Sunday, December 25, 2016
Christmas Eve
Nothing special around these parts, just a super-foggy day and a distribution of all the cookies. We'll be more festive next time; the Santa hat is in the mail...
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Winter Is Coming
Screenshot from earlier this week
Perhaps not surprisingly given the area of the country I live in - cold is not my thing. In fact, the whole group of us at the barn tend to resoundingly and unanimously decide that if the weather isn't going to get above 50 degrees, that's a nope situation.
The forecast screenshotted above is for my house; the barn, being 40 or so miles farther north, is generally a few degrees colder. That forecast also doesn't show the freaking wind chill, which is supposed to reach single digits. Today narrowly avoided the nope because the temperature was going to be comfortable into the early afternoon - but that didn't mean any of us wanted to hang out for long!
So I stopped at the weanling pasture to say hi to the little guy, and to check on Project "Make Justice Fat." (He grew inches and winter hair at once. It was... even more not pretty than his usual baby awkwardness.)
Ugh, that neck is so sad. Go play more, baby!
White spot check: butt spots still present, although not as many as before. One small white spot on the muzzle. And then there's the tail.
At this point, it was 45 degrees and falling. The wind was blowing. The sweatshirt was not enough. Still, I'd said I was going to grab Cessa and blanket her, so off to the main pasture to collect her.
She wasn't thrilled with her blanket again, but did let us put it on her. Once she's convinced that yes, it's going on, she's fine - but getting her there is still a bit of an adventure.
Level of impressed with the cold front: low.
Pretty girl.
All of the horses were on alert, because not only was the temperature dropping - by the time I got back into the car, it had dropped another five degrees - but the wind was blowing at a good 15-20 with gusts of much higher. Cessa was a bit squirrely, but settled down once we walked away from the area where she was most agitated.
When we headed down to the arena to have one of the BOs check my blanket fit (more adventures in horse ownership: fitting the blanket isn't something I really had to do as a lesson kid...), the colts in the arena started running around. We shrugged and figured they were wanting to play - which it did turn into play after a few minutes - and let it be.
Then I turned Cessa out, and we all cracked the hell up.
See, she went trotting off to the herd, who were standing there on high alert because winter and wind and hose in the trough making weird noises. The herd took one look at her and took off running as though their lives depended on it.
Cessa chased after them - why are we running? - until they got to the far end of the pasture. At that point, the herd decided there was a new horse in there with them (yeah, not so much, guys) and started chasing her off (she's usually high-ranking in the herd) and generally being a pain. Miss Thing needs to lose some weight and a night or two of not standing at the bale of hay 100% of the time isn't going to hurt her at all, so we were still cracking the hell up.
I'm pretty sure she was sulking.
I have a Santa hat coming, so there may be festive pictures next weekend, assuming it isn't still this freaking cold...
Monday, December 5, 2016
Haiku Farm Blog Hop
Aarene over at Haiku Farm started a blog hop and it's kind of spreading through the blogs I've been lurking on - and hey, I've been meaning to start up a blog about my beasties anyway and I didn't get barn time this weekend (40s for the high, 40s for the low, and 100% chance of rain? Yeah, no way.)... So blog hop it is!
Here's the directions:
* Introduce yourself!
I'm Sarah. I'm an English rider in the land of Western riders (Seriously, if you ever wanted to know where all the big-name reining trainers are? They're here. All of them.), which is sometimes challenging and sometimes just frustrating.
I've been riding since the mid-1990s, almost exclusively as a lesson kid, and at last count I have ridden with eight different instructors at nearly fifteen barns. And today is my one year anniversary of horse ownership!
* Introduce your horse(s)!
I have two horses, because my barn friends are terrible enablers and somehow convinced me that I needed two horses instead of one. (Okay, so I only needed a little convincing...)
* What's your favorite horse sport? Do you cross train in other activities?
I've always loved eventing, but I honestly haven't jumped since 2000 or so, and never outside an arena. So I'm not sure if my love of watching eventing will ever translate to a love of riding eventing - but I'll definitely try it some day. Second place goes to dressage, which I enjoy doing but don't really enjoy watching as much.
