What Did We Do

Lily finally got her horse. It's been quite the adjustment.

He's calmer than he was yesterday.

Is he?

A little bit. Okay, good. I don't think apples need as much chewing as hay does.

It's been a rough couple of days, his arrival. Old lumber from the remodel, just riddled with bugs, pretty much hollowed out. Much of it. Boards came down our inner wall. Let me turn on the light, you can see it's there. Took this siding off, and this will end up being sheetrock. This will be our finished area. We're still going to have our unfinished shop area. Isn't that amazing? And all these horse stars— were we destined to be a horse homestead since 1994 when this Barn was built and never really used for horses. Workout area, furnace room, mudroom coming in from the garage, large pantry, farm washer and dryer, farm kitchen, farm bathroom. Are you supposed to be in there? What are you doing?

You guys see this?

This is Lily's tack room. She's got a carpet down, she's got some snack— homemade snacks for the horse, brushes, extra hay bag, a light, sawhorse, her feed. The great little space for the one horse lover in our family. All right, horse crazy, let's go do chores. We could haul the ones we suspect, or we could go get a machine.

We could go get a machine.

Okay, well guess what? The machine's way up there with the boys. Do you still want to do that? Okay, let's go. Are you going to introduce him to the cows today?

Kind of. I'm just going to walk him up there with a lead rope and just let him just stand there staring at it for a while. Okay, back in this pasture.

All right.

You all milked? Were you successful?

Yeah.

Can I take Salma and the milk?

Yeah.

I need to make yogurt. I need a new mineral. Yesterday was our first time with the horse without a trainer, without somebody that knows what they're doing. This wind. Yeah, it was rough. Does he do better when he's walked?

No.

No?

Yeah, he won't try. He wants to move really bad.

He wants to go faster.

He wants to camp.

Warm down there?

And it's really cold and windy like this.

Yeah.

Don't you think it would be good to put a horse blanket on him until the sun came out?

Well, I don't understand a horse blanket. It could be controversial, but I think if it goes to—

Yeah, but then having a horse blanket before below 40.

Yeah, we gotta let him develop his coat. And then the problem with horse blanket, you put that on and off, it's hot and cold, warm and cold, warm and cold too sudden, and you could get pneumonia.

But I want to do it too soon.

Now there's no way to not take a blanket off too sudden.

Well, I'll wait till it's warm enough outside.

You definitely don't want him to sweat because then once he's done sweating, that moisture can get cold. We'll talk to Miss Leslie about it, all right? Okay, because I'm no cowboy. I do have some animal husbandry experience.

Yeah, but instead of building shelter for it, don't you think that would work?

Oh, in the winter, if you're not going to put him in the pole barn with people, he's gonna be in a stall.

Yeah. We're gonna carry all this stuff to the people barn and then take out all the rotting pumpkins.

Okay, what are you doing with it?

We're gonna set it up for the Christmas party. All right, well, the Christmas party isn't in a few days, but we're not gonna set up for it.

Come here, I want to ask you a question. Last night, how did you feel about the horse?

I wanted if he would, uh, ever calm down. Yeah, the farm.

And you were afraid you might not ever be able to ride him again?

Yeah.

How do you feel this morning?

Uh, better.

Okay, I'll let you go. You gotta load. What you doing? Okay, you have some songs? Okay, you got gloves? All right. Are there any rotten pumpkins? Oh no, you're gonna have to wipe the table down then. Hey, don't just throw them here, they need to go to the pigs.

Okay, we'll make a pile here to go to the pigs.

Okay, but don't forget it. No, get them before they rot. We could put them in directly in Henry cart, go to the pigs or chickens.

How do I put it in the back of Salma?

Well, I gotta use Salma to go do the yogurt before it gets cold. What you got into, Henry? Starter.

Oh, I have a thought.

If we wanted to, we could put this here and then we could put the table long. Put the bench along the back of the couch. You can put your, your thing over there.

We got rid of a shelf here. Well, the files can go into the closet. And then we got rid of that ugly file cabinet over there. And you have some— we finally moved in.

I know, we finally—

I guess we said, oh, we're gonna have to stay here over the winter.

