I don't really have much to report on this week. I spent nearly all of my awake hours in the barn, which I think we can all agree is not a bad way to spend your time! Unfortunately, the weather was not great this weekend. Friday was nice though! I gave the horses some extra time outside and then we rode afterwards. Everyone popped over a few tiny jumps. We're still keeping things low, nothing over 2' just yet. But we're plugging along.
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| Friday's Stats. Many steps taken |
Saturday and Sunday were both rainouts. I probably could have ridden Saturday, it wasn't raining especially hard, but I just couldn't bring myself to create more work for the already very full weekend. And by that I mean, having to clean and condition rained on tack. Which... I really need to do that anyway. But I didn't want it to have to be immediate. Sunday was gross though. Not a riding day at all. I used both days for some extra cleaning in the barn. I wiped down the back walls in the occupied stalls, which immediately made the whole place seem cleaner looking. I also dusted off the little ledges over the back doors which clearly hadn't had that happen since when I had the horses off property the winter before this past one. Gross. Sunday I cleaned up all the new bird poo around the barn, and spent some extra time grooming the horses once they dried off from turnout.
Monday started off rainy, but cleared up to a nice day. Normally I give the horses Mondays off, but since my worker was off for the holiday and they already had two days off I rode them all. The rides were abbreviated because I was so tired from four 13 hour days in a row in the barn, and also because we only could use half the ring. The other half was a little too wet.
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| Shiny's new pet snapper turtle |
My original plan when I knew I had such a long weekend in the barn was to take Tuesday as my "day off" from the barn. (By that I mean I don't ride and don't clean up after my helper. But I still of course make hay bags, soak hay, and do all the feedings/night check.) Since Mother Nature was so miserable all weekend though, I decided to not take my day off. Which was probably a mistake because my body is wrecked from lack of sleep. But whatever body, we've got stuff to do!
Everyone had a decent ride Tuesday. I figured since we rode Monday we could do some jumpies on Tuesday! Or well, I hoped. Al was first, and he was really being a good boy. We were able to use the whole ring (I mean sort of, I have jumps set on the scary side rail, so he gets to stay on the quarter line by default.) He's still really sticky off the leg, and I'm quite sure I work significantly harder than he does. But he was listening and not spooking. So I'll take that. We trotted over a couple jumps then took a walk break. Unfortunately, that was when the neighbor decided to start up his very loud lawn tractor with the little trailer attached and bang his way along the property line to his shed that's next to the back corner of my ring. Once there, he was just throwing stuff around banging and clanging like the menace he is. So I let Al be done. He'd been a good boy, and that would have been an unfair ask to try to jump him with all that noise that he can't see the source of.
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| a very relaxed boy before the banging and clanging started |
I'm not going to lie, it's really frustrating to constantly have my rides on him interrupted like this. I swear he does it on purpose as he's always his most disruptive when I'm on Al. He can be inside his garage all day making almost no noise, and as soon as I'm Al, he comes out and is banging away on something. I've tried mixing up the order I ride them so I'm on Al at different times of the day, and it doesn't matter. It's no wonder I can't get anywhere with this horse.
Thankfully I have less reactive horses to ride to keep my from spiraling too far. Eros was really funny Tuesday. He started out super lazy. Even the first few jumps I was kind of kicking him out of the turns to get there. But then he woke up and Torpedo Eros made an appearance. I really shouldn't be so amused by him doing that, it's terrible behavior. But it's also so funny because he's just a good dude. Even when he's naughty.
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| Nope. Don't wish to go out there. Al told me it's not safe. |
It was so late by the time I got on Shiny old bang and clang was done for the day. So that was nice, but she doesn't actually care anyway. She had the most fun jumping around. It's always funny to me how much she lights up once I point her at some jumps. Not in the torpedo way like Eros, but in a bouncy rideable way. Wish I could get her to motivate like that on the flat!
I don't think we'll have anything terribly exciting going on over here over the next week/weekend. I need to be a little quick in the barn on Thursday, but Wednesday and Friday we should be able to get solid works in. And the weekend too. All weather permitting of course. But should be good! Fingers crossed.
Next week they'll get the rest of their shots and have their teeth checked. Of course the vet is coming Monday because I was SO looking forward to getting a day off... Sigh. My house is so dirty and the laundry pile is just silly. But it will still be that way the following week. What can you do? It's a good thing I live by myself, so it's just my mess/dirt.
Hope you all had a great weekend! Hopefully drier where you are than it was here!
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