Move to Canada - stage 1

Lunch break at Blue Ridge Travel Plaza in NY

Life has been busy and it took a while to get the computer set-up so this is written a little after the fact.  Also my cell phone camera is basically trashed so the pictures are lacking too.  But the whole family (horses, cats, and ourselves) has successfully landed in Ontario, Canada. The plan was to move the horses to a short-term boarding facility while we moved ourselves, then return and pick up the horses.  That is basically what happened and we got very lucky with the weather, our pre-arranged travel days were all mostly between storms. 

Prior to the trip I started both horses on preventative doses of Gastrogard and made sure they had salty mashes the day before (just like we were going to a ride!).  We headed north from West Virginia with the horses and took about a 1 hr lunch stop 1/2 way through the trip (about 4 hrs).  We had pre-picked places that looked safe to unload the horses for a bit, and ended up choosing the Blue Ridge Travel Plaza http://blueridgetravelplaza.com/ .  It worked fine, the ground was little icy (especially after Sonny knocked the water tub over!) but no problems.  We arrived at the short-term boarding facility in Pulaski NY late that evening (around 8 pm).  The owners were very welcoming and helped us get the horses settled in.  However, the facility was not was I expecting, the owner's had said the horses would be outside as much as possible, but apparently we had very different definitions of "as much as possible". Essentially Rogan and Sonny were going to be turned out into a round-pen sized indoor arena for 2-3 hrs each day while the stalls were cleaned.  Not ok!!  The stalls were also very small, I would guess about 10' x 7' -- I don't think Rogan could stand fully in the width of the stall. I was worried about Rogan casting himself as he is a fairly big horse.  The stalls also didn't have heated water, which was very concerning as both my horses are used to a Nelson heated waterer keeping the water about 50F; the owner gave fresh water 2x daily (which rapidly froze as the low was about -26 F) and Rogan and Sonny just aren't accustomed to that routine.  The other big red flag was all the other horses in the barn had non-breakaway, including rope-style, halters on all the time.  Another big safety no-no!  The horse's also seemed a bit wound, not happy and relaxed (probably from excess energy being stalled all the time!). And the barn was very crowded, old, with hay, and electric wires -- it seemed like a huge fire hazard too.  I was pretty concerned about a fairly high risk of impaction colic for my horses with so many big changes at one time (significantly decreased movement + loads of hay + plus cold water only given 2x daily). On the positive the owner was very knowledge about horses and very thorough - if he had a different facility I would trust him to take care of my boys!  We stayed overnight and then the next morning I made a call to the other nearby facility on horsemotel.com, Wind Hill Farm.

Rogan and Sonny relaxed in the stalls at Wind Hill Farm

Row of newly built stalls at Wind Hill Farm

Randy at Wind Hill Farm was very welcoming and re-arranged his schedule so he could accommodate us last minute.  We headed north for about another 1.5 hours and arrived at his farm, just south of the border, near Thousands Islands NY.  On arrival we unloaded the horses into adjacent, new, 12' x 12' matted stalls with heated water and wall slots so the horses could see each other and feel comfortable.  Both horses immediately cocked a hind leg and relaxed (well Rogan had to pee in the fresh shavings first!).  For the week layover, the horses had use of the whole indoor arena as a run-in shed with access to 5 acres of snowy pasture (alternating outside time with Randy's personal horses).  We blanketed them (as the high temperatures were forecast to be well below 0F for the next few days -- and the low Sat morning was -26 F!  I felt very comfortable leaving my horses in Randy's care at Wind Hill Farm! Then we headed back south as fast as possible as another front was blowing in and we didn't want to be on 1-81 in a snowstorm.  We didn't quite beat the snow, but we did safely make it home late that evening to start the next phase of them -- ourselves, the cats, and all the stuff!

Indoor arena -- i.e. Best Run-In Shed EVER!!!

Outside of the barn/arena (and the dangling fencing strand is Christmas lights, not barb wire!)

Parking the trailer for temporary storage into a snowbank