Month: August 2020

I guess it’s a good thing I like a challenge because that was the common theme of last week’s rides. It started on Wednesday, when Presto was uncharacteristically WILD. Like… WILD. Every once in a while he does that on lunge session days, but I’ve only ever had one other ride like that on him before. I really have no idea what spun him up, he seemed to just wake up on that side of the bed that day. Baby horses, ya know?

Thanks to the Pivo footage I could see that he spent the first 22 minutes flagging his tail like an Arabian. It’s way too hot for that shit, I dunno why he picked one of the hottest days of the year. Sometimes those baby brain cells just aren’t firing. He stared off into the bushes, he scooted away from invisible monsters, and at one point there was even squealing. I had to constantly circle or change direction or point him at a pole to keep his brain semi-engaged. His hamster had fallen solidly off the wheel and it took me 25 minutes to get him to take a deep breath and put an ear on me. But he finally did, and we made it out the other side. As soon as he gave me one good circle we called it quits. I wanted a lot of thoroughbred in my sporthorse, and I got it… felt like I was sitting on something on it’s first day off the track with a stick of dynamite up it’s butt. Hahahaha jesusgivemestrength.

At least he’s still cute even when he’s staring at invisible creatures and not paying a damn bit of attention to me or what he’s doing.

On Friday I took Henry for a “relaxing hack” out in the back, where he was tormented by moo demons. Not even regular moo demons, the dreaded WHITE moo demons (which are the very worst of all, according to him). They came crashing and bellowing through the brush on the other side of the fence from where we were walking, which caused Henry to come to an abrupt stop. I did finally convince him to walk up closer so he could at least see them better, but he was on high alert. There was possibly some prancing. Never trust a moo demon. So much for a relaxing hack.

On Saturday we just did poles, because on Sunday for Jump Day I had plans for a fun new exercise. A few weeks ago one of the pros on facebook posted an exercise with three jumps on a curve, all one stride apart, and came at it from the long side instead of on a circle. I’ve done exercises similar to this with poles and low cavaletti but not with real jumps. And I figured hey ya know, I’ll just put him in his sidepull to up the difficulty a little bit more. I’m a glutton for punishment. 

Really though, it was definitely a challenge but also do-able. It took me a few times through to figure out the ride I needed (very positive and a little bit “attacking”, keeping a steady bend and not losing the shoulder) and had a couple fly-bys in the process. 

That was some weak-ass riding. Doesn’t work well that way, turns out.

But I did figure it out eventually and we jumped it both ways with success.

It needed more of a cross country type ride, which I thought made it a great exercise. I like it when I find things that I’m not successful at right off the bat… sometimes it’s hard to keep challenging yourself when you’re not in lessons and always riding alone, but I don’t want everything to be simple and easy. Not much point in that. This was a good exercise since it doesn’t tolerate complacent riding. Plus it made Henry be quick with his feet, which isn’t always his strong suit. It was harder than I thought it would be.

After I was done with Henry I got Presto out. Sundays are his hacking day, but instead of going out to the back of the property, we went to the grass ring again (where he’d been so wild on Wednesday) and just chilled. We walked, we circled, we stopped and stood in the shade, we walked around and investigated all the jumps.

And yes, by investigate I mean destroy. They go hand in hand with this one. He knocked rails down, turned barrels over and rolled them… whatever. I just wanted him to be relaxed in the space, and if knocking a few things around with his nose helps accomplish that, then fine. We walked around that ring for a while, then over around and into the dressage arena, where we practiced leg yields and lots of changes of direction just at the walk. Then back over to the grass arena, where we walked over some poles, did more circles, and then he was done. He definitely still felt a little perky, plenty of pep in his step, so if I’d tried to come back in here and do a serious w/t/c ride with him again it would probably have just caused an issue. There’s no good reason to put a lot of pressure on him or make demands. So we made it fun and light and easy and chill, just a positive experience. No big deal. Rome doesn’t have to be built in a day.

It was a super hot week for riding, all triple digits, I sweated a lot and ended up with more challenges than I’d really planned. Maybe this week can be a little more chill in all regards. There’s a little bit of relief coming in the form of a “cold front” (dropping the temps from 108 to 99 totally counts at this point), so that’s exciting. I’ll take what I can get!

I think we’ve already established that a certain little pony nugget has a penchant for finding trouble.

If he can’t FIND trouble, he’s certainly not shy about stirring things up and creating it himself.

And when he can’t succeed at creating trouble amongst his herdmates, he will find it in his environment. This time he found it right inside this door (note the little nose smears and teeny teeth marks, henceforth known as Evidence).

That would be the door to the pump house, which is settled into the middle of one of their pastures. It’s just a small innocuous brown building, nothing exciting about it. Well, that is, there was nothing exciting about it, until the day humans were in there doing something and Ollie came in to investigate.

This is the day Ollie learned that the little brown building does indeed OPEN and contain ALL KINDS OF FUN NEW THINGS INSIDE. It was a veritable toy chest designed specifically for baby ponies. Obviously.

