Truthful Tuesday

 

I think I've discovered a small hole in Al's training (aside from the obvious issues we've been dealing with). I don't lunge him a ton anymore, but with the cooler weather coming I imagine we will be doing a little more in the coming months. Most of the times I've lunged him I've had to work within some parameters of where jumps are set, so often our circle isn't particularly large. But he's always been respectful of the circle and is generally pretty easy to lunge. I set a new course yesterday and very specifically made it so I had a large area available for lunging. I opted to lunge him today rather than ride because the winds were winding like crazy. (Seriously, the wind around here lately is insane.) 

So I send him out on the circle, and it turns out, Al doesn't seem to know how to lunge on a big circle. He likes to bulge out towards his "safe" side of the ring, then tries (and frequently succeeds) to break in one specific area of the circle literally every time around, then finally rushes and falls in when he's near the "unsafe" side of the ring. I'm pretty sure I worked a lot harder than he did today trying to keep him going and entice him into using more space. We weren't overly successful if I'm being honest. Though I imagine the insane winds weren't helping our cause. He spent most of the session looking out of the ring and not where he was going. Also not at me. He's a terrible listener sometimes. I think next time we lunge I'll add some side reins to help with the bulge and maybe discourage the looking out. 

We did manage to have some success with transitions at the end, and I let that be our win for the day. I do take some solace in his being distracted and a less than stellar listener today because it shows me that he has hard days whether or not I'm in the saddle. Which doesn't fix anything obviously, but I think it's useful information. And makes me feel like less of the problem, which some days I just need that reinforced because I'm human. 

So that's today's confession, my horse doesn't know how to lunge in a larger space. And also, it remains to be seen if I know how to teach him this skill. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

On this eve of Pia's 17th birthday, I have to confess something. Some days I find it hard to have a geriatric doggo. The truth is, this will be her last birthday. She's starting to have the less good days more often, and I always promise my older dogs that we aim for no bad days. And so I know that time is coming. But not yet. Not today. And I'm grateful for every day that we get to enjoy each other. 

And while I'm forever thankful to have her with me each and every day. I have to admit that sometimes it's hard. I got home pretty late from the barn today, and my springtime allergies are going crazy this week. So I was tired. And when I walked in the door, I was welcomed by dog poo... dog poo that had been walked in. And dog poo footprints. It was a scene. So obviously, before I could shower and eat dinner, that had to be cleaned up. And the dog too. And then she and Rita needed their dinners. 

Finally I got to shower. And then made dinner. As I was bringing it to the table, I see P pooping again. On my carpet. Sigh. Cleaned that up. Told P it was okay. Finally got to dinner at 8:30. Mood drastically improved. (Nobody tells you that you have to eat pretty regularly when you get old, or you get tired and cranky. It's a real thing guys! And I had skipped lunch today.)

So now it's 9:45 and P is having a bit of a senility episode. When this happens, she just barks. Constantly. It can go on for hours. Sometimes all night. Nothing is wrong, she's just confused. If you check on her and snuggle her she stops for awhile. But usually it starts up again unless she falls asleep. So Rita and I are watching tv and listening to P bark. And it's hard. Because you know that this means the time is coming. But not today. And for that I'm still grateful. 

Truthful Tuesday

 

Okay, I have three today. Three ridiculous things that either happened or occurred to me this past week. 

1. I had an epiphany this week about Eros. You know how he's a delicate flower, and I can't ever jump him higher than 2'6" or he gets hurt? And sometimes he gets sore for no good reason too? Well. I think there's a reason. Take a look at Eros spelled backwards: S-O-R-E  Seriously! I can't believe I never noticed before. Who named this poor horse?! So yeah, not his fault he's dainty. He was burdened with that from whenever he got his name. Poor Dude.

2. Okay, I felt mildly bad about this one, but I still had to laugh. A little background. In P's old age she will sometimes just bark at nothing for quite a long time. Sometimes I can distract her away from it, but often times I just have to let her bark it out. So the other evening, I came in from the barn and let the pups out as normal. They were out for a bit then came back in. I sat down to write some emails and what not, and P started her barking in the other room. Important to note, she was NOT barking near the door. Well. Apparently, this time, the barking had a reason. After awhile, she walked into the kitchen where I was sitting with my laptop, looked up at me, and the pooped on the floor. Like "Mom, you're the worst and not addressing my needs! So here! I shit at you!" I felt badly for not addressing her needs (though to be fair, she had JUST been out) but I had to laugh. I deserved it after all. Pugs. They are too smart for their own good. And also quite funny. 

