A note from the Editor:
Here at Cayuse Communications, we’ve been thinking about our community of horse owners and riders. How best to come together and share during this time? We’ve reached out to friends to see how they are making lemonade from lemons and coping with the strains of the pandemic. Read more here.
Unfortunately, the pandemic isn’t going away. Fortunately, our giveaways aren’t either!
The Cayuse Corona Community is a recurring feature. We want to hear from you. Leave your comments below and we’ll put you in the running for a host of giveaways from Redmond Equine, Ranger Ready, Kershaw Knives, Kate’s Real Food, and Pharm Aloe Equine.
Jackie Davis has been part of the Cayuse Corona Community
Luckily for me, my barn had a sign up board for hourly visits with arena time. Having both indoor and outdoor helped a lot! Boarders we’re taking it seriously and staying 6 feet social distancing! Sometimes just being in the stall brushing decreased my stress to zero! Learned about patience, being in the moment, and most importantly Midfulness! Sometimes, good comes out of bad situations!
Staying at home has been great for this introvert. Advancing training on my tried and true mare, dressage for rehab and bosal for balance. My crazy wild, PTSD Sulphur mare now ponies and trailer loads! Instead of competing in the Los Angeles Extreme Mustang Makeover (waa, waa, waa) I’m training the sweetest, softest BLM burro EVER for late Aug TIP Challenge at which time she’ll be available for her new home. Delilah will make a great therapy or pack race burro. She loves attention and really bonds with her human. Gets along with horses, goats and an obsessed border collie.
Aside from equines, pulling old fence and a dumpster’s worth of rotten fence posts, wire and other dangerous stuff and, weeds, weed, weeds. Eight Cashmere goats are helping, and Remy the border collie helps with them. Though she’s (not so secretly) in love with the burro.
Garden is popping, salad and herbs on the way to The Share House by way of the Colorado Master Gardener Give and Grow Modern Victory Garden program.
As everyone knows, it’s been a tough summer for ranches without water, but I put in drinking posts last fall and everything else is on drip. Before ya know it, it will be fall. Hope to get in some gorgeous trail riding we’re blessed with here in the Four Corners and then start planning next year’s projects, probably more fencing, high tunnel, lavender, bees, gray water and roof catchment systems. Being alone ain’t bad, but I could use a clone. LOL.
Thankfully our lives aren’t so different since we are semi-retired and have the horses at our home. I trailer out to some Western Dressage lessons or rides with friends since we can safely keep our distance in the outdoors. When the local trails & Florida Horse Park were all closed we were sooooo thankful for the 2 mile trail around our little neighborhood of 17 horse properties, shaded & wide enough to practice lateral moves & circles in some areas, I even take one of my horses out there for some liberty time.
We also took up many projects such as repairing fences, painting & landscaping. We feel very fortunate to not be housebound as so many people are at this time!
My sanity has been saved by still being able to visit the barn and ride. Lessons were cancelled, but boarders could sign up to come take care of their horses and ride in the indoor or outdoor arenas. Got pretty spoiled riding with little to no other traffic in the arena! I was able to work on my confidence level, more groundwork, and a better relationship with my horse. We’re back to lessons now, but lesson horses must be groomed and tacked by staff. I just entered my first virtual show and hope to go to a live show next month for the first time!
Being at home since early March…..my horse has been my therapy. With no commuting to work, I see him every day. We’ve spent a lot of time hand walking through neighborhoods and trails – my husband comes with us and gets some outside time, too. I had to move my horse during the pandemic and we were able to stay in the same neighborhood. We walked him down the street to a private facility where he’s one of 5 horses and there’s a lovely dressage arena. I had to adjust to riding in an arena without rails (!), occasional bunnies and deer, and a very friendly dog. I miss the company of other horse peeps but love the time with my “other man”.
We are staying busy in VA getting first cutting of hay in the barn and had much more to sale that we could not store for the winter. Our best first cutting ever! We have had an unusually hot July with every day in the 90s so far. Our Heat Indexes have been as high as 117. The horses go out and come in early and then spend the heat of the day in their covered areas with fans on high. Lots of hosing keeps them cooled down and we are not riding much in the heat. Any work is done early am except for Olan, our newest Warm Springs boy, that gets R+ sessions multiple times a day. He is coming along nicely. Our second cutting of hay is doomed due to the heat, unless we have great August and September but it will not be the 600 bales we need to fill our hay storage. Looking forward to less humidity and cooler nights. None of us are very perky in this weather!
Well for UP THERE, LLC things have been pretty quiet. We stopped allowing clients to the farm in March and returned to allowing clients June 30. Despite reopening to the public, things have been slow. WI has had an uptick in COVID cases and those who might intentionally seek us out are self-quarantining. We understand completely and want folks to be safe! We’re using this time to continue to do outreach and network in a socially distant way–either in an open outdoor space while masked up or via zoom. We’ve also been working on some farm beautification projects. As for the horses themselves–they are having a pretty quiet life at the moment. I ride when I can but mostly enjoy walks with them through our forest.
Here in South Africa we were on full lockdown for 4 weeks. That meant that you weren’t allowed to leave your property unless it was for essentials. My horse is about 7km away from me and I was devistated to not be able to see her. She, however, had other plans. Two days into lockdown she went lame. This meant that I had to travel legally to her on a daily basis 🙂 Non-the-less, it proved an expensive exercise. 3 different vets, a chiropractor and an acupuncturist and she’s finally sound again. Spending the time with her just “being” has been absolutely incredible. Going to rehab her and then just doing horse stuff with her has built a bond of amazing proportions. I’ve learned so much about her and the herd she is in – they’ve all taught me so much. I now give her days where we do what she wants to do, not what I want. We play, graze together (I pick grass for her from all those unreachable spots) and sometimes we just stand together doing nothing. It’s been an incredible experience for us both 💜