5 Simple Things I've Learned about Horsekeeping

1. Always have a pair of scissors handy.

You know your old sewing scissors? The ones that, when you bought them on sale with your 40% off coupon at JoAnn's? The ones you told your whole family NOT TO TOUCH, and THESE ARE FOR FABRIC and NOT FOR PRUNING THE BUSHES? The ones your kids ended up using for school projects and your husband used to cut the wire off of something in the garage, and which you will never, ever be able to use for cutting that beautiful fabric again? Don't throw them away.We always keep a pair out in the barn (okay, it's not really a barn, but hey this is Arizona. Barns are hot. It's a glorified shade but we call it a barn. Yes, I know the difference, I grew up in farm country.) Anyway, there's nothing worse than needing to cut open a new bale of hay to feed your horses (which I'm sure are starving), and there is no blade to be found.Stick that old pair of slightly damaged scissors out in your hay, and they will find new life.

2. Always stack your garden hose on a slant.

That way, when you drag it over to water your horses, or wash your car or whatever, it will not get all tangled and bunched up and make you say things like sh*t! and g******it! and son of a bee stinger! And other colorful words that entertain the neighbors.And if everyone else in your family puts the garden hose away like this:Then you may feel the way I do sometimes:

3. Always keep water from spilling.

Some of you lucky people out there have horses who never rub on anything in their stalls and never knock over their feeders or water buckets. My horses will mess with anything in their stalls. And they aren't even kept in their stalls all day - they have free reign to wander about as they choose. When the barn was built, we had automatic waterers installed, so the horses would always have fresh, clean water. This one is dog height:But the ones we had installed in the stalls were just the right height for the horses to use as butt-scratching-posts. And from the repeated leaning on by 1000-lb. animals, the waterers got tilted just enough to leak. All the time. Which resulted in huge mud puddles right where the horses need to stand to drink their water. Horse stalls and standing water do not mix. Hoof fungus, mosquitoes, and the smell are the three main reasons, but I'm sure there's more.So we got these big half-barrel water buckets from the feed store. Which are just the right height for the horses to scratch their hind legs on. And then they discovered how much fun it is to tip over the water bucket when it is about half full. Which goes back to the same old water-in-the-stall problem. It took me a few tries to final figure out how to do it (hint: looping chains around the bucket doesn't work).So I drilled holes in the top of the bucket. Wasn't easy because the loopy do-dads that I bought have wide ends so I basically had to drill two holes next to each other and then widen it further. You probably have better tools than I do, so maybe you'll have an easier time of it. Then I took some Clip-hook do-dads, attached to the loopy do-dads (all very technical here) and clipped the hooks to my fence. Voila! Horsey-no-knock-over. So there.

4. Always, ALWAYS latch gates closed behind you.

None of this, "Oh, I'll be in here for a sec to spray some fly spray/scoop poop/etc." and then swinging the gate behind you without latching it shut. 9 times out of 10, you end up going out a different gate than you came in anyway. But it only takes a second.Do not be deceived by their big-eyed innocent faces. Horses are known escape artists.The minute you turn your back, they are nosing that gate open, and GONE! This is especially important if the place they can escape to is potentially dangerous, as in the photo above—into traffic—or in my backyard, one of the gates leads to a play area where we have a trampoline which is sunken into the ground. My horses thought it would be cool the other day to push on this gate and run around back there, nearly giving me a heart attack.Luckily they just ran around and munched on the pine trees, and avoided the black hole of the trampoline. But it could have been bad.

5. If you give your horse a bath, and you are not dirtier than your horse was when you started, you are doing it wrong.

There is no possible way to bathe your horse and not get wet, dirty and smelly. If you are the type of person who doesn't like to get your hands dirty, don't even think about wanting a horse. Or just be rich enough to have some one else do it for you.But where's the fun in that?Oh - by the way, I just saw the movie BRAVE today. If you are as much of a Celtic folklore geek as I am, you will love it. Pixar did an amazing job, capturing the beauty of Scotland, and weaving a story around a strong, smart female character. AND they have an awesome Shire horse—and whoever was in charge of animating the horses did an excellent job of capturing the character and how they really move. Anyway, just go see it, it's good. Visually stunning.

Here's my LittleFilmReview tweet:

https://twitter.com/heidhorch/status/216676217854771200

Welcome to the Barn - New Site Launch!

It has been a long, long journey to get here. As I write this I am listening to Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation," and putting the finishing touches on this here brand new site that you are reading right now. Any posts dated prior to this are from my old Blogger address. Blogger has served me well the past few years, and was a great place to start a blog*. But the time had come to move on.I had been considering a move to WordPress for awhile. While I loved my Blogger site, it was getting a bit outdated and cluttered. And when reading other blogs, I kept seeing themes and design that were just so  beautiful, modern, and streamlined.During this time, Blogger had completely re-done their format with new design features and offered newer, more modern templates. Even a pretty cool Dynamic View feature. But I was still frustrated by limitations of design customization. So I started this: whenever I was out surfing the web, and came across a blog that had a professional-looking, beautiful and easy-to-funtion site, I would scroll all the way down to the bottom of the webpage, and look for the attribution, and this is what I usually found:

And then something else happened: Apple decided to move their MobileMe service over to iCloud.  I had been using my MobileMe account for email, and as a website host for my domain (www.westceltgypsy.com) ever since I moved from Homestead.com, where I first started my online career. So not only was I already looking at a new blog design, but now I was being forced to find a new web host as well. Up til now, my stand-alone site for my horses and my blog were two separate sites.

