What's Up Wednesday

 

Thanksgiving didn't really have an effect on my riding schedule this year. We had a small dinner, just my mom, brother, and me and we ate on the later side so I had plenty of time to ride on the holiday! 

Rita came too, dressed appropriately of course.

I opted to have a Sunday Funday kind of riding day in which we kept them all short and very low pressure. It was a holiday after all! Obviously I also dressed appropriately for the day:

The horses weren't sure if they were glad to see me or not.

Just kidding. They're always glad to see me because I am the keeper of the snacks. So it was pretty much business as usual at the new barn even though it was a holiday. It was a rainy day so turnout was a no go. But at this barn, if the horses can't go out, they get hand walked. Like for real, and they actually do it. So despite it being a holiday AND a rain day, all the horses got out. So nice! In the past, most barns I've been at are closed on holidays. Or, if they're open, there's limited staff, so just stalls cleaned and horses fed. And some of the places they don't even do stalls on the holidays, just feed and water. 

I'm trying to get back on our regular work schedule in which we do some jumpies on Wednesdays and Fridays. So far it's going okay, though the "jumps" have been quite tiny. We're pretty much permanently in the indoor now that it's ridiculously cold out. Just prior to the arrival of winter it rained for days on end. So indoors it is! I'm so grateful to have access to an indoor, but I will admit that this particular indoor has it's challenges. It's quite narrow so I am finding it very challenging to get the horses MOVING. They all want to pitter patter around with four beat canters and teeny tiny strides. 

Photo not from today. But does feature our quarter sheet. 

Today I made the mistake of trying to jump Shiny with the quarter sheet on. This shouldn't be a problem... But Shiny needs some encouragement from Mr. Tappy to get the proper canter. And with the quarter sheet on, she cannot feel him. I may or may not have mildly damaged my wrist trying to get her to notice Mr Tappy today. Finally I just took the quarter sheet off. Did we achieve the proper canter? We did not. She was definitely on the double add today. Some days are just like that. Judging by how Eros went today, I'm chalking it up to the weather. Or some kind of outside factor. More on E in a moment.

While Al is a million and one times less angsty in this indoor, he's still not thrilled to be working in it. Currently, our rides start out pretty nicely, but he kind of gets spookier and spookier as we go. My current experiment is to warm him up, then give him a break. Then do something a little harder for a very short time. Then another break. That seems to reset the angst. I dunno guys, this horse is ever changing in his needs. He's still on all the ulcer meds, so I doubt that's what we're dealing with. I think it might just be time to accept that my horse is a little bit of a head case. Which is fine. We'll figure it out. I was a psych major in college, so I should be able to eventually figure him out. Haha. Hopefully. 

For today's "jump" school I set two lines on the long sides and then just put a couple flower boxes, one on each diagonal to change direction over. I set the lines at three strides, figuring we'd trot in and canter out in four. At the previous barn, Al was only apprehensive about the one end of the ring, but here, we have doors with windows at BOTH ends. Lucky me. He's pretty confident jumping away from the doors, but not at all jumping towards them. So jumping into the line is okay, but he starts spinning his tires at the out. I made everything ultra tiny today so we could comfortably trot OR canter as needed to everything. It started out really rough. Not dangerous or scary, but definitely ugly. I just kept trotting him over stuff until he started to relax. Then we tried to canter some. Same thing. Keep at it until it's easier. Wash, rinse, repeat. With walk breaks as needed. We never got to the point that we were cantering courses today, but we got to where things were flowing somewhat smoothly and I'm calling that a win for the day. We're supposed to be getting hit with crazy high winds again the next few days, so we may not jump again this week. This indoor is a wood and it makes some crazy sounds in the wind. I like to limit the drama when I can if you know what I mean! We'll still work of course, but we're going to keep the danger factors as low as we can. This amateur prefers to choose her battles. 