Cross-training is awesome. I've been forced to cross-train the human more often than not - my long-time instructor was a Western Pleasure specialist and I've ridden in a IPHDA clinic, among other things - and I spend a lot of time reading blogs for disciplines not my own because I always learn something.
* Who else in your family rides?
One of my mom's cousins. There's a running family joke that I have the wrong parents.
* What's your proudest equestrian accomplishment?
You know, it's a small thing, but I spent probably two years riding my current BO's mother's mare. The BO's mother is a very sweet lady, but she has a hard time laying down the law. I have no such problem. It was really fun to feel the difference between where we started and where we were two years later - and what happened when the BO's mother got on.
* What was your lowest moment as a horse owner/rider?
Oh, that's a story.
Some time in the mid-to-late 1990s - I could probably dig up the year if I tried, but I'm not too worried about it - I started having confidence issues while riding. Most of them started when I was riding with a lady that started off as a really cool dressage instructor and turned into a raging bitch when she realized that my parents were serious about not buying a horse from her. (Also the psycho that sent me up a hill, alone, in a thunderstorm to get a horse and canceled the lesson when we got back to the barn because it was still raining and thought that teaching beginner lessons on green-broke three year old colts was appropriate.) It's a challenge to get a horse-crazy teenager to sit in the car and cry every week when she should have been excited about horses and riding, but that woman was totally up to the challenge.
We left there pretty quickly and moved to a different barn... and into a similar situation with a different person. (I have the worst luck with instructors named Linda, apparently.) And then we moved again, ending up with the lady I lessoned with for over a decade.
The problem is, my confidence didn't recover. I was okay? But I wasn't okay. I fell off of a beginner-safe lesson horse one day, and that didn't help either.
I started not being able to canter a horse. Then I couldn't trot a horse. The lowest point came the day I was sitting on one of the lesson horses - sitting still, mind you - and couldn't stop freaking out because she was stomping at flies.
It took four years for me to be comfortable on a horse again. It took longer to be able to trot, and even longer to canter. I'm still iffy at the canter; I have to trust the horse before I can do it.
* What's the most important small thing you ever learned in a lesson?
Elbows. Apparently I lock them. I did not know that was a thing.
* Do you have any riding rituals or superstitions?
Rituals, yes; superstitions no. I have a very specific grooming routine - curry everything but the legs and face, brush everything, clean out hooves - and if anything disrupts it, I feel guilty. All those years as a lesson kid, I guess.
* What are your short term goals for yourself/your horse?
Short-term for me is easy: get back in the saddle.
Short-term for baby J is to be a baby. We're tossing around the idea of doing the halter classes in a local schooling show in the spring, but mostly he's on "be exposed to things and get fed treats" duty.
Short-term for Cessa is a two-parter. Part 1: un-learn this whole "I'm bored and don't want to stand tied anymore, so I'm going to break this halter and head for the hills" crap.
Part 2: get under saddle, because yes, I'm the genius that bought a baby and an unbroke broodmare.
* Long term goals?
For me, mostly I just want to ride. I'd love to do some dressage shows; I'd love to get back to jumping, and maybe even try this whole "jumping mostly immovable objects in a field" thing.
I don't have huge plans for Cessa. She's my girl; we'll figure out whether I want to take her to shows or whether she's a trail ride and putter around kind of girl later.
As for Justice? Show pony and husband horse. Show pony because holy hell, baby boy is fancy, and husband horse because there's no way I'm putting my inexperienced hubby on Cessa; she would eat him alive. He'll be 2 in June; we'll start experimenting with placing blankets and saddles on his back some time after that, but he isn't going to formally go under saddle until at least 4.
* If time and money were no object, what is your dream equestrian vacation?
Spanish. Riding. School. I got the chance to see them when they toured the US ten years ago, but seeing them in a stadium isn't the same.
I'd also like to see the Percheron races in France. Thundering hooves!
* What kind of horse activities were you doing 10 years ago?
Let's see... 10 years ago, I was taking hunter-jumper lessons at the barn I originally rode at when I first started lessons... which has new owners, a whole new lesson staff, and is now situated in the middle of a mega-subdivision. (So surreal. And sad - a lot of the barns I've ridden at are now subdivisions.)
