First Few Days...

Guten tag Everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to write this first post. I have been non stop busy since I got off the plane. I arrived in Bremen, Germany after a flight from Boston to JFK, then JFK to Frankfurt, and finally Frankfurt to Bremen. Naturally the airline lost my luggage so I technically moved to Germany with a backpack that contained my laptop and a blanket. Oh well! They did bring my luggage a few days later. Cassie, the barn manager picked me up at the airport. I am living in the cutest cottage like apartment building with Cassie and her boyfriend Christoffer, who is also a rider at the stable. Oh yes, here it is the stable, not a barn, and it has 20 boxes, not stalls. :-) So much to learn! The first night I arrived we had a party to attend. It was called "grunkohl" which literally translated means "green cabbage." It was a dinner party put on by the owners of the stable. We at cabbage with garlic, boiled potatoes, and every kind of sausage and ham you could imagine. I wasted no time jumping into the German culinary culture. The food was DELICIOUS! The other thing I realized at this dinner party was how little German I actually knew! I thought I was going to be amazing after having studied all my Rosetta Stone CDs, well that was an hallucination. I have so much to learn and need some serious practice!

So for those who don't know what I have been talking about this whole time, I am working as a show groom in Catherine Haddad's stable, also known as "Turnierstall Haddad" or show stable. The stable is located in Vechta, Germany, pronounced "Fecta." This took me several tries to figure out the pronunciation. I will be travelling to shows with her in the coming months. Other than grooming at shows I will doing normal stable chores and such. So far I have been put in charge of the shavings boxes because Cassie assumed me being from America that I would be able to handle a shavings box. There are only four of them, and the rest are deep bedded with straw. The deep bedding is completely new to me. The stalls, excuse me boxes, are picked out everyday and a large amount of new straw is added. Then once a month we do "ausmist." Which means we clean out the entire box and fill it with new straw. This past Monday was "ausmist" for February. This was the craziest, most efficient thing I have ever seen. The horses stand in the isle and each box partition slides out into the isle, creating make shift boxes in the isle for a short time. Then the boxes become one long isle and a tractor comes in and removes all the straw. Its an enormous amount of straw. Very efficient!

We start each morning at 7am and all the riders, and the groom (that's me) feed the stable and then we all sit down to breakfast as a team. Every morning Cassie goes to the bakery and buys fresh "brotchen"which is the softest, freshest bread I have ever heard. (OK so the food has been amazing so far!). After that the riders ride until around 2pm and then we break for lunch and come back to do afternoon chores and feed the stable.

All the horses are incredible! Even the 3 years blow me away! Ok well I should get some sleep I'm sure it will be a busy day tomorrow! We have a show this weekend! Will write more later.

Thank you for reading....

Meaghan :-)