I have 5 horses - two of which I am in the midst of training. We have 5 because everyone in the family wants a horse, but I'm the only one that rides w/ ANY regularity. I'm a teacher so, luckily, during the summer, I don't work. However, keeping up with all of them became such a hassle (it was taking the fun out of it for me) that I finally placed a Help Wanted (Not a Paid position) ad. I found two college girls who were willing to come out and ride with me - just for the pleasure of riding. I worded my ad carefully, gave them a grooming/riding 'test', and had them sign liability waivers. Now all my horses get exercised regularly, and I enjoy my rides more knowing that they're all being taken care of.
I am one of the lucky ones that has a busy life consisting of riding more than 1 horse. I have 4 customer horses in training right now and I usually take one of my older broke horses out for a wind down ride in the evenings.
My way of balancing it = losing sleep most of the time. I work from 4 am til noon, then have my 18 month old home with me after that. So I do chores for horses and dogs as soon as we get home to expend all his energy then I work one horse during his nap time which is a good couple hours, then if needed work the stallion when he's up since my stallion is extremely trustworthy. Then its time to spend with the family, dinner, clean up, putting him to bed, and if need be working horses again to finish what I couldn't/didn't get done and final chores, then bed time around 10 if I'm lucky and the alarm goes off at 3 the next morning
Sometimes it makes for a long day for me though when it is 100+ degrees outside or the wind is blowing 40 mph. Just like right now, the heat index is 106 and I am in the house trying to cool off.
Looking back at my 20's I was taking on 19 units at college as well as exercising 5 horses for other people plus the 1 I owned, and showing once a month. I really have no clue how I did it but I do remember being up before the sun and riding with the arena lights on because the sun wasn't up yet.
Now I am a stay at home mom with little help as my fiance works for the railroad and is gone up to 48 hours at a time, has 10 hours to rest and then goes back again so no help there. I juggle a mere 6 month old baby and 1 green horse and a curves membership. Um, I never make it to Curves somehow and my horse hasn't been getting the attention the past couple of weeks he should. I'm struggling and have not clue how I did it before. My fiance likes our son to go to Kindercare a couple hours 2 or 3 days a week so that's when I see Cin but other than that....I have no clue.
I would probably go nuts if I had more than one horse ha ha.
SMRobs, my husband is from Lubbock, TX. Is it as flat and treeless where you are at? We have talked about moving near Lubbock in 7 or 8 years, only under the condition if he gets a job at Texas Tech.. But I'm not sure I can give up trees and hills!!
We are not quite so flat as Lubbock up here LOL. Our land is more the rolling hills type. They are fairly small hills and really the only places there are trees are either where people have planted them or along the old dry creek beds. I have a fairly decent pic to kinda show the type of land we have around here.
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