Best of luck boys

Business is picking up on the boarding end of things at Pine Manor. A new horse arrived today and Sat morning we are getting another one. I order to make room for the two new boarders and few more we have coming in over the next couple of weeks.

We ended up donating Ironic,

and Arlington.

to childrens home in the midwest that has a horse program that sells horses with the profits going to the childrens home.

This was a difficlut decisoin to let these two horses go, they had become part of our family out here. Ironic had his good days and his bad days. But he was all movement and such a tender personallity. Artty was the social bubble, he loved other horses and people, he was always pestering the other horses, thus the reason for all bite barks he would get. But these two had been for sale for a while and weren't moving. Over the last month we fielded a half dozen requst about boarding and needed the room. Terry ran the numbers by me and it was a $10,000 to $12,000 a year difference if you add up the money from the board we weren't getting for those two stalls and the money spent on vet work and farrier work spent on those two.

So we cut ties with our emotions and on Monday morning and loaded those two geldings into Terry's trailer. I was stone cold faced during the conversations leading up to Monday morning and while loading the geldings. I didn't show a bit of emotion. If you do this thing long enough you get use to it. You load them up, walk to the window, stick your hand inside the window, let them smell you one last time and wish them the best of luck. Then turn back to the barn and go tend to the horses you still have that need you. Even though I new they were gone, on Tuesday morning I walked out to the barn and saw Arty's empty stall and it hit me he was gone and then today, while graining I looked through Ironic's stall and for a second, I thought where is that horse. We still call those stalls Arty's and Ironic's stall. Even though tonight a half Quater horse half mustang is now in Ironic's stall. He is a nice looking six year old gelding.

Letting go is just part of it. You are on edge filled with excitement when you have a foul do and when they go it is a bit sad. But you make these difficult decisions in order to keep it going. The bottom line is your strong feelings towards something don't pay the hay, grain or vet bills. There will be other great moving horses and ones with cute personallities. You will walk through the barn and see Kris brining up another young horse again. Another horse will make you laugh again, you will see that all natural beaty of a Arabian horse in a high stepping trott again.

In the mean time thanks a ton Ironic and Arrlington, well missed by everyone at Pine Manor.