Chief Shit Mover

I'm lucky in my job here that I get to do a lot of riding. Lots of jumping, lots of hacking and with less enthusiasm I seem to have inherited on of the breakers because he likes me better. But lets be honest if you are a working pupil your main job is moving around poo. I don't mind moving poo though, I have always been a fan of manual labour. What has sucked at the moment has been the rain, the cold and creeping arrival of Winter. Which sucks because Winter and horses have long been a terrible combination. Here we have currently only got 8 and half (one satanic weanling) on about 3 acres of grazing so the horse density is high and to preserve pasture the horses come in when it's wet. Its dragged on for about a week now. They had been going out for the days but now it's two wet for that, so I have seven bored bored bored horses in boxes.

When it's been pouring like yesterday I turn them out two at a time in a big paddock so they don't do too much damage while I do those two stablesand then bring them in and so on and so forth. Today I had had a gutsful of them. Butch has pulled up lame and the weather is miserable and they all had ants in their pants so I turned everything out for two hours and they grazed and played and only got rained on really hard once. Still by the time I had mucked out and fed and watered they were all at the gate mugging to be brought back in.

It's interesting two how the girls are so much neater than the boys. And Erl is disgusting. Just gross. I found out early on when I was washing him he has a leaky bum which is why he is impossible to keep clean (of course he is grey) but today when I was pushing to clean the boxes up I realised with horror that has was just pee and poo and sawdust soup so I have had to strip his stable and resawdust it, though tomorrow I'm sure it will be soup again just not as bad. He is just gross. I feel like he is my karmic punishment for being bad at some stage in my life. Needless to say that ended up being a lot of work in the rain. Really makes you appreciate the tractor you used to have when you are back to doing everything with a wheelbarrow.

Still it's satisfying once it is done and I really love the horse. It just blows me away just how much feacal matter they can produce. My boss got kicked the other day too, by the breaker I don't want but likes me because I'm the lunch lady. So it's just been me looking after a lovely team of horse with the exception of the foal (cue music from the omen) and the breaker that kicks. Good times!