What's Up Wednesday

It seems like all of the sudden the weather is being really not cooperative. And also, it's dark out all the time. This will be a theme in today's What's Up Wednesday...
So last Thursday after work, I went outside to open the ring gate before I tacked up Jamp. I realized after having opened it that the lights didn't come on. They are motion activated, so normally by the time I reach the gate, they have seen me. One of them has actually been burned out for awhile, I've been riding with just the one. Which is actually better for Jampy, because that's one less shadow to be afraid of. Sadly, I realized the other had burned out as well. I decided to give Jampy the night off and attempted to ride Rio with this:

I mean, it was still 65 degrees out. In NOVEMBER! At NIGHT! I wasn't going to not ride at all. Fortunately the moon was nearly full as well, so it wasn't too bad out there. The biggest problem was that this headlamp is 100 years old (give or take) and heavy AF. So it was bouncing around on my head and was rather uncomfortable. I should have gone in the house and hunted down my awesome LED running head lamp. But I didn't because lazy. So immediately after finishing in the barn, I headed over to Walmart to see what I could find to light the ring for Friday. (The closest Lowes/Home Depot to me is about 40 minutes, so that wasn't happening till the weekend.) I found some nifty work lights that are rechargeable (read:cordless) and LED, so they were pretty bright. I charged them up Thursday night, and Friday was pretty excited to test them out. (I'm not sure what that says about me as a person.) They lit things up fairly well:

I just stuck them on the fence posts

I determined that it was good enough to at least get a little work done. So I got Jampy all tacked up and ready to ride. And then the wind came. I wasn't super worried because I had baling twined the lights to the fence posts. (I'm no dummy!) So I get on and convince Jampy to walk a decent sized circle. It wasn't until our second lap that he noticed his shadow...
With the lights lower than we're used to, and pointing somewhat up, Jamp's shadow looked like an actual Godzilla out in the woods. You can imagine his thoughts on this. I finally got him unstuck and started walking our second lap when he decided he just COULD NOT horse anymore and did a quick spin and run away. Just as I was stopping him, a branch fell out in the woods somewhere, and that was pretty much the end of our ride. It's not easy with that little brain. On the bright side, I got to test out Stutty (that's my saddle's new name: Stutty the Stuttgart) and see how grippy it really is! Answer: Very grippy! I stayed right with Jampy as he did a full 180 and bolted back to the barn. Good to know!
I decided I was done horsing for the night as well, and let Rio have a night off. You can imagine what my Saturday morning entailed... A trip to Lowes! Actually, I went to Home Depot first, but I couldn't reach anything and there was no one around to help me. So I got annoyed and went to Lowe's instead. So much better. The people are so much more helpful there. Anyway, about $400 later, I had a new fixture for my hallway in the house (yes, none of my lights work anywhere), all new LED bulbs for the florescent fixtures in the barn, and new bulbs for the outside lights. I also got a couple other options for temporary ring lights, because I can't reach the fixtures out there even with my tall ladder. I have no idea when I'll actually get those replaced. Hopefully soon though. So tonight I will test out some other lighting options. Hopefully Jamp can deal.
Thankfully for the weekends I can ride in the daylight so lights were a non issue. Both horses had easy flats Saturday since I was running low on time and they had the day before off anyway. Saturday night I attended a friend's Halloween party. I go every year, and it's stupid fun. They always have a theme, and this year's was Mascots. Any sort of mascot was acceptable. So obviously there was only one choice for me:

Skids!

selfie!

 Wait, you don't know who Skids is? He's Skidmore College's (my alma mater) mascot! I hope really hard I find another party to wear this too...

Sunday was a little rough in the morning. I stayed out way too late the night before! Nevertheless, I got all my errands done and was back home with plenty of daylight for riding. I was DYING to test out Stutty over jumps, and Jampy was over due for a jump school anyway. My media is awful because it was a dreary, rainy day though. I was disappointed because I wanted a visual on my leg position and what not in the new saddle. But hopefully this weekend I can try again.

You can see the jump clearly, but apparently we were really fast?

blurry dinosaurs

No touchy!

The saddle felt fine to jump in even though it seems I dropped back really early in that last picture.I don't think that's the saddle though, pretty sure it's just my bad habits.
This week I've gotten zero time in the saddle so far, so I haven't been able to test out my temporary lights yet. Monday was raining and rather windy when I got home and last night it was pouring buckets and 41 degrees. No thanks. I will ride tonight though. I'm not super excited to get on in the dark in 30 degrees after they've had two days off, with questionable lighting... But I do really want to keep riding through November (and hopefully December) if I can. So gotta woman up and add some layers!

How was your week/weekend? Are you able to ride now that it's dark after work?