What's Up Wednesday

I have SO much to talk about this week! And I've had a few glasses of wine at book club tonight, so this may make zero sense come morning... but hopefully it will be entertaining if nothing else.
We've reached the point in the season where weeknight rides are all in the dark, so we haven't been doing much jumping. But I had plans to get my Halloween jumps put together this weekend and have a little jumping fun with Jampy. Originally I wanted to change the whole course, but that would also mean re-dragging the ring, and there just weren't enough free hours in my weekend to do all of that. So I settled on just redecorating what was already out there. Before I could do any of that though, I had a 5K to run!
I'm really the worst runner. As you know, I ran two 5K's last weekend, but then I didn't run at all during the week. Not once, not even a mile. Nor a half mile for that matter. But still, I was registered to run another 5K this past Saturday. I've turned into one of those "runners" that only does races I guess. This 5K is really fun for several reasons. First, it's one town over from me, so it's less than a 10 minute drive. It's also in the town that my brother and his family lives, so I got to have a cheering section:

Good at cheering, bad at standing still however.

A little more than one of these 3.1 miles takes place on a mostly uphill narrow trail through the woods. It's gorgeous in there, so despite my complete lack of fitness, I was looking forward to that part. And the last reason this race is super fun is that costumes are encouraged. They used to always have costume awards for best individual and best team. My friends and I won best team I think four years in a row, and a couple of times I won best individual costume. I was super excited to run as a storm trooper this year:

So I meandered through the 5K which was my slowest yet at 36 minutes and change. I actually thought I might be last, but I wasn't. There were about 30 or so people slower than me. I was 7th out 13 for my age group, so hey, I'm about average! Ha. Anyway, I hung out through ALL of the awards waiting for the costume awards (which were on the advertisement by the way). I felt pretty good about my chances, because obviously my costume was awesome and also there were only maybe 4 other people dressed up. But you guys! They didn't give any costume awards! Lame. It's cool though, because they were trying to give away the leftover apples and bananas so I stocked up for the ponies. At least someone made out with a prize!
Since this is a small race, they don't give finishers medals, BUT I double dipped and used this race to also count my virtual Pug run that I run every year. This year the medal had a Game of Thrones theme, but they called it Game of Bones. Punny!

I was pretty pooped after struggling my way through the woods, but I didn't have a lot of time to think about that. Instead, I got changed and headed right out to the barn to get to work on the jumps. I had fun Halloween themed fill for two of the jumps.  Let's start with my favorite:

Dinosaur bones! This one isn't really all that Halloween specific. I think I can leave it up year round. It's a paleontology jump! I made sure the dinosaurs were turned off. Their eyes flash red and they roar if you leave them on. Pretty sure that would get me sent to an early grave... Speaking of, the other jump had a graveyard theme:

Those bat stakes actually have little plastic chains connecting them but they're hard to see in the photo. I was really disappointed there weren't enough to do both sides of the jump, but the other little fencing looks pretty neat too. I was especially happy that I was able to shove both in the "stone" flower boxes. Maybe they'll actually stay up for awhile this year! The cats from last year are still more or less intact and finish this graveyard off perfectly!
While I was constructing, Jamp was preparing himself:

I like to set things up that I think might have a chance of getting me killed at least a day in advance of actually trying to jump them, so Jamp had it easy Saturday. Both horses had a pretty easy flat because I had dinner plans with an old friend. They were both unsure about the dinos at first. But it's funny how different their reactions were. Jampy refused to move, held his head in the air and started hyperventilating (as one does)

Rio, on the other hand, snorted and walked himself right up to them to give them a sniff and tell them he's alpha.

After all the dinosaur/equine introductions, I rushed to feed everyone and get ready for dinner. About a month ago this friend of mine lost her 30+ year old horse (she got him when we were in middle school!) and I had commissioned a drawing of him for her. We had a lovely dinner at a newish restaurant in the area, and I told her not to open her gift until she got home.

She loved it. You guys don't know him, but this is a pretty accurate depiction.
Sunday came early as I had a bunch of things I needed to get done. I hosted book club this month and had decided to hold it in the barn with an autumn theme. Thus, I clearly needed some apple wine for spiking hot apple cider. And OBVIOUSLY, I had to get that from the steam powered cider mill about 40 minutes away. You know when the best time to show up there is? Not during a pressing that's for sure. And when did I get there? Right when they were starting that. I had to park a ways down the road, which was probably for the best. It meant I would have to show some self restraint in how much wine I bought since I'd have to carry it all back to the car.
Once I had my wine and had trekked back to the car, I planned to stop by the newly reopened tack store to pick up my raffle prize. Unfortunately, they don't open until noon on Sundays (it was around 11, and the store was only a few miles away), so I took a detour and got more coffee. Got there right on time, claimed my prize (a pair of winter Horze breeches!) and headed in the direction of home. Then was my infamous trip to Walmart which we talked about yesterday. I finally got back to the farm around 2.
I spent a few minutes rigging up a new holster for my phone so I could document Jamp's reaction to jumping dinosaurs and graveyards.

It's not fancy, but it works!

Then I went out and made the jumps tiny so I could trot them the first time. You guys. He didn't care. Not even a little. He's such a weird horse. He's terrified of everything, but I'm pretty sure he'd jump a live dino if I asked him to. He wouldn't canter around or past it, but he'd definitely jump it. So here are some not exciting photos of him jumping the new jumps:

I had to include this one over the cavelletti because it's the only one with his ears up. He really didn't care at all. Maybe next week we can actually put them up a little. So anyway, you know what did freak him out? The old jumps that I didn't change at all, not even a little. The first time I jumped through the combination, he ran through it like it was actually on fire. (It wasn't, I swear.)

Thankfully, by the third time he went through, he acted like a mature adult.

Well sort of. He jumped through quietly and stayed in the middle, but he also pouted. So I guess just semi mature. We quit there because I was pooped. Between the 5K the day before, the Walmart excursion, and stopping the runaway train after the combo, my body was DONE! But I made it ride Rio too, because Rio. And also because when it's late October and 80 degrees, you ride all the horses. Too bad I only have two at home these days!
The boys both flatted Monday which was also exciting. There was an accident or something going on down the road a bit. My property is a corner lot, so while it was down the road, the flashing lights from the cops and the fire trucks were lighting up the ring. Jampy was surprisingly good about the whole thing, and Rio just ignored it. Good boys.
It's been raining sort of torrentially since Tuesday, so no riding the last two days. Worked out ok though so I could get ready for hosting book club and didn't have any guilt about book clubbing instead of riding tonight. The barn was the perfect setting for our meeting since it was pretty warm out (for October). The barn was still 67 when I turned the lights off tonight. I would love Autumn if it was always like this!

It was pot luck, so I just had to supply the wine and a cheese plate. That definitely made it easier to get things ready. Jampy loved having everyone in the barn, and he spent the evening being a total ham. Rio just ignored everyone. He's gotten less social in his old age.
And that's what's up this Wednesday Thursday. How was your past week/weekend? Do anything fun? Show? Run a race? Have a lesson? Jump any dinosaurs?! (Cause I mean... Jampy and I did.)