What I really wanted to do, if I was going to go through all this trouble anyway, was to take my horse website (westceltgypsy) and my blog (Chroi and Me) and blend them into one.

So I started really looking in to WordPress. Now for those of you new to it, there are TWO WordPresses:

1. WordPress.com, where you can go and in about 10 minutes, have your very own blog for free, and
2. WordPress.org, where you can go set up a self-hosted blog.

After starting with #1, Wordpress.com, I got that same old Blogger frustration: I just couldn't get it to look like I wanted it to look. I wanted certain fonts, certain design functions that I just couldn't control at WP.com. So I looked into #2, WordPress.org, and although I knew it was going to be a HUGE learning curve, I decided to jump in.*For those of you who are contemplating your own possible future in the blogoshpere, check around, and see what you prefer. There are other free blog sites out there (Live Journal), and some very nice pay-by-the-month sites (Typepad).  But my own recommendations, based on TONS of research, weeding out the garbage,  AND the fact that I am cheap, is this: stick with Blogger or WordPress.Try Blogger if you:

• are new to Blogging
• need something simple; easy to learn and use
• just need a free web presence that you can link to your other social media accounts
• don't know anything about code and don't WANT to know
• enjoy the power and reliability of Google (Blogger is powered by Google)

But go to WordPress if you:

• are a little more web-savvy
• are comfortable with tweaking a little bit of code every now and then (you don't have to, but it helps)
• are going for a more professional look (doesn't look homemade; lots of design options)
• like the idea of being part of something that is open-source
• believe that this is just a jumping off point for you, and that in the future you will build your blog to something bigger and better

But most of all, like they say in the writing world, if you want to write a book, you need to read lots of books. If you want to start a blog, read lots of blogs. Find out what appeals to you, what turns you off; look at the attribution; read the comments; comment yourself. Be active and get involved. Just like the guy in the group that is so annoying because all he does is talk about himself, and promote his own projects, nobody likes the narcissistic blogger. You can only help yourself by being part of the conversation.Why? Read on.Right around the same time I started to learn WordPress.org, my bosses over at the catering company talked to me about helping them with their Social Media Marketing platform. At the time, they had a website, and a Facebook page that one of their kids had set up two years ago, and that no one could remember the password to. It had 6 likes. They were focused on just updating the Facebook page, but I told them that while Facebook is an incredible marketing tool, it is merely one spoke in the wheel of online marketing. I said, "You gotta have a blog." Their response was, "Really?"Really.While the mainstream world is still just catching on to blogging ("what's a blog again?") and the blogosphere goes through hot-and-cold spells, it is my firm belief that a blog is the simplest, most important, and FREE online resource to entrepreneurs, artists, freelancers and just about anyone else who wants their presence known. Basically your blog is your online "hub," where your audience can find you, and which links to all of your other internet "spokes": your website, Facebook page (a Facebook fan page is different from your personal profile), your Twitter account (yes, you DO need to be on Twitter), your Pinterest page and more. More on all of that in an upcoming article.I started online with a very homemade-looking website with Homestead.com, moved to a better looking site built with iWeb, started a blog with Blogger, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and now this all-in-one totally sexy new WordPress self-hosted site. Along the way, I've sold 3 horses, started writing a novel, learned about writing, met some awesome people (who you will get to meet soon!), and now have others reading my work, and learning from me. In other words, I have been building an online presence, hopefully a positive one.Part of the reason this latest chapter has taken so long is that I haven't only been building one blog, I've been building two: this blog, the catering blog, plus a new Facebook Page and Twitter for them. Plus my fabulous job as a magazine and book merchandiser, driving for the caterers, feeding my boys and husband, laundry, housework, shopping, blah, blah, blah...yeah, I know, welcome to life in the 2010s, right? Everyone's working about 12 jobs.So to that end, I would like to say Thank You. Thanks for taking a little slice of ever-elusive time out of your busy day to stop by. I really do appreciate it. And I'm still surprised every time someone tells me that they read my blog. I still think it's just me and my pajamas with a cup of coffee, blathering away into space. One thing that bloggers love? Comments. See that little box at the bottom of this page? Drop me a line, say hi, and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.For now, I am off on a much needed break. I'm heading up to the cool pines with my girl-friends for some R&R at a nice quiet, no wi-fi cabin. We will be reading gossip magazines, drinking wine, watching chick flicks and having pillow fights in our underwear.Just kidding on that last one, wanted to make sure you were paying attention. :)So welcome to the new WestCelt Gypsy/Chroi and Me site, please browse & read, and let me know what you think. I'll be checking in on my phone.Have a great weekend!Heidi