Well, over the winter, I think it became unsustainable when we were like, when it's cold. I mean, it's like, it feels like 24 degrees outside.

Right.

So I feel like we've gotten to a point where we're like, okay, we better, we better make it better in here for us or we're gonna go crazy.

Good job, Gideon. You're getting with it. Oh wow. That's nice. Looks nice. Yeah, I like that. You want to go? It's so cold. Okay, we gotta put on the second coat, which is not too cute. Come here, let's do one more coat.

You'll be so—

yeah, it's so cold.

It's so cold. Yeah, this will feel good. Yeah, you're working sticking stars and pumpkins. It didn't last. It is like 24 with wind factor, so Plumber's here, HVAC's here, and Randolph's here. What you building today?

I gotta straighten them walls up in the kitchen, I reckon.

Okay, the garden kitchen?

Yeah.

Okay, good deal.

Yeah, so you won't get dizzy standing in there.

Yeah.

All right, getting all those boards out. I see the plumbing has gone through the sidewall. Randolph is going to be replacing these beams. Well, we're going to be putting them closer together because these are rough-hewn and not even, and our wall doesn't need to be going like this. Thanks to Randolph, we're gonna have a straight wall. Duckwork everywhere.

This is good.

They said Mom was to meet me down there, but I don't see her. Hey, she's on there.

On the island. So we are doing like a pony wall. I don't, I don't know if I'm saying it correctly.

Meeting with Rebecca is gonna have to wait. I need to get these minerals done. It's Mineral Monday before Lily's horse trainer arrives. Couple things that, well, 3 things I noticed about this horse. One, it seemed so very full of energy. Which is good. I mean, it seems like raring to go. John's gonna go, which means it's in good health, it's got a good energy. But that can also be a bad thing if you're not careful. I know this thing was— when Lily got on, he just wanted to run. Y'all get a bunch of wood up? How many? But how many totes? 3. Dang. The third thing would be he just was not as controllable as he was before. I'm just gonna go do it, okay? You are? Yes. Okay, thank you. Do the sheep shawls and the cows.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm gonna check on Mom. You see, when we went down to get him, it was quite the opposite. He was quite pleasant, quite calm, quite still, and quite under control by Lily. She could control him with her voice.

Say whoa and sit tall.

Good, there you go. He really listens to your voice, okay?

So say whoa.

Good.

Rebecca's down here, Big Daddy's down here. It's a meeting of the minds. We're trying to see if we should replace these outer—

because they're— because it's like dust on the inside.

Buggies.

You can see it down there.

Now these boards that they've taken off the outside, do they have the bugs? And is it worth it to get all these nails out? Yeah, they're buggy.

This isn't terrible. Like, this one's not— it's got a little— it's got some holes. I wonder if we should do some sort of stucco.

Metal.

Metal.

Well, it'd be hard to hang anything on. It's kind of nice to have. Are we not going to hang tools in the hallway anymore? We might not.

I have no idea.

Should we just leave it until it It's no good anymore? Still got 10 years.

It's still solid about banging it.

Yeah, it's just on the inside. Yeah, let's just keep it. It won't be that hard to take it off.

Yeah, okay.

In 10 years. Gonna find out where the griddle is. Okay, there's no porch to walk on right now.

So, okay, so there's gonna be a wall. Comes out, we're doing like a wall. So I'm wondering if we want to do it like in this corner type thing.

We decided right out there, that's where the Blackstone griddle will go. Plumber will run a propane line to it so we don't always have to change out the propane tank. She's upstairs with a meeting. Don't go up there yet.

Papa, is going to be here soon?

I know, but she's not here yet. What do you think? Boy, I'd love to get it out of this shed.

I forgot that was her.

Yeah, we We have this pile and we have this pile.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I don't see why that wouldn't be enough to do that.

Okay, let's do it then. It would be. Can't think of more honorable use than put it on our house. Yeah. Did you do the cow one yet? Yeah. Oh wow, you done? Yeah. Oh wow. I just walked way over there to here and you're done.

Yeah.

