Thursday's Threads

 

Outfit day already! Summer always seems to fly by doesn't it? I actually have some new stuff I was really excited to use this week so I hope you like them as much as I do! We'll start with the ponies since their new stuff is the best part.

Bonnets: The Hangry Mare
Bridles: QHP
Browbands: Dark Jewel Designs

I had been on a pretty intense hunt to find mesh bonnets for the kids, but the place that all my friends got their's done only makes one size. (Sorry, but why??) I wanted to have identical ones for Shiny and the horses so I kept looking. Eventually, I stumbled on The Hangry Mare and she had exactly what I was hunting for... and then some... Prices are super reasonable and the items are gorgeous! Highly recommend if you're in the market! The bridles you all have seen before, so no need to to harp on those! Instead, enjoy a bonus bonnet photo so you can see the details better:

Saddles: Eros- Butet, Shiny-Custom Saddlery
Saddle Pads: The Hangry Mare
Eros' half pad is Mattes

Yes, you're seeing that correctly! The Hangry Mare can make custom wool lined saddle pads! So Shiny was able to get one too! I was stupid excited about these. I love how she did the quilting on them especially. I also further customized the non wool pads by getting them done in baby pad weight. I will definitely get more down the road. More affordable that Mattes and much faster turnaround. Plus, who doesn't love supporting a small business?

Boots: Eros- HKM, Shiny- QHP

It's been raining here... a LOT. So I wanted boots that I could wipe the mud off easily for today's ride. These both did the trick!

Okay, my turn! Here's what I wore:

Ha... I match my barn... Fun fact, Pivo did not like today's outfit on Shiny since we blended into the surroundings so well. Oops. 

Helmet: One K MIPS

I haven't worn this one in awhile! Thought it worked well with today's outfit though.

Tee: Equestrian AF

This shirt kills me. I think it was Olivia who introduced me to this tee shirt. It's hilarious and a good reminder for me...

Belt: Mary B Hetz

I stumbled on this belt years ago on Ebay and had to have it. But it's on the wider side and has a weird shape so it doesn't fit with a lot of my pants. Fits perfectly with TS though! It's vintage, but not terribly delicate (thankfully). I think it's cute, the horse is like if Pammon and Eros could make a baby.

Breeches: Tailored Sportsman in the color "Saddle"

The first time I saw this color I thought they were hideous. Who wants mustard colored breeches? But then I realized that I, in fact, want mustard colored breeches. They look fantastic with green. And the darker shade of tan is much better for a dirty animal like myself. I happened to find this pair on closeout which most of you know, rarely happens with TS. I had to size down so I wasn't sure they were going to work, but I stuffed myself in there just fine! If you get mid rise and long, they have a little more room that the low rise and/or standard length. Are they too long for me? Yes, they end right where my foot meets the ankle... but they work!

Boots: Mountain Horse Sovereign Lux in brown

Sorry this photo is showing up so dark. It was a cloudy day and I insisted on getting that background... I love the chocolate brown color on these boots. I think they're gorgeous. I still have a ways to go on getting them broken in though. I couldn't wait to get them off when I was done riding! They'll get there, I just don't ride in them enough. 

And that's it for this week's outfit day! Any favorites? How about that Hangry Mare stuff??? I love it so much!

What's Up Wednesday

 

We had some major weather swings last week which interfered some with any training plans I may have had. The week started out with temps in the upper 90's and very high humidity. While I still rode the horses, I didn't work them especially hard, and we made sure to take walk breaks. They both do well in hot weather and sweat well, but the humidity is hard on them. Especially Eros, I'm a little more careful with him. As a result, I pushed our usual Wednesday jump school to Thursday when it was supposed to be cooler. Eros was a bit of a freight train when we finally got to jump, and the majority of his session was spent trotting raised cavalletti on a figure 8. Once he softened, we repeated the exercise at the canter. One he was soft doing that, we called it a day. Photos from the freight train portion of our ride. At least he jumped relatively well while dragging me around like a small child.

Shiny was great to jump, albeit on the lazy side of the spectrum. I had to really work to get her moving forward, but once she got there, she was pretty great. 

We're still working on holding her shape, I think that's going to take some time. But she's gotten a lot straighter, and I also think she's better about bending in through the turns. I'm not sure what it is with ponies, but they all come out of the womb wanting to fall in and look out... Ponies! 

