Truthful Tuesday

 

My confession today is that I'm a little low on jumps for my ring. I have seven pairs of standards, so I can make six jumps if I want an oxer in there someplace. Since my ring is small, I don't want too many jumps in there anyway, but I would like to be able to make two oxers and have a full course of 8 jumps. Unfortunately, new jumps aren't really in my budget right now, so I have to be creative. 

I reset the course yesterday and managed 10 "jumps" though only one oxer still. (Also seen below, one pile of poles that I didn't use... )

I used some jump fill "hurdles" to make a two stride up at the back of the ring down the center (three strides for Shiny) and then used some rail raisers for two of the other fences. One set holds a white gate, and the other is just a simple vertical. It's behind the purple jump so you can't really see it here. 

I did realize though, that if I want to get these horses prepared to start showing again, I really do need some flowers in the jumps. Both of them like to take a look at flowers, so we need to desensitize that some before we venture out. My flower boxes are nearing the end of their life, but they are still holding on! So I just needed to get flowers which isn't too terribly expensive. 

I did stumble across something really cute to put flowers in on Amazon though, so I did splurge a wee bit on those. They'll be here later this week hopefully, so I'll share them on Instagram once they arrive. 

I have started compiling my wish list for jump parts though. I should have a really good braiding weekend in a few weeks for a local final, so I might be able to get a few things after that. If not, maybe in the spring. Clearly, we're making do just fine with what we have, so it's just a want and not a need.