Snot Rain and Two Fun Horsey Announcements

First off, all traces of pretty-spring-time have been erased.  Traditional snot-rain (rain that flies sideways with irregularly sized raindrops and slaps your face) has returned thereby chasing everyone and everything inside and under cover.  Should make for a great show this weekend.  Thankfully the main arena is inside, but warm up is outside which will most definitely result in minimal warm up time and therefore a total crap shoot in terms of what sort of rides we get.  But oh well.  I live in the PNW.  If I wanted a sunny February I could move to FL, which isn't likely to happen... ever.

The biggest question is whether or not we blow Prairie's Pre-Green Eligibility this year.  I'm inclined to say "yes" because the puny 2'3" fences in Baby Greens are boring. This doesn't really affect what divisions *I* would be showing Prairie in, but as a Pro, S really has to pick carefully.  I know that Prairie would be more "successful" if we held her for one more year then did her Pre-Green/Green years starting in 2014, but I'm not sure I'm that patient and I'm also not sure I care.   I think we'll see how she schools tonight and make the call.  If she's calm and confident, Pre-Greens and 3' it is.  If not, we'll knock it down and sit tight. In my head S can still get smoked by the more experienced competition in the Pre-Green's at bigger shows and I can plop around in the Pre-Adults and Modifieds. 

I reiterate that Hunter-Land confuses me.

Heading in for an Eq round at our last show (same facility)

Secondly, OMGSOMUCHFUN - two exciting announcements - both horse related so don't be getting any crazy ideas. 

One will have to wait a few more weeks (squee!), but the first is pretty good too:

I have conned The Boy into looking for horse properties.

Actually, not just The Boy.  I've also had to work on several family members since my weirdo family only purchases properties collectively (good for me! bad for them..).  Over the last couple of months halfhearted jokes of "well when we have our own farm..." and "when we're boarding horses at our place we won't ______ but we will _____" have turned into casual searches in the area which have sloooooowly turned into more education of the market and some formal inquiries. 

It's a little bit tricky because one of the main requirements for a potential property is to be within a 30 minute drive of our current home which eliminates most options that have enough land but aren't millions and millions of dollars.  Not wanting to spend millions and millions of dollars I think this might be an extended search, but it is fun to know that the family is on board with a possible horse-property acquisition and that I can actively hunt for the deal of the century.   Mostly I think this is fueled by my mother being semi-terrified of my father's semi-retirement and needing to keep him heavily occupied with projects.  In turn, my father seems to miss our little mini-farm that I grew up on, and lord knows The Boy is supportive of anything that comes with a tractor.  I don't really care so long as the property is conducive to keeping horses how I would like to keep horses, ie - big stalls with runs, lots of turnout and food all the time.

There's one local property that fits the main criteria but is just a weeeeeeee out of budget.  It's been an Eventing barn in the area for a long time - and while I would immediately take it from 35 stalls to like.... 12 or 15... it could be a good starting place to update and clean up.  We'll see.  Next steps aren't until mid-March but if any local peeps have a lead on off-market horse properties, let me know :)

We don't have farms like this here, but in my head I'm going to find one and the seller will be so happy that I don't want to turn it into 500 houses that we'll get it for nothing and live happily ever after.