Conundrum

In case you are just tuning in  - we moved. Again. Actually, we both really like the new house a lot better than the last one we rented and it is so much closer to just about everything. I love living in the country and hope to someday have our own farm, but if I must live in suburbia I want everything to be super close or else why put up with neighbors? Now we are and it is grand.

What isn't so nice is that now the Dynamic Duo are 50 minutes away. OUCH. I was debating just leaving them there. I adore FS Farms. It is possibly the best place we have ever had them. But when I left the house at 0730 Sunday morning and made it to the trail head at 1030, my mind was made up: the horses must be moved. It is crazy to take that long just to get on the horse and it just wont ever happen during the week like that.

Once I knew we would be moving to the other side of things back in the spring, I began to look for a new barn for the horses. Way back then I contacted just about every place I could find and ended up looking at four barns.

#1: 50 acres of what should have been beautiful pasture. Lighted small arena, place for the trailer and good hay and grain. They would be brought into a stall to eat and then let back out. They could be kept together. Trailer parking. $250/horse/month. But.....when we looked at it the "pasture" was a paddock that required dragging monthly and there was no grass in sight. Why? because the 50 acres had about 70 horses crammed on to it. No go.

#2: 15 acres (ish) right down from my work. Indoor arena, awesome outdoor arena with lights, brought in to eat and could be kept together. $300/horse/month. But....had no trailer parking and all the horses were rotated between two dirt areas and kept in a massive herd that was oversized for the tiny spot. No go.

#3: 17 lush acres of grass in 5 pastures. Mares and geldings separate. Amazing timothy hay, soaked beet pulp, supplements, hosed off in summer to cool down, fly system, lighted arena. Basically a spa for the horses in every way possible. Trailer parking. $345/horse/month. But...kept inside stall 13 hours during daylight in summer and 12 hours overnight in winter. No go.

#4: 80 acres in two pastures. Mare and geldings separate. Outside 24/7. Hay provided when needed, mostly in winter. Lighted arena. Small set of trails on property. Trailer parking. $200/horse/month. Downside: Gem and Pete get split. Probably where we will end up though.

We weren't really in love with any options, so we decided to sit on our butts on it for a bit longer until we actually moved.

Well, we are moved and this isn't going to work out. So...I looked online in case something new popped up and it did. A family run operation close by. I checked it out yesterday and...it won't work. Darn nit. Why is this so hard???

I actually liked it quite a bit and the Duo can stay together in a nice grassy area. It isn't very big, but it is serviceable. Problem? They have a new boarder coming in with a stud colt. And it is going out in the pasture up front with just regular old wooden fence about 6 feet high. What do you think will happen the first time that Gemmie comes into heat? That stud colt will go bursting through that wimpy little fence and impregnate my mare. I don't need a Gemmie foal. I really don't need some random who-knows-what-breed Gemmie foal. So no go.

Sigh.