Apollo's also made friends with his new pasture mate/mates. Things are set up such that Apollo and Hank, the closest pasture mate, don't actually share a field, because Apollo is of course the low horse in the herd. He's just not interested in making any points or challenging anybody, really - he just wants to be friends, be everybody's little brother who's simultaneously lovable and irritating. So when Apollo got there, Hank said "buddy, you can live here, but I'm in charge!" And Apollo said "yes sir! Certainly I'll move away from this bucket mostly full of my dinner, sir!"
Thus, they're next to each other but aren't able to get at each other, just for feeding time purposes.
Did any of the rest of you do gifted & talented education in school? Do you remember those puzzles that were like "Draw a line through this REALLY COMPLEX FIGURE so that A and B can't interact but that they each get an equal share of this resource"? I have a real life one of those now. I think that there's no way to actually make it work out with the conditions we have, so I'm going to need to come up with another set of conditions to make things work out right.
Step 1: Remove sharp stuff from pastures (including old gutters or metal flashing that was knocked down in a tornado and then stacked along a fenceline and a flat metal gate that's in rough shape - replace with panelling gate). Step 2: Rework pipe corral panels in pasture 1 (where Apollo and Hank are) to make better sense. Step 3: Clear brush from pasture 1. Step 4: Lay out jumps in pasture 6, mark arena.
There's some interim stuff in there, like moving the chest freezer that holds the sweet feed for Hank, Tango, and Eli into the space I've designated Feed Area; replacing the big water trough; getting a set of dressage letters; getting a three-step mounting block; rearranging the tack room (again; I did it once, then a little more, then a little more when I created the Feed Area); and generally making plans for more boarders. Yknow. Stuff. Work. Things I need to know much, much more about.
Anyway, for the moment, Apollo has a cut on his RF pastern that's healing fine but precludes riding, unfortunately. He doesn't seem to be in much pain at liberty or on the longe, but he was uncomfortable at the trot under saddle, so yeah. One painful step is all it took; I can imagine how working with a cut like that would feel! So we're waiting .... waiting ... for ... Vizzini ... Again. :)
I don't have too many pictures yet, but here are a few:
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| Poor kid - the day after he got there he had to have his teeth floated. |
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| Looking west from the little arena by the main barn behind the house. There's a neat little pond behind the hayrack, and beyond that is pasture 2; beyond THAT is pasture 3. |
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| Looking mostly north toward the house from the same little arena. Beyond the house and its front yard are pastures 5 and 6; I've claimed pasture 6 for the arenas because it's the flattest and best drained. |
