Day One

So, for those of you who did not know-- I am in the Louisville area spending my summer as a working student at a barn here. I had decided it would be best to venture out of BG this summer and had several medical-related summer opportunities in mind--but my one stipulation for the summer was that wherever I went, my horse was going. And to skip all the boring stuff, here we are.

We left home today at 7 a.m. It was one of those fantastic drives where the radio just plays all the right songs. When we arrived at our new home, Kassidy was here to show us around. Hickory met a handful of his new pasturemates and seemed to be making friends. He was running around and prancing like a fancy horse. Diane and the crew had to run off on other urgent horse business and as the trailer was pulling out, Hickory took off down the fenceline of his field after it and chased it, whinnying. I'm not going to lie, it made me tear up. It was one of those, "Oh no, what have I done?!" moments--because I would never want my horse to be unhappy. He then came tearing back down the pasture towards the gate and proceeded to stand there adamantly, demanding to be taken out. Horse language insight: Hickory has a habit of butting people, mainly me, forcefully with his nose over and over when he is nervous about something. And butt away he did. Then I had to tear myself away for the rest of the tour. It was kind of like leaving your kid on the first day of pre-school--they scream and cry and beg you not to go and cling to your leg, but you know if you can get away and leave that they will settle down and start making friends.

After the rest of the farm tour, we saw Martha and my new living quarters (dubbed the dungeon). But don't get any ideas about it being icky, it's quite nice. Just the dungeon because it's the finished basement. BUT there is no cell phone service down here, which is a bummer.

Mom and I then went to Rachel's house to have lunch, which was soooooooooooo good! I am SO lucky that she lives so close. I now know how to get to her house AND which drawer in the kitchen has all the good snacks. She's going to get sick of me.

When we got back to the farm, poor Hickory was standing at the gate, wanting to be let out. The rest of the herd was off in the distance. Unpacked some more and drove back by his field, and in a minor step in the right direction he had at least settled down to grazing. But I do have hope for him--there is a great big chestnut guy he was getting along with really well when he decided he should give the other horses the time of day. I think he's just in a little state of denial right now.

Mom left tearfully and then we were alone. I got Hick out and gave him a rinse (he got pretty sweaty running around in panic) and hung out with him for a bit then put him back in his field.

I had a minute of panic myself when I came back to the house. It's hard to adjust from going going going ALL the time back at home to having a lot of free time on your hands here. I got REALLY lonely and a little homesick, especially when I discovered how finicky my phone was deciding to be. But then I popped in the CD my dad made me and all was well!

Barn at 8 in the morning!