Tomorrow would have been Vivian's 22nd birthday.  Many people know "the boys" - Sirocc, Ozzy, and Josey - but not many people know Vivian.  Deerhaven's Vivian is their mother.  I found her for sale by chance many years ago, after looking for her on and off, and finally found her for sale with a 6 month old Ozzy at her side.  We bought them immediately, but as we were in the process of looking at property to move, we left them 'boarded' with the people who had owned them.  A few months later, we received a call that we needed to move them, so I made arrangements with a wonderful private hauler to go pick them up.  He called me once he arrived in TN, asking if I had ever seen the horses in person.  I told him I hadn't.  I will never forget what he said next.  "You will cry when you see them."

When the trailer pulled into the barn in FL, and I dropped the head door, there was no mistaking the chestnut mare.  She had Sirocc's face, or rather, he has her face.  I didn't cry when we off-loaded them off of the trailer, only because any pity or sorrow I had was smothered by anger.  The horses we had been paying for food and farrier care for were both about a 1 on the body score.  Vivian's toes were grown out three or four inches too long, like elf shoes, and one was cracked all the way up into the hair line, so that every time she took a step, it pulled open.  An immediate call was placed to our farrier, who had to make an emergency trip out over the weekend to fix her.  It took a specially built shoe with three clips to hold her foot together, so that she could comfortably walk.  I did cry the first time we walked her into the barn.  As soon as her feet hit the concrete aisle-way, and she and Sirocc laid eyes on each other, they whistled to each other.  Sirocc danced in his stall.  It was obvious they had instantly recognized each other.

After a few months getting some weight on her, we discovered that she had violent heat cycles.  We had intended on breeding her down the road, but the decision was moved up, as she would throw herself against the concrete block stall walls and the wooden fences.  She blessed as with a beautiful champagne colt, that was everything we asked for.  Josey would be the last foal she would settle.  After spending $3,500 trying to get her in foal again, we understood she was not meant to have another, and we retired her.

But, what do you do with a retired broodmare, who hates being stalled, and you have just moved to a new property with limited established pastures?  We had promised Viv that we would always take care of her, and look out for her, and that she would never be sold again (she had been sold every two years after the time she was eight).  We decided that the best way to do right by Vivian would be to find a friend willing to put her out to pasture for us.  We moved her to a few different pastures through the years, were we could keep an eye on her, and she seemed happy.

One day last year, a few days before her birthday, my husband came home from work very upset.  He said he had a terrible feeling that Vivian was going to die away from home.  So, I made arrangements, and the day after her birthday, with Sirocc on the trailer for company, I brought her home.  The barn erupted with screams and whistles as she walked down the hill to her paddock.  The boys knew their momma was home.  And, there was a new spark to her eye, when she got to go out to pasture with her new grandson, Franklin.  The mares loved having Granny home too.  They would drop the babies off for "day care" and go off in the field to graze.  Vivian would stand guard over the sleeping foals for hours, and she loved every minute of it.

Two months later, we had a severe thunderstorm.  I can remember it clearly.  The lightning was so bad that it reminded me of the old footage of the bombs going off during Dessert Storm.  We brought the horses into the barn, but Viv was so upset from the storm that Rick had to stay in the stall with her.  Once the storm had passed, and the radar looked clear, we turned her and her pasture buddy back out for the rest of the night.  The next morning, I was getting into the truck to go to work, when I looked up to see Rick walking towards the truck.  One look at his face, and I knew.  Vivian was gone.  We believe she had a heart attack.  She is now buried under the flowering pear trees, looking towards the barn and the arena, where she can continue to keep watch over her boys.

Meet Faith.  Faith is our 16.3H Premium, Main Mare Book, Oldenburg.  She is my husbands horse, and he lovingly calls her "Whopper" or just "Whops".  I, on the other hand, affectionately refer to her as "Blow, Snort".

Faith is actually Hanovarian by bloodline.  This is an important distinction, since Hanovarians are known for being very quirky and a little spooky.  Faith, wanting to live up to expectations, is all that and more.  They are also known to be thinkers.  The over-thinking, over-analyzing kind of thinker that can come up with a thousand reasons why something is going to eat, kill, or mame them.

