Another Busy Day

Today was a busy day!

I had a cash offer on Torchsong first thing this morning, from someone who wanted to come pick her up this weekend. However, the offer wasn't high enough, and besides, Torchsong is a complex horse. I would not feel comfortable just selling her in a flash like that, without talking to the buyer a little more first. So anyway, I thanked the person and declined the offer.

I'm still deep in discussions with the other prospective buyer who is considering both Torchsong and Callista. Lots of things for her to consider, lots of choices to make!

The sale of Andromeda is pretty much finalized now. The buyer and I talked over the terms of the sales agreement and he has sent the deposit check. She will be leaving here before the end of April.

It's nice to think of her going to a good home, where she'll be spoiled and appreciated. So many of the people who are looking at my horses are, rightly enough, looking for sport horses who will be great at dressage or eventing or foxhunting. But Andromeda just never fit that body type all that well, and everyone thought she was far too short to be worth considering.

But now she is going to someone who wants her to be an informal driving/draft horse on a small farm, and he thinks that she is just the right height! That's an excellent match for her abilities and body type, so I think she'll do great there.

This afternoon, I got a phone call from someone interested in breeding her mare to Senter. I guess she'd been exchanging emails with Senter's trainer, and had called my number by mistake, thinking I was the person she'd been writing to. It was so odd to hear the words, "Oh, you must have been talking to my trainer. This is Nancy, the owner," come out of my mouth, just like I was some fancy, rich horse lady. It made me laugh.

I am also making huge strides in my filly Grace's handling. She has been a bit of an enigma to me ever since she was born. She is neither timid nor bold, but simply holds herself apart from people and other horses. She keeps to herself. I've had a hard time figuring out an angle by which I can truly bond with her.

But in the past few days of mini-lessons in the pasture, she has started to really respond to me. She has decided that she loves having me scratch all her itchy places, and that I'm pretty fun to hang around with. We did more desensitizing with the rope, some practice with leading, some practice with picking up her feet, and she did every single thing perfectly! Considering how little work I've done with her up to now, I was so proud of her!

I was concerned that she would never open up and connect with me---and I REALLY wanted her to, since she's my mare Char's daughter, my once-in-a-lifetime dream foal that I planned and waited for since before she was even conceived. But tonight, after the training session was done, I stopped by the hay feeder to tell her good night, and she not only walked away from the hay so she could come stand next to me, when she saw Andromeda coming towards me, she even wedged herself between me and Andromeda, so she could have ALL my attention. That was a first!

I can't say as much for my progress with my demon-filly, Glory! She is being a little poop-head, and doing it on purpose simply because she loves to be wild and willful. Pretty soon, she and I are going to have to step aside and do some private sessions in the round pen, where she has to pay attention to me, without the distraction of the other horses getting in the way. No time for that right now, though!

On the sheep side of things, we have no lambs yet, but I did get an email from someone wanting to buy all six of my remaining sheep hides. It's not a lot of money, but at least all the hides will be gone without me having to invest the time and money into sending them to the tannery myself.

And this weekend, I have set aside to do NOTHING but work on that website for the good folks at Bloomin' Acres, who have been waiting ever so patiently for me to finish building their site for them!

(Does me saying that pretty much guarantee that some urgent farm crisis will come up and devour my whole day tomorrow? I hope not. I'm looking forward to getting their site done for them.)