What's Up Wednesday

 

There's honestly not too much going on around here this week. My trial horse left on Saturday morning. But otherwise Shiny and Eros have been going well. 

They had an extra day off this week since Sunday was really rainy. I had planned a Sunday funday for them anyway so it wasn't a big deal. I did get a ride in though, because I got to ride Fefe!

She was a good girl until I tried to take her for a walk outside after we were done working. There was a pause in the rain, so I thought she'd like it. I was incorrect. She started jigging and hopping up and down. She was so busy having this tantrum, my friend I was walking with had to hop off her horse and hold Fefe so I could dismount. Mares! Lol. I temporarily forgot that she is done when work time is over. My bad. 

We only fit in one jump school this past week, since I had been busy with the trial horse. But they were both great for it! Hopefully this week we'll be back on our regular schedule. 

Eros is jumping around at 2'6" consistently these days, so that's exciting. Getting closer to a show height anyway. I've decided to keep Shiny at 2'3" this year since we have lots to work on still. She's been so quiet that I haven't really been able to work on keeping her shape when we're jumping. I don't seem to have enough leg to add the amount of hand I need for contact. There's no hurry though. We'll keep plugging along!

In other news, P seems to be doing just fine without her brother. It's been hot for her outside, so we've been spending a lot of time watching the olympics together. She really likes swimming:

I do bring her out to feed dinner to the horses sometimes. She seems to enjoy it, but I think she's looking forward to fall. Humidity is hard on these brachycephalic pups! I wish she liked the stroller though. It would be nice to take her for a real walk. 

That's really about it from here for now. Have you all been up to fun things?

What's Up Wednesday

 

What. A. Week. I'm not going to harp on the worst day ever since we've covered that plenty. I'll just share the other stuff since life happens all the time. 
I've been a little inconsistent with my horses this past (and current) week. I didn't get to ride last Friday because tropical storm Elsa stopped by to drop a ton of a rain. So that interfered with our second jumping day again. Both Shiny and Eros did get to pop over some fences on Thursday though, so at least we got to jump once last week! They were mostly fine I think. I can't remember, honestly... Here are some cute photos though:

Fortunately, it rained so hard on Friday that the water just kind of ran right off the ring. So the footing was okay to ride. And I rode A LOT. I did Fifi and Bellino over at the other barn first. Then came home and did Shiny and Eros. I was pooped after. Definitely not four horses fit right now! But I made sure to load Artie boy up and take him for a walk in his stroller. Which I've already mentioned was the best thing ever. I didn't take any photos or video from that walk, but I do have this very short clip from the first day we tried it out. I've never seen him so happy (peep that tail)!

This week started out bumpy with Eros springing a shoe on Tuesday so he had a bonus day off. Shiny had to work though. Today was a little crazy... The farrier was here bright and early to shoe Eros (he was due anyway, so good timing I guess) and trim Shiny. Then, I finally had my long awaited hair appointment (it's been two and a half YEARS since my last professional hair appointment). Gray hair is gone!

I got home only to have to leave again because my car was ready to be picked up. (It was in the shop for all kinds of frightening lights being on.) Finally back home again to ride, but only had time for Eros due to having to meet a friend followed by family dinner. It was a long day. One of many really. In between everything with Artie and all of the regular horse stuff, I've also been dealing with the cable company, the pool guy, the electrician, and the mechanic for my car. Always everything at once. Hopefully things are starting to come together with all that extra stuff. 

I don't have too much extra happening the rest of the week so hopefully I can get the horses back on their schedule. I really like having a schedule. I really dislike not having one. I find it very chaotic! 

With the exception of today, I do visit Pammon daily to stuff cookies in his face. A few times a week I'll pull his fly sheet and boots off and give him a nice grooming. He's generally happy to see me, though it's probably more about the cookies I bring. But whatever, I'll take it however I can get it!

He's pretty attached to the girls in the paddock next to him. They came in to work on Saturday and he called very sadly for them until they got back. Poor Pammon. 

P actually seems to be doing pretty well on her own. Today she wanted to play with some toys which she doesn't really do much anymore generally. And she's been looking more spry that normal. So hopefully that means she's happy as an only dog. I'll get her a friend if she wants one, but I think P may prefer to be an only pug for a bit. 

That's about it from here I think. Sorry this post is kind of all over the place. I should have my shit back together next week... Lol! Hopefully!

What's Up Wednesday

 

Nothing terribly exciting to report over here. The horses are all doing horse stuff. Eros is jumping 2'6" now, though not a full course because I'm too lazy to get off and on. 

So I set a few at 2'6" and a few that are smaller to warm up over. 