All right, let's say this while I'm over here with these cows. The feeling I get a little bit with this horse— it's a big animal— the feeling that Lily must especially be going through. When we first got milk cows and we were on our own with them, we had lots of experience with them before. But it's so much different when you're on your own with them. I don't think there's any way around it, but there's just this moment. And it may be a day or two that you're like, what the heck did we do? We're going through that moment. Hopefully we're on the tail end of that moment. Water wasn't frozen? Nice. That wind. One of our trainers is coming in just a few minutes. She's been a godsend. And hopefully she will help us answer that question today. Is Lily going to be able to ride this?

I think yes, but let's see. The trainer's here.

Well, Lily, let's get your question answered, okay? Are you gonna be able to ride by yourself, bro? That's the question, right? Yeah, we know you can do it with an expert like Lindsey. He's turned out, isn't he, Lily? Or did you bring him up?

He turned out.

You did turn him out?

He's turned out.

Oh, okay. Well, we gotta go get him.

So he takes— he takes advantage of us, Leslie, not knowing what we're doing.

Yeah, that's normal.

What was the first piece of advice?

You have to decide that you're the boss. You have to be the boss of the horse.

What were the other rules?

Um, like, she just gave her some tips on like how to put the bridle on, and she's like, you— she basically was telling me I need to get an area set up for her where she has like the lead lines. Yeah, I think that's part of it, is like we're not really set up, we don't really know what we're doing.

But you know what, guys, this is normal. I mean, you should have seen when we first brought home— and of course I know what I'm doing, but when we first brought home our first pony when Ollie was 6 months old.

Oh my goodness, like putting them in with the goats and it was ridiculous.

Why was that ridiculous?

Well, I mean, we just— we didn't have anything set up for horses. And then at one point there was no shelter, so we took the garage and we put like a fort, you know, the panels. Yeah, like put the horse in the garage. I mean, it was just—

I mean, people do what they have to do.

Yeah.

You can tell he's relaxed right now.

Yeah, we had that one leg kind of rested like that.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

But look how he is around the children. He's just excellent. He's not gonna hurt anybody, at least not on purpose. First of all, she's gonna teach us how to tie this horse up.

You can practice over and over again without your horse, but like I said, I'm making the clause that we really got to be careful about this because a horse would rub its face on it, catch his halter.

Well, I want to remove the barn. My end goal is either to clean this out and do like, um, do a— do the, the lead cross ties. Yeah, the cross ties.

Oh yeah.

Um, I like something behind them with cross ties.

Okay. Yeah, I don't like it to be like a hole like that. Okay. So I like that. Okay.

Wow. And then to tighten it— also, one thing that I noticed when people first learn this is that they want to make massive loops. I know, you just want to be right there, don't you? So they'll be like, okay, here I go, you know, and then they're like, it doesn't look right. So little loops is important, you know, it's pretty much as small as your rope will allow and you can still get it in there. Okay, small loops, small loops. Yeah, and then how I tighten it is I like that. Okay, put a loop, make it small.

Yep.

Yeah, there you go. You kind of grab that muscle right here. And so that's like a good one if he keeps pushing on to you, and she can know it because if he keeps pushing forward—

good.

Yes. And that's the thing is like with the horses, sometimes I notice is that when you start to do some moves that kind of show him with your body that you're secure and you're not sort of to be pushed over, It's like they kind of start to fall into place. Leadership is something that's earned. Does that make sense? Because I remember always saying that to my students, but then kind of realizing, like, if this horse wanted to hurt me, even me as an adult, he could. He could really be pretty mean. He could hurt me. Am I really the boss? Probably not. But is he allowing me to be a leader because I've earned it and I've showed enough? And do Horses want leadership, they do. There are occasional horses, the stallions or certain mares, that are like, "No, I actually want to be the leader in all situations." And whatever that might be, maybe they're wild. Look at this. Just from a little bit, and it's like the more they feel under your leadership, the more they can relax, because they do want leadership. They do want somebody to be in charge of whether the lion's gonna kill the herd or not. They do want somebody to be watching out over them. And if they feel like the people around them aren't there, that's good. Look at that big breath and then that chewing and licking.

He's calming down.

Okay.

Swallowing.

That's real good stuff.

