Introducing Melody

 

 

So catching up on this years goings on I would like to introduce my girls to you.  So first up is Melody

 

 

 

Scorned Woman – Barn name Melody, I didn’t like the name scorned woman, far too harsh and did not suit or fit her beautiful personality.

 

She is a 5 year old OTTB (Off The Track Thoroughbred) and retired from racing in November 2013.  And she was at the time of buying her 16hh, although I need to measure her to see if she has finished growing.

She only ran a handful of races and her old owners decided she just didn’t have the heart to be a race horse.  And wanted to find her a home as a brood mare or a home where she could have a new career.

As soon as I saw her for sale I fell in love with her.  I have a big soft spot for grey horses as growing up as a teenager I had a grey horse called Caspian, at the time he was my world and like any teenager who loves horses I spent every waking minute with him, riding, brushing him or just hanging out at the barn.

And now as an adult I get to do that all over again!

 

Where did a year go!!!!

I really cannot remember the last time I blogged, I am sure if I checked its probably been nearly a year! Sometimes life gets in the way and there are more important things to do. The last year has been absolutely crazy for me, so here you go for a quick recap and hopefully I will get back into blogging and write some posts about what I have been up to.

 We sold our house and moved to a new house in August 2013 and eldest son went off to college.

 My first introduction to keeping chickens in September.

 Our dog died in October 2013

I rekindled a new passion after a long 20 years break and bought a new horse in Janurary this year, and boarded her locally until finding a second horse. So it was all systems go to set up our acreage for horses,

My husband in January building me a round pen, what you cant see is the 3ft deep snowy slope he just carried those panels down.

 I bought another horse in March which enabled me to bring both horses home. Which for me has always been a dream to have horses at home where I could look out of the window and watch them graze.

We added a new family member in July,  this is  Marylebone Express aka Marly

 I spent the summer with my husband building a hay storage shed, chicken coop, and adding a front and dutch doors to the horses run in shed. 

We got to grips with electric fencing, became experts at moving said electric fences to rotate the horses grazing.

 I also learnt a lot about having hay cut, who to use, who not to use. And why farmers stress about the weather so much!

 I planted tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, kale and a host of other vegetables and learnt that chickens love my tomatoes!!!

 I fractured my finger horse riding! and found out one of my horses does not like water, so one goal next year is to teach her to like it!

As for quilting, I have managed to do some sewing and now that winter is here I will be doing a lot more in the next few months.  So keep an eye out for more guilty  quilty  goodness that I will be sharing soon.