Martha Stewart's Nightmare

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

Spring cleaning, horse farm style! It's too cold in the barn to wash and condition leather, as I am being frugal and leaving the heat off. So mountains of leather makes its way into my kitchen to be cleaned, conditioned and put away. This is the second pile for me to work through. I own five dressage saddles, two close contact, a cutback and two western saddles. As well as multiple bridles, breast collars and show halters. Whew! The items closest to the outside door got surface mold, but the rest just need a good cleaning and conditioning. 

This is the usual laundry that Zing generates. He wears four wraps, so he creates a lot of laundry in wraps, as well as saddle pads.

Leathers and irons that need some cleaning.

Does a saddle belong in my office? When it's been cleaned and hasn't been brought back to the barn yet, yes. Zinger's current saddle, that sadly is not fitting him well now. I hope it can be adjusted by a fitter. I'm not going to continue to buy him saddles. 

It's below zero today, so leather cleaning is as good a pass time as any. Next week it will start to warm up, then I can clean the tack room. It doesn't seem right to put clean gear in a dirty room. I have a sign in my tack room that says 'Horsework Before Housework' and it is very true in my life. I already have plans to hose down the barn as it warms up, paint the grillwork on the stalls. I am toying with painting the tack room, but that is daunting, so who knows if I'll get it done.

Shedding out horses, clipping bridle paths and whiskers. Vaccinating and deworming. The only thing missing is foaling out mares and covering mares for next years babies. This will be my second spring without foals on the farm. It's so much work and no small amount of stress, but strangely, I miss it. But the truth is, I have enough to do and I can keep busy. But I sure do miss those little ones.