Very busy but we did have a SHOW!

Things are so busy right now, I am so looking forward to June 1 when things are going from 100mph to about 20mph.  Last weekend was a horse show, a test and tune on the racecar, packing for the race this weekend and trying to do the household things like mow, weed whack, dishes, laundry, etc.  Add getting sick and it was fun.  UGH!!! 

No awesome photographer, but better than no media

So Mia's second Novice show was on Saturday.  Friday night I got horrible food poisoning and was so thankful for a 2p ride time on Saturday because otherwise I would have scratched.  Heck, at 9a on Saturday I would have scratched if I had to leave at that moment!  It was bad.  Really bad.  I took a double dose of pepto, immodium and some advil and finally went to the barn at 11a.  Barely.  While I hauled with MC and her 19yr old daughter, I was totally by myself and it was a time I really could have used help  Oh well, I have shown alone a lot and the quiet focus of not puking got me through.  Mia had been trimmed Friday am and unfortunately was a little footy on the outdoor substrate so she wasn't as awesome as she could have been in dressage, however we still got a 38.  Why is that a good thing?  Because the best score of the entire DAY for all divisions was a 33 so I don't feel so bad.  The judge really didn't like Mia's haunches falling in during the canter circles and docked us a 5 on those but everything else was a 6-7.  And she gave us NO feedback at the bottom.  Thanks, lady.

Getting there.  That TAIL though. 

I went and changed tack and waited for jumping.  It was supposed to be a Combined Test (dressage/stadium) but the show set it up as a derby (dressage/xc/stadium jumps) so that was cool.  I had known ahead of time and had jumped over some xc fences last Weds to prepare and Mia couldn't have cared.  She loves to jump.  We popped over the xc warmup jumps a half dozen times before simply waiting for our turn.  We went in and Mia just ate it up, the height is so easy for her.  As we came around to fence 6, I looked at fence 10 before I realized CRAP!!  That is fence 10, not 7!!  I pulled off of it about 5 strides out and ended up jumping 7 at a very severe angle to get over it.  Mia was all "Angles?  NBD.  Crazy human has me do these ALL THE TIME".  The 6 people hanging over by the in-gate were extremely impressed. Haha!  As I was leaving, I was asked to stay as there was one other horse and it was going nuts because it was being "left behind".  No worries, I stayed and just delayed my departure home for about 30 mins.  It was fun though because several people came up to me and said hi and that they really liked Mia's jumping and flexibility.  HAHA!!!  Mare is a beast.  We ended up first....out of our division one LOL!  Oh well, I was much more happy with her jumping than the fact I was the only one in the division.  Yet another show in the books where we did not have a rail in stadium!

Let's see if you can see my Fence 7 near miss HA!

She gets this week off because of the prep that is being required for our race, but next week we are hitting the training hard.  The barn has cut the fitness paths and it is dry enough to use them so starting next week, fitness is becoming a focus again.  Lots of hill work and two point will be had, I have 4 weeks to be fit as a fiddle for our first Novice HT!  Here's to keeping fingers crossed I can maintain life until then.

2016 - A Year In Review

Wow what a year 2016 has been.  Not nearly as bad as it has been for others but I am sure glad to see it go.  Where did we go in 2016?

January:

I spent the whole damn month redoing our farm house which resulted in virtually no riding time.

February:

I posted my first/only before/after post of my remodel and got the farm listed for sale.  I rode during a showing to try to get in horse time and ended up with an offer within 48 hours of the farm being for sale.  Even though it was for sale for 6 months the year prior.  And I squeeze in a trip to see barns in PA before picking the one I am at now.

March:

March was a little sad as I did serious packing and downsizing.  The horses got all of their health stuff done for the season in prep for their move and we start to diagnose App being NQR and I practice solo trailer loading of both horses in prep for the Big Move.

April:

April was the Big Move.  The horses were moved with so little problems it was seamless and we found I could actually fit my entire barn in my 2 horse trailer.  Then made the final trip to PA.  I had my first rides in PA, though it took Mia a while for her brain to arrive from MI, and App is officially retired after an ultrasound and xray.

May:

I determine Mia doesn't like her HSS baucher bit, her HSS loose ring, her eggbutt french link, or, or, or and I went back to her copper eggbutt.  We had our first XC jump schooling in PA, our first lesson in PA AND our first show in PA.

