First week in horsie heaven....

We arrived safely in Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon. Our flight was a short one but it had a little delay so we were a bit late in getting here. We were picked up by Dave who owns the yard and did the short drive back to Highfields (it is only 5 minutes from the airport). When we arrived we were greeted by Mona and Nika the other two workers on the yard and they are both from Germany. Nika is leaving on Sunday so there will only be the three of us from now on I think. We also got to meet the three resident dogs; Pippa, Daisy and Star.... and also Sheepie the...well..sheep! He has a bad leg at the moment as he got picked up by one of the horses and dropped! He back leg is now very bent but he still manages to get around. In the evening we we out with the girls to make the evening feeds. So all in all there are 23 horses, 3 dogs, a cat and a sheep. Some of the horses are livery horses, so there owners some and ride them in the evenings. Then there are two stallions and a mare that are used for eventing, and some younger horses that are being broken in and 2 mares and 3 foals which are just getting used to being handled. Our first day seemed easy enough, the morning feeds took a while as we had to familarise ourselves with the routines and who had what etc, but we have since got that time down to a quick 50 minutes in the morning. I have been working with Mona, helping her with two young horses called Koko and Ciel. We have been lunging them everyday getting them used to the voice commands for walk, trot etc. Koko has fast become one of my favourites although she can be hard work as she gets really confused with what she is being asked. We then have to work with the babies who are just getting used to being around all the scary things like the riding arena, the stables and being touched. They are so cute and love all the attention they get. They are called Latte and Lavado. Latte is the one one of his kind in Australia, his markings are very rare and he is really pretty but he likes to nip you so you have to be quick....he got me on the bum the first day!! Finally, we have the really small foals who are just getting used to having halter on and learning to balance on 3 legs while one is being pciked up...it can be really hard when you dont know how!

Nigel has been working hard on his jobs too. As he is the only boy he gets stuck with a lot of the heavy and hard work, he fills his days with picking droppings from the fields, cleaning horse boxes and raking the arenas which is really hard work. He has also spent a lot of his free time helping me and getting used to being around the horses. In just under a week he has learnt how to halter, rug, bath,groom and lunge the horses....which is brilliant. His favourite is Summer.( You can see her in the picture opposite) She is Dave's horse and so nice natured she just lets him do whatever and never complains, they are first stiking up a friendship. I have been able to ride twice over the last couple of days. You can see me here with Toulouse and Mona on Roxy. Toulouse was a 2 star event horse but is now retired and Roxy was going to be Dave's Olympic horse but has injured himself so can only do light walking...although that doesn't stop him galloping throught the yards leaving a path of destruction (he is the only horse allowed to wander freely around rather than stay in his paddock)

We had a lot of fun yesterday trying to bath two of the youngsters in the wind, with a forklift truck close by, we got very wet as Lavado freaked and was running all over the place. Luckily Dave was on hand to show us how it is done and made the whole process look annoyingly simple...he is really good and I am learning a lot from him.
We are both getting much browner as we are out in the sun all day and the weather is hot... each evening we are tired but having a really good time. Bec's cooking is amazing (her mum is the number one chef in Australia, so she has learnt from the best) simple healthy meals, we are well looked after. We have been invited to one of the livery girls, Olivia's birthday party tonight. The theme is country and western and there is going to be a mechanical bull!! It sounds like it is going to be a really good night. All of the people from the stables are going so it will be a good chance to get to know everyone properly.