The good thing about having your horses at home is that you can feed them in your bathrobe.

Not that I’d ever do that…

I have a new puppy—a black and tan Jack Russell named Kieran—so I have to get up at least once in the night every night to let him out. I pull on a bathrobe, find my glasses and shove him out the door.

This weekend Kieran woke up for the second time around 7 a.m., so at that point I decided to get up and feed the horses as well. They were looking both hopeful and cold.

Feeding time feels a little strange these days. I scoop out the grain, add a little oil for Joshua, my hard-keeper, and that’s it. I head out to the field to feed.

I like to think of myself as a minimalist when it comes to my horses’ feed. They live out 24/7—which would be my preference even if I did have a finished barn—and they have plenty of access to water and hay or grass depending on the season.

But as your typical horse person, I’m prone to always wanting to do a little extra.

It’s never a good feeling when you head out to feed the horses and notice the gate is open.

In the five years that I’ve owned my own horse property, this was actually the first time this had happened. But ever since acquiring Joshua this fall, a 5-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred, escapes have been a lot more frequent than in the past.