June:

We had our second lesson in PA which didn't go nearly as well as the first lesson and talked about boarding vs at-home care.  And I still stand by it, I do not want to go back to at-home horses.  I loved the ability to have them "right there", but the amount of work far exceeded the joy and pleasure I got out of having them home.  Oh yeah, and I fell off again.

July:

Mia's dressage starts to spiral out of the circle of good and into the circle of "this needs fixed" and I start using a pelham.  I test out 4 saddles in the search to find a new jump saddle and have another XC schooling.  Mia gets sick and I get an awesome stall plate from Olivia.

August:

August wasn't great.  We lost a third of the month from Mia being sick, missed a show and Mia's dressage continued to go downhill when I didn't ride in the pelham.  We had our third lesson which went pretty good.

September:

Mia started going better in her copper eggbutt and I stop using the pelham.  We had our 2nd show which went really, really well despite not placing great.  We had a CWD saddle rep come out before buying a used County Innovation and finding it didn't fit well, but felt amazing.

October:

A total reflock was done on the new saddle and we go to our 3rd show in which Mia doesn't show up to play, resulting in our worst dressage score to date.  I get my saddle back and get my 2pointober time up to a new personal record of 7:09 and aim to go higher before the end of the month.

November:

I finish out October with another new personal high of 8:01 in two point!!!!!!  Then Mia gets sick again and we lose an entire month with her being NQR with fat legs, random fevers and lethargy.

December:

Mia has decided to show back up and play when we work on dressage, though I don't get too much riding in due to the cold and weather and finish out the year trying to fall off when I ride w/t bareback and declare a new thing, No Saddle January.

Here is to a better 2017 for me and for all!

Relocation part 2

On Saturday we rested and relaxed, we bought a couch and loveseat (we sold ours in Michigan), we drove around a lot and then visited the horses.  Mia seemed no worse for wear but App was very sore.  Apparently pushing himself against the back of the trailer for who knows how long makes one's ass sore.  LOL!  He did it to himself, I can't feel that badly.  He was extremely tender for grooming and wanted no part of grooming past his hip.  I gave him another bute and let him just relax.  The horses seemed pretty happy and the manager said they enjoyed my horses, they were easy to handle.  Nice!  Love hearing that about your children!

On Sunday S, SO and I drove all the way back to MI and started the grueling process of moving out.  We packed up the little tractor, refrigerator, stove and everything else and thankfully it all fit in the car trailer.  We said goodbye to our friends and shoved off at 1015a on Tuesday after a final walkthrough.  The drive was thankfully uneventful and a good 11 hours later we arrived at our destination, PA!  We spent Wednesday and Thursday unpacking the trailer and trying to put things back together.  We bought a washer and dryer (also sold in MI, we needed to sell a bunch so it would all fit on the trailer!) and visited the horses.  There were 2 people riding in the outdoor on Thursday and invited me to join.  Uh, okay!  I couldn't find my girths so I threw my bareback pad on.  I've been riding bareback all winter, no biggie right?

Mia could not horse.  It was embarrassing, she would alternate between trying to rear and trying to bolt.  Even at the walk.  Ugh!  The two nice ladies left the arena after about 10 mins and I took the opportunity to throw Mia on the lunge line.  I mean, we have made an EXCELLENT first impression, can only get better right!  Mia GALLOPED for 5 minutes straight.  Full on gallop with full bucks.  Nice.  I had a hard time getting her stopped too.  Ugh mare.  After we changed directions, she was very fast in the canter but at least it wasn't a gallop.  After some transitions where she seemed to think again, I hopped back up.  Mia was much better, relatively speaking at least.  She wasn't trying to rear or bolt but she certainly wasn't relaxed or listening.  We worked on walk/trot/walk transitions and called it a day.  I mean, my mare was a super sweaty mess, why not!  Ugh!

Cannot horse today

Zooms?  We gots em!

Friday I hurt my back and didn't even go to the barn.  Saturday we unloaded the trailer and brought my stuff to the house (note, it is all still in the van, unpacked lol) so I could start resorting and storing it.  Sunday I rode in the indoor with another boarder.  Mia was VERY forward, with a huge case of the zooms, but was manageable at least.  The boarder said she likes Mia's movement, she is very flashy.  Aww :)  I groomed App and he decided to drop ALL of his hair at once.  The pile of hair that came off of him was very large, 2 full pitchfork scoops plus 2 small scoops.  Thanks horse lol.

