Normalization

B has been in Colorado on a family vacation for almost a week now, which means that I've been alone on the farm.  It's been a little stressful - mostly due to my paranoia that the horses will get out again while I'm 30 minutes away at work overnight - and a lot lonely, despite having three dogs, a cat, a horse, and two ponies for company.

although the animals are fantastic at providing snuggles

This week was the most "normal" week that I've had in terms of barn work since my surgery and the move.  On the days that I do not work at night, everything is pretty easy and straightforward; I wake up, feed the assorted animals, head to the barn if I'm working a stall shift or hang out at home if I'm not, maybe work Spring (so far not a ton of that has happened as it's been ungodly hot), attempt to hang out with friends if our schedules align, feed the animals again, watch something (lately it's been Doctor Who), go to sleep, and repeat.  The one biggest change has been the drive time - I went from being 15 minutes away from the barn and 3 minutes away from my work to being 30 away from both, which is a huge adjustment.  So much of my life is now spent in a car.

Leo seems to like it here

I typically work overnights on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (although once a month I work Mon-Thurs and have a 5-day weekend), and it makes things complicated.  To get to work on time, I have to leave my house by 6:30 pm at the very latest.  This means that around 6 pm, I'm in the barn feeding Leo while letting the dogs run around and get out the last of their energy before they are shut up in the house for the night.  I'm also trying to get all of my work things together and make myself look presentable.  Then it's into the car and on the road to get to work by 7 pm, where I remain until 5 am.

the derpiest of derps

I get home around 5:30 am and start calling to Leo as I get out of the car - since I've stopped shutting the horses up in the dry lot overnight, he tends to be far away in the pasture when I get home.  I head inside and let the dogs out - part of the agreement with our landlords that allows us to have three dogs is that they can't have free run of the house while we're gone.  The beagle and the golden mix (Ford and Rosie) hang out in the basement, and the border collie (Jasper) chills in the office. I grab the bucket with Leo's grain, and we immediately head outside, where I start calling for Leo again.

prepared the night before

This week I started making Leo's morning grain the night before and leaving it in the house, which has been a miracle - it's so nice to be able to feed him immediately instead of having to make the trek down to the barn and measure out everything.  I got him a feed bag so that he could eat up by the house without the ponies stealing his grain, but my neighbors recently moved their mare into the pasture next to his, and he's completely in love, so this morning I fed him from the bucket because yesterday he ran off to moon over her the second he had his feed bag on, and walking across a million miles of pasture to take the feed bag off is not what I want to do at 5:30 in the morning.

this method worked pretty well

Once Leo finishes eating, I rinse the bucket (and feed bag, if I use it) and water the assorted plants that we have around the back deck.  Then I wrangle the dogs into the house and head to the basement to feed them.

Ridiculous. 

I head back upstairs with Rosie and Ford's beds in tow and deposit said beds in the living room, along with Jasper's bed from the office, so that they have access to them if they want.  Then I feed the cat, feed the fish, and check to make sure all the doors are locked before heading to bed.  It's usually around 6:15 am or so at this point.

Judgemental fish

Depending on what I have going on that day, I sleep anywhere from 4-8 hours.  Then I get up and let the dogs play outside for a while, make food, etc. before putting everyone away and heading out again - typically to the barn for afternoon feeding, which starts at 2:30 pm.  We usually get done feeding around 4:15, and I try to leave by 4:30 to make the trip back out to the farm so that the dogs have more time to move around before I have to head to work.

thankfully, the ponies don't require grain

At the moment, I am supposed to clean stalls at CEC on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and lead the PM feed shifts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  I have not gone back to working all of my normal hours yet - a friend covered my stall shift on Tuesday, and another friend covered my feed shift on Wednesday. On Monday I had to go home and nap between stalls and PM feed because that amount of work is apparently still a little too much for me.  The weeks that there are day camps, I do not have to be at the barn for PM feed.  I also spend 3-5 hours on Thursdays working at one of the local therapeutic riding centers.  In mid-August, I will cut my barn work hours back to two stall shifts (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and two pm feed shifts (Mondays and Fridays), which will allow me to have more time to spend at home.

from Sunday - first ride on Spring at CEC

Before my surgery (which was of the abdominal variety), I was taking lessons on Mondays and Fridays pretty consistently.  I've very, very slowly started to add riding back in to my life (I've now ridden 4 times in the last 3.5 weeks), and today I made it through my first jumping lesson on one of the kidproof lesson horses, which was pretty exciting.  It also determined that if I take a lesson on a night that I work, I definitely will not have time to run home before work - unless a very nice friend is willing to take care of my horse for me after the lesson ends.  Once B gets back, this won't be a huge deal - although it does suck to not get to go home and see him before work.  I'm hoping to take another lesson on Monday night, although I'm pretty sore so that may not actually happen.

he's still sound, btw

Basically, this last week without B has shown me that although I ~can~ handle my current schedule/commute/chores on my own, it definitely sucks - and I'm not even working all of my regular barn shifts.  The dogs have gotten the short end of the stick since the overnights started up on Wednesday since B isn't there to hang out with them at night, and I've barely had time to do anything that doesn't involve driving, sleeping, or working (granted, I have been sleeping way more than usual - Tuesday was pretty much spent entirely on the couch).  It's also been hot AF, so I haven't had much motivation to do anything horse related - although I did make it to the barn early enough before feeding today to lunge Spring.  Thankfully, B will be home tomorrow night (while I'm at work, naturally), so hopefully next week's routine will be something a little more manageable.

I'm definitely looking forward to cutting my barn hours back next month so that I'll have more time to enjoy myself, although I'll miss being out there all the time.  Does anyone else have a super crazy schedule at the moment?