Justin had said, he's like, I saw him in his element. And he was so chill and he was so— Such a different horse.

Little bit rude, but I'm gonna put up with it today, 'cause it's affection. And again, like some people don't like this at all and some people think it's hilarious and they'll go, you know, and give their horse their back and let them rub. You know, so it's, you have to decide what's rude to you. Do we need to— But like, for your mom, this might push her over.

Right. Do we need to give him something to rub on?

Eh, well—

Like a brush, like screw a brush to the wall.

I mean, I'm sure he would like it. I don't know that you have one, but yeah. You got it. He wants to give it to you. It's just awkward.

You got it. You got it.

Sometimes you need to like, this is what you do. You bend your leg. They're like toddlers, like they really do don't have a lot of impulse control.

Control.

And like, they might be all good, and then all of a sudden they're back to like panicking about something, you know? But he's really good. Like I'm saying, like, if he was— if it was at the point where I was worried, I'd be like, oh, like, you need to text the lady, right? I want to talk to her. Like, what's going on here?

That's why Lily even said to me, she's like, how come Smokey never does this? I'm like, Smokey's like 22.

How many times should he be out and exercising every day?

Like riding or walking?

Or Lily walking in?

Yeah, well, if he's on turnout, um, I mean, he should exercise himself enough, but okay, and for, for just building that repertoire, as much as she wants to, twice a day. I mean, if you're riding, you might do your morning, you might do your ride in the morning and then walk him at night. I mean, since he's at your house and you're building repertoire, being with him as much as possible— I'm gonna ask him to move over— um, being with him as much as possible is great. Um, you can't really do too much.

Can you walk him down the road? Is that okay?

That's how I started all my ponies, just on the asphalt. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I love that with my ponies. I just thought that was such a good connection for them. Just in case he decides to toe on off right now— he might. Parents, keep in mind that if this is down here, it's like a pulling cart. You're not going to stop them. But if it's Here you can leverage because right now he's loose.

He could technically just walk off.

Now check it out, Lily. I like going over the nose. Some people teach this, but you're not gonna be able to ever reach that unless you teach him to put his head down, which is not gonna happen in the next 3 rides. So over the bridge of the nose, split the lip. Oh, good boy! Did you see that? He opened his mouth for me. I didn't even have to put my thumb in. You see how he dropped his head?

Wow.

Let's give him props for the good things, right? Wow. He opened his mouth. All I did was I split his lip so I could see. It's important that when you put your bit in, you don't smash it up here or smash it down here, because then he'll do this. Look, he's gonna be like, ah, because that cold bit in the gum is gonna feel awful. So that's why I say split the lip so you can be sure to put it in the right spot. There he goes, head down.

Head down is submission, huh?

Yeah, exactly. And I kind of like putting my hand out or my shoulder and making it clear so that they don't just do it like anywhere. Wear around them and kind of being like, I'm kind of okay with my horse doing it.

Are you okay with that, Lily?

I don't know, sometimes.

Exactly.

And you can also have one or the other, don't you?

Yeah, you can, you can have a way of being like, I'll put my hand here and I'll let you do that, you know what I mean? But don't do it against my body. Does that make sense? So like, your head's itchy, okay, you can do this, but you can't do it against my body. Does that make sense? So you can have like a happy medium. I could do this. Look at him, you're so funny. Okay, does that make you feel better?

Sweet boy.

Yes, he is.

Does he like that bit okay?

He's— I'm still trying to figure that out.

I ordered the bit and it was supposed to be here by 8, and then now it's like 11 AM, you know.

I was like, darn it, I did it wrong.

What's different about the bit you bought, Rebecca?

Um, it's just a different link. Yeah, it has a different— it's just different. I don't know, she knows.

She recommended it.

Yes.

Yeah. Um, and I can— when we have the bit out of his mouth, I can show you guys a little bit of a difference between links and not having a link. So this does not have a link. It's just— so when it breaks, as we call it breaking, right? When it means when it bends, it bends like this. So there is gonna be tightening in the jaw, and then there's gonna be a point, right?

So this one that you got me, it kind of had like a middle in the middle so it doesn't break so sharply.

