Out of Florida - Bouckaert Farms part 1

For the first Chatt post, I'm going to celebrate that Butterball and I LEFT the state of Florida (with a health certificate I wrote myself, woohoo! only had to redo it once when the temp didn't enter...) and were not stopped by a hurricane or by sore feet. Overall we had beautiful weather and a lovely time hanging out at Chatt. The place is GORGEOUS. Seriously, cannot describe how pretty it is. This post is a Friday-Saturday recap. 

On the way, assessing Ellis Bros where we stopped to get some chocolate covered pecans and honey. If you're ever on 75 in mid-Georgia, skip the Buc-ee's and check out Ellis Bros. Free samples of soooo many different pecans. I snagged the grand marnier dark chocolate pecans for my dad - they were a big hit.  

Pulling in to Bouckaert, sooooo pretty 

The stalls are lovely, they come with mats and a nice window to the stall behind them

And lovely ventilated stall doors

Albeit slightly tall stall doors if you're a Butterball

But not too tall to get the snoot over

Getting his neighbor to fall in love with him 

They napped "together" like this a lot, it was adorable. His neighbor's person probably thought it was less adorable that by Saturday afternoon, said neighbor was SCREAMING every time I took Butterball out of his stall. Oops. 

Insert Ritz please 

As expected, Butterball was just a DELIGHT to travel with. He did his usual mix of eating and sleeping on the drive up. Then unloaded politely and made himself at home by helping distribute his shavings and then flopping down in them. Our schooling ride on Friday was relatively chill, so I kept it quite short. 

Dressage on Saturday wasn't until 1:20, so we had loads of time to hang out and watch the UL tests. I debated not braiding since stadium was on Sunday; it seemed silly to braid for roughly three minutes in front of a judge (so why would six minutes make it better?? LOL). In the end though, I had loads of time and no excuse not to, so the pony got braids. 

I left his mane a bit longer this time, and I liked the overall effect better. The banded braids came out a little rounder and more pleasing to my eye. 

It drizzled on us a bit during dressage warm up, but pony pants doesn't care, which is really nice. He was pretty stiff to the left and the serpentines in warm up from right to left weren't fantastic. Once in the ring, I stopped picking fights about the left bend though and focused on just riding him forward. We had our best dressage score to date! It was a bit generous in parts, but I think overall reflected the work we've been doing. It was a 29.4, good enough for a 3 way tie for 4th place out of 14. 

Proving that he is indeed the best, once we got back to the stall and I removed the saddle, he IMMEDIATELY flung himself into the shavings, intent on rubbing out his braids. I had, not realizing his feelings about braids, left him unattended for about 15 minutes after braiding him before tacking up and he HAD NOT done that prior to my test (which would 100% have meant he went in not braided). Thanks for not doing that before hand, buddy! 

The rest of the day passed peacefully, watching a few stadium rounds, and then joining friends for dinner. The drive to dinner and dinner itself were my first time back in AC. The weather was quite nice for camping in the trailer, but pretty endlessly damp the whole weekend. It was nice to be dry for a bit. 

I love doing night check and seeing this adorable face 

Peaceful dusk