Ranting About Lists and Cleanliness

Ack!!

It's raining and muddy and yucky out; so that puts much of a damper on my time spent with Joey. We want to be together; but the air itself is just so wet and heavy that neither of us are enjoying being out much. So, we go out for feed and a rub, but that's about it at the moment. I love to ride in the rain (except for the mess it makes all over my clothes if I ride bareback and my tack if we ride with tack) but Joey hates getting rained on. He sees no point in going traipsing through the muddy woods with wet leaves clinging to him all over (remember our bur problem?).

I do not feel quite myself anyway, what with all the med doses I am having to take with this lymph node problem of mine. What? I didn't tell you about that? Well, long story short: Since Thanksgiving I have had a golf ball-sized lump under my arm; it appeared about the same time as an infectious-looking knot on my finger. Mom and the doc are hoping that it's one and the same thing (my lymph node reacting to trying to get a foreign object out of my finger). Doc prescribed me three doses of steroids three times a day and antibiotics twice a day for a little while and we're hoping that'll take care of it. If not, then it's off to get a biopsy done (ew).
But anyway, the meds (mostly the steroids) are being no fun, making me feel irritable and foggy-headed and nauseous; and to make things worse: I have to take my last dose of steroids for the day at 10 in the evening, so that pushes bed time back a couple of hours (which a horse owner who does enjoy sleeping in can't really afford to do). So yeah. No fun. And messing up the whole routine. Not to mention this weather. *sigh* -_-

So, upon this rainy, muddy, damp and foggy-headed day, I have decided that it is a good day for making lists. Lists of all kinds of things (well, speaking in the horsey realm, of course). It just occurred to me: All my childhood, I dreamed of having a nice, clean, organized barn, even when I just had the one childhood pony. What happened? Did I lose that dream? Because my barn currently does not resemble in any way, shape, or form the cleanliness I had envisioned. I know what happened: reality attacked. Owning a horse takes up a lot more time, effort, and thought than I originally expected as a young girl. Still, my love for the barn work has not been ruined for good; just. . .depressed by the lack of organization.
So, lists it is. Lists of barn chores that I will make it a habit to complete daily; as well as lists of things that I would prefer to be done weekly-- such as rinsing buckets and sweeping up hay, etc. I mean, come on, I was certainly raised better than this (meaning, by the hunter/jumper barn I used to work at during my early teen years). I will strive to create these habits of cleanliness over the next several months and strive to instill them in my apprentice, Miss Shelby Hoskins of 13 years. If anything, I must teach her to run a neat, tidy, and safe barn, even if there is only one horse. The world depends upon it (well, in a way).

During all of this list-making, I am educating myself finally on everything that is usually done at horse farms to prepare for spring. Stuff that we've never done. What do you do around the barn to prepare for spring? I know many horse people compete their horses come spring and summer, but obviously Joey and I can't. But what about barn maintenance and upkeep? Care to enlighten me on your annual routine come March? I dearly hope so.

Note: Took lots of "before" pics to compare with when I finish organizing my messy barn. But alas, blogger is still being a booger head. So we will have to remain patient (although I'm not sure how much more patience I have for this problem. . . I blame the steroids. . .I do with everything else that's been going on. . . -_- )

~Sam