August 2024 – Page 2

We made it through the first hurricane of 2024! It’s funny, I think because this one was pