Together Again

After a couple of months of not working together as Jason recovered from his surgery we are now, for better or worse, working together again.  Working with your spouse can be a really wonderful experience. It can also be quite, hmmmm, how should we say this, "challenging" at times.  

We've always tried to sort of have a division of responsibilities.  We do a lot of the work together but depending on the task at hand one or the other is in charge.  Jason and I are both chiefs by personality which makes this concept of his side of the page and her side of the page very important.  The problems arise when we both inevitably start writing all over the other person's side of the page.  To make matters worse we both like to emphasize our writings on the other person's side of the page by using a bold, black sharpie to write all over their stuff.  I'm sure this will shock all of you when I say that neither of us responds to this particularly well. 

Cue Jason's full return to work at Paradigm Farms a few days ago after Melissa has been 100% in charge for the last two months.  Jason is quite happy to be back on the job at full capacity and is offering up his opinions on things that were not done, or were done but he felt were unimportant, or could have been done differently, etc. As much as I missed having someone to help with the actual workload I will publicly admit that I quite liked being In Charge 100% of the time.  No bold, black sharpie scribblings all over my page Thank You Very Much, just my own way of doing everything all of the time.  I happen to be rather fond of my management style and approach to things.  I was down with the All Melissa All the Time approach to every single decision.  I wasn't interested in hearing about how things might have been done differently.  I might have even said that a time or two in the last few days.

Today several horses saw the farrier to be trimmed.  For what seems on the surface to be such a simple task Jason and I both have plenty of opinions on just about every facet of the job.  We had ample opportunities for so many discussions and we seemed to "discuss" every one of them.  Who is being trimmed today?  What order are they going to be trimmed?  Then there are they myriad of ways to discuss each horse's individual needs.  I say "should we take a little more off at the toe on Horse X this trim?"  Jason responds with " of course not, we need to leave more toe on Horse X."   I knew it had been a long day and we were both getting tired when we started answering each other's enquiries and opinions with "whatever you think is fine with me."  

I'm sure tomorrow (another farrier day by the way) will bring ample opportunities for both of us to bring out our black sharpies and be In Charge.  However I expect with each day that goes by Jason and I will find our rhythm together again and keep the sharpie writing to a minimum.  After many years of working together we had a pretty good system worked out, so it was kind of impressive (maybe impressive is the wrong word here!) that I decided I was in charge of ALL of the pages in just 8 weeks.  Like I said, I'm rather fond of my management style . . .   

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Hemi and Thomas grooming

Stormy, Clayton and Johnny escorting new friend Bergie around the pasture.  My favorite part of this picture is all of the grass hanging out of Clayton's mouth.

Titan and Lotus having a nose to nose session over Asterik

Oskar and Grand were also having a nose to nose session over Elfin's back

Lotus, Tony, Homer, Moe and Elfin having group nap time

Lily and Maisie

Largo and Rampal being silly

Lightening, Walden, Fabrizzio and Snappy

Winston and Faune

B-Rad and Lighty

Silky, Maisie and Calimba