And I've always liked that. I just personally like that for my horses.

What does lunging mean?

Stay out here with me. They're gonna go in a circle with him.

That's lunging, correct?

She's letting him out slowly. She started—

I got a lot to learn if I'm gonna be a horse dad.

I'm learning so much. I didn't really need another part-time job, but that's why we have Leslie. She's like— I'm texting her daily and she's helping us so much.

Yes, she is.

Very reasonable.

Just like that, our soccer field turned into a horse ring.

What a perfect boy!

Wow, she's just speaking it and he does it automatic. See, don't you worry, Mama.

It's a big animal.

We got to get her started and then they'll just be doing this just like Leslie.

I don't know what I'm doing. So I mean, I'm, I'm thankful for all the trainers and all the people that are helping us, but it's still just very overwhelming for— but I mean, like when we first brought our milk cow home, I mean, like we, we did have cow experience and it was still like so nerve-wracking.

So all the experience in the world doesn't do nothing until you have one by yourself. By yourself.

And you're it.

Then it's real.

And then you're like, oh, oh man, I'm it. I have to do it. Look at even Jonah. Jonah's interested.

He's a secret cowboy over there. Secret equestrian. You gonna go on an English hunt? He'd probably like that.

If he was much more dead, you would be hitting 2 years and you'd be like getting kind of bored, you know, you'd be like, this is kind of like a school horse thing, like he's robotic. The fact that he's got a little bit— he gets a little spicy just shows us that you're gonna probably have a nice long life with a horse that wants to ride. Nothing is more— especially as you get better, nothing's more kind of like when your horse like doesn't seem to want to do the ride. It gets a little like— after a while, like a school horse, that's a different thing. But I'm talking like you're trying to go on a trail ride, you're trying to go in the ring, and the horse is just like walking like it's walking to its grave, and you're just like, okay, well, like, glad we're here together, you know. It's kind of like discouraging. So I like a horse that's a little like up, because then you're like, yeah, like, let's do this together, you know. The difference between riding Wyatt out and riding him in the ring, right? In the ring he's like—

because Wyatt doesn't love the ring—

but then like out he's like, and he's all about it, and he loves it, and he's obedient. But then in the ring he's just sort of like— for riding, because obviously at a show you don't want to— they don't like when you talk to your horse. Um, but for when you're out here, the 'and down' stuff could really be helpful if he feels kind of spazzy.

Right, look, he even read my mind.

Seriously, I was about to open my mouth. Canter.

Is that our lead rope, lunge rope, or—

we're going to buy one.

We definitely have to get one of those.

Canter.

I think it's better the other direction.

Yeah, totally right. So what direction is this?

To the right.

To the right. So he's left, he's left-handed.

Watch out, Bubba.

This is the right leg canter.

Yeah, because the right leg goes out further.

Oh, and then you do the left.

That's the left leg canter.

Hey, can I show you guys how to do a really good lunge? So what I do is I'll get the rider to stand here, right? And you'll bend like this. Okay, and you grab her kneecap.

Kneecap.

And her ankle sort of area.

Oh, okay.

And then you're gonna boost her straight up as close to the horse as physically possible until she lands on her tummy.

Nice.

And then you're gonna back away, and then she swings her legs over. Yeah, so that you're not sort of like half holding her.

I know, because I'm like—

I know. And then if the horse did something in that moment, you're both like, ah, you know.

Well, that was part of yesterday too. Yeah, but my mom sent me some wooden plans for a Nice.

Did you guys see that?

He moved.

I said stand and touched him, and he put his foot right back into spot. So that was good. I just wanted to point that out, like that little moment.

Somebody's trained him well. It's going much better today. Is it because he's getting used to it, or is it because we have an expert here? You guys can't see it in the camera, but she's smiling. Lily's smiling now. She was really afraid she'd never be able to ride this horse. She's riding him! She's riding him! How's he riding?

Do it good.

Yeah, pretty good.

So we didn't ride him to the barn because we want him to understand that there is— there's a division. You don't get to just walk up to the barn like that.

Yeah.

Um, like how many times our ponies have blasted out the gate at Mills River? Yeah, so naughty.

Grandma taking y'all down?