3. In the summertime when it's hot I am very good at staying hydrated and drinking water throughout the day. But this time of year, when it's cool and I'm not sweating so much when I ride, I'm not as on top my water intake. I generally make up for it in the evening when I'm in the house.  The only trouble with this is that hydrating so late makes me sometimes have to pee in the middle of the night. Well the other day, I woke up having to pee and I assumed it was the middle of the night since it was still dark out. But I noticed all the barn lights on. So there I was swearing that I had turned the lights out at night check. I did remember with absolute certainty that I had done night check, but I was thinking maybe I didn't turn the lights out? But then I distinctly remembered doing that too. So finally, just before dragging myself outside in my jammies I had the sense to look at a clock. It was not, in fact, the middle of the night. It was morning. 6:15 to be exact. My barn helper had come early, so he was out there with the lights on. It's so funny how disorienting it is waking from a deep sleep when it's still dark outside. 

So those are my confessions this week. All kinds of ridiculousness this week!

Truthful Tuesday

 

I know I write about my disdain for house cleaning fairly regularly. But well... I have a lot of confessions pertaining to cleaning (or not cleaning) my house, what can I say? So anyway, I spent my Monday this week doing a good floor cleaning throughout the house. I've been terrible about really washing the floors (confession 1), though I do vacuum regularly. (Promise!) 
So obviously, before washing the floor, you have to vacuum to get all the dog hair and what not out of the way. But you guys, I got about halfway through and I broke my vacuum (confession #2). Fortunately, I only broke the canister the dirt goes into, and they are fairly inexpensive to replace. But now I have to wait for that to get here before I can finish the last two rooms. So annoying when you find the motivation to actually do this task you hate, and then you get sidelined by a broken vacuum. Stupid. At least I got the kitchen and bathroom finished. They're the most likely to be icky anyway.

Truthful Tuesday

 

 So... this one might surprise you. But I actually like tofu. Not so much as it's own entity, but it is an amazing vessel for delicious sauces. I feel the same way about broccoli. They both just absorb whatever tastiness they're cooked in. 

Confession number two is that I've been playing the stupidest game on my phone and I can't stop. It's called Project Makeover. The point is to make over a character and their room, but in order to do that you have to play levels of a game that's similar to candy crush. Talk about a waste of my life and time... But it's very addictive. 

That's all I have for you guys today. Kind of a boring week for confessions. Do you have anything you need to get off your back? Thoughts on tofu? Any life wasting games you like to play?

Truthful Tuesday

 

I don't really have much to confess today. Just plugging along. Waiting for spring... It's warmed up some here. Saturday was 30 degrees which felt downright balmy after the last couple of weeks. And Sunday we even got above freezing! Unfortunately, with that comes the dreaded snow crashing off the indoor roof. My full size horses and I all have ptsd about it. Every little noise we think is the snow coming. It makes for some interesting rides. Fortunately, yesterday the barn was closed and it was around 40 so most of the snow came off while no one was in there. Today is freakishly warm for February (might hit 50!) and is pouring rain. So that should get the rest off. Just in time for it to snow again Thursday... Lol. Mother Nature has a terrible sense of humor. 

Poor Pammon was beside himself this morning when I got on. Luckily though, another rider joined us and that helped him considerably. They haven't heard rain on the roof in awhile and he was just so worried about it. Poor dude. We survived though! 

So I guess today's confession is that I'm just as spooky as the horses with the snow on the roof. Do your horses get worried about that? Shiny doesn't care too much. Pammon tends to bolt when he hears it, but Eros turns himself into a helicopter. 

I hope all of you in Texas are staying warm and safe. We're used to that weather up here (but believe me, we don't like it any more than you do) and we're set up for it. It's a totally different story down there. I'm thinking of you guys and sending warm juju your way!

Also, a separate little plug for a budding artist. One of my coworkers has the cutest daughter. I think she's 9 or 10, and she is making digital horse drawings on Etsy. Her shop is Horse Art by Maddie. For $10 you can send her a photo and she'll turn it into a digital drawing for you. She did the one above of Pammon and me. Check out her shop here and support her new business!

Truthful Tuesday: the one with some feels and blurry old screen shots

I made a pretty silly mistake over the last week/weekend. With my new found spare time, I decided to start converting my old riding videos into digital files. This seems like a great idea on the surface. And it was pretty fun to watch my very first horse show.

