spring spring spring has sprung!

insert whistling and sunshine and flowers and puppies and kittens and cool breezes on warm days here!
i love spring, minus the pollen wreaking havoc on my allergies, but it's a fair price to pay for the end of grey winter skies, and winter clothes and muddy pastures with no grass! i can even tolerate getting up at five for morning feedings before work better when i know i don't have to wear 34 layers of clothes and decide what blankets the mares should wear that day, and break up the ice in the water trough. instead, i get to wake up to birds chirping and watch the sun come up since the time changed and go on daily egg hunts since the hens are laying up a storm! if every morning was like this, maybe, just maybe, i could become a morning person. i still can't be one of the "cool kids" and join the coffee drinking culture, even though i have tried to like it, i just don't really and it makes my stomach hurt!

within the last week the mares have starting blowing out their winter coats, and even though Jazz tolerates me approaching her with the shedding blade about as well as i tolerate taylor swift sing-a-longs, she has started to let me groom her with it in very limited sessions and it's nice to see all that soft puffy coat coming out. i love her summer coat, when she is sleek and shiny and her musculature is apparent and i look forward to continuing to build her topline and butt muscles this season with more correct and challenging dressage work. she is beginning to show me her affinity for dressage, she's always been a thinking kind of mare, and now that she has learned to "think" about her work, she is really progressing quickly. it's like having a child that's about 18 months old- that stage where they just sponge up all the information you can give them, and they learn to communicate and their motor skills are changing almost daily- an exciting time!

i am also SO excited about the completion of the "golden nugget", which is a really nice and big hen house that my barn owners have built- and let me tell you, no detail was overlooked, and no engineering shortcuts were taken. i think if we ever have a tornado and i'm stuck at the barn, i will be safe in that thing! i can't wait for it to be finished up and moved out of the barn, even though it may take a crane to move it, so i can banish the chickens from loitering about in the barn. the chicken poop polluting up the place is driving me nuts. i miss the aisles being spot free and i really like the barn to be clean- like, cleaner than my house. or maybe i would just rather clean the barn THAN my house- that is perhaps the real truth. luckily, ryan has accepted my lack of talent  and time for house cleaning, and really, the dog hair that doodle sheds on a daily basis is more than anyone can keep up with, so he agrees that we need to bring someone in for house cleaning and now he is letting me find someone to iron as well. this is like the BEST gift ever to me. really, i would rather have a house cleaner and ironer than a 4 carat diamond, and i LOVE diamonds. some people find cleaning and ironing "therapeutic", and i wish i was like that, but i would rather poke my eyes out with a wire hanger than iron. after a day of work and school and then barn, coming home to clean and organized house and happy dogs is probably the best thing i can think of- so i'm pretty excited to find someone that is willing to do this for us. i put an ad on craigslist, and i really wish i could post some of the responses i have gotten on here, because let me tell you what, they range from hilarious to super creepy, but it would be too mean, so i won't.

whoever ultimately gets the job will have to pass the four-legged-children test, they have to love the dogs and the dogs love them. so everyone we interview is getting to meet the doggies- which has been interesting. rylie boo will tell you pretty quickly if she likes someone, doodle takes a little longer to make that decision but it's really interesting to watch them with a stranger. i could just never imagine letting someone in the house who wasn't dog approved. so we shall see who craigslist brings us, but hopefully the spring will be a cleaner one soon!