The first day we brought her home, leading her down the barn isle to her stall was quite the adventure.  We had to spook at the hose, the wheelbarrow, and the muck rake.  The shavings pile hides a horse eating monster, and plastic bags were put on this earth for the sole purpose of driving her mad.

They thrive on structure, routine, and having a job to do.  She'll be the first in the barn to give you the googly eye if it's been raining and they've been stuck inside.  But, along with all the special considerations, comes a big plus - they are known for their athleticism and power.  Which, can be a drawback as well, when all that power is being focused on getting the heck away from something that might have looked at them funny.

Faith is one of my big projects this summer.  After doing some work with her last year, I was finally able to get on her.  I even was able to trot around on the lunge line a little bit.  Eagles soared, and angels wept.  The feel of her trot underneath me was glorious.  However, it became very obvious, that Faith still wasn't ready.  For all the training and work that had been put on her, without me here at home to work with her daily, she just wasn't getting the structure she needed.  It was time to put her on hold until I could spend more time with her.

So, now that I'm training from home again, we've started back at the very beginning.  Today was the first time I've had her out since all the rain last weekend, so she really wasn't in the work frame of mind.  We spent some quality time "playing" together in the pasture, and got some great pictures of her to share.  As she comes along with her training, she will most likely become a frequent blog subject, so stayed tuned!

I love my stallion... I really do... Honest...

I sat down yesterday to do a Blog entry, and really had not much to talk about.  This month I've got 3 horses to start under saddle, and a baby greenie lesson horse to keep in tune, all the while taking care of the barn, mucking stalls, teaching, and making sure the grass doesn't grow above my knees.  Somewhere in between all of that, I try to find time to ride my stallion, Ozzy.  I am so very thankful he's the kind of horse that's the same whether you've ridden him yesterday, or two weeks ago.  Well, for the most part anyway.

But, none of that is noteworthy, it's just another day around the farm.  So I thought about writing a little something about how this business truly was a labor of love.  I even had my opening sentence written: "Remembering why we do what we do on any given day, sometimes gets lost in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives".  But, I got side tracked on something else and never got back to it.  Then, I opened the door to go feed this morning, and thought to myself, yup, definitely a labor of love, perfect topic.

The headline across my weather forecast today read: "Soaking Weekend Ahead, Flooding Possible".  You see that red blob?  We're somewhere in there.  What the forecast should have said was, don't leave the house without a wet-suit, flippers and a snorkel.  Or, better yet, make sure you pack a life-jacket and an inflatable raft.  With up to 4" of rain in the forecast, any sane, normal human being, would have stayed inside - snuggled in bed, or under a blanket on the couch watching a movie with a cup of hot coco.  But, no, not me.  Just before making myself lunch, I wandered out to check on everybody during a point of time where the rain had changed from pouring, to normal.  Of course, my horses being the absolutely spoiled rotten animals that they are, were all standing in their stalls with the little bit of fluff they had left standing up on end, shivering.  They're inside, dry, it's 55 degrees outside, and they want their blankets.  Of course, with a new pony in the barn, this meant going to all my different storage areas, trying to come up with pony sized clothing.  It's May, for crying out loud.

I took the luxury of going back inside, eating lunch, seeing my husband off to work, and drying my damp self off.  It didn't take long before I can hear Ozzy's distinctive call.  He wants his lunch.  So, I bundle myself back up, and donning my knee high rubber boots, trudge back out to get them their hay.  The book title, A River Runs Through It, certainly came to mind as I crossed our now raging drainage ditch.  The rain had now turned from pouring to deluge.  By the time I had finished giving everyone their hay, I understood what the weatherman meant about a soaking rain.  Every layer I had on was soaked.


But, as I headed for the house, he called to me again.  The prince was still not happy.  He wanted his lunch.  I think he must be part Hobbit.  Maybe I should re-name him Pippin.  He eats 4, sometimes 5, meals a day.  Now, you have to know two things about Ozzy.  He's 66% Saddlebred, thus he has a metabolism like the energizer bunny.  And, second, he doesn't really like hay.  So, for him, 'lunch' is 3 qts Alfalfa cubes, 3qts beet pulp, rice bran and some grain - soaked.  Forget the debate about whether or not you should soak your cubes or beet pulp.  He won't eat the beat pulp dry, and if his cubes are hard, he spits them out on the floor.

