COVID Horse Life Update Part Two

I also picked up some pretty new things on sale from our local tack shop.
I'm doing what I can to #shopsmall and support our local businesses right now.

I feel like everything in life right now requires a difficult decision. Even going out for a run, I need to pick a route that I think won't have too many people and constantly watch and be alert to dodge people as I go while also watching for traffic and lumps or bumps in the sidewalk so I don't hurt myself. It's uncomfortable and tough to zone out and just run.

My anxiety has made shopping difficult because people aren't good at following rules so it's almost impossible to avoid coming within 6' of someone at the store as everyone mills around. That's with MN taking this pretty seriously and doing a good job social distancing overall so far. I can't imagine what it would be like in a place where it wasn't being taken as seriously.

Nothing has felt like a more difficult decision than horse stuff though. Being completely blunt, my options were to stay, cross my fingers, and hope that the barn opens to some extent or the communication gets better or go and have to deal with all of the ickiness that is trying to move a horse during this quarantine while leaving my current barn family at this time.

Not any sort of official advice but cute and funny and still good things to consider.

I knew if I moved that some people would feel like I had moved just so I could ride my horse. We're all in this together and I understand that many people can't ride or see their horse right now. I also knew that I couldn't make the decision based on other's opinions. As horse owners we are all responsible for our own horse, ourselves, and for doing the best that we can for each of them. Sometimes we're going to mess up and look back and wish we had done things differently, sometimes we're going to get it exactly right, and sometimes it's going to be somewhere in the middle.

I'm incredibly anti risk. I'm not an adrenaline junky, I drive at or below the speed limit, I lunge if Katai seems anxious or especially high energy, and with this quarantine I'm staying 99% home with my boyfriend and only ordering food because other than a handful of times that we've needed to leave over the last month+ for truly essential purchases I don't want to leave the house. We've purchased masks (from Equifit actually :), found some hand sanitizer that I've ordered, and are carefully following the science as far as social distancing (those few times we go out), hand washing, and washing/disinfecting our groceries as appropriate. With that, while I'm tempted to just completely hide at home until this passes, none of us can or should completely stop our lives for the next 18+ months. That certainly has its own dangers including, for many of us, mental health decline. Instead, I believe in following the science, reducing risk to the smallest possible amount, and following all guidance in things like our Stay at Home order.

Also taking full advantage of every dressage learning opportunity include this webinar series that Meghan from
A Enter Spooking has put together!

I'm exhausted from all of the decision making and at first just buried my head in the sand and waited it out. However, I also knew that with our current peak expected around the end of June-mid August and the likelihood of additional waves following that, this concern I have about my barn isn't just going to go away in the next month. My boyfriend and I have had a long talk about horse and barn options since we've found that he's not as high risk as was originally thought. So, as we move forward and find out about the next steps for both our stay at home order and any updates from the science community on what we should all be doing we're also moving forward in appropriate ways.

I've considered a bunch of options and have some plans that I'm working to finalize. My BF is working to build an at home climbing wall and we're going to continue to stay 100% at home for the time being.