Cob Jockey

"Our winters haven't been too bad the last few years. It's sweatshirt weather through Christmas, then we get about 8 weeks of winter but the snow never sticks around for more than a few days, then it's spring." - my words last year to our newest boarder who moved here from Las Vegas

Yeah. About that.

Normally we have two miles of visibility from the top of this hill, which is my driveway. That's not fog, that's heavy snow.

Over the previous two days, we got the biggest single snowfall I can remember in all my decades of living in Indiana and Illinois. 11 fluffy inches. A mind-boggling thump of snow for this part of the world.

Dogs for scale

Even more mind-boggling, it's not supposed to melt. Like, ever. This is the land of 4" snowfalls that melt within 3 days, so it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we're not going to see grass until maybe February.

Mr. Canada is like whatever

In previous winters, when I lived in town, I've always tossed around if I should sleep on the couch in the barn lounge during winter storms, but I never actually did it. With this storm though, the roads were virtually impassable for 36 hours and a travel ban was put in place. I've never been so grateful to live a softball throw from the property line and to be able to tell all the boarders to just stay home.

Even for a very fit CrossFitter, walking through deep snow spiked my heart rate big time.

The barn owner is away, which meant plowing fell to me for the first time. Thankfully my partner helped me unbury the snow blade the BO had hidden at the back of the equipment barn, because wow, we may only use it once every few years, but when you need it, you really need it. This would have taken forever with just the FEL.

Between the blade and the bucket, I slowly got it done, which took me most of the day. That's a skilled task, getting snow off gravel, and I wasn't awful at it, but I know I'll get better at it over time.

I made circle drives in two different parts of the parking lot and told the boarders they are just going to have to appreciate the snow median until spring.

The horses thought the first day was great fun, when we only had about 6" on the ground, but when they came out to 11" the next day, they were all like "...nah." Nobody played and everyone just stood around and ate hay. Our old man OTTB who moved here from Las Vegas moved so slowly through it, I thought he was injured at first. He wasn't, he was just despondent, lol.

Back in November, my Minnesotan BO put snow sticks around the driveway for the first time in the eight years I've boarded here, and I joked then to the boarders that my BO almanac said we were in for a rough winter. I didn't know how right I'd be!

So here we go...a proper winter. I guess if I still enjoy taking the care of the barn on days like this, which I (mostly...I had my moments) did, I know I'm really meant for this. 

At this point, my BO and I still manage the farm jointly, although I am slowly taking over more and more responsibilities as time goes on. This weekend, I took over bush hogging.

Up to this point, he had been reluctant to give that one up. He honestly enjoys doing it, and since he has a daughter my age, I'm sure he envisioned all of the many, many ways I could be killed doing it every time he thought about it. But I've proven myself tractor-capable by dragging and watering the rings the last six months without any major incidents, so we agreed that I would take it over the second half of this summer.

BO and I troubleshooting the long-neglected 8' boom sprayer that is going to be my new best friend as I go hard on getting the weeds under control soon.

 (Side note: I am wildly grateful that my introduction to owning a farm includes my BO. He is there every step of the way to give me complete and detailed instruction on every bit of farm life; not just the stuff I could Google, but also the stuff I can't, like where on this property the grass is so thick and the hill is so steep the tractor is likely to get bogged down and how to handle that, and what the best/safest path to mow the big field is.)

Isn't she lovely.

I was ready. The BO kept up with it well enough, but sometimes he'd travel and the weeds would explode and make my brain itch every time I looked at them. And I enjoyed it - seeing the weeds disappear under the tractor, knowing that it's now in my power to take them down any time I need to, not worrying about them going to seed.

Things got...a little out of control in one of the three paddocks I'm resting this summer

It's funny, the way you start to look at a facility when you're responsible for it vs. when you're a boarder. For example, earlier this year Mary and Tricia moved half the jumps from the indoor down to the outdoor, intending to set a new course each week in both rings. Which would be fine and fun, if we had staff to take both courses down before I watered and dragged, and staff to weed-eat around the poles and standards when they're outside the ring, but we don't. We just have me!

So I made the rare unilateral executive decision this week that all of our jump poles and standards will live in the indoor (where we use them most anyway), and said that I am open to them going back outside if someone else would take over weed eating around them. They all said that was fair and nobody cared enough to do that. It's the give and take of the co-op model.

That, uh, should be sand and TruTex. And will be sand and TruTex, again.

The farm feels like a lot of work right now, but I'm also reminding myself that certain things (like the weedy outdoor arena above) are only a lot of work because they got out of hand over the last few years, and that the more I stay on top of things, the easier it will all become over time.

And in the meantime - I'm enjoying it immensely.