It’s possible, just a liiiitttttle teeny bit possible, that I may have put a little too much on my own plate this week. I made Mari’s breeding vlog for the Futurity, got the Ultimate White Breeches Guide ready to post on the Patreon (its up now!), started a saddle dyeing project, had to fix the busted water connection on my house, started outlining my next article for Eventing Nation, ordered and started organizing things for the Patreon VIP welcome packages (somehow I only have one VIP spot left for a Q1 welcome package… that was unexpected to say the least… edit: that spot is filled now), planned a last minute trip to Ocala, and then plus all the regular horse and work stuff. It’s been a busy few days, but I will fully admit that I do this to myself so I can’t complain. It’s also kinda fun stuff, even if the quantity is perhaps a bit overboard.

Some of the more keen-eyed among you may have noticed me riding in a dressage saddle in an Instagram post last week. Some of you may also remember that I sold my dressage saddle last year. So what exactly is under my butt, you may ask?

When I took that lunge line lesson last fall, the horse’s saddle was a Custom Wolfgang Solo. I really liked everything about it except the long block was too long for my leg. I guessed that I would probably really like the saddle with a short block, a piece of information that I tucked into my brain for later on when I was actually saddle shopping again. Fast forward 5 months and a friend of a friend posted a saddle for sale on her facebook page for a VERY reasonable price that just so happened to be exactly the specs I would have been looking for. I’d been planning on waiting a little longer before I bought anything, but the price made it too good to pass up. I made an offer for a quick easy sale and that was that.

It’s got a bit of age on it, and its faded in some really interesting ways (some parts are green, some are brown, some are gray), but it’s a solid saddle in good condition if you set aside the cosmetic aspect. Riding in it I definitely like it a lot, it’s light years better for me than my old saddle was. It will need to be re-flocked at some point to fit Presto or Gemma, and it needs a makeover real bad, but for what I paid I’m super pleased with it. I was steeling myself to have to spend 2-3x what I did. Y’all know how I feel about a bargain.

As for the makeover part, I can certainly help with that. I love me a good saddle re-dye. I ordered the supplies I needed ($25 all in) and started deglazing it yesterday. Because I am the queen of “but what if I…” and never doing the same thing twice in any project, I’m taking a slightly different approach to this one. Instead of sealing it with a top coat I’m going to use several layers of a heavy beeswax conditioner, and I’m going to try to glitterize the trim around the back. It will either be a brilliant idea or a catastrophic failure, but there’s only one way to find out. Worst case scenario I just strip it off and do something else.

The weekend was made slightly more exciting when the hose going from the water hookup into my hot water heater popped off. I was inside editing videos and heard a pop, but honestly I hear a lot of pops out here. It’s usually rednecks shooting things. Didn’t think much of it. Then I went outside about an hour later to take the horse’s sheets off and could hear water spraying, and there was a massive deluge running down the side of my house. I pulled all the skirting away to see that the attachment had completely corroded. I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure these things are supposed to be attached.

Fixing that was every bit as fun as fixing house shit always is. I’ll spare you the details. Seems to be fine now though, it was just an epic waste of time.

I did jump out of bed at 5am the next morning with a great (I think) idea for my next breeding-related EN piece though. You know when things just come flooding into you in the most glorious way, like the subject matter, the title, the first paragraph… I’m not sure why it chose to present itself to me when I was barely conscious, but I won’t argue. I got the whole thing outlined in 10 minutes, now I just have to actually… ya know… write it. Details.

In Presto news, he’s resting about as well as you would expect.

Yeah I mean, are you surprised? We all know that “rest” has never been this kid’s strong suit. He is going to give Michelle a stroke, I think. Welcome to the past 5 years of my life. On the plus side he’s, um… athletic? Just what I always wanted, a horse capable of bucking right over the top of the barn. He’s definitely continuing to make the argument for sending him right back to Megan after he’s healed up.