Prickly pickle

First: Even a $1600 bill to fix my truck - and by that I mean just to make it safe to drive - could not ruin my excitement and good mood this week. It's not 100% official yet, so I am not going to let the cat out of the bag, but my job hunt is very likely over. And wait until you here what it is. :)


Nope, not telling yet!

My instructor enjoyed her ride on Hamps today. She is the first person - other than myself - to actually get on and ride him. I've had a couple of friends sit on him and putz around, but she is the first to ask him to work. We ride very much alike so I thought it would be good for him. I think it's important for different people to ride a young horse so the horse learns to be tolerant. My instructor is an amazing rider but everyone has different timing, different weight aids, different ways of asking for things. He needs to recognize that and accept it.

She rattled his cage a bit. He tested her. He even threw in one of his famous canter transition bucks (a rather good one, I might add). He used to do this to be frequently as a 3 year old. Once bucking and kicking out so hard he knocked a dressage letter off the wall.

J was very complimentary of him and his training. He's really well trained, yet still has the attention span of a 4 year old sometimes. She called him a "prickly pickle" in that he can be sassy and opinionated (but not dangerous or mean) at times. He also has an awesome sense of humor that you can't really appreciate unless you ride him. She had some trouble picking up the right lead canter but I think it was a matter of communication there. I found it a real treat to watch her ride him. He still looks very much like a baby but we're making progress.

His trot lengthening across the diagonal were fan-freaking-tastic. Boy has he discovered a new gear! There is a big moving, fancy horse in there and it's slowing coming out.

He is gaining weight and still shedding but looking really great at the moment. He also has a lot more energy than he used to, now that he is getting calories he can spare.

The April horse show and clinics may have to be put on hold for this job situation ... that's yet to be determined. I should know more on Monday.

Thank you everyone for thinking of me (and Hamps).

Good things are happening. :)

Hampton spam!

My dear friend came out to watch me ride Hampton today. He hasn't seen Hamps in more than a year and promptly commented on how much taller he looked. Well, duh!

He was nice enough to take some photos of us.

Shoulder-in

Shoulder-in

Leg yield

Leg yield - rider is a moron and has overflexed the poneh.

Leg yield

Canter (BAD left toe!)

Canter. Lovely!

For comparison, the last time my friend took photos of us, this is what we looked like:

Out of the starting gate

I have officially entered our first horse show of the season! Yay!

We are going to do the Starter division combined test which includes USDF Intro Test and then a stadium course of fences set at 2 foot. Woot!

I've also entered First Level Test 1 and Test 3. Gulp!!

First-1 doesn't scare me, it's pretty simple. As long as I don't forget where I am going (like I do at, oh, every horse show), we should do fine.

First-3 I am mainly entering just to see what happens. The only tricky part is the canter loop. This movement depends entirely on whether I ride correctly or not. Hampton falls apart if I am not on it and really help him out. But if I do my part, we can do this movement very nicely.

I certainly do not expect the 67%'s we were getting at Training Level last year, but my hopes are to score in the 60s.

My goals for stadium are to get around clean. My confidence was really boosted after my lesson with LAZ and I think Hampton knows the job a bit better now. :)

In the meantime, Hamps has started shedding like crazy and has a beautiful, shiny summer coat coming in. He is working well under saddle and hasn't seemed bothered by the sudden heat. We've been working on ground poles, leg yielding, shoulder-in and trot-halt-back-trot transitions. Today I was shocked when our walk-canter transitions resulted in the most collected canter I have ever gotten out of him. So I took advantage and worked on counter-canter, too. I was able to pick up counter-canter at several random places around the ring. And he was able to maintain the counter-canter on each lead without an issue.

He is feeling fantastic with loads of energy lately (hmmm, could it be the good food?). I've having to half-halt a bit stronger now and I haven't worn my spurs at all for a couple of weeks.

I'm going to start really working on parts of First-3 to try to be as prepared as we can. Introducing half-pass is within my reach as well. Today as we were counter-cantering, I felt him offer some real jump - like he may have been thinking about a flying change - something I have never felt from him before. Counter canter has always been a "lets just try not to break into a trot" movement. But there was such balance and jump today.