We've also added a four stride line into the course which I think I mentioned last week. For both horses we did it first trotting in, and then moved on to cantering through. I have it set for a horse stride, so Shiny is doing the add. This past week I kept it low (2') but I think I'll make it 2'3" for this week's jump schools. Shiny is consistently jumping 2'3" now, so that's exciting! I don't think we're ready for higher yet, but I do think she's capable of more. 

Back to Eros though... As I suspected, adding in a related distance has brought out a mild torpedo reaction. I can get him back pretty quickly with a very big half halt, but I want that behavior to go away. This week I plan to jump in the Pletcher bit and see if that will soften him. 

I'll report back next week if it works. In the past, he is much lighter with this bit, so hopefully it will work again. 

I tried Shiny in a figure 8 this week since I've decided maybe we'll do baby jumpers instead of the hunters (given our lack of a lead change). 

It doesn't fit her great, I have another one
coming that will hopefully work better.

It was an interesting experiment. She's much more rideable to the jumps, but she doesn't jump very well in it. I think likely it's just a learning curve issue. She needs to figure out how to use her parts while not fighting with me. I dunno... But here's how she jumped:

Head up, knees down, and sometimes a little twisty... Although to be fair I found the long weak one at that oxer, so that one's not really her fault. Always stuff to work on! I'm confident she'll level back out. 

It's been beautiful around here with the only rainy day happening on Monday which is the horses' day off anyway. It's allowed for our fun Sunday bareback day:

And daily visits with Pammony:

The pups are enjoying the weather too!

I had a small braiding job this weekend:

And lastly, I made my Unsupervised Amateur shirts available in both a jumping 

and a flat version. 

For now they are on Teespring, and you can find them here if you're interested:

Jumping
Flat

They'll be on Zazzle soon too at this link: Unsupervised Amateur

And that's about it from here! How was your week? Do anything fun? Are you guys showing?

What's up Wednesday

 

It's hard to keep track of the days when they're mostly all the same, isn't it? Let's start off with the saddle trial, shall we? I really like how it fits Eros, but it does also bridge in one spot (just on the left side) on Pammon. But that's okay. It doesn't have to be perfect for both of them. Pammon can use the Hermes for now. For me, it's a decent fit. It's not perfect. The flaps are a bit too long, but I find it really comfortable and I think it will do what I need it to.

Too small Hermes on top, new to me Butet on bottom

Obviously, it hasn't fixed my position flaws... But I don't know of any saddle that will make me lift my hands. If that exists, please let me know! Ha!

It's nice having room for my butt in the saddle. Eros seems happy with it. Pammon hasn't felt the greatest this week. Is that due to my switching saddles? Is he off again? I don't know the answers to those questions. He felt a bit better this morning than he did on Tuesday, so hopefully he was just stiff from having Monday off. Who knows. I can't get worked up about such things anymore. Either he'll be sound some day or he won't. Right? But I digress... back to saddles. I have my second old Hermes up for sale along with my Voltaire. I posted on Facebook but had zero interest. 

I reached out to Redwood tack and got reasonable offers for both saddles, so I'm planning to pack them up this weekend and ship them off to her. Could I get more selling on my own? Probably. But I don't think I have the patience for it. This just seems easiest. I had thought she sold on consignment, but she actually buys them outright. Quick and easy.

Eros has been such a good boy of late that I let him try out his side pull bridle for the first time on Sunday. 

I didn't ride him bareback... I can't sit that spin without a saddle, so we're going to hold off on that. But he was great in the side pull and was rewarded with snacks after our ride.

I changed the course in the ring on Saturday.

I finally got brave enough to jump Shiny through a real combination. It's a trot in one to one, set on a real large pony 11' stride. I kept the jumps low since I'm a chicken, but it was super fun, and she was really good.

Our jump school certainly started out rough. We just aren't quite on the same page lately. But after several botched distances we did eventually get our acts together. Hopefully things are smoothing out, and we'll be back in sync soon. 

It's tough because the days are already getting short and since I ride Shiny second, it's usually dark for much of her ride. Thus, we can only jump on the weekends. Once a week isn't ideal when you're trying to get your groove back! But we do what we can. There's no rush anyway.

Sunday she got to have her play day. Bareback with a side pull. We did a little bit of trotting in the ring. and then spent the rest of our "ride" grazing.

The holiday Monday was wonderful. Life would be better with more three day weekends. I gave my helper the day off and did the barn chores myself that morning. It was so nice having two horses that actually enjoy being outside! I took my sweet time picking and re bedding the stalls. Scrubbed all the buckets. All while Shiny and Eros hung out outside, happy as can be.

Once chores were done, I took the short kids out to play for a bit.

