I'll try not to talk about poop too much today. I'm disappointed to report that Rio's poo is still rather runny, but it's at least not exploding out of him like the other day... That was horrifying. It's definitely still wintering out here in CT, but it's calmed itself down quite a bit. We've not only been above freezing for almost a week, we had a RAINSTORM yesterday! Rain! I love rain. At least when it could be snow and instead it's being rain. That's when I love it. So let's see... what happened in the last week?
Thursday evening I basically neglected my horses. I fed them after work and then I headed off to meet up with my book club. I was pretty excited as we were meeting at a restaurant right down the road from my house that I had yet to try.
Turns out some family friends of one of the girls was seated by us, and as they were leaving, sent us two bottles of wine. Those are the kind of people I like to be friends with! Free wine for all! Woohoo!
Friday, to apologize for the Thursday neglect, the ponies had a nice grooming each and the puggers got some extra snuggles.
I was REALLY hoping to ride on Saturday but alas, the weather was being dumb. Originally the forecast was for 50's this weekend. And while we did very briefly see 50 on Saturday, it was only for about a half hour and not until later in the afternoon. Saturday was VERY windy too. Nonetheless, I was hopeful to get on. I kept walking the ring to test the footing. ALL DAY LONG. While the very top layer got soft, it was still very hard and frozen under that, which makes for terribly unsafe footing. Boo. So more groomies for the boys and that was that. Instead I had some fun with crafts in the house.
First I made some cuff bracelets that I've been meaning to put together for awhile. They all have matching horse head bracelets to wear in a stack. The horse heads I made last year though.
You may or may not remember that I mentioned Rio having lost a chunk of (non-pooped on) tail a few weeks ago. I really wanted to make a bracelet with it so figured I had the time so that was the next project. Because the tail chunk wasn't cut off neatly, I had to try and organize the strands before doing anything with it. This was kind of a PITA and I eventually got bored and super lazy about the whole thing and decided to just braid it. But I didn't JUST want braided Rio hair because there wasn't enough of it to be very thick. So I thought I could braid it with some leather cord I had. It kept just not looking right, until finally I tried adding hair to the cord sections as well, and then it finally looked ok.
Unfortunately, the clasp I choose, which looks ADORABLE as I'd hoped, is not a very functional one. It's magnetic, which usually is fine. The magnets on most of the clasps I've used are really strong and hold very well. But with the way this one is designed, it's just not working.
The bracelet has to stay flat where the clasp is or else it comes apart. And when you wear a soft bracelet like this one, it doesn't hold that flat shape unfortunately.
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| It's perfect if you DON'T MOVE! |
Honestly though, I'm feeling a little superstitious about wearing a Rio bracelet anyway. I don't want to put any bad JUJU out there by wearing part of my horse that's still alive and well. Seems weird right? So maybe it's for the best that this was just a prototype. And that was the extent of my wild Saturday night!
Sunday I was more determined than ever to get on my ponies! I had learned from Saturday to wait until the afternoon to even consider such things. So instead I got started on the great closet purge of 2018. I only allotted myself a couple of hours, so I didn't get very far. But hey, it's a start! At 1 I headed out to feed lunch and work the ponies. The footing was still pretty bleh, but the one corner was soft enough to do a little walk trot on the lunge line to see how their brains were working.
I started with Jampy. He was actually a lot less nuts than I expected. He tried to get stupid once, but he is smart enough to realize the footing was not good enough for such nonsense and reeled it back in.
I didn't want him doing too much since he hasn't worked in a solid month, so I let him trot around a little each way, and then decided to climb aboard. I was hoping to do some trotting too, which we did, but very little. The footing was crap, and my neighbor had come home and was making all kinds of weird noise over there. Jampy was a good boy though!
I left my Voltaire in Florida and was curious to see if I would miss it. I haven't used my Hermes saddle since the Voltaire arrived! Fortunately, Hermie felt just as great as I remembered.
I pretty much had the same plan for Rio. He was feeling a bit sassy and gave me a bunch of happy head shakes on the lunge line. He's smart enough to respect the footing, but I think if it was better out he'd have been a bit of a bronco. Silly old man!
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| after the wild was out. AKA 2 minutes later. |
Since it's Rio he got over the wilds pretty quickly. I climbed aboard but just walked him. Since he's less of a kook than his brother, I let him use the whole ring. I think he enjoyed the walk. I know I did. There's seriously nothing better to me than getting to sit on him. He's definitely my soul mate.
I was half thinking about taking the pugs for a walk since it's been FOREVER since they've gone on one. I don't take them on the road once winter hits because all that salt is terrible on their feet. I wound up not taking them because everything was a wet muddy mess and they're very low riders. I wasn't up for the bathe the doggies battle. Instead we played some fetch in the house and got some snuggles in too.
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| we're not very good at family selfies |
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| We ARE good at naps. |
The temps have been falling ever since Monday so by the time I get home from work, the ground is hard again. It's looking promising for some riding on Saturday though, so everyone keep your fingers crossed for us!
How was your week/weekend? Did you get to ride? Do any crafts? What's going on with you and your ponies?
