Riding

My riding days

‘In the midst of life we are in death’ 07/05/2026
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‘In the midst of life we are in death’ 07/05/2026

I suppose I should say ‘Happy New Year’ – maybe I am just wishing we’d had one.

Too many things have happened between my last post here and now to write about. The most important thing is that my mum died a few weeks ago.

I have yet to resume either writing or gardening or anything else I was doing before Christmas 2025. I have not yet regrouped.

All I can say is that I can plant the vegetable garden. That the stories are where I left them, so I can write on when I want to. The grass is growing, so I guess we will be silaging soon.

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06/05/2023 -23/05/2023

Rufus

Poor Rufus! The weather conditions came in on the side of sweet itch midges, and he had a nasty blast even with his rug and lamed himself itching. That and the extra grass tummy, and he has found himself in for large parts of the day and all night. He is now sound – which is a relief.

😀

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1st Jan – Dec 1st 2022

Jan to Dec 1st 2022.
 
I suspended all Blogging, unconsciously really. We lived through my Mum’s dementia hitting crisis and her needing to be taken into residential care. This was not planned. 
 
The first part of this year was always going to be tough, as I was dealing with acting on the decisions we had to take, when the goats failed a CLA test, back in Sept 2021. I had to get them to a point where they were ‘dried off’ and the herd hadn’t increased in over all size. This was never what anyone wanted. In order to ‘get through’ those activities, I had planned to increase my art-for-something-to-do practise.
 
As it turned out the art activity also gave my Mum something she could do when everything else around her became out of step for her. It was something we clung to, and shared for several months, till even that could hold us all together no more.
 
Mum is now settled in a home local to us.
 
We are picking up the pieces of our lives and sorting ourselves out. 
 
As part of that, I am reviewing the Blogs and what they mean to me and deciding whether I will renew the hosting etc or not come Autumn when these things fall due.
 
I am also looking at what I will be doing with fiction writing. The non-fiction book, about domestic dairy goats, is not happening. I could not, in good conscience, encourage anyone, here in the UK, to invest in garden dairy goats today.
 
The goats are now being kept for the hell of it/fun of it as ‘retirees’/’pets’. All 22 of them. Stopping the numbers increasing will be a challenge as 5 are entire males. They are also CLA carriers. CLA is a non-notifiable and zoonotic disease, and we are keeping them against Vet’ advice to cull. This is a risk to ourselves and other livestock. At the moment we do not have neighbours who keep livestock that might be at risk. It’s a situation that is monitored responsibly. Responsible decisions will be taken if circumstances change. Not one of them has clinical CLA. This is not a ‘re-homing’ situation. Meanwhile, they are happy goats on a Dorset hillside and we are enjoying having them around and Rufus enjoys their antics too.
 
The ‘riding’ section of my website is defunct as I am not riding – though Rufus is still here as only-pony retiree and I have no plans to ever ride again or keep any other equines here.
 
It may be that I will ride through my writing but I just don’t know yet…
 
Art has become part of my life and that may be something that I will want to Blog about…
 
I have had new stories kicking around in my head and the re-write of Luckshill Riders can still be done but, right now, I am taking a break.
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14/12/2021 My End of Year ‘Roundup’

RIP My Friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Survived a Difficult Year But Not Without Personal Losses.

My personal experience of this year has been that it has isolated me more than ever and that is what it is. It is a year when I suddenly had to say ‘Good Bye’ to Flax and on what passed for our wedding anniversary this year too… and I had to look after Rufus when I could not. in all honesty, even bare to look at him without wanting to cry for him and myself. Continue reading →

Autumn Plans or You Can’t Make This up…
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Autumn Plans or You Can’t Make This up…

Update on the previous ‘plan’…

I had planned on ‘not writing’ while we were looking at a DIY project on the farm which I knew would be physically demanding, and involve me hanging around a lot waiting for deliveries and things, and I was pleasantly surprised that I still had some breakthroughs relating to the fiction projects and engaged in a damn good clear out of the file systems. The end was in sight on the DIY, and the male goats moved into their new home, and I was ready to get to the desk – and then the goats failed one out of three annual blood tests that  I commit to with them. Continue reading →

Dry Shed and new shoes…
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Dry Shed and new shoes…

2020-02-17 14.30.25

 

2020-02-17 14.32.19

Back wall resheeted

2020-02-26 15.01.05.jpg

They can only have an hour in here as too much grass.

Still the rain falls – especially when the Farrier called to reshoe! But the sun, that  rare and amazing sight has been seen. Not today though and I must away to get the ponies in – swim them in – to the shed.

Go away rain.