happy working student post #1

Nutella & Flipsides make my world go round.

Time for a blog update! Way overdue, in fact. I have been here at Springpoint Farm an entire week now. In case you missed the memo (or in case I didn’t leave one), I’m spending three weeks of my senior year as a working student for eventing and dressage instructor extraordinaire, Caitlin Donahue.

And now, it’s 10:30 PM, and I’m cooking dinner (first hot meal in 8 days) and moving in at Runaway Ridge Farm, whose family (Dave, Heidi, Ali and Holly) are awesomely letting me stay here while they’re having a family adventure. So it’s just me, Posh (the kitty) and four chickens (rest in peace, fifth chicken). I switched houses today, and I think I might have left a loaf of bread in my truck somewhere. Such is the life.

I left last Friday right after my last class. Luckily, Neil and I had an uneventful haul down, and pulled into Springpoint at around 8:30- not bad considering I missed the exit for 295 and ended up calling Robby Stairs (favorite not-really-adopted brother) and figuring out how to turn myself around and still end up in the same place. Success.

Since then I’ve had several awesome rides on Neil (who has settled in awesomely, lovin his fence buddy Merlin), starting the first day in the outdoor (yes, Houlton, that’s right, in the outdoor). Generally aside from some little wild monster pony episodes he’s acted much older than his age. He got new shoes, courtesy of Troy, and new baby blue bell boots to keep them on. Did I mention we took a trip to the Dover Tent Sale? Picked up a very large Back on Track sheet for him to cook in. It will take a little altering to fit him- he’s not quite 87”. I also managed to follow extremely complicated directions (drive in a straight line) to the Freeport grocery store, so now I have food, which is good. Lou, the awesome person with whom I crashed last week, got sick of watching me eat Lucky Charms for dinner and started making me salads. In my defense, Lucky Charms covers at least two food groups...corn syrup is a vegetable, right?

I’ve been really tech challenged (I only get wireless at the barn, where my phone doesn’t get service at all- thanks T-mobile) so my communication with the outside world has been, shall we say, less than frequent. If you want me for anything during the day, shoot me a text or a FB message, because texts eventually get through to my phone...it’s weird. But there will be pictures, eventually, and lots of stories!

Tomorrow Caitlin and I are off to teach at NER’s Ready to Ride Camp for a few hours. Supposed to be a lovely storm here so I’m lucky not to be doing stalls for twenty some horses while they are in all day! Stay tuned for further adventures...