Hi, yall

I haven't forgotten about you, it's just a) it feels like nothing important happens in the off-season and b) once you get behind, it becomes a more and more insurmountable task to catch up.

So here's the rundown:
I moved Dixie to a barn in the Oakland hills, with 50+ miles of beautiful, secluded trail access. I moved her because she just kept losing weight at the barn in Portola Valley. I could have done a more thorough job of trying to investigate why she wasn't getting enough to eat, yelling at staff, etc., but honestly, why? They were not doing an adequate job with her, and it's not like there's a shortage of barns.

The new place has very small stalls. :( But they try very hard to give the horses daily turnout in individual pens. The stalls are mucked 3x daily and the horses are fed 3x daily. Three weeks after moving her, Dixie's put on at least 50 lbs, and I've almost stopped apologizing when I introduce her. ("Hi, I'm Funder, this is my TWH Dixie and I know she's too skinny and we're putting weight back on her ohgoddon'tjudgeme!")

We had a chance at tying for high mileage TWH for the year, but it didn't happen. I couldn't afford another ride, my horse was too skinny to ask her to do another ride, and she was body sore. It sucked. :(

Today I had a chiropractor work on Miss D, and if I'd had a free hand to take pictures I would've! Dixie Does Not Like to be Touched, so her expression kept flipping between "don't touch me. don't let her touch me!" and licking-chewing-"how interesting!" I was down with a cold all weekend, so I didn't take her out for a walk after the adjustment - I'll go ride tomorrow or Wednesday and hopefully she'll be happier.

White horses are easy to take pics of, but it's hard to show muscles or lack thereof. You may have to take my word for it: that horse was very thin IRL when I moved her. Here she is right after Red Rocks:


One month later, two weeks after being moved to a barn where they feed her as much hay as she needs:


Last week, looking lovely on a walk in the woods:


The Oakland hills are astonishingly pretty.


Lots of really great hills!




Also, the days of letting the cats freeload on our largess have ended. Our cats have jobs. Our cats are business cattes.




I have yet another adorable video of Dixie rolling in the sand for you, but it's still converting. Will edit this post when it's ready.
edit: Work it, girl.

Dirty Dixie rolling in the sand from Funder on Vimeo.