I love how hard he tries for me. My instructor is going to ride him next week I think. I'll be sure to get pics because I know he will look awesome for her. :)

... in other news .... GREAT NEWS on the job front ... but not going to spill more because I don't want to jinx it. :) :) :)

Disarm.

Brandy - 29 years old

I woke up this morning feeling like I wanted to hurl but I knew the barn would help. 

I got there and when I turned on the lights, the 29 year old gelding - Brandy - was not hanging his head out of his stall door like he does every morning.

Crap.

Then I see his stall is empty and I knew.

There was a note on the dry erase board from his owner who wrote that he was euthanized Sunday evening and that he had a bunch of extra smartpaks that the rest of us were welcome to. 

When you feed these guys every morning you start to become attached. Brandy was a sweet old guy but had hurt his leg last week and he just wasn't going to be able to handle the recovery. His owner gave him a great life, spoiled him and gave him a kind final gift. I'll miss him though, for 29 he was still full of piss and vinegar.

I cleaned stalls in record time and I was going to ride but still felt queasy so decided on a grooming session for Hamps. I'm not sure I have ever seen him so grateful to be groomed!

Leave it to Hampton to totally cheer me up and make me laugh hysterically. :)

When I went to curry his hind legs, here is what he did:

After I removed about 80 pounds of hair, I let him graze a bit.

One of the barn kittehs wandered over.

Have you EVER seen a barn cat so fat?! I mean what does he eat, the local DEER population?

And yes that is me meowing at him. Don't judge, I don't have anyone but the animals to talk to in the morning.

Thank you all for listening to my down in the dumps post. :) I try to keep those to a minimum but we all have shitty days and might as well include those with the good.

Slam.

Oh boy am I in a funk.

• I feel like I work really hard and have nothing to show for it.
(I live in a house with 3 roomies and I have LONG graduated from college)


• My bestest friend moved away and I miss her so much. She was my trail-riding pal, my drink wine and watch movies pal. I don't typically have close girlfriends, but she was the exception. I could tell her anything. She's 600 miles away and it's a bummer.

• My other close friend in the area is also moving away.

• He doesn't love me back.

• My job ends in April. Oh yeah, and it's March 20. I don't have another job lined up yet. This after furiously applying to job after job for the past year and a half.

• My truck is acting up. The trailer brake doesn't work, but it's also making some weird noises probably involving the brakes and/or some wheel bearing crap.

• My savings account balance: $0.

• My checking account: $Not much more than the savings.

• I have nothing left to sell to cover bills when I get laid off. I sold my LCD flat screen TV, all of my camera lenses, all of my (really pricey) model horses, my bit collection, two saddles, my bass guitar that I loved, several amps, and numerous other items. I have my truck left to sell but it isn't exactly in great working order ...

I truly feel like I am losing control over my life and I don't like it one bit. I feel empty and a little bit lonely. My job and relationships have left me feeling tossed aside, used and foolish. Every day I come into work and they are doing something else to prepare for "the transition" after which I will no longer be needed. At this point I'm not even sure there is a future for me at all in this business.

... but then I look back and realize that I'm a pretty strong chic. I have not written about what happened to me a few years ago (2006-07 ish) but I think if I can survive that, I can survive anything. I look back and am proud at how strong I have become. Instead of crying, I'm more likely to kick you in the nuts. And you know, when you step back from situations like this, I know I would have eventually gotten fed up with this job and left, I would have eventually lost interest in that boy. They aren't what I want. It just sucks in the meantime, because the rug was sort of pulled out from under me.

With all these doors closing - I wonder how many new ones will open up?

... and thank goodness for Hampton. He is the best damn thing to happen to me. He will see me through this rough patch.

Somehow, I know I will land on my feet. I always do. :)

Buffalo soldier

Good news - I did not suffer death by bison!

