Vacation is over

Sorry for the lack of updates, I had warned I was on vacation and I had my grandmother in from out of state and those took up most of every day.  We got a lot of things done, for a 70 yr old lady she sure works hard.  I would easily say she worked as hard as, if not harder than, most teenagers.  We cleaned a ton of brush/shrub along our property line, we put up a new pasture (YAY!!!), we whipped my flowerbed into something respectable and so much more.  Sadly she left yesterday and the affects of not having a third person to help can already be felt, it took more than 20 mins to clean stalls lol.

Last Sunday we went to a C rated show with Sinatra.  He has only been to one "real" hunt/jump show and that was spring of last year.  Since I can't seem to find any open shows with jumping classes around here, I figured go big or go home right?  We went into the 18" crossrails division and 2' beginning jumpers division.  Unfortunately I was the only adult in the crossrails division, despite being told there would be enough adults to hold the class, so I was put in with 27 little kids.  I hate showing against little kids and I am pretty certain the judge didn't place me b/c she thought I was in the class incorrectly.  The HUS class with the kids was split and I ended up in the second split that contained only 10 people.  Despite having the best ride of the entire day, and knowing I did better than at least 2 kids that placed, I did not place.  Was pretty disappointed as I wanted to drop that class, it was the last one of the day, I was tired and I already had to fight off parents making comments about me showing against the kids and then didn't even place.  Ugh.

My Beginning Hunters class went much better however.  There were 7 people in the division and they were all adults.  We had our 2 fence classes first and Sinatra impressed me by not refusing or second guessing a jump a single time, not even at the super scary red flowers!  There was one time he offered to help me fall off, he deer leaped the red flowers, however all went well and I got 5th and 6th and then got 4th in the HUS class.  Overall not too bad of a show however I don't think he is quite ready for a rated show and am renewing my efforts in finding small open shows.

Our other big accomplishment is our new pasture.  It's a small pasture, about a half acre, but it increases the turnout areas we have to 3.  Now we can rotate grass turnout and still have the indoor for when the weather is yucky.  Thew new pasture is Electrobraid fencing and it is super cool, well actually super hot.  We got the Electrobraid energizer since it was actually cheaper than some of the other energizers when you compared the output and range.  The voltmeter that came with the kit doesn't seem to work right but if it is even close to correct, that baby is putting out 12k in volts on the fence.  Both boys touched the fence on Sunday and each gave an impressive reaction, I know when I accidentally touched the fence I got a good zap and it tingled for a good couple of minutes afterwards.  I am quite happy with my new pasture and the boys are very happy being out on grass, finally.

More updates to come, hopefully some pictures too.  Getting ready for Sinatra's xc schooling on Saturday and the eventing derby on Sunday.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, we have to do a w/t/c dressage test.  EEK!