So in I came, to soak his cubes, and find some more dry clothes.  There will be at least 3 more trips out in the down pour, to the barn, before the day is over.  I must take the prince his lunch, and the rest of them will need their dinner, and their late night check (yes, they get "tucked in" at night).  It is days like today, when sometimes you might ask yourself, why?  It's love - for the horses, for the sport, and for the kids that you teach and watch grow as people.

Our new pony came in yesterday afternoon, and I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm really excited.  There is a lot more to this story than just us getting a pony for our lesson program.  "Layla" as she is called, has been here before.  

I looked out last night and saw her standing in the big side paddock, and my mind flashed back four years.  Back to when she lived in that paddock with her two siblings.  A good friend of mine had picked these babies up, and we took them in.  They were stunted, skinny, and full of worms.  We helped nurse them all back to health over the next few months.  Even back then, I had wanted the little paint, as I knew she would be a really cute little hunter/jumper pony.  But, we weren't at a time or place that we needed another baby to raise.  She was given to another acquaintance, and we loaded her on a trailer and said goodbye.  She eventually found her way back to my friend, who now owned her own farm.  Occasionally I would get to see her out in the field growing up and think fondly of her.  I even had the pleasure of getting to do some light training with her - so that my friend could sell her again.  Still, we weren't at a point to bring in another horse.

There is a saying - "If you love something set it free, if it comes back, it was meant to be."  Well, Layla is back.  When it came time to start looking at bringing a pony in for our lesson program, I knew just who to call.  And now, a little over a month later, she is here again. This morning I opened her stall to feed her, and instead of the "where's my food" I get from the rest of the spoiled bunch ;-) I was pleasantly greeted with "can I have some please".  There's no doubt she will be absolutely spoiled in the next few months like the rest of the herd, but for now I am just enjoying having her here.

It's a new year, a new season, and a new look for Synergy.  It has been a long, frustrating 6 months of waiting, and I am more than ready to get back into the game.  There are a lot of changes for the 2013 season, and hopefully this will be a good year.  And, although we're off to a slow start, I think this summer is going to be amazing!  The kids and horses are all looking great, and ready to go!  I've decided to try and do this blog, instead of a newsletter, to help keep everyone up to date on what's going on.

We are sporting a brand new website, to go along with our new look.  We will be changing to blue polo shirts and black jackets.  Our embroidery colors have change to a two toned gold to accommodate this.  So far, we have been please with the few items that have already been made up!  Please ask for a price list, if you are in need of any items.  If you are planning to show with us this year, you will need put in an order for one of the polo shirts.  Our embroidery shop requires a 4 item minimum, so get your orders in as soon as you can, so that we can put together an order.  We prefer anyone showing in the jumper ring, to order two, so that they may have one to school, and one to show.  If only ordering one, please be sure to have at lease one blue polo for a spare.

This year we are excited to be finishing our first of the three planned arenas!  This first arena will accommodate the chains for a regulation sized small Dressage arena... when it's not full of jumps, of course.  Even as it sits at the moment, without it's footing in place, we have been fortunate to be able to work and jump, when others have not.  We are hoping to have the footing and fenceing in place before this summer.  Plans for building more jumps are also in the works.

We will be doing some re-structuring of our lesson horses this spring and summer.  Kate has been sold, but will be hanging around until the end of May. We will be bringing in a pony as our new beginner lesson mount.  Josey has been gelded, and has just been added to the program after a few months refresher.  He is going to make a very nice small junior/children's hunter.  I can't wait to see him in the ring with the kids!

We have implemented our Barn Bucks program.  Anyone looking to offset some of their showing expenses, and wanting to help out around the farm, or at shows, please let us know!  At the moment, Barn Bucks can be used towards coaching fees at shows or extra lessons.  More cool stuff to be added in the future.

We do have lots of lessons spots still available, so tell all your friends!  We will also have 2 training or boarding stalls available starting June 1st.  $50 Barn Bucks for every new referral!

Let's make 2013 amazing!