Ollie is smart though, and he knows how to wait for juuuust the right opportunity. He didn’t make his first move until he was turned out in the pump house pasture overnight. In the cover of darkness he had ample time to figure out how to get inside the toy box. Doorknobs might be tricky when you don’t have thumbs, but they’re no match for a determined pony. He got in, found the stack of empty feed sacks, and pulled them all out into the pasture for everyone to enjoy. Say what you want about Ollie’s leadership style but he’s not selfish with his conquests.

The pump house pasture isn’t his usual nighttime turnout though, so he again had to wait patiently for his next opportunity to arrive. And, once again under the cover of darkness, this week it finally happened. And this time he took it a step further.

Not only did he open the pump house and once again remove the feed bags, he also dragged out a tarp and began removing the building’s insulation. Because insulation DEFINITELY looks like a fun thing to play with!

Once again there was no shortage of evidence (a clever criminal he is NOT) – he left tiny pony footprints, nose smears all over the place, and a pile of poop behind. He may as well have signed his name right there on the floor.

He left his new “toys” spread all over the pasture, quite pleased with it’s new decoration. But I think Ollie now has officially lost nighttime privileges to the pump house pasture, at least until the door can be pony-proofed a bit better. For such a teeny tiny pony mouth it sure can do a lot of damage. He’s lucky he’s cute.

Happy Friday, everyone!

A few weeks ago Holly pinged me and asked if my Majyk Equipe ice boots stayed cold in a cooler… cold enough to take to a show and use the next day or even two days later. Admittedly I wasn’t sure, because luckily I have a freezer on site at the barn that they can stay in, and I literally haven’t been to a horse show since I got them (thanks covid!). So she did her own experiment with her ice boots and her regular Igloo cooler, but since I have a Yeti that I coerced the SO into buying for me a couple Christmases ago (he thought I actually wanted it for food, not ice for the horse’s legs… adorable), I wanted to give it a try myself with my Yeti.

I already knew that the boots stayed cold for quite a while when used on the horse. I can put them on Henry for 20mins and they’re still frosty when I take them off. But since I was going to do the cooler experiment anyway I figured we’d put some actual numbers to all of it, rather than just vague descriptions. So to start with, I took their temperature coming straight out of the freezer.

And then took it again after 20 minutes on the horse. (note: I took the temp in the middle of the boot, where it had had maximum contact with the leg)

For the next part I put the boots back in the freezer overnight, dragged my Yeti out of the shed (where it’s been since after Coconino last year – I’m not crying, you’re crying), and dumped all the ice in my freezer into it. Which… wasn’t much. Only enough to make like 2 layers of ice cubes. I wasn’t about to wait for the ice maker to fill up again though, or go to the store just to buy a bag of ice (we have found the limit to my dedication), so I figured this could be a “worst case scenario” type of ice + Yeti situation. Just go with it and realize that your results would probably be better if you actually put an adequate amount of ice in the cooler. Anyway, I left a layer of ice on the bottom, shoved the boots in, and then tossed another layer ice on top and shut the lid.

24 hours later I opened it up and checked the temperature of the boots again. They were just above freezing. Definitely cold enough to still be useful, although here is where I was kind of annoyed at myself for not getting more ice because I definitely think they still would have been below 32 if I’d had more in there. Whatever, we’re doing a not-best-case-scenario experiment.

I closed the lid back up and gave it another 24 hours, so it was now at the 48 hour mark total. Opened it up again, took the temperature, and it had barely changed.

So basically – yes, if you have a nice cooler these boots could definitely be usable at a weekend show. I do think the “nice cooler” part is key though if you’re talking multiple days. With a regular cooler you’d probably want to be using the boots within 24 hours.

My main thoughts overall from this little experiment:

• These Majyk Equipe ice boots are definitely top-notch when it comes to staying cold. To still be at freezing temp after icing on a hot horse on a hot day is pretty darn good.

• Ice boots + cooler are actually a viable option if you don’t want the fuss or mess of ice. Of course, in that scenario investing in a nice cooler is probably essential if you need to keep it cold for more than a day. To be honest I had never really considered trying to pack these ice boots to a show… I always just buy a bag of ice wherever I am and use the suspender boots (which Henry HATES). But knowing that these can stay viably cold in my cooler for at least two days means that I could definitely use them at shows… it would save all the fuss and muss (and Henry’s emotional trauma) of dealing with real ice.

I took the morning off work, we got a solid VP pick yesterday, and it’s my birthday – so, I’ve made the executive decision that today is just a bunch of rando positive or funny things and the “real content” (as real as it ever gets around here these days) can return tomorrow.

The SO’s parents sent me an amazon gift card for my birthday, which I took as a sign from the gods to order Presto his pool. I’d been wavering on it because I’m super grumpy about knowingly overpaying for things, but these stupid pools are sold out everywhere at their regular price. Technically the gift card isn’t my money, right? And I feel like his parents would enjoy Presto having a pool, right? So I ordered it. We’ll see where this leads. It’s 120″ of inflatable fun, let’s just hope it lasts at least 30mins before he puts a hole in it.

His rubber chicken hasn’t arrived yet though, judging by the tracking someone must be walking it across America on foot. Oh well, we’ll make due with just the pool for now.