* What kind of horse activities do you think you'll be doing 10 years from now?
What I'd like is to have my own place and the ponies in my back yard. What's more realistic is boarding and still riding - and probably still searching for good English instruction in the sea of Western folks.
* What is the quirk about your horse that you like most?
Justice will totally fall asleep with his head in your lap. It's hilarious.
He is also officially a mystery color. He's got the Appaloosa gene, but no pattern. So while he looks plain brown, over the last year he's popped up with an ever-shifting array of spots - from an egg-sized round dot we uncovered when shaving him in March to his current scatter of pencil-eraser-sized polka-dots across his hindquarters and a big fat silver streak in his tail.
Cessa actually tries to get me to save her from things. I've had to stand between her and a llama that was 75 feet away (but going to get us, Mom, can we run?). I also was apparently responsible for saving her from her pretty new blanket, which was fine to put on but after that was terrifying.
Here's the directions:
Answer the questions (below) on your own blog, and leave a link to that post in the comments here. In your post, invite readers to answer the questions on THEIR blogs, and link those blogs to yours AND to here. Let's see how far this can travel!
Pictures! Let's see lots of pictures of people and horses!
* Introduce yourself!
* Introduce your horse(s)!
* What's your favorite horse sport? Do you cross train in other activities?
* Who else in your family rides?
* What's your proudest equestrian accomplishment?
* What was your lowest moment as a horse owner/rider?
* What's the most important small thing you ever learned in a lesson?
* Do you have any riding rituals or superstitions?
* What are your short term goals for yourself/your horse?
* Long term goals?
* If time and money were no object, what is your dream equestrian vacation?
* What kind of horse activities were you doing 10 years ago?
* What kind of horse activities do you think you'll be doing 10 years from now?
* What is the quirk about your horse that you like most?
* Introduce yourself!
I'm Sarah. I'm an English rider in the land of Western riders (Seriously, if you ever wanted to know where all the big-name reining trainers are? They're here. All of them.), which is sometimes challenging and sometimes just frustrating.
I've been riding since the mid-1990s, almost exclusively as a lesson kid, and at last count I have ridden with eight different instructors at nearly fifteen barns. And today is my one year anniversary of horse ownership!
* Introduce your horse(s)!
I have two horses, because my barn friends are terrible enablers and somehow convinced me that I needed two horses instead of one. (Okay, so I only needed a little convincing...)
SHC Estrella Princessa (Stonewall Sport Horse) (11 years old, also kind of a shit)
Justicar (Sugarbush Draft Horse [SDHR]) (18 months old, sweet baby boy)
* What's your favorite horse sport? Do you cross train in other activities?
I've always loved eventing, but I honestly haven't jumped since 2000 or so, and never outside an arena. So I'm not sure if my love of watching eventing will ever translate to a love of riding eventing - but I'll definitely try it some day. Second place goes to dressage, which I enjoy doing but don't really enjoy watching as much.
Cross-training is awesome. I've been forced to cross-train the human more often than not - my long-time instructor was a Western Pleasure specialist and I've ridden in a IPHDA clinic, among other things - and I spend a lot of time reading blogs for disciplines not my own because I always learn something.
* Who else in your family rides?
One of my mom's cousins. There's a running family joke that I have the wrong parents.
* What's your proudest equestrian accomplishment?
You know, it's a small thing, but I spent probably two years riding my current BO's mother's mare. The BO's mother is a very sweet lady, but she has a hard time laying down the law. I have no such problem. It was really fun to feel the difference between where we started and where we were two years later - and what happened when the BO's mother got on.
* What was your lowest moment as a horse owner/rider?
Oh, that's a story.
Some time in the mid-to-late 1990s - I could probably dig up the year if I tried, but I'm not too worried about it - I started having confidence issues while riding. Most of them started when I was riding with a lady that started off as a really cool dressage instructor and turned into a raging bitch when she realized that my parents were serious about not buying a horse from her. (Also the psycho that sent me up a hill, alone, in a thunderstorm to get a horse and canceled the lesson when we got back to the barn because it was still raining and thought that teaching beginner lessons on green-broke three year old colts was appropriate.) It's a challenge to get a horse-crazy teenager to sit in the car and cry every week when she should have been excited about horses and riding, but that woman was totally up to the challenge.