Actually, the cow clinic was a total blast. I would totally do it again and would recommend one to anyone - no matter what sport you ride. :)

I have video but it's being a pain to upload at the moment.

The day started out well - I was at the barn at the buttcrack of dawn, had Hampton fed, brushed and loaded on time to go pick up friends JJ and his human. I was quite proud of myself for being ON TIME.

I guess I got too cocky. Halfway over to JJ's home, my truck/trailer electric brake shut off. Just quit working. The trailer brakes won't work either. Crap. I had to pretty much drive at a crawl anyway because it was unbelievably foggy.

Then I had to stop and take a photo because the sunrise with the fog and windmills was STUNNING. My crappy phone pic does not even do it justice.

I arrive at JJ's home about 40 minutes late. We decide to just switch trucks since fixing my trailer brake issue isn't going to be solved in the next 5 minutes. We arrive at the clinic with 10 minutes to spare.

I yank Hamps off the trailer and throw his tack on. There are already about 15 other horses/riders in the arena waiting for us. We are of course the only ones in English tack, and I'm the only one who bothered to wear a helmet. I guess western riders are immune to head injuries?

Anyway everyone was super nice and Hampton got many comments on how tall he is. :) A cute little farm boy jumped at the chance to give me a leg up as there are no mounting blocks.

We started out with "dry work" as these cow folk call it. First, bending on a circle and then we added counter bend and their version of turning on the haunches. I didn't bother to bring a crop or spurs because I thought he would be plenty lit up at a new place with, you know, buffalo. But, uh, Hampton was about as lazy and behind my leg as he can get. Great. We also worked on stopping & backing during which I got some fantastic dressage halts out of Hampton. (No we really didn't get the quick stops like the cow horses could do, but nonetheless we had great transitions!)

Good cow pony.

We took a lunch break and then picked back up by working with the flag. And by flag, I mean a dummy/stuffed cow that hangs on a wire and you can mechanically move it back and forth.

Flag = TERRIFYING MONSTER OF DEATH.

Actually Hampton was really good about it. He didn't do anything besides snort A LOT at it. When it was our turn to work the flag, he was truly scared of it and wouldn't go near the thing without another horse first going up there as the sacrificial lamb. But by the end, Hamps was doing really well - following it back and forth (in passage and leg yield ... lol!). Some of the horses were not bothered by it and others were really freaked out.

Finally - the buffalo!

Here they are:



They are ugly, nasty little things don't you think? They also moo honk growl roar make some bizarre noise.

Hamps marched right up to the buffalo. He was fascinating by them and very curious. After he figured out that he could "move" them, he started to passage around with his neck arched. He was cracking me up! Meanwhile, I'm trying to actually do the task at hand. I sucked at it, but it was a blast! You really have to learn to 1) Read the buffalo 2) Control your horse and 3) Anticipate for both animals. Not easy!

Sorry all I have is cell-phone pics. :)

Here's a group who were team penning buffalo around:




The boys were all tired at the end of the day (It was almost a 3 hour trailer ride).
But so fun. :)

And I didn't pee my pants!

Tired cow poneh:

Wanna be rebels (didn't have a clue)

Work has really screwed me over this week. They at first wanted me to work 9-5 all week until I said "Uh, due to the fact that you pay me SHIT, I had to get another part time job in the mornings so ... no can do." (Ok, I said it in a more polite manner).

I managed to convince them that I could come in at noon and work until 8. The work will get done regardless. That means my schedule will be:

7 a.m.-11 a.m.: Barn chores
Noon - 8 p.m. Newspaper land

Time to ride Hampton? ZERO.
Time to eat? ZERO
Time to shower? uhhhh before bed?

It's just for this week so ... I dunno, I'll make it through.

Now for some fun news.

This weekend, Hamps and I will be going on a new adventure. Not a show. Not trail riding. What could it be? Here are some hints.

Oh yes my friends. The dressage girl and her warmblood will be rebels and will be herding cows and ...  buffalo!! (At a clinic, where we will be supervised. THANK GOD.)

So, who do you think will pee their pants first, me or Hampton?