Tired trots

Last night I went out for my first day of my "new normal".  I will be riding Mon/Tues/Weds nights plus weekends and the occasional Thurs or Friday.  I had hoped there would be more people out at night but I had the ring to myself until I was almost done, a boarder showed up to free lunge her gelding.  Oh well, it is only day one I said to myself.  I rode Mia first and she was AWESOME.  I really wish there had been someone there for some video or to at least see it, she is obviously out of shape and not feeling the "full workout" yet, but she was very nice to ride.  At the end of our ride, I was able to get crisp, clean trot/canter transitions that were balanced and at a speed I asked for.  WOOHOO!  Apparently it took longer for Mia's brain to travel from Michigan than expected.  I am looking forward to working her, I think she will slide back into work pretty easily.

Let's go REAL slow so we can have some control

I rode App as well, he isn't doing so great.  His shoulder is really bothering him still, despite the steroid injections.  I am going to have to have a vet out and see what they can guess.  I did ride him though, as he needs more muscle and stamina, and he was the horse I loved.  He can either be Captain Asshole or Mr Awesome and Mr Awesome showed up last night.  Bareback, in Mia's bridle (which is too big), in a brand new arena, in a brand new state and he walked around like it was old news.  No spooking, no antics and went right to work with everything I asked him to do.  Love him (most times lol)!

Mr Awesome making an appearance

So now you are caught up, it has been a really crazy 2 weeks and I am glad it is over.  The amount of stress reduction is amazing, it took days, DAYS for my brain to realize I didn't have a bunch of stuff waiting on me back in MI.  In another week, I think things will be settled and hopefully a great routine will be developed.  Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride!

Mia being awesome, finally.

Shaken, a very stupid mistake

I made a mistake, one that has shaken my confidence a bit.  It took almost 20 mins for me to settle down after it happened, I haven't been this rattled in a very long time.  On Saturday I picked up the new boarder, he is a 7 yr old paint gelding.  He is about 200lbs overweight and hasn't had much done with him over the past couple of years.  His owner is RB4 and she wants to start riding him to determine if she wants to keep him or sell him and since I have an indoor arena and she likes riding with me, she came here.  He is pretty pushy and has almost no, well I take that back.  He has no ground manners.  He doesn't see people as the boss and assumes he is the boss and has no qualms about taking that responsibility.  He also doesn't back off of pressure or respect space of any kind.  We had a little bit of an issue getting him on the trailer and a heck of a time getting off of the trailer, he refused to back up/off and eventually he had to turn around to get him off of the trailer.  Not that bad in the grand scheme of things, I have dealt with much worse.

He is getting along pretty well with the boys and seems to have pulled rank on the App, something I am quite surprised and happy with.  The App needed knocked down a few notches IMO.  I brought the new horse in Saturday night and threw him a flake of hay to go with his slow feed hay net so he didn't get frustrated for his food as he learned how to use the slow feeder.  He appeared to have taken every piece of that hay and walked it through all of his bedding, grrr.  He was also a handful when I took the donkey out Sunday AM, screaming his head off, kicking the stall, etc.  I brought him out next and he screamed his head off and ran around the pasture until I brought the App and the TWH out.  Grrr.  Last night he came in without too much issue and seemed... at least more settled than the previous night.  I didn't throw him loose hay lol.  During night check I top off water and pick out stalls.  When I went to clean his stall, he charged me as he appeared to want out of his stall.  If it wasn't for the pitchfork I had in my hand, as I was cleaning up his pee spot in front of the stall gate, he would have ran me over and taken out my wheelbarrow.  Fortunately he stayed in his stall, unfortunately my pitchfork didn't survive the ordeal as the top snapped when it hit his shoulder.  Luckily I have replacement heads I guess.  This morning his stall was in fairly decent condition considering the previous morning and he acted up a little less today when I took the donkey out.

I went to halter him and bring him out next and he kept taking his head back into the stall so I couldn't halter him.  After a half dozen tries I went into the stall and tried to halter him and he went to the back of the stall.  I locked the gate (Best idea of the morning) and tried to halter him, he turned his butt to me so I slapped him with the lead rope, he kicked out at me a couple of times.  I went back to the gate and he turned and faced me, I threw his lead over his neck and went to put his halter on, he half reared and backed up so we were both in the back of the stall and he then suddenly bolted forward.  I moved from the left back corner of the stall to the right back corner as I was suddenly right behind his hind legs and waited for a moment.  He seriously considered trying to jump over the stall gate which is a little over 4 feet off of the ground.  I went to the front left corner of the stall to try to get him to back off of the gate and put the lead rope back on his neck and he swung his haunches and pinned me in the corner.  He hit the gate and and backed almost into me three times, each time I braced hard expecting to have the &*%! kicked out of me.  I was in an extremely vulnerable position and absolutely should have known better.