Friday I got Eros worked, but the rain came and I wound up letting Shiny have a day off. I will ride in the rain, but it was absolutely pouring and I wasn't into it. She wouldn't have been either. Since she was off Friday, I didn't want to jump her again on Saturday, but we had a nice flat that day, and then Sunday she enjoyed Sunday Funday. I did make her walk, trot, and canter lightly (bareback in a sidepull) before we went for a wander though. She doesn't need a walk only day in addition to her bonus day off in the same week. Eros didn't really get a second jump school either, but we did do the cavalletti on the figure 8 again on Sunday just to see if it took. He was pretty good, definitely softer than he'd been earlier in the week. 

Yesterday, after Monday off, Eros was a spooky mess. I'm blaming it on the fireworks at night. I think he was just a little edgy from that, and the neighbor was making all kinds of weird noises while we were trying to ride. We wound up staying on half the ring and got some work done. But it wasn't much of a good ride. I was proud of him for keeping his poo together for the most part though. I'll let him have a little free lunge before we ride today. Maybe that will help.  Shiny was actually really good yesterday though. She did test early on by not cantering when I asked her. But Mr. Tappy had a chat with her, and she didn't put a hoof wrong after that. We'll see what we have today!

Pammon switched fields last week, which I think I already mentioned here. He now has the ladies in the field next to him, and a couple of other buddies on the other side at night too. He's loving having more friends around!

Sunday I finally had a lesson with Bellino. It went pretty well. He was REALLY unmotivated on the flat and took a ton of leg. A TON. (And I own Shiny remember...) He was more forward once we started jumping and was a very good boy for that. The jumps were little bitty ones so we could ease back into things which was nice. He's a little bit of a weird ride so it was less stressful figuring him out knowing he could walk over what we were jumping. He's off to a horse show next week, so I'm not sure if I'll ride him again this weekend or not. We'll see. 

As for Artie... I don't have all the results back from his tests yet, but we believe he has lymphoma. Without treatment the prognosis is only a couple months. With treatment, maybe up to a year, but that's very much dependent on what the tests say. With his heart failure and age, I'm not sure putting him through chemo will be the right thing to do for him. Once his results are back I'll meet with an oncologist and ask all the questions. Decisions will be made at that point about the best course for Artie's quality of life. For now, he doesn't seem to know anything is wrong and is going about his life the same as always. I may or may not have ordered a dog stroller to take him on walks though.... He hasn't been able to go for real walks since his heart failure diagnosis because he gets too winded. But he loves to go out and see the sights. So hopefully he'll like the stroller. 

Needless to say, I have put on hold any thoughts of going away to any horse shows. I need to spend time here with Artie this summer. Maybe we'll get to a one day or two but showing really ins't a priority for me right now anymore. 

So that's where we are. Plugging along! How was your week and weekend?

Truthful Tuesday

 

Ugh you guys. Today I need to rant about how difficult it is to get things done! We've already discussed the pool issues at length. That's still not ready for use, but not for lack of my very nice new pool guy's attention. It's just taking awhile to get clear. Understandable given how long it was closed. 

No, today we're moving on to all kinds of other issues... First, I have an upflushing toilet in the barn because the bathroom there actually sits lower than where the output needs to end up. This type of toilet has a motor that does all kinds of gross things to make your toilet work. But you know what the problem is with motors? They eventually stop working. My helper let me know a few weeks ago that the toilet had flooded all over the floor. I had the plumber out, but by the time he came it had fixed itself. (This apparently, can happen.) Super! I moved on with my life. Well. It happened again, and now it can't seem to clear itself. Plumber happened to be on vacation when this occurred (of course) so he couldn't come out right away. No problem, there's another accessible bathroom nearby on the property, I can wait. Well. Plumber was back from vacation on Wednesday. I waited until Thursday to reach out to give him a day to get back into the swing of things. But you know what? He won't return my calls. So now I need to find a new plumber. I mean, not the end of the world, but why does this shit (literally) need to be so difficult? Shouldn't one be able to make a phone call or send a text and get a response and an appointment? Shouldn't it be that easy? No? Ugh. I dunno. 

Then I needed to reorder checks. You can normally do that right from the bank's website. But not now. Oh no. That would be way too easy. I keep getting an error message. After like a million attempts over a few days (I thought maybe it needed to be done while the bank was open...) I finally called the automated number and did get that done. 

