Staying Home

Without much going on at the barn for most of the winter due to weather, lack of daylight, and the busy season at work, I didn't have a lot to write about. Then at the end of February, the weather got nicer, Goose got clipped, my friend moved back to the barn with her mare and we all started riding together again. Life was good and I had so much to look forward to this spring and summer.

Fresh clip and glowing white.

Clip still fresh, slightly less glowing.

And then the world shut down.

I'm on day 24 of being mostly at home (the only place I was going was the barn), and day 15 of not going to the barn. Two weeks ago I decided that I didn't feel comfortable finding loopholes in my state's Stay the fuck At Home order, and I stopped going out.

One of my last rides before quarantining. 

Goose lives in SC, which in case you didn't know is one of the latest (and last) states to join the Stay At Home order. Technically my barn was under no obligation to close and even with the new orders, SC has pretty pathetic guidelines. My barn remains open with sanitizing efforts put into place, but I couldn't in good conscience keep going. I live 35 minutes away, I'm told to refrain from unnecessary travel, and frankly I'm not essential to Goose's day to day care other than to keep paying the bills so the people keep caring for him. Riding is not necessary, even though they encourage people to get outside and exercise. Get outside - IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. To me this doesn't mean drive 35 minutes away to get on an animal who has a mind of his own to participate in an inherently dangerous activity that could on any given day land me in the hospital. Do I trust Goose? Yes. Did he go bananas a few weeks ago and remind me that even the saintliest of horses (usually Goose) can also go batshit crazy at the drop of a hat? Also yes, see below. Normally I'm willing to risk this, but now with hospitals overflowing and rank with COVID-19, I see no reason to take these chances.

He was also squealing here.

His best Lippizaner impression.

Casually flying a 1400lb kite.

He started doing all of this while I was on him, so I got off and popped him on a lunge. Haven't sat on him since.

And so we stay home.

It's not fun, it's not exciting, it's not refreshing anymore. I miss my horse, and I'm now going on six months of not riding consistently thanks first to winter and now to this deadly virus. This is my favorite time of year to ride. In the south, spring feels like early summer and when it's sunny and 75 my heart aches to be riding my horse and letting the dogs splash in the pond. If we're lucky and this is over by mid-summer, it's going to be hot as hell and I'm going to struggle to get us both into riding shape in the heat. Goose turned 16 this spring and I'm becoming acutely aware that he's not a spring chicken anymore. It physically hurts sometimes that I can't see him and enjoy him right now.

I took a zillion pictures the last night I went to the barn.

The most kissable nose

Goose loves his Potato

But it's necessary. You know what sucks more than not seeing my horse for awhile? Dying. Or watching those around me die because I accidentally gave them something I didn't know I had. To those of you saying that I probably wouldn't die from this, a lot of people are recovering, to you I say shut your face because frankly I don't want to need a ventilator and potentially not get one because we are so poorly prepared as a nation for this tragedy.

So I stay home and silently (who are we kidding, I'm never silent) judge the idiots who blatantly break the rules and look for loopholes. I'm not talking about horse people specifically here - everyone can make their own decisions regarding the barn and riding and I'm trying really hard to respect that. But there is an overwhelming amount of people who are acting so stupidly that I'm finding it difficult to remember why I ever liked them in the first place.

I'm equal parts grateful for and burdened by these psycho labs of mine. They are farm dogs at their core, and when I decided to stay in Charlotte last year instead of moving further outside the city and had to settle on a condo, I thought to myself "No worries, we have the barn. This is fine as long as they have that outlet". We no longer have that outlet.

Zuzu walks around whining endlessly and constantly comes over and bites at my hands, something she hasn't done for years. Franny is in heat right now which makes life extra delightful because she's dumber than a box of rocks and does not know what to do with herself (I love both my dogs don't judge me for what I say when I've been stuck in the house with them for weeks). I'm able to work from home full time and largely my company is unaffected by this, other than ramping up our work from home policy. I don't take this for granted, and am incredibly thankful that I still have a paycheck from a company I love.

Play ball now?

How dead do we have to be to get that cookie, lady? 

The funny thing about working from home though, is that my dogs HATE it. They're used to coming to work with me every day, and then going to the farm after work most days of the week in the spring through fall. So not only are we not going to the farm, we're literally going nowhere. They don't see their friends, their people, don't have any outlet. My dogs haven't been in the car for two weeks. I don't think Franny has ever gone this long without getting into a car in her entire life. Every time we walk past my car they look at me like, is today the day your brain shifts into place, human, and we go for a ride? Nope, sorry girls no can do.

We've explored the extent of our neighborhood and I even google mapped the longest possible walk loop I can take that doesn't extend outside my neighborhood (want to avoid the main roads where there is still traffic, wtf). What felt long a few weeks ago now feels like five minutes, but it's what we've got so now we walk it several times a day. I recently got a FitBit. 10,000 steps? Easy peasy.

There's a corner of my complex with some grass where I let the girls off leash to play if there's absolutely no one around and not another dog in sight. For those who want to lecture me about leash laws, please save it I promise I'm being as respectful as possible and my dogs have incredible recall and the second we see another dog, playtime over. They roll around and have a good time for awhile, then my allergic-to-grass Zuzu lays in the grass panting where she would happily stay for hours, sneezing like crazy, except then we have to go inside so they make do with the deck and hunting wood bees. We're spending some time learning new tricks, they have a bottomless supply of toys and peanut butter Kongs and bones and interactive games. But they don't. Get. Tired.

This sucks.

Out of everything, and outside of the idiots who are making it impossible to flatten the curve and get through this thing quickly, two things are very difficult for me. One is not seeing Goose and having the barn as an outlet. Two is how many people reach out wanting to FaceTime, call, text, play games on House Party, the list goes on. At my core I'm an introvert, so staying at home in theory is easy for me because I do it anyway minus the office and barn. Being constantly bombarded with texts and calls and messages is slowly getting to me, so if I've ignored you recently please understand I'm just reaching my threshold for virtual interaction. Don't stop reaching out, and I won't either, but the barrage of social media and phone contact is making this difficult to cope. I've never been more grateful to live alone with just dogs (no matter how nuts they drive me) so I can just withdraw and get through this however I can.

Talk to the sploot.

This isn't fun. This isn't an exciting new game, and it sure as shit isn't something I ever thought our world would be going through in my lifetime. But this is the hand we've been dealt, and I'm playing my cards carefully. Are you?