The week began with news from Portugal that our mare Alfama d'Atela is confirmed pregnant by Assirio, son of Soberano. I can't explain the wealth of emotion that bubbled up and spilled out - largely from my eyes - when we found out. This is the beginning of our long-awaited breeding plans and I am both excited and trepidatious on account of the responsibility and enormity of it all. We now need to get them graded asap and back to the UK, and decide whether to try having Xacra put in foal to a stallion there or get her over here pronto and use one of our boys.
I had to leave work early on Tuesday and on the way home couldn't rid myself of the feeling that I needed to get home. Our old boy Danny was walking along the raised bed back towards the garden so I thought he was clear when I came back from closing the gate. Only he wasn't, he was under the car :( Poor old lad, I didn't see him at all and had no idea he was there until I heard him cry out, but by then it was too late. Rushed him to the vet knowing it was his pelvis and there was not going to be any other outcome than having to help him on his way to his final journey :(( The vet agreed it was the kindest and only thing, and he was put to sleep. He went so quickly and quietly, with a paw wrapped around my arm and my arms wrapped around him. I took him home and buried him on the farm. We'd known for a long time really that he was reaching the end; he was very old, doddery and a bit senile and we had been umming and ahhing about whether it was best to consider having him pts - I never expected it would be like that though. Poor old Danny - he was with us for more than ten years. Never a lap cat, always just "there" in the background wanting nothing but food and the ability to come and go as he pleased, with a penchant for sleeping out in the garden in all weathers; a hobby that certainly contributed to significant arthritis in his later years. Perhaps if I hadn't had that feeling about getting home I wouldn't have been distracted and it wouldn't have happened; I don't know. Everything else was as it should be; maybe it was just his time and the decision was taken away from us. RIP Danny, old boy :(
Rui and Fiona arrived back with us on Wednesday and worked the boys in the afternoon. Q had a session at the long reins; left canter coming well, not so easy right canter so my homework is to concentrate on equalising this. Tigre was ridden and had a good session, and we enjoyed a nice meal afterwards.
The boys have been spending increasing amounts of time in their summer paddocks and enjoying themselves immensely. So much so as far as T is concerned that he refuses to be caught and instead has to be herded back into his usual paddock at night. I want to be sure they are not put at risk of laminitis so am taking it carefully. Vitnery came on Thursday to do Q's booster and we had a good chat about the plans to extend grazing time to overnight and then free access. His advice was to wait until the sun burns off the grass a bit before giving free access, or alternatively strip graze it. Interesting how actually having grass also presents as many problems as not having grass; always a balance to be struck.
And what of the weekend?
Worked the boys Friday evening while Sid was out and up at a reasonable hour (7.30) this morning to open up in time for Mark arriving with the digger to install water in the new paddocks. It's a testament to just how busy and preoccupied with work I've been all week that I completely failed to notice the tiny but not insignificant absence any actual water pipe with which to connect up the troughs. It was only when Mark said "so Rach, where's the water pipe" that I even considered the fact of its absence and the dampener (if you'll excuse the pun) that this might have on the proceedings.
A couple of quick calls to and from Pheeel revealed that Keith was not around to be persuaded to come over and open up our regular supplier and so my only recourse was to toddle off to a local supplier to get the bits and bobs needed - not only did we have no water pipe, we had no joiners or in line taps or any of the handful of other items usually and universally recognised as prerequisites for such a task. I did recall having a protracted conversation with Keith about the diameter of the existing water pipe and that I would go home and measure it, then got distracted and never got back to him, thus explaining the unfortunate turn of events which led to me having a man, a digger, some troughs and a day's labour but no other relevant equipment. Ah well. It's at times like these that blondeness can be used as a cover for more worrying and less explicable levels of fuckwittage.
Rob came round this afternoon and spent the afternoon with Sid clearing all remaining rubble from the fields while I planted 19 leylandiis and a dogwood, poo picked, returned to the builder merchants for more doings and made 50,000 cups of tea with which to sustain Mark in the sweltering heat while he wrestled with 100m of newly purchased water pipe and an assortment of joiners, inserts, PTFE tape and such. I was planning to ride the boys but by now it was getting on for 6pm and (a) I wanted to put them in the summer paddocks, and (b) my legs were about to give way.
Binky has been out all day but bless her as soon as the general noise and disruption died down she was back to take care of her babies - who are now a riot of sweetness and random movements.
Might pop out in a bit and take some sunset photos, once legs have stopped going "ow".
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