 Although, I didn't realize how terrible VHS quality was at the time! Holy grainy batman!
So why was it a bad plan? Because I can't ride. Watching old videos of Rio flying around the 1.2m A/O's,

 and my old junior hunter Bud doing his thing at Devon, and even Cosmo throwing his legs around in the adult jumpers,

 REALLY made me miss showing. This is the start of year number 3 without a show on the schedule. I was coping ok with that the last couple of years. I mean I didn't LOVE it.  But I was still riding and jumping around at home. So it was ok.
But now? Now that I haven't swung a leg over a horse in almost three weeks, it was super depressing. Then I start to feel guilty about feeling all woe is me because I can't ride when my horse was suffering through a painful bout with laminitis. Selfish much?

 On the bright side, Jampy is looking great! I'm super frustrated because I need to see the x-rays before we can move forward with things like figuring out his new diet, and if/when he can have turn out again. I just finally heard back from the local vet that he can't come until NEXT THURSDAY! Unacceptable. So I'm trying to see if the less local vet can get here sooner. The horse needs to get out. He's been such a good patient, but he's really bored, and not super happy with life right now. Not to mention, I'm still icing his legs regularly, which means I haven't had more than a six hour night sleep in close to three weeks. I'm also not sure how much longer I can get away with taking an hour and a half lunch away from work.
See? I told you there were some feels. Nostalgia, envy, disappointment, frustration. UGH. Fortunately, there's also some happy and relief that Jampy is feeling a lot better. And in time, I'll get to ride again. A good friend offered to let me sit on her horse this weekend, so hopefully we'll make that happen. In the meantime, I'll be hanging out with my old men waiting for the vet to come out.

Truthful Tuesday

Now that the great closet purge of 2018 is mostly done, I've moved on to cleaning up various junk piles in the house. This weekend was the section of counter in my kitchen that had become the drop box for all mail, magazines, and whatever other stuff that never found a home. It was quite a situation, and now that it's all cleaned up, I feel a lot better about the state of my kitchen. Plus I gained a significant amount of counter space!

While going through all of that, I found more than one envelope containing photos. So obviously, I stopped sorting to look through them all. There were some older photos of Jampy and me in there from I think 2013 or 2014. I'm pretty sure it was the first year I dropped him down to the equitation after not being all that successful together in the jumper ring. I think it was also the first year after he was gelded. He was pretty scrawny looking! It made me stop and think about how my horses have transformed over the years. And that leads to today's confession: It's really hard watching your horses get older. I mean, it's better than NOT getting to do that (I know from having lost my first heart horse, Bud, when he was only 10). But still, it's tough to see. Though in Jampy's case, he looks pretty good right now.

Let's start with Rio, since I've had him longer. This is Rio the first year I had him:

Total Beefcake, amiright? We started out in the children's/adult jumpers. They didn't have high and low back then, they were just set at 3'3" to 3'6" and everyone jumped the same course. Sometimes they split up the kids and the amateurs if there were enough entries. We moved up the next year to the low amateurs, and he retained that beefcake status. I mean LOOK at him! So handsome! We stayed in the jumper ring for most of our show career together, though we did sometimes do a hunter or equitation class. This is him doing some kind of hunter classic, might have been the same year judging by my non-approved helmet:

That unicorn looked the part in any ring you threw him in. Eventually he stepped down to the adult hunters and eq as his legs weren't holding up to the 1.2m jumps any longer. But he still looked amazing. That all changed in the last few years, since his EPM diagnosis. The fact that he made it through the first few months is a miracle so I'm not complaining about the state of his muscle tone. I'm THRILLED he's still here to be the skinny little old man he's become. But it's still pretty tough to watch happen. After the initial diagnosis, he had significant muscle atrophy on the right side of his face, but that was about it. Since last year though, I'm seeing muscle loss throughout his body. He's still handsome, but he's much leaner than he used to be.

Okay, maybe not the hay belly he's sporting... but the muscle tone is gone. I had doc test him for cushings, but thankfully he was negative. So it's just old age doing it's thing we think. Hopefully we can do some work this spring and summer to try and bring some strength back to those old muscles. And if not? Well that's ok too. As long as he's happy and comfortable, I don't care that much what he looks like.