It wasn't too hot, so they were happy to be out for awhile, too. But you know what I didn't do? I didn't do a single one of the many chores I should have done in the house. Not a one. It's a really good thing i live by myself! 

That's about it from here. How was your long weekend? Do anything fun? 

What's Up Wednesday

All I can say is that I'm REALLY looking forward to this weekend when I have absolutely nothing on the calendar! Phew.

It was a good week with Shiny. She's flipped a switch back to working pony and has been pretty good lately. She's not tripping as much (which doesn't mean never, but it's improving) and she's warming up out of her western pleasure trot a bit faster. I imagine this amazing spring weather is helping too! Before the nice weather arrived though, it was VERY windy. Last Friday I had planned to just sit on her bareback and have an easy day. But when I brought her over to the mounting block in the corner of the ring, a big gust of wind blew a bunch of sand or whatever was outside against the building. She spooked and reared and acted all kinds of wild. So I decided instead of riding to just let her have a turnout in the ring. SUCH a good call! She was WILD! Galloping around and even kind of bucked a couple times. But the cutest part was that she jumped all the little cross rails that were set up in the ring.

Boing!

Everyone else has started riding outside this week, but we haven't gotten there yet. Work has been so exhausting, I just haven't had the energy to work through the first time out doors wild. Maybe this weekend if the weather stays nice.

Take me outside please. -Shiny probably

Eros seems to be doing fine. The leg looks good, nice and tight. We've been enjoying our walks. And we've had an audience:

The other night, every time we passed the window Eros wanted to stop and say hi to the cat. And the cat was trying to rub on Eros through the window. Which was pretty funny but turned hilarious when he got so into it he fell off the sill. He was fine, I promise! The look he gave me though when I peered down to see if he was okay! Lol! Me laughing at that is probably why my horses are always lame though... Karma.

"Seriously Mom. Be nice." - Eros, likely

Eros has his next vet check on Friday, so please everyone, cross all of your crossables that we can start back to work! I miss riding him tons.

In other exciting news though, I got to ride some extras this weekend! Barn owner is still in Florida so the rules aren't quite so tight I guess. Saturday I got to flat Neiko who you might remember from when I got to lesson on him a few weeks ago.

He was wonderful and I had a blast riding him. Such a fun guy. He's 19 so all the buttons are firmly installed. He can try to be spooky if you let him, but if you just tell him to knock it off, he's like "cool, I was just kidding."

On Sunday, I got to ride a new one for me named Chacos. He's also older, and has been around the block a few times. I think he did the hunters most of his life, but his last job was doing the jumpers.

Chacos was a little freshy but he kept it together. Other than some snorting he behaved himself. It was great to get to sit on some full sized horses after spending the last few weeks just on Shiny pants. I'm SO grateful to the nice ladies that shared their horses with me! And also, kinda funny that they're all chestnut, no? I guess it's just blonds and red heads for me these days!

P and Artie both had rechecks at the vet Saturday morning. Neither of them is better yet totally which is pretty disappointing, but they have improved so that's something.

We changed P's antibiotic and a second one for Artie. Doc says for Artie, it's pretty common for pneumonia to take up to four weeks to resolve so I shouldn't get discouraged. He's still coughing though, so not sure if we'll have to switch meds again... We shall see I guess! The extra fun part is that P had to go on Amoxicillin which I'm allergic to. Thank goodness I sell gloves for a living!

Welcome to the Pug pharmacy... We have three types of antibiotics... what's your pleasure?

Also on Saturday was one of my favorite events of the year: The Essex Chili Cookoff! Obviously, I don't participate as a chef (lol... I don't cook) but I am all over the testing. There were 16 chilis to try, which takes some real power to get through. They were all pretty good, but my favorite one had a maple flavor to it, and it wound up crowned the champion.

Voting booth. Each taster gets two votes (glass beads) and you just place your beans in the hole for your favorites.

The Trophy!

Obviously after all that chili, I needed a little something sweet before I went home. So I stopped at Ben & Jerry's for a cone.

I have zero regrets. A few extra pounds maybe, but no regrets.

And Sunday afternoon was a pretty big deal too! My little brother's grandmother turned 100 and we had a little party for her.

And then I had to go home and do Sunday chores which was pretty lame. The work week came way too quickly and I'm already dreaming of 5 pm on Friday...

Did you all have a good week/weekend? Do anything fun? This might have been the last weekend for fun things before we all get told to avoid each other. This virus seems like it's coming fast and furious, and as long as I'm able to see my horses, I'm just fine with laying low for a few weeks. The introvert in me has been training for this my whole life! Jokes aside, I hope everyone stays healthy and safe.