Yes.

Good, cuz I don't have a car.

You don't?

I walked.

Why'd you walk?

I get to exercise. Get a good one here. Here you go, Miss Leslie.

Thank you, that's awesome, guys.

Wow, wow.

Yeah, is that a Christmas turkey or what?

Uh, probably, yeah. We totally will dump it up. Yeah, whenever I love it because we'll do the turkey, and I personally really love turkey, like I can eat it pretty frequently, but then, you know, all the things that happen after, right? Like the creamy pasta and the soup.

Shall we do a quick walkthrough on our way to lunch? He makes it quick work, folks. Already got this wall down. Good job. It's going pretty good for you?

Yeah.

Good. We got vents everywhere. Lunch. Hodgepodge of leftovers. Look at that, that's a carnivore delight. Pork rinds, uh, taco meat, steak and onions, eggs, a little bit of cabbage, a little bit of avocado. I want to see what you've showed me earlier, Nora. You gotta show them. Anybody recognize this? Let me see it, Jonah. Wait, that's a peek. Let me see it.

I know it's wrong, it's not 100%.

Does anybody recognize this? That's the inside of our future house. The designer has laid it out. Yeah, you guys send the pictures. So you think Lily's got this?

What?

She'll ride the horse? I think I'm wind chapped. Oh yeah, you might be.

Um, yeah, she's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. This is a real experience. We're on the learning curve. It's steep. It's like this is everything.

It is.

Yeah.

It's gonna be okay.

She'll get it. Especially big animals. They have the biggest—

Well, and this is the biggest for her size that she should ride.

Yeah.

So we kind of got the top end.

Yeah.

Um, but it's gonna be good because we're gonna have longer with him.

Yeah.

In the long run.

And it's gonna be great and he's been here since, let's see.

Yeah, I know.

Saturday. For full days. Let's count full days. Saturday, Sunday, Monday. We're on day 3.

Wow.

Okay, so, and he did great today.

Hang tight, I want to ask Lily what she thinks. We're gonna get him out to introduce him to the cow.

It's a good thing I rode him earlier, so he's a bit calmer.

Nice. What do you think he's gonna think of these cows?

Hey, it's probably just gonna stare at them.

For a while.

And then, yeah, as soon as he starts eating grass, I think he'll be calm. It might take him a while to just— yeah, now, because he's never seen the cows before. I led him up the access road a few days ago, and he could kind of see them. They were up higher, and he was like probably a couple hundred feet away from them, but he did see them.

Hey, Lily, you think you can ride him in our Christmas parade?

Maybe if we go pretty slow and I'll do trot and canter. Okay, if he's calm.

I'm hearing that clomping, it sounds like I'm at a parade on Main Street.

I don't know how fast.

Cows are going to be curious too. Our goal is to be able to let him out with the cows when Lily's not riding him. That way he'll have buddies, and he'll be in the rotational grazing system, which will get him off his parasites, which will get more manure on our pastures. They're coming, honey. Gosh, you're a balloon. Look, Thud could care less. He's over there, he's not even looking. I didn't smell him. See him?

Stand.

This one's backing up, that's a good sign. You think we got alfalfa?

He's relaxed, you can tell by his legs.

Oh yeah, is that how you tell? Let him have a little— that cow's jumpy. That's a good sign. We don't want these cows to challenge him, do we? Stud says, what's going on? He's so chill. Oh, here he comes, here he comes. Stud's kind of on high alert. Oh no, Peach just sees him.

Uh-oh, hit the bus. Oh no, I can't No.

Here he comes. Let's see what he does.

What are you doing?

Let's go, it's getting cold.

Come on, buddy, let's go back. It's a lot calmer than when I fried it, definitely. He liked twice as bad. He's like, but we just got out like a minute ago.

Ellie, has your confidence grown?

Uh-huh.

What do you think?

Uh, I like peaches.

Of course. Yeah, you like them. The question is, you gonna be able to ride them on your own?

Uh, uh, like without anybody?

Yes.

Right now, no, but eventually, yes.

Are you feeling better than you were last night?

Yeah.

A little more confident?

Yeah.

Here, give me 5.