Ok, Jampy's turn! Jampy is interesting to look back on as he's gone through a few changes. I'm not sure where the photos are of when I first got him, but he was a bag of bones by the time he got to me from Europe. As I am now very aware, Jamp is a worrier, and that trip was really hard on him. He spiked a fever in the USDA quarantine and had to stay there longer. Then when he got to the next quarantine for all the stallion testing stuff his legs blew up like balloons. Poor dude. This is why I'm not making him show anymore. Traveling is really stressful for him. Of course so is riding at the far end of my own ring... but I digress...
Jamp arrived to me at the end of August in 2010. Since he was in such terrible shape, I spent the fall just getting to know him at home and trying to get weight on him. It was a snowy winter so he had some time off, but we were ready to roll by the end of spring and started showing the end of May. Here he is that first year in Vermont:

His front end was a lot bigger than the back end, which I always thought was kind of funny. But he was a handsome little stallion, wasn't he?!
This same show was the scene of the crime that eventually stripped Jampy of his, err...,  little jampies if you will. You can read about that incident here if you need a refresher or happened to miss it the first time around.
After this season, we dropped down to the 3' hunters and equitation. My plan was just to get our confidence back and then eventually move back up to the jumper ring. Jampy was a lot less stressed doing that job though, so we wound up just staying in that ring. We did the 3"6" amateur owner hunters a few times, but he's just really not a hunter, so we were generally in the back of the pack.
This scrawny photo is of him that first year in the 3' division:

It doesn't even look like the same horse! Though the back end matches the front a bit better. He was always a tougher keeper than any of the others, requiring a lot more groceries to keep his weight up. I had to be really careful during the show season to keep hay in front of him at all times, or he would get too lean. It was especially obvious when we showed with the BNT and he wasn't under my care. I had to constantly remind them to keep feeding him. Even still, he would come home a bit thinner than he left. Now that he's home all the time, and especially after most of this winter off, he's clearly not that hard of a keeper anymore:

I think we could probably both benefit from a few weeks of intense fitness training... Somehow that tiny butt of his is now significantly larger than the front end. Honestly, though he could obviously use a lot more muscle tone, I think he looks better than he did after being gelded. In his case, he's aging pretty well! He even kind of looks like a hunter now. If only he'd jump like one...

Have you had a horse long enough to see the differences as they age? Any good tips for muscling up an epm riddled senior who's often a bit limpy? (Probably not, but hey, doesn't hurt to ask!)

Truthful Tuesday

Ugh. This one is so hard for me to talk about... You all know I'm a (very) part time braider and hunter princess. Not a secret. So that's what makes this so hard...

Do you see it? Can you tell what it is? It's a little tough with the lighting in this photo, but I think you can still figure it out...
Jamp's mane is entirely on the wrong side. After many years of fighting to train that mane over, I've finally admitted defeat. I figure Jampy's show days are likely behind him, (he's not microchipped, so it will be a real conscious and annoying effort to get him to a show) and if not, it would be me braiding him anyway. So for his golden years, I've decided to allow him to wear his hair however he prefers. It's a real rite of passage for an old horse to be able to make his own hairstyle decisions. He doesn't get full rein though... I will still be keeping it at a reasonable length (most of the time).

I'm in charge now, Mom. -Jamp, probably

Also, please try and excuse his winter belly. Someone really needs to get back to work... That someone might be me, but it's also Jamp. He's always been a bit of a tough keeper though, so his being a little hefty this winter is actually kind of a nice change. Of course we'll be working to trim that up soon as I don't want him to be unhealthy.

What about you? Ever let a horse's mane run wild? Anything else you need to confess today?

Truthful Tuesday

I like to think that outwardly I'm fairly level headed and rational. I try to keep that image of myself out there in public. But honestly, sometimes, in my head I can be super dramatic. Fortunately, it's only like half my brain that succumbs to the drama so the other half talks me down before word gets out...
I've been a little stressed out with all the projects getting done on my property. I'm just finishing up having all the buildings painted plus the fencing project is about halfway done at this point. I'm a little like Jamp (shocking revelation, I know!) in that I much prefer routine. Having no ring and trying to help Jamp cope with all that has been pretty stressful. Rio handles it fine emotionally, but the limited turnout is starting to take it's toll on his legs. He's definitely started to stock up more than normal, and I know (or at least I think I know...) that it's just because he's not getting to move around enough. Hopefully just another couple of days though!
Anyway, here's where I got dramatic. Last night when I was rinsing Jamp off after our ride, I grabbed the broom from the corner of the wash stall:

