Join our Cayuse Corona Community
With the current pandemic and the uncertainty that comes with it, we want to spread some joy by hosting weekly giveaways with products from our advertising partners: Redmond Equine, Kershaw knives, the Cayuse Library, Pharm Aloe and Hitching Post Supply. Just added: your choice of book from Jec Ballou’s library.
How to enter:
Comment below on how and what you’re doing with your horses.
Comment on any Cayuse Corona Community post.
Find us on Facebook and follow the prompts. When you comment or post photos on Facebook AND on our Cayuse Corona Community pages, your submissions will count doubly!
Win your choice of Jec Ballou’s books
There may be no better time to sink your face into your horse’s mane. After all, your horses will not give you COVID19. And, of course, we don’t need to be told how therapeutic our horses can be. (But just to reiterate: a growing body of research indicates that horse time generally and convincingly lowers cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone.)
So while we should steer clear of groups of other humans, let’s get closer to our horses. Hugs and kisses all around. Get out there and ride. The exercise will do you and your horse good, too.
Read more and contribute here.
Tell us how you are living with horses, benefitting from horses, and generally enjoying the perks of horse ownership. Comment below. Visit us on Facebook and comment there to double your chances. We’ll pick winners every week. Each winner will also receive two syringes of Pharm Aloe Equine AloeGut, which supports GI health.
Giveaways include:
Hitching Post Supply catalog, beautifully styled like the saddle catalogs of the 1920’s
Week 1
Week 2:
Week 3:
Week 4:
All three books from the Cayuse Communications library
Week 5:
$50 Gift Certificate from Hitching Post Supply
Week 6:
Redmond Equine product
Week 7:
Book from Jec Ballou’s collection
We humans may have pushed the pause button, but as spring unfolds in New England I’m continually reminded that the rest of the world goes on. The birds are singing their hearts out and the grass is coming up. The biggest change for me is that I don’t have riding students, so very little income. But I’m fortunate that I live here at the stable, and it’s small enough that I can manage it on my own. I’m getting lots of horse training done. Even the tried and true schoolies are getting a thorough refresher course. I’m taking this time to dive deeper into learning and training. And an unexpected perk of Covid-19 is that, with the closing of the two schools in the neighborhood the miles of dirt roads surrounding us have far less auto traffic than usual. They have become our own not-quite-private-but-almost riding park.
I am able spend more time with my horses. The time frame is unlimited instead of the time I had after work. I’m doing groundwork, trick training and walking beside sessions. It is making a big difference for one of my horses in particular . He is relaxing much sooner when I work with him.
I run a small farm and have been busy lambing and kidding and tending to meat chicks. I’m working my quarter horses and training my border collies. Definitely staying home on the farm more. Helping out neighbors when I can. I usually run a farm camp over April vacation week and will miss sharing my farm with children. Would sure live one of those Kershaw Knives!
Having lost our house and shedding to bushfire on new year’s Eve, my husband Adrian and I, along with our six horses and one scragglepup, have been incredibly lucky to be renting a lovely house on 70 acres, while in lockdown.
I am experiencing somewhat guilty glee at being forced to stay at home, free to spend hours and hours with these guys, now that I am no longer able to work in our tattoo studio, that we’ve run for the last twenty years.
I am constantly surprised though, at how full my data still are, with Adrian, Finnegan (scragglepup) and I rarely getting inside for dinner before dark, which is around 8pm.
The reality of the pandemic regularly creeps into my awareness throughout each day, and worry for my family and friends grips me for a while until I can refocus on the moment and the joys of my horses.
I am aware of how lucky we are to be able to communicate daily with our sons and other family and I feel some despair for the elderly in our communities who do not have the familiarity with technology to help them stay connected in such a strange and scary time.
Overall, recent experiences, with bushfire recovery, and working together, while maintaining distance, has really highlighted how much were do benefit from our wonderful community .
We are blessed
I’m lucky that I board my horse and still have access to her, because our facility is very small and mostly outdoors. I’m working on keeping her within my rectangle and having my idea be her idea. She’s shedding now, so we take a lot of time to scratch the itchy spots and groom away the falling hairs.
I am so very lucky that our horses are right with us on our farm. While I haven’t been doing much riding, I have been enjoying my kids learning as they spend more time with the horses. This week we worked on saddle fitting!
This inforced time of staying at home has been a blessing for me. Being self employed, I have not taken more than 2 or 3 days at a time off since my daughter was born 20 years ago. She has just graduated from Dalhousie university with a degree in horse management. I feel so fortunate to have this time to spend with her and our 3 horses. We have been able to put more time into training and enjoying our horses in our own backyard.
We do also hang out with her father who is my husband and our two mini Australian shepards, but our time with the horses is a real treat. I am cherishing this time while we have it.
This time has been bit of a blessing for us. I am grateful that all of my families have remained healthy in this pandemic. It has given my daughter and myself time to bond together with our horses. We are able to spend so much more time training and enjoying our horses than we ever have before. I am self employed and probably haven’t taken more than 2 days off at once since she was born 20 years ago. She just graduated from a degree in horse management at Dalhousie university. To have this time together with our horses is something we will both cheerish for all our years to come.
We are having the horse barn repaired & painted! Spending more time grooming & interacting with the horses!
I have access to my horse but at a facility where lots of people come and go, so I am mostly staying home and safe. I see her at least once a week and ride most of the visits. A far cry from the average 6 days a week riding. But I am reading, listening and watching horse stuff among my other activities. Julie Goodnight has been awesome with a daily dose of horsemanship that she is doing at no charge. I’m sure appreciative of what horse people are doing to keep us engaged. Thanks to the Cayuse community too. Oh, and I set up a tack space in my garage for the stuff that doesn’t fit at the boarding tack room (most of what I have). So much easier to put away the winter stuff and get the summer gear when it’s in a spot. That was fun. Or, at least I will put away winter once the blanket service is running again. My car really smells like horse! I’ve always told people that one of my favorite horse things in grooming because it’s the best way to “hug” my horse. So I can relate to the nose in the mane comment.
If I didn’t have my horses to care for every day, I’m sure I would be in the pot of those who are going stir crazy. Though at a public boarding facility, we are allowed to come and go on our time observing the protocol, which is very fortunate. I have done some early Spring cleaning, selling equipment and educational materials, but never stop learning. Patrick King and Karen Rohlf are having Zoom interviews with other teachers around the world and it’s so great to be able to tap into those talks and thinking about my relationship with my horses. Never stop learning. My routine hasn’t changed much, but most everything around me has and adjusting to it is just part of keeping it together.