A few years before the crazy...
We left there pretty quickly and moved to a different barn... and into a similar situation with a different person. (I have the worst luck with instructors named Linda, apparently.) And then we moved again, ending up with the lady I lessoned with for over a decade.
An old friend - and the reason I love bays.
The problem is, my confidence didn't recover. I was okay? But I wasn't okay. I fell off of a beginner-safe lesson horse one day, and that didn't help either.
Not a terribly clever mare, but safe.
I started not being able to canter a horse. Then I couldn't trot a horse. The lowest point came the day I was sitting on one of the lesson horses - sitting still, mind you - and couldn't stop freaking out because she was stomping at flies.
That pretty face didn't deserve my freaking out. She was a good girl about it, though.
It took four years for me to be comfortable on a horse again. It took longer to be able to trot, and even longer to canter. I'm still iffy at the canter; I have to trust the horse before I can do it.
* What's the most important small thing you ever learned in a lesson?
Elbows. Apparently I lock them. I did not know that was a thing.
* Do you have any riding rituals or superstitions?
Rituals, yes; superstitions no. I have a very specific grooming routine - curry everything but the legs and face, brush everything, clean out hooves - and if anything disrupts it, I feel guilty. All those years as a lesson kid, I guess.
* What are your short term goals for yourself/your horse?
Short-term for me is easy: get back in the saddle.
Short-term for baby J is to be a baby. We're tossing around the idea of doing the halter classes in a local schooling show in the spring, but mostly he's on "be exposed to things and get fed treats" duty.
He's ok with this plan.
Short-term for Cessa is a two-parter. Part 1: un-learn this whole "I'm bored and don't want to stand tied anymore, so I'm going to break this halter and head for the hills" crap.
Yeah, I'm impressed too, mare. That's three halters now...
Part 2: get under saddle, because yes, I'm the genius that bought a baby and an unbroke broodmare.
* Long term goals?
For me, mostly I just want to ride. I'd love to do some dressage shows; I'd love to get back to jumping, and maybe even try this whole "jumping mostly immovable objects in a field" thing.
I don't have huge plans for Cessa. She's my girl; we'll figure out whether I want to take her to shows or whether she's a trail ride and putter around kind of girl later.
As for Justice? Show pony and husband horse. Show pony because holy hell, baby boy is fancy, and husband horse because there's no way I'm putting my inexperienced hubby on Cessa; she would eat him alive. He'll be 2 in June; we'll start experimenting with placing blankets and saddles on his back some time after that, but he isn't going to formally go under saddle until at least 4.
* If time and money were no object, what is your dream equestrian vacation?
Spanish. Riding. School. I got the chance to see them when they toured the US ten years ago, but seeing them in a stadium isn't the same.
I'd also like to see the Percheron races in France. Thundering hooves!
* What kind of horse activities were you doing 10 years ago?
Let's see... 10 years ago, I was taking hunter-jumper lessons at the barn I originally rode at when I first started lessons... which has new owners, a whole new lesson staff, and is now situated in the middle of a mega-subdivision. (So surreal. And sad - a lot of the barns I've ridden at are now subdivisions.)
* What kind of horse activities do you think you'll be doing 10 years from now?
What I'd like is to have my own place and the ponies in my back yard. What's more realistic is boarding and still riding - and probably still searching for good English instruction in the sea of Western folks.
* What is the quirk about your horse that you like most?
Justice will totally fall asleep with his head in your lap. It's hilarious.
(photo texted to me by one of my BOs)
He is also officially a mystery color. He's got the Appaloosa gene, but no pattern. So while he looks plain brown, over the last year he's popped up with an ever-shifting array of spots - from an egg-sized round dot we uncovered when shaving him in March to his current scatter of pencil-eraser-sized polka-dots across his hindquarters and a big fat silver streak in his tail.
Cessa actually tries to get me to save her from things. I've had to stand between her and a llama that was 75 feet away (but going to get us, Mom, can we run?). I also was apparently responsible for saving her from her pretty new blanket, which was fine to put on but after that was terrifying.
"It's eating me, Mom!"
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