That broom there. This is said corner. Anyway. I grabbed the broom to sweep up some shavings before washing Jampy off. And I found this behind the broom:

That my friends is very much NOT GOOD. Yes it looks burnt, but it's not. Or at least I'm pretty close to certain it is not. It doesn't smell burned, and definitely has more of a mildew type aroma, so I'm thinking it's rot. Though the washer and dryer are on the other side of the wall, so it's not impossible that it's burnt. The dryer hasn't suggested any type of malfunction and it is properly vented, so I'm fairly confident it's not that. I'm pretty perplexed though, since it definitely did NOT look like that Sunday when I did chores!
So yeah. I saw that and immediately though this is why I can't have nice things. Followed up by holy shit, my barn is going to be condemned! It's falling down! The whole place is gonna rot! (No drama here.) Then of course, I was all, maybe I should just give up now. I have a young horse that I have done nothing with, and two old ones. Maybe I just find a place to board the old ones (you know, since clearly this place will be condemned) and enjoy them till they cross the bridge, sell the young one, and go take up competitive eating.
As you can see, I was being completely rational about this little problem. Fortunately, that lasted only until I finished bathing Jampy. By the time I got on Rio I was mentally drafting my email to my dad (who's away on business of course) to figure out who can remedy this situation. Hopefully I'll hear back from him soon so I can start making calls and get this resolved.
What about you? Are you completely rational all the time? Or completely irrational? Do you get overwhelmed when your routine is interrupted? Or am I the only crazy one on these here interwebs? (LOL! I KNOW that can't be true!)

Truthful Tuesday

I'm ridiculously behind on laundry. My laundry, the horse's laundry... and don't even think about the Pug's laundry getting done! But that's not really what this post is about. Not exactly...
So since I'm behind on laundry, that meant I had no hind no-bow wraps for Jampy after our awesome jump school on Saturday (more on that tomorrow). So I dug out some old pillow wraps for him to wear instead. They're on the thinner side for pillow wraps so they certainly were up to the job of bubble wrapping my oldish man after a day of jumping big (for us).

Obviously, we used the matching front wraps cause Jampy cares about what he looks like. So here is where I must confess. Those pillow wraps are older than Jamp. And he's 18. This brand doesn't even exist anymore! I have two sets of these pillow wraps. I got them in high school to use for shipping which is the only reason they're still alive. I had a pair for Bud and a pair for Christy. They traveled together so obviously I wanted them to match.

Bud, aka Just Humour Me, my junior hunter, and the only horse to rival Rio for the best horse ever title

Christy, aka Opulence. The most amazing children's jumper to ever walk the earth.

So Bud was a shredder. He was perfect in every single way except for that fact that if it was considered horse clothing, he would eat it. Thus it's a true miracle that those wraps are (gasp) TWENTY YEARS OLD! Since he only wore them for shipping, he never really had much chance to sink his little teeth into them. And Christy generally refused to wear hind wraps, so her set didn't get too much use. But over the years, they've been pulled out to use when the no-bows are all dirty.
I don't know if I'm impressed or depressed that I have twenty year old wraps. On the one hand, that's a feat to keep them in working order so long. On the other hand, how am I old enough to have twenty year old wraps?!

Do you have any items still in rotation that are older than you may have realized? What's the oldest equine product you have still in use?

Truthful Tuesday

It's no secret that I tend to shop my feelings. (And eat them, but who doesn't?) So I'm sure you're all wondering what I bought to make myself feel better when Romey left. Well friends, I bought something I have zero need for at the moment, but hopefully will be needed by next summer. Fingers crossed.
I got a new show jacket! I've been really curious about the AA Motion Light jackets for awhile. I know Olivia from Hellomylivia has one, and it looks awesome on her. None of my local shops has them. Also, I've been lusting after the green one which very few stores carry. I saw them on sale on Instagram, but alas, it was sold out in my size and color preference. When I inquired, they said I was out of luck on the sale price as they wouldn't get more before it ended. Some other nice person private messaged me where I could find one. Low and behold, it was on sale! Only $20 off, but they're not overly expensive to being with. So I bit the bullet and ordered one. Pretty silly since I don't show right now. But I really like it! I'm going to share photos, but it looks too small in the pics. I tried it on in a hurry over a heavy rugby shirt. It fits perfectly with a show shirt. The color is most accurate in this first weird photo.