The only thing I actually asked for this year was candles. Which… I’m not a candle girl at all, that’s way out of character for me and definitely the first time I’ve ever genuinely wanted one. But I found Gay Guy Candle Co and honestly it’s everything I didn’t know I was missing. I was going to order them for myself for the new house (because let’s be honest, these are decor level candles) but I figured the SO might relish the opportunity to not have to buy me horse stuff for once. I was correct.

Who knew I was a fan of candles?

My green dye also arrived yesterday, so I could attempt to fix that shirt that I made really bright blue and hated. I wanted to go more teal.

I didn’t need much of the green, only about half a tablespoon did the job.

Granted, I hated the bright blue so much that I added a pinch more green just to make sure it was well and truly dead. So my teal is perhaps a bit more on the green side, but I’m 100% okay with that. This is much improved. My eyeballs no longer bleed when I look at it.

My dye collection is growing, I now have plenty of leftover Navy, Emerald, and Pink. Yet… nothing left to dye. Woe is me.

Last but not least, I dunno who @sagebrushsoul is on TikTok, but she is hi-larious. If you have it, you should follow her. I slightly personalized this one, because she’s got both of my horses nailed to a T. This (combined with the fact that Trump wants to ban it) is almost enough to sway me to sign up for TikTok.

 

Usually I buy myself something nice for my birthday, like… a saddle. Or a coat. Or a bridle. Or some boots. This year I really don’t need anything and I spent a good hunk of money on the tiny house down payment, so I suppose that will have to count as my birthday splurge.

I’m off to the barn this morning, and may or may not stop at my favorite Mexican restaurant on my way home and get chips and queso for lunch. You can’t judge me, it’s my birthday. Those are the rules.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, the story about my most horrific riding injury won the Wanker of the Week title from my favorite equestrian podcast. The cool thing about it is that you don’t just win the title, you also win a ribbon. A really really sparkly AF ribbon, or as the Buckoff Banter ladies call it – a “frilly”. I’m assuming this is the British horse person slang for what they otherwise call a rosette, and honestly I’m not sure why we can’t steal that vernacular from them (along with my other favorite British word “numpty”) because frilly sounds way better than ribbon.

Anyway, I totally forgot about the frilly and it was quite the amazing surprise last week when I pulled that envelope out of my mailbox and opened it. Y’all, you could blind somebody with this thing. It fits in really well with my other special ribbons, though. I’m amassing a collection over here. And honestly I’m a wanker at least once a week every week, so this might be the most fitting frilly yet.

Case in point: the thing that happened to me a couple hours after I pulled said Wanker of the Week frilly out of my mailbox. Let me set the scene.

It was last Friday, and I was headed out to the barn in the morning to squeeze in a quick ride. I’d had a thousand Skype and Team meetings the day before (ok maybe a thousand is a slight exaggeration but I’m a wanker so lets just go with it), more coming that afternoon, I was tired, it was hot… my brain was just kind of done. I couldn’t muster the mental fortitude that a dressage ride requires with Henry, so I tossed my saddle and sidepull on him instead and headed out toward the hacking trail in the back for a nice easy decompressing canter.

As we set off I thought “ya know what would make this even better? Some tunes!” so I pulled my phone out of my pocket, pulled up Spotify, and scrolled through my playlists. I was kind of stuck deciding between a couple different ones, so I opened them up and was looking at the songs when I got a face full of tree. See, I wasn’t paying any attention to where Henry was walking, and naturally he walked right under a low branch. Luckily it was mostly just a lot of leaves, so no harm done I thought. He kept walking, I kept scrolling.

As we emerged onto the hacking path and turned right, I finally picked my playlist, clicked on it, and was putting my phone back in my pocket when WHAM. Right through another low-hanging branch. I’m starting to think Henry does this on purpose when I’m not paying attention because this one wasn’t even in our path, he had to step to the side to scrape me through it. But again, mostly just leaves, so whatever.

We keep walking, me finally taking a deep breath and settling in for a nice hack. I glance down and notice an ant on my leg. Huh, weird. I brush it off, and then notice another one. And then another one. And then realized they were on both legs, and my saddle, and my saddle pad. Then one dropped off the brim of my helmet right around the time I felt a sharp sting and burn in my shirt. And that’s when it finally clicked – one of the trees I went through must have had fire ants on it, and they were now deposited all over me.

So I did what any self-respecting, dignified person would do. I removed my helmet, pulled my shirt off, and swung it around my head ala Petey Pablo. It was full of fire ants, one does what one must do in such a situation. Luckily I was way out in the back where there were no witnesses (that I know of) but I’ll be honest I probably would have done the same thing even if there were people around. Anyway, I got them all out of my shirt and sports bra and helmet, made sure they were all brushed off of my saddle, put my shirt and helmet back on, and resumed my ride. Other than 5-6 fire ant bites, no harm no foul. I swear I could hear Henry cackling. Guess that’ll teach me to pay attention to where I’m going instead of messing with my phone. I’d say lesson learned but… did I really learn? Did I? Only time will tell.

I’m definitely a wanker all over again though. This numpty needs another frilly.