I was excited for my trot in and canter out lines for Eros today! He was less excited. He switched to field turnout starting on Sunday. Well... he's in the process. He's not used to grass, so we're building him up out there, though it should all be killed off soon with the weather. Anyway, he seems very happy down in the field, but I think the extra calories have him a little spicy! Or he might possibly be a little ulcery. I'm not sure yet. Whatever it is, he's been feeling a certain sort of way lately. He's not being bad per se, but very distracted and mildly spooky. Today when I pointed him at jumps, he actually stopped. More than once. Not dirty at all, and only from the trot. Anything I cantered him at he jumped nicely. But it was very odd that he would stop at all. Especially multiple times. So I have some concerns... but I'm not spiraling yet. Because Shiny was a little weird today, and Al was, well Al, I figure there may just be some reason they were all a little out of sorts. We are getting a light storm tonight, and it's pretty cold. The ring could use a drag, and it's a little hard today. So it may just be uncomfortable for Eros in this state. He does have delicate legs. I'm not sure I warmed him up long enough. I was trying to just get right to it, but I think I should have done a little more flat work to get him looser and get his attention on me. 

Is there a small part of me that's worried about all kinds of things (is his eye getting worse, does he have epm, did he get too much grass and he's about to founder)? Of course not, why do you ask?? Ha... Okay yeah, maybe there's some light spiraling going on. But there's not much to do but wait and see right? So that's the plan. We'll see what we have tomorrow. As for the founder concerns, he's not standing like a founder horse, and he's not anymore unsound than normal. So I'm pretty sure that's just my crazy brain finding things to worry about. But like... it is a concern. You never know. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. Sorry. I'll calm down now. 

Anyway... we'll see what the rest of the week brings with the weather. I have a feeling we'll just be doing a lot of flatwork the next few days. But that's okay. Clearly we have plenty to work on! Monday they're getting body work which I think is much needed. It's probably their last appointment until spring which is a bummer for them but good for my wallet. Ha! Our chiro heads south for winter and we miss her very much. But we're glad to have her out before she goes! 

That's about it from here. I'm working on some arts and crafts so we can get our holiday cards done. Running a little late on that... Lol.  If you're not on the list and would like one please send me your address! 

Truthful Tuesday: The one with the tackcident

 

I had a tackcident during Black Friday/Small Business Saturday.... I had planned to behave myself because I have much less extra money these day (who doesn't amiright??). And I was doing pretty well, just getting stuff on my gift list. But then...

So I was cleaning out the promotions tab in my email and saw the Celeris Black Friday email. I did not participate this year because I don't need any boots, and the chances of me winning the free pair are very, VERY slim. So I did not try. But they had 35% off in stock stuff so I figured I'd scroll through and see if they had any cute belts I had to have. They did not. But they did have something else. Something I was really sad to have had to pass on earlier this summer. There was this REALLY fun color of leather that was super limited and I didn't order a pair because I really didn't have the funds for that. But I was sad about it. 

Well. So I was scrolling through their in stock sale stuff and what do I see? A seconds pair of boots in that really fun leather that I had missed out on, IN MY SIZE. Okay, they're a little shorter than I would order custom, but not much. Can you believe my luck? So obviously, I did the very irresponsible thing and ordered them. I mean, it's fate right? They're my size. They're 35% off the sale price. It would be like taunting fate to leave them behind. I paid for them with my apple card which I only have because right before Covid I bought a Macbook AND an apple watch at the same time and saved a bunch of money by purchasing with the apple card. I hardly ever use this card, and I didn't realize I had a pile of available rewards cash. So I applied that to the boots, and so out of pocket (including shipping) I really only spent $300. Which is irresponsible and bad of me. But you know YOLO! 

These boots are seconds so they do have a teeny tiny flaw. Which is just that some of the boot color is on the heel. How terrible. (Sarcasm.) Anyway. They've already shipped so I should have them sometime next week I imagine. In the meantime, here's a screenshot of them:

I'm ridiculously excited for them. Happy Chanukah to ME!!!

Any of you have a tackcident this weekend? Be honest. TELL ME WHAT YOU GOT!!