This is the most awkward photo...

I like how the wrinkles from shipping match my fat wrinkles... Ugh.

I should have grabbed some photos to show you the material. It's actually mesh, and seems like it should totally be see through, but it's NOT! This isn't a review post though, so I feel less guilty. If I ever get to show in it, I'll write up a review after wearing.
Do any of you have this jacket? What color did you pick? Do you wear it in the hunters or do you think it's just a jumper coat?

Truthful Tuesday

I have a few confessions today. Let's start with the most embarrassing, shall we? Sunday I spent the majority of my late afternoon/evening catching up on laundry and housework. (Adulting is so annoying.) I have been super negligent about putting away the laundry once it's done and folded, so I had some pretty large stacks of clothes on top of the dryer. Said stacks were obstructing my view of the knob (my dryer is about 35 years old no joke, so no fancy knobs on the front). I had a brilliant plan to sit up on the washer and look behind the clothes at the knob. Here's where things went bad.
I jumped up to sit on the washer, not taking into account the cabinet over top of the machines. I jumped up hard... BAM! Cracking my head on the f-ing cabinet. Left a good size lump in its wake. Who knew laundry could be so dangerous? This is why I need a nanny.

Next up: Rodent racism.
I spent quite a lot of time alone with my horses this weekend. That can only lead to weird places... While out with Rio and the wild bunnies, I got to thinking about rodents. I really hate them. Except for bunnies. And chipmunks. And that's when I realized, I am a rodent racist.

Rio and I both love bunnies

Which leads to my last confession: I am a sadistic mosquito murderer.
Last night when I got to my last horse, it was REALLY BUGGY. But not just regular annoying flying bugs, but the worst of them all: MOSQUITOES. (Ok, ticks are worse, true, but I don't think they fly and either way mosquitoes aren't far behind.) So before taking Romes out for grass, I obviously sprayed us both down with bug spray. But here's where it got weird. I started spraying the ones flying around us and really took a sick pleasure in watching them drop right out of the air. They got their revenge though. Whilst out grazing, I was bit no less than eleventeen times.

So those are my confessions today. I'm a mosquito murdering, rodent racist with a pretty good lump on my noggin.
Anything you need to confess today? Let's chat in the comments!

Truthful Tuesday: Pet Peeves Edition

I have so many stupid little things that drive me crazy, mostly relating to the barn. I frequently have to remind myself to rein in the crazy or I would for sure lose my barn helpers. FOR SURE.
First up: Hoses

 My wash stall hose has a nozzle on it. Thus, it's easy to forget to actually turn off the water. I guess anyway. I don't forget such things. Problem is, if you leave the water on with the nozzle closed, eventually the pressure builds and something is gonna leak. My helpers are generally 9 out of 10 for turning off the water. That's pretty decent! Good helpers. However, the other thing that drives me batty is when they turn off the water, but don't drain the hose. So you've got the nozzle closed but all this water in the hose, so it drips. And drips. And drips. Helpers are not so good on this front.

 I have hoses at the stalls too. Short ones with no nozzles. So I would think draining those might be common sense. But alas. I'm the only one who let's the hose run dry when I water the horses. And then, more dripping. UGH! I try not to harp on people about it because in the grand scheme of things, these are not big issues. At least they're using the water right?

Next up: Floor

I'm certifiable when it comes to the cleanliness of my barn floor. Not so much my house. I'd eat off the barn floor before my kitchen floor probably... I am however, understanding of the difficulties in cleaning said barn floor. My barn flooring is rubber interlocking pavers. Rubber is tough to keep clean since by nature it's very grippy. The best way to clean my floor, is to use the blower first, then follow up with a good sweep. The good sweep must be done with the appropriate broom. My weekday helper is good about using the blower, but often forgets the follow up sweep. You can kind of get away with that when it's dry out, but when it's been raining for the last 10 million days you really can't. The hoof prints just stick to the floor. Weekend helper is kind of the opposite. She gives a final sweep but often forgoes the blower. Problem here is all the shavings that wind up stuck in the cracks. But alas, I try not to be crazy about it. Instead I silently whine about it while I do the mega floor cleaning at the end of the night. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE BIRD CRAP THIS TIME OF YEAR! Ugh.

Do you have any ridiculous pet peeves about farm care? I'm not talking about the obvious ones like latching gates and stall doors. I mean the ones that really don't matter that much but for whatever reason drive you bananas.

