May 24 - June 1, 2021

So... where do we start?

So, on May 24th, something happened to me. I can't write about it publicly here. But if we ever sit down with any of you over a glass of red wine, we can tell you about it. Since I shared a night shift with Nick at the horses during this incident, I couldn't sleep a minute. Well... I was still up in the morning so I wouldn't get out of rhythm. Unfortunately, I wasn't as attentive anymore and stumbled over the tension wire from the past and pretty much tumbled over like in a movie. I landed on my little finger first! I tied it together with another finger for a few days to keep it calm in case it was broken. But now I think it's not that bad.

In the meantime, Nick was once again with my father and his girlfriend in Switzerland for a night. Of course, with a corona test and all the fuss! The absolute joke was: The test for the return from Switzerland to Spain could not be older than 72 hours. Since he was only in Switzerland for one night, he had to take a test here in Spain so that he wouldn't bring any virus into Spain! Makes perfect sense, right? :)

Nick had his written and oral exam for his Equigarde training. We all crossed our fingers, paws, and hooves from here. With so many coming together, it had to go well. He will find out on June 7th!

Meanwhile, I was here and everything went as usual: feeding animals, mucking out, training the young ones, working with the riders' horses and the stallions assigned to us, teaching,... and then the day is already over. In the evening, I went out for Syrian food with a few people from here, it was great!

When Nick came back, I was relieved. Everything is easier with two and certain things are just safer. For example, the first time sitting on a young horse, I had to wait for Nick.

The weather here is still changeable, but increasingly warmer. We've already gotten sunburned! When the days get hotter, we will switch to a morning and evening shift, as it gets too hot in long pants and closed shoes and physical work. The horses will probably appreciate that too. Everything is blooming now, but you can almost watch the green landscape drying out.

What else is there to say? There's a lot to do! Clean water troughs, integrate horses into herds, provide medical care, and so on.

The stud management bought a yearling from a Spaniard. It has the lineage from the stud here. The reason was that this man had no idea about horse keeping. He kept him alone for several months and gave him 5kg of concentrated feed per day. For comparison: Our horses get a handful of snacks (not concentrated feed) about 3-4 times a week!!! Well,... now he has abnormal liver values and is quite disturbed in behavior and has no social skills. After several weeks of getting closer to two young stallions, we were able to successfully integrate him this week. Luckily, one of the little ones defends himself and the other one moves away when the new stallion runs towards them with too much energy. We believe it will work out fine, he also realizes that he won't find any connection this way.

Our training with the horses is going great. We went out to eat with the stud management yesterday. She said that she has never let anyone work so freely and she is very satisfied. She asked us if we would be interested in staying longer or even emigrating to Spain.

There is still a guest here: He is from Austria, lives in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He comes here several times a year to help with anything that needs to be done: repairs, homepage, work with the horses, etc. He also helps us. Nick already knows him from a previous visit here at the stud.

An intern from Germany has left again. Before she left, she also treated Nick's horse Sarina (acupressure and puncture according to Penzel). In the meantime, a friend of one of the riders from Germany is here and also helps out. We don't know exactly who she is and how long she will stay yet.

I really like many of the horses here. Mentally, I have already put together a small herd that I would like to keep. Unfortunately, that's not possible. I will post some photos of the beautiful ones.

Then a little story from the animal world:

Now that it is getting warmer, the snakes are coming!!! I don't even want to know if they are venomous. Then we have our little zoo here, where goats, chickens, llamas, ponies, donkeys, pigs, etc. live together. As you can see in the photo: Win-Win. The donkey gets a back massage and the goat gets something different to eat.

We have wolves here. To protect the young animals (calves, foals), there are dogs everywhere outside. They are all very friendly and especially huge dogs. Often one is chained up alone or a second one is free but doesn't go far away! Unfortunately, animal keeping here cannot be compared to our values. About 120m away from the caravan, there are kennels. This one single livestock-guarding dog has been in there alone for several weeks. Every time it gets dark, he starts barking until around 5.00 in the morning. In the meantime, we feed him. I would also like to keep him, but he's too expensive, he eats almost as much as my horse!!!

Since the warm water for showering in the caravan is very limited (10l is heated to 60°C - resulting in about 15l of warm water, which has to be enough), Nick has ordered a 20l boiler and a 90l tank (previously 40l). Today, the items arrived: Unfortunately, the wrong water tank was delivered and it doesn't fit in the caravan. Nick was angry at the Spaniards! At least the right boiler was delivered, even though the connections don't fit. Then Nick also ordered a pitchfork, which we had to pick up at a computer store in town...?! That's how things go here in Spain.