What's Up Wednesday

It would seem that Spring has FINALLY decided to show up in New England! Finally! I'm so excited. I actually rode in short sleeves on Sunday! SHORT SLEEVES! Outside! Amazing. I planned to have Saturday be a lunging and flat day for Jampy so we could jump on Sunday. Unfortunately, my neighbor decided to build himself a metal shed next to my ring all weekend, so jumping didn't happen. I will give Jampy credit for being surprisingly good about all that noise though! Sir-spooks-a-lot really kept his head in the game for the most part.
Saturday wound up being a little annoying. I had to first wait for my mom to come get me so I could pick my car up at the tire place. Byebye $1200 dollars, but hello smooth ride! Next I had to drive up to the Apple store to replace my rapidly dying phone. Fortunately, I am partial to the little bitty Iphone SE so it didn't break the bank too much more than the tires already had. But it did take an hour and half to transfer all my stuff over. Ugh. I traded in my old phone, or I would have just done it at home.
I finally got back to the farm around 1:30 to find that my helper had accidentally ran over the tail gate for the Gator. Hopefully her nephew can straighten it back out, or there goes another $200. Adulting is expensive you guys!
But finally, I had time to get Jampy out. He had a nice lunge and was only mildly nutty. I expected him to be a total turn nugget due to aforementioned shed building happening next door. But he was pretty good. I didn't get any media since I hoped to jump on Saturday. Jumping media is more exciting that flat work media, no? Since I rode on the later side, I let him air dry outside instead of hosing him off. He liked that plan just fine.

 Rio also had a nice graze. He was so excited to go eat grass, he (very politely) kind of jogged next to me on the way there. I didn't get after him because he never passed me, and was totally adorable about it.

I don't like how ribby he is right now. I'm not sure he's getting enough hay in him since he spits out so much of it. I've increased the amount of chopped hay he gets everyday, so hopefully we'll see some weight gain in the next couple of weeks. I have the vet coming out next Monday too so hopefully he'll have some good ideas.

I spent Saturday night doing some crafts. I had seen a tutorial for a cute bracelet that I wanted to make and had ordered the supplies for already. I just hadn't had time to try it! I was pretty pooped Saturday, so it was the perfect evening to try it out.

They're leather with memory wire through them. The tutorial was for the palm tree bracelet you see in the middle on top, but I figured I could absolutely make a few others to go with various ridiculous theme outfits I have. They're pretty quick and easy to make, and I'm hoping to do a few more. The toughest part is finding leather with a hole in the middle for the wire.

And then it was Sunday already. Seriously, how does that happen so quickly? I didn't want to waste too much of the day as it was BEAUTIFUL out! I had a few things I had/wanted to get done. Rather than rush around like a crazy person though, I took myself into town for a quick breakfast before heading off to run errands. Oh! And I also finally put my new door mat out. I got it last year from a fundraiser for a Pug Rescue, but didn't want to put it out until the snow was done for the year.

Adorable right?! I know. I don't even want to step on it. Anyway, after breakfast I had to do some adulting and get things like toilet paper and dog food. And also some storage tubs so I could finally organize the chaos that is my saddle pad/horse boot collection properly. And that's what I spent the rest of the morning doing!

Ta da! All done! I'm storing them in the corn crib next to the ring. Everything is organized by color to make them easy to find. Though there is one multi color tub for seasonal items like the Chanukah outfits and the buffalo plaid. My tack room is MUCH neater now! I still need to order the cabinet I want for the feed room. Once I get that, I can actually keep my riding boots and helmets out in the barn too instead of my dining room.

I figured I had wasted enough time that the neighbor would be done with the shed, but alas, he was not. I decided not to jump while that was going on. Jamp was really trying to be a trooper about the whole thing, and I didn't want to ruin it.

 Instead, I tried to really work on getting his attention and getting him to move off my leg. I had mixed results. What's been frustrating with him is that he only gives me about 85% of his attention at best. Yet he does still aim to please. So when I put my leg on, he reacts very quickly, but not necessarily correctly. For example, I put a little more inside leg on to get him to bend more, and he gives me a lovely lateral movement to the rail... Not what I was going for Jamp... Also, for any upwards transitions, he wiggles around left and right rather than just go forward. It's pretty annoying, but I'm also pretty sure it's mostly something I'm either doing wrong now or have been in the past. We're working on it though.

And he really was a good boy about all the noise right next to the arena. I was so frustrated with him last week with the spooking I sent my trainer a text begging for advice before I either murdered him or quit riding... So I was SUPER grateful that he more or less behaved himself this weekend. Granted, I stuffed his ears AND used the noise cancelling bonnet, but I'm sure he could still hear it. That animal has incredible hearing.

The pugs had a lovely walk that beautiful evening too!

Monday was a big day at the farm as you already know. Rio's 22nd Birthday!

Obviously I had to go to work during the day, but I let him be the first one out when I got home. Hope you're ready for a photo dump...
I curried him head to toe and then finished him off with a layer of fly spray and a buffing with the Diva brush. Then I dressed him up in his birthday outfit:

Unicorn Tiara and a unicorn sash that says "Birthday Unicorn"

Next I let him have some of his cake:

Followed by some grazing and a photo shoot.

Jampy had a very light hack afterwards (it was already getting dark) and then we capped the night off with some Unicorn cookies with dinner.

I finally got to jump Jampy a little on Tuesday, but it was overcast, so all my media is blurry. Hopefully next week we'll have some better opportunities to jump and get photos! In the meantime, I guess you can can enjoy these terrible screen shots:

So that's what's up this Wednesday! What's up with you? Are you finally having spring? Do anything fun with your ponies this weekend? Do you celebrate your horse's birthday?