Lastly... I need to get wifi out in my barn. I've had cameras for awhile now but the wifi doesn't reach out there so I can't get them set up. In fact, the wifi was set up in my house when I bought it nearly 15 years ago and I know it needs to be upgraded. I've tried with no avail to get my brother to do it for me since that is his area of expertise, but those of you with siblings know how difficult that can be. I finally gave up and tried to schedule for Comcast to come out and do it for me. (Comcast is our local internet and cable provider.) Guys. There isn't even a phone number to call on their website! No. You have to go through their chat bot first. There's even an option right on there to schedule a tech appointment. When you click that button though? The idiot bot says they don't see an appointment scheduled for you. No kidding! Imagine that. I finally begged to chat with a human. Who read what I needed and proceeded to tell me he was going to go ahead and upgrade my service (for more money) to faster internet. I did not ask for that. That is not what I wanted. I said you absolutely will not do that. You will get me scheduled for a tech appointment and that is all. So then the person disappears for a short lifetime. Eventually comes back and says okay you're all set and scheduled. Is there anything else I can help you with? Um... when is the appointment? Seriously. They didn't thing to tell me that part. It's not until next weekend, but whatever at least it's getting done finally. Hopefully. You know my luck. It's not done till it's done. Also, it took an hour and half just to get that appointment scheduled. Ridiculous.

I still have to get my car looked at (engine light is on and my emissions is due... must get the light off or I'll fail emissions), my truck needs an oil change and has a few recalls on it, and I need the well people out to service my water system. But I can only deal with so many difficult customer service scenarios at a time. Maybe next week for those.

I'm also burying the lead because I'm not super ready to talk about it, but Artie received some potentially very bad news at the vet yesterday, and he could use some good thoughts. 

Anyway, thanks for listening to me complain. Have you experienced similar frustrations lately? Kinda makes you miss the days of lockdown where you actually COULDN'T deal with all this poo!

Thursday's Threads

 

Outfit day! If you've been around awhile you know I'm not a big riding in tank tops kind of person. But when the feels like temps are in the triple digits, tank tops it is! So here is my tank top outfit:

I had to layer since the arm holes are big, so I'm not sure I achieved as much coolness as I could have since I wore two... 

Helmet: Samshield

The Samshield helmet has the best ventilation of my collection so I chose that one for this warm day. Plus, you can never go wrong with a little holo...

Shirt: Brand unknown

This says "training to be a majestic unicorn". My bestie and I both have one, we wore them when we ran a fun relay race several years ago. We were team Magical Milers and our silly outfit included tutus and unicorn headbands. We had much fun, despite the running part.

Belt: Swanky Saddle

These unicorn buckles are on clearance at Swanky Saddle if you want one! I still think it's adorable, definitely one of my favorites!

Breeches: Ovation Aqua-X

The Aqua-X breeches are my favorite for hot days since they're very lightweight. Unfortunately, I think they've been discontinued. This pair is actually black, but I think I was already a dusty mess by the time I snapped this pic. 

Boots: Celeris UK

I just love these boots. They're so fun and crazy. 

So that's what I wore, and now it's the ponies' turn!

Ugh, you guys. I just noticed when I snapped these pics how obese my horses have gotten. I know what I feed them, which is hardly anything, but I just had to remind my helper that they can only have 1 flake each. He feels bad because it's hardly any food. I get it. But look at them! They both look like they're carrying twins. Easy keepers aren't really that easy. 

Bridles: Joseph Sterling
Browbands: Dark Jewel Designs

I think I use these bridles the most of my collection. Probably because they match everything. But also because they are the nicest quality of my everyday tack. There's a real difference between this leather and that on the Camelot bridles that's for sure!

Saddles: Eros-Butet, Shiny- Custom Saddlery
Saddle Pads: Eros- Lettia, Shiny- unbranded

Eros half pad is by Ippico

Eros wore my fun unicorn version logo pad that I decorated with the Cricut. And Shiny's pad is the one I found on Ebay that is thinner than most of her pads. Trying to keep her cool!

Boots: Eros- Premier Equine, Shiny- Punk Ponies

Full disclosure here. I keep trying to get Shiny some plain black boots, but boot size charts for horses are never accurate. I've bought like 3 different brands and they're all too tall for her. I really should just stop being cheap and get the ones from PEI like Eros is wearing, but their shipping costs have gone up so much... Probably still would be cheaper than all the ones I've bought that didn't work out though...

And that's it for today! Semi tame, with the gray and black, but less tame with the helmet and boots. It's called balance! Any favorites?

