What's Up Wednesday

Well, it hasn't been the most exciting week, but it has been really productive. PLUS I got to ride BOTH days over the weekend! The weather has been so weird. During the week the ground was frozen solid after work everyday. But we did have some solid de-shedding days.

Someone needs to tell my horses it's going to be winter for another two months... They're going to have major regrets losing all this hair so early.
Saturday morning was pretty chilly so the ring was crunchy. I decided to keep working on the great closet purge of 2018 until the afternoon when it was going to be close to 50 degrees.

I stopped after making a partial dent in the project to go work the horses. The footing was a lot better than last week, so I was able to let the horses play on the lunge line a little before hopping on. Contrary to photographic evidence, they did go both directions.

I think Jampy kind of looks like Rio here

Not bad for a 21 year old!

Fortunately, they weren't too crazy, so I hopped on after just a few lunge minutes. Jamp was kind of funny. I let him walk around half the ring a couple times before asking for trot. The first lap he was fine, but the second walk lap he started spooking at the top of the circle (closest to the "scary" end of the ring). I tried to distract him with more bending and more leg and pats on the neck... all the usual things you do. But it's Jamp, so I finally gave in and made the circle smaller. Not that it mattered much.

he's so ridiculous.

I really couldn't be mad at him. For one thing, that's just Jamp. And at 18, he is who he is. For another thing, I rode him last Sunday, but not since. And prior to that it was a solid 6 weeks of not working. Who can blame him for being a little sassy? But we did get some slightly better work in too.

I mean, his mouth is open, so it wasn't exactly soft and relaxed work. But whatever, he's out of shape! (Me too.) That's the thing about just hopping on randomly during the winter. You can't do any real work. The horses have zero fitness and about a six minute attention span. Rightfully so. When you get on, you walk, trot, and canter just a little bit at each gait. Mostly there's a lot of walking. But it's still pretty great just to get in the saddle. Even if the real work is minimal at best.
Rio was actually pretty sassy on the lunge line. He actually let out a few bucks! But I wasn't worried about hopping on. He's really good about not carrying play time over to riding time.

I just walked and trotted him since he played quite a bit on the lunge line. Don't want to cripple the old man!

The rest of Saturday was spent continuing work on the great purge. I've made a great big dent in the chaos, but sadly, I'm not done. Hopefully I'll get there soon!
Sunday started off pretty rainy. The poor weather men around here are having a terrible time with forecasts lately. It was supposed to rain over night and stop by 8 am. But it didn't. It rained until about 1. This would have been fine but I had a kid coming to try my Hermes saddle and as you all know, I have no indoor.
Just an aside, I'm not selling the original Hermie, I'm selling Hermie 2.0 who is actually in Florida at a consignment shop. But since they're exactly the same saddle, I told the mom to come try this one and see if she even liked it before I went about schlepping the other back home.
If I had my choice of which horse to put a kid on to try a saddle, it would definitely be Rio. BUT, with his neurological issues, that's a total liability. So Jampy it had to be! Normally after riding the day before, I wouldn't bother lunging him again Sunday. But since I knew this kid was coming I figured it wouldn't hurt to have him a little extra tired. He was super quiet on the lunge line, so I hopped on quick before they arrived to find the "scary" parts of the ring. Fortunately, I think he was exhausted from Saturday. The kid looked ADORABLE on him and he was a perfect gentleman. I think maybe he'd like a kid. Too bad he's stuck with me.

"I'd like one of these please," -Jamp, probably

Unfortunately, the trainer didn't like the kid in Hermie. I'm not really that disappointed, because flying with saddles is super annoying. Plus, hopefully next trip I'll be bringing the Voltaire back home.
I hopped back on Jampy after they left so I could canter him a little. Of course, the first thing he did when I asked him to move forward was spook. Sheesh. Well at least he didn't do it to the kid! Rio was perfect as usual. I don't have any media from Sunday other than the kid on Jampy because it was raining and my only source of media is a cell phone bungee corded to a fence. Not good in the rain.

But I do have this photo of Jampy at night check

Winter came back with a vengeance on Monday with highs only in the 20's. We were supposed to get a light dusting of snow early Tuesday morning, but we wound up with this:

If this is what my weatherman calls a dusting, I'd hate to see what his house looks like. Must be filthy! hahaha! Crack myself up.
Obviously, riding is not a thing once more here in the frozen north. So instead, I'm trying a new hobby.

Metal stamping! You guys. I'm terrible at it. It's a lot harder than you'd expect to make a straight line of letters. It's also kind of tricky if you're using a shape instead of letters to get the whole shape to imprint the metal. I'm sure it will get easier with more practice... if not, I'll have a lovely set of metal stamping stuff for sale!
These were my first attempts:

It's interesting how the different metals take to the stamping. The silver, which is aluminum, is really soft and easiest to stamp. The copper is the hardest, and the brass is in the middle. The brass blanks I got are REALLY thin though, so they don't shape into bracelets as well as the other metals. I took a jewelry and metals class in college, so I'm excited to use some of those skills along with the stamping. I need to find all my tools from that class...
The pugs have been working REALLY hard. They're trying to perfect their nap positions. I really think they're getting there.

Well... that's what's up this Wednesday! What's up with you? How's the weather? Did you get to ride this weekend?