What's Up Wednesday

It's funny what feels like an extra busy week this year... I've gotten so used to my routine that anything extra just seems busy. This past week seemed more so because the farrier came, and my barn washing machine got fixed. Mind you, I didn't have to actually be present for either of these things, just needed to pop in the barn for payment. But it did seem extra busy. Life is so weird right now.

Anyway, let's talk about the horses shall we? They were super weird last week. EVERYONE had a case of the Tuesdays. Pammon was extra spooky and the bugs were driving him bananas so I wound up riding indoors. I'm not as patient in the mornings because I have less time for a battle. So I chose mine. He was a good boy inside, so I'll take it.

The other two though... I'm guessing there had to have been an animal in the woods. I got on Eros first, and he lost his shit heading toward the far end of the ring. He didn't do anything bad, but his head went up, he wouldn't walk, and his heart was pounding. Since I have to be extra mindful of him not spinning (or losing me and running around), I hopped off and decided to give him a couple ace tabs. Just better safe than sorry. So I gave him those and let him marinate on the cross ties while I rode Shiny. But then she also was spooking at the end. Which is not at all like her. She spooks very rarely, so once she was acting that way, I figured there must be something out there. We do have a neighborhood bear AND a very large cat of some kind. I swear it's a mountain lion, but everyone tells me it's probably a bob cat. Looks way too big to be, but who knows. I don't get that close. Anyway, I rode her on half the ring because whatever and we had an okay ride.

Case of the Tuesdays times 2

I'm partially sure that Eros is currently being inhabited by the ghost of Jamp, and this face the other day helped to solidify that thought:

The spooky eyes... the biting his tongue... SPOOKY!

There were still some mild shenanigans Wednesday, but much better than the day before. Pammon's been fine in the mornings, but the bugs are getting pretty bad over there in the mornings. He has the thinnest skin too which doesn't help. Poor dude. I'm really grateful though that most of the time when something is bothering him, his go to is to cease movement rather than try to murder his human. Good guy for sure.

Eros has continued to be a bit spooky, but not bad. 

It looks worse when you grab the still though! Haha!

As far as soundness goes... he feels okay. Watching the video he sometimes looks VERY lame, but it's really just him resisting my request for contact. He has a lot of opinions about that. He and Pammon are both getting rechecked on Friday. Fingers crossed we can add in some canter and work off some his freshness (cause trotting sure doesn't do that). Here's a short Pivo clip from the weekend.

And some stills:

This is me looking at a very noisy helicopter overhead. Poor Eros puts up with a lot.

Shiny was seemingly over her spookiness by Wednesday, but when I tried to do a little jumping... It didn't go well.

Normally she really takes me to the jumps and is super game. But this day? She just wasn't there. She never said no, but as you can see above she wasn't herself. And then nearly fell down at the end of that video and obviously stung herself when she came out of that. At that point, I called it a day. She was fine to flat the rest of the week, fortunately. 

Saturday I planned another jump school. And if I'm being honest (which is kinda my thing, right?) I was a little... apprehensive. I was worried that the bad school from Wednesday might carry over, and I found myself being nervous to each fence we hadn't jumped yet that day. Fortunately, after jumping everything once, I realized I had my pony back. She really was very good, though steering remains a challenge... I recorded with both Pivo and the Soloshot. Funny, I think my phone camera is actually better than the soloshots because the screen grabs from Pivo are so clear:

The ones from Soloshot get grainy:

Pivo was a little less than reliable with following me that day though, so I got much more footage with the SS3. I think the trouble with Pivo is that I have the red and it has a hard time turning fast enough when we're jumping. SO.... I ordered the silver. It should be here this weekend. Hopefully that does the trick! I think it might do better outside the ring, but my fence will obscure the view, so that's not an option. I'm still really happy with it though, and the company is really devoted to making it great. That goes a long way!

Here are some clips from Pivo and SS3.

And in non horsey news, I did a few other things this week/weekend including the following:

Filled another horse show prize order

Also made this adorable turtle bracelet

Went on a socially distant hike Sunday morning

AND finally got myself another lobster roll (to go, obviously)

That's about it from here. What have you all been up to?