Truthful Tuesday

Um.... I've been putting off sharing this with you all because that's how ashamed I am. But I couldn't come up with anything else to talk about today, so I'm just gonna tell you. I ordered more boots. Yeah. Plural. More bootS. I just can't resist a really good sale. What can I say?
Tracy from Fly On Over had posted asking for boot suggestions, and I forget who, but someone mentioned Fama Lusitanos. So I googled out of curiosity and discovered that they were having a ridiculous sale. Custom boots for 320 euro! (Roughly $340 US.) Um, well... how do you not? So I ordered these:

But I already have... 4 pairs (shut up) of brown tall boots, so I went with a new color scheme:

They're going to be like those gray paddocks in the front here. So the boots will be all gray, and the accents will be that gray/blue croc. I can't wait for them to get here! Should be here in about a month.
And then I was all, ok seriously self, NO MORE BOOTS! Cause I don't need any more boots. I have pretty much every color I could need between half chaps and boots. I imagine you can see where this is going...
So there I was minding my own business. Not buying boots. (Seriously, I hardly even ride.) When I find out that that I can get Romitelli boots for 10% off. No self, that's not the best deal ever. You don't need them. Except then I discovered the color options. And my inner 8 year old took over my being. That little brat grabbed my credit card and my tape measure and went rogue. Seriously rogue. She ordered freaking princess boots you guys. PRINCESS BOOTS. I'm not even kidding. She ordered these:

But not in those colors. Oh no. Because I mean, I already had gray boots ordered. She ordered this color (the one on the left):

Yea. Lilac boots. And the accents will be purple ostrich. I might be a little ashamed of this one... Except, how awesome will the rainbow spurs look on those boots!?

So you can see where it was justified right?
Ok, I realize you probably can't compare to such indiscretions... But please, share some confessions in the comments so I feel a little less ashamed...

Truthful Tuesday

I've been known to make terrible life choices on occasion. The most recent being to sign up for half marathon number 7. It's not until October, so training time is aplenty. Which is good, because I want to finish under 2:15. Seriously. This is an unattainable goal. I've run two races under that time. Of course the other four were more around the 2:30 mark... but still. It's attainable. We'll see how training goes I guess. My reason for the lofty goal is that for this race, if you beat the spectator train (which will arrive at the finish in 2 hours and 15 minutes) you get an extra prize or medal (to be determined). I like extra stuff. This is the first year for this race, and it sounds super fun. Plus it's one town over from me, so it's also local. Win-win. Except for the having to run 13.1 miles part. You can check it out here if you want to run through CT with me in the fall: http://steamtrainhalf.com/

But that's not my confession today. It's just the precursor. Since I have to lose a solid 25 lbs. AND my company is currently hosting a biggest loser competition, I have started back to running three days a week. I'm easing into it VERY SLOWLY, by way of the Couch to 5K program. That's what I used to start running in the first place about 8 years ago. It's going great, I forgot how nice and easy it is at the beginning. I've been having a terrible time getting up early enough for my runs though. Which leads (finally) to today's confession:

I slept in my running clothes last night, so I could just hop on the treadmill without having to change first this morning.

a. PJ's? b. Running Clothes? c. Yoga clothes? D. All of the above

Only it's worse than that. My company started free yoga classes on Monday evenings, so I went to that. I wore this outfit. I didn't sweat or anything... And then proceeded to put my clothes on over top of it to drive home, check on and feed the ponies, and grocery shop. So basically, I wore my yoga clothes to bed, and then ran in them this morning. I ran inside on the treadmill, so I never faced the public. But still... I think that's pretty bad. And THAT my friends, is today's confession.

Do you have anything you need to get off your chest today? Feel free to talk about it in the comments!

Truthful Tuesday

Today's confession is that I nearly forgot it was Tuesday! I am flying out tomorrow to go visit Badger, (and meet up with Devon from the Food Bitch Blog!) but I took today off because a one day week just seemed silly to me. Like a good little glove saleslady I worked from home a little, but not too much!
My only other real confession is the disgusting amount of food that has gone in my pie hole the last week. I hate diets, but I may have to try one this time. Whatever, it was worth it. Everything I ate was totally delicious! And now that the holidays are over, I can get bigger pants on sale...
Anything you need to get off your chest? Have any embarrassing tales from the holidays? Let's talk confessions in the comments!