isn't an indoor and most of the horses either go south, go back home, or find winter places to board. In summer, lessons and riding happens in the morning while I'm at work. There are 4 other dressage only riders at new home barn- two don't show, but the other two are working towards getting out to the recognized shows either this year or next year, so hopefully I won't be going alone to those soon! I'm really excited that I'll have company for the last two shows in the winter series we're doing. :-)

Other perks include: an indoor year round, excellent footing inside and out, hot/cold wash stall, bathroom, lounge, heated barn in winter? I just got super spoiled!

I will miss Trainer's riding trails... this barn has some that I'm starting to explore and learn where they go. I'll still be hauling back to Trainer's Barn for big group trail rides though!

Anyway, I'm super excited to be staying!