Insanity in the Family...

I thought it might be interesting to prove to the world that we're lunatics. (And by 'the world,' of course, I mean the approximately four and a half people who read this blog.)

Here's the proof. Below is the run-in shed that the property came with. It originally had a narrow chute between the open pen and the enclosed stall, where you would trap a cow or bull for the vet. But Gus, the horse, was terrified of the narrow chute. He hit his leg on it, and hated going through there. So every night we were having to lead him out one side of the pen into the open field, then around into the gate leading to the stall, avoiding the chute. What really bothered us, though, was that he was afraid. We didn't want our horse to be afraid.

So we had people come in and with great effort, remove the inner wall that created the chute. Now it's at least four feet wide and he has no trouble with it.



Here's his stall. It originally had a half wall running the length of the stall that cut out about 15 square feet of the stall, apparently for supply storage. Again, we had people come in and remove that so that Gus could rest comfortably in there at night. Our horse has to be comfortable.



You can't see it very well, but the doorway in the picture below leads into a supply area where we keep all our supplies for Gus. Horses need a lot of things. We bought brushes for his tail and mane, several different types of brushes for his body, a body massage mitt, tail and mane detangler, body shampoo, a hoof pick, and a shedding comb.

And of course, you don't just pick up all this stuff one day and decide to groom and handle a horse. No, if you're me, you have to buy books...lots of books...on how to take care of a horse. Because after all, if you're going to have a horse, you should do it right.



So what makes us lunatics?

Did I mention that we don't actually OWN Gus?

He's just here on a 2-month loan to see if we even like having a horse. We've had him about three weeks.



Can you spell S-U-C-K-E-R? I think he can...