What's Up Wednesday

 

It was a fairly quiet week/weekend around here. Eros has been a perfect boy (obviously) and we ever put the jumps back up to 2'6" for him on Saturday.

He was so good and soft, I basically just jumped one course and called it a day. Which meant our ride was barely 20 minutes long warm up included. I have this feeling like all rides need to be at least 30 minutes (I generally ride 30-40 minutes), but honestly, sometimes I think it's perfectly fine for it to be short and sweet. This week for example. It's been in the 90's with 70% humidity which leads to "feels like" temps in the triple digits. Our horses here in New England are not super acclimated to that, and so our rides yesterday and today were/will be on the shorter side. Probably 20-25 minutes including our cool down walk. Which was stressing me out at first, but then I realized, it's perfectly okay. A few light days now and then aren't going to hurt anyone. 

Speaking of short rides. It's funny how Shiny really does require a no pressure ride each week. I've never had a horse that makes this so apparent. Last week, instead of a no pressure bareback day, they had Friday completely off when I went to visit my friend. So I skipped Sunday funday to make up for  our missed jumping day. Well... Shiny was kind of terrible this whole past week having not had her no pressure day. It took me until this weekend to realize that was the difference. How was she terrible you ask? Well there was this dramatic spook:

Which, Shiny rarely ever spooks unless she's super wild. Which she was not. She also was very much not interested in contact or moving off my leg... or really anything I asked her to do. She was good when we jumped Friday, but she was so behind my leg I couldn't even begin to try and hold contact at all. 

We even (and by we I mean me...) got brave enough to jump the end jump. But without an honest contact, I only found the chip to it every time.

Sorry Shiny... 

Anyway, after last week's frustrations, I made sure that the horses had a Sunday Funday.

Eros had a bareback walk in the ring followed by a half hour of yard snacks

Shiny "trail rode" bareback down to her paddock and back and also enjoyed yard snacks after

I didn't have any braiding jobs this week, but I did get to ride Bellino! 

He was kind of a jerk on Saturday, spooking and spinning at the chairs by the ring when we started. Then trying to leave the ring when I really closed the inside aids to prevent the spook... He wanted to root at the canter which was pretty rude. But by the end he had softened and was a good boy. Sunday he had regrets about how long he made his ride the day before and was a perfect gentleman. So that was fun and rewarding. 

In Pammon news, it looks like his buddy finally stood up for himself as Pammon has a little ding on his front leg that looks like it's probably from a kick. I'm glad that happened because Pammon needed to be stood up to. Whatever the tiff was about, they are getting along so much better. 

They moved to a little bit bigger field yesterday which I'm excited about for them. Not so much because it's bigger, but because it's next to the road. It's a very quiet rode, used mainly by the barn's traffic and the handful of residents off of it, but it has a decent amount of pedestrian traffic. Pammon LOVES people, and I think he'll love seeing everyone who walks by. Especially if they give him some attention. 

He got some new fly boots from Equi-prism this weekend. I'm going to make sure they aren't giving any rubs today when I go out to see him, but he seems to be unbothered by them. They're designed like the shoo-fly boots, but you can pick your own colors. I went with the boarding barn colors since that would match his fly sheet better than my colors.

And that's really all I have to report this week. How about you guys? Did you have a good week? Get lots of riding in? Do your horses have any easy day requirements like Shiny?

Truthful Tuesday

 

I've been a little lazy lately you guys. I mean, not with the horses, I'm doing all the things with them of course. But I've been slacking on the house projects. Now that we're in the midst of a heat wave though, I'm trying to get back on track. Partly because then I get to be inside in the a/c and partly because I never did bring my summer clothes downstairs this year... 

I have plenty of tee shirts that weren't packed up with the rest of the summer clothes, and I leave sunshirts around all year since they layer well. So I haven't had a real need. But now that life is starting to happen again, I realized I had no summertime non barn clothes in an easily accessible area. So that's what I started doing yesterday. Packing up the sweaters, and going through (purging!!!) the summer clothes. My attention span isn't that long and I had to work around a few other things yesterday, but I made a good dent at least. I filled two bags for donation already, so that feels good. I LOVE getting rid of excess stuff in my house. It's so cathartic. My goal is chip away at it this week, and hopefully be finished by next week. We'll see how it goes. I really want to get back on track with getting this house cleaned out and organized again. I mean, some day I may want to allow people inside again... 

Do you guys lose motivation for boring adulting things? Or are you pretty good at seeing chores through on the regular?