After what seemed like 10 minutes but was probably only about 30 seconds he turned around and went to the rear of his stall so I immediately went to the front right corner so I had the gate behind me and faced him.  This time he let me throw his lead rope over his neck and then I put his halter on.  I grabbed my dressage whip and walked him out to the pasture without any further issues but it took turning the other 2 horses out and 2.5 clean stalls later before I had stopped shaking.  I know better, I shouldn't have allowed myself to get in such a dangerous position.  I easily could have been very seriously hurt by this horse, perhaps I have been drawn into complacency with horses that respect people and space.  Lesson learned though, this horse will be handled carefully and we will start some sessions to get him to respect me.  When I emailed the owner to tell her she said she was surprised as he is "easy going" but gave her permission for me to work with him.  My other other choice is to ask them to leave and I don't want to do that.  Not yet anyway.

I am now the real thing!

I am SO excited, I just hope it doesn't bite me in the butt!!!  This weekend I am going to pick up my first ever boarder!  It is a 12h pony of the girl I used to give lessons to.  He is an easy keeper and his only bad habit, I am told, is that he is an escape artist.  I am really hoping that doesn't bite me in the butt as the woven wire fence is not super secure, the fence posts are not nearly as secure as they should be, but it is 5 feet tall so hopefully he doesn't test any of the fencing.  The electric I am not worried about because of how hot the fence is, even if he was determined I can't imagine him being willing to touch that fence with as hot as it is.

I am going to pick him up on Sunday afternoon so I have a good bit of work to do.  I am going to move my stall gate on Chip's stall over to the empty stall and put the stall chains on Chip's stall.  I can't imagine Chip will test the chains, it's just been so long since he had them.  I need to also lower all of the buckets as they are horse height and clean the newly formed spider webs but other than that I am pretty ready.  Yay for my new business!!

On another piece of great news I rode Chip yesterday bareback and I am back in my groove.  The ride a couple of weeks ago where I was depressed after riding bareback?  I am great now.  I had my balance and everything back.  Walk, trot and canter as well as some dressage movements without a saddle, yep that was me.  Very happy with myself, this is how I used to ride and I am disappointed in myself for letting myself slack off.   Ready for anything (good) right now!

Things change fast around here

Gone are the 70+ days, we are stuck back in the 50's and the mornings are in the 20's and 30's.  It sucks because I was all geared up for spring.  Things are going well though.  But things are changing fast, it appears LogDog Acres is open for business faster than I planned.

On Monday I received an email from my (old?) riding buddy, she said she has been out of town and was leaving on Tuesday to go to Europe.  Her horse, a semi retired App, was not doing so great.  His leasee hadn't been taking care of him like she was supposed to and then told my ridding buddy they were moving out of state at the end of March, giving her 2.5 weeks to make arrangements.  She got him and put him in a boarding barn and went out of town.  It appears as though this boarding barn wasn't feeding him adequately and she was worried since she was going out of the country.

I re-extended an offer I made a while ago, offering to board him here until she got things rearranged.  She is trying to sell/give him away and until then plans on putting him in her roommates parent's pasture but they aren't ready for another horse right now.  She jumped on the opportunity of my boarding him and so I picked him up Monday night.  He is currently only scheduled to be here until the end of the month, we will see if he stays longer.  He is pretty thin, probably a 3 on the BCS but seems to be a very mild mannered horse.

My biggest concern with him is that he doesn't eat as much as I expected him to.  He is a 16 hand (if not more, I should stick him.  Taller than the TWH who is 15.3) breeding stock appy and should weigh about 1200 lbs. He has a hay net with 3/4 of a bale of hay, a hay bag with 3 flakes and is getting 3/4 of a bucket of soaked hay cubes with 1.5 cups of 10% (95% oats) sweet feed.  He maybe ate 3 total flakes last night and only half of his mush.  This morning he didn't eat any of his mush.  He doesn't look wormy and the owner said he had his teeth checked last fall.  Hoping he hurries and gets an appetite, I feel bad he is so skinny.  Animals here have a hard time being skinny and I would like for that trend to continue.