The Daily Routine

I am totally stealing this blog topic from favorite bloggers Hillary and The $900 FaceBook Pony.

My daily routine at the barn is pretty consistent. I love routine and structure; and the horses seem to appreciate that, too.

Right now I am responsible for morning chores Tues, Thurs, Saturdays and Sundays. I wake up around 6:45 am. I typically check my phone for anything interesting, and pry myself out of bed.

Lately I have been stopping at McD's for a large coke to start my morning. Absolutely terrible habit, but I do not like coffee and we can all admit that McD's has the best fountain coke on the planet.

I arrive at the farm around 7:30. The horses are on night turn out, so I will clean stalls first. There are only 5 to clean, so this goes pretty fast. Then I will do water buckets, throw hay, fill hay nets, feed the barn cats and start making up grain.

After throwing the full board horses grain, I then bring them all in. This takes a while because of the walking back and forth, and taking boots and fly sheets off. Sometimes the donkey gets a little squirrely on me, too.

Then I will walk out to the big gelding field. Hampton will come when I call, and Royale follows like a good little bitch minion. On days I ride Royale, I will bring them both into a stall and feed them. Or I will just grab Hamps. Then I go back out and feed the rest of the geldings, and grab one more who needs to come in. This is the most annoying part of the morning because it is chaos and I hate chaos. Also, sometimes the geldings refuse to come up to eat. (Never Hampton, he would NEVER miss a meal). On those days, I scream profanities at them. Sorry, neighbors.

He will miss the changes all day long, but never a meal!

After morning chores are done, I always ride Hampton first. Mostly because he requires more energy, but also because he is the favorite. I cross tie him, and give him a good grooming. On days he is encrusted with mud, I usually am in "fuck it" mode and get what mud I can but in no way is he show ready on those days.

We usually take a 5-10 minute walk around and then go to the arena to work for 40-45 minutes. Maybe a little longer depending on what we are working on, and the weather. After schooling, he typically gets hosed off, fly spray, any scrapes that need tended to, swatted, MTG, etc. etc. I will brush out his tail probably once a week (otherwise I leave it alone).

Then Hampton gets to hang out in a stall while I ride Royale. Same deal for him, but he works maybe 30 minutes. Unless he is a wild man that day and he works until he can behave himself and not trot 100000000000 mph with his head in the air. He then gets hosed off and fly sprayed whether he needs it or not (still learning that these things will not kill him).

I then take both boys out to the field and am typically home by noon or 12:30 p.m.

I then either make lunch, or stop somewhere on the way home. By the time I eat lunch, and shower, it is around 1:30 and may have an hour or so to chill out (i.e. watch Shameless on Netflix because I am in LOVE with Lip Gallaghar) ... and then I go into work at 3 p.m. and work until 11 pm-ish. I get home, maybe watch a little more TV and consume wine and go to sleep around midnight.

I don't eat dinner. I may snack at my desk.

I know my hours at work may suck for some people, but I really get a lot done in the mornings and I do not have to deal with the after-school crowd at the barn. Plus, I have no kids, no husband, no one to answer to so I can leave and get home whenever I please.

On days when I only ride Hampton, I am often home by 10 am. Before most of my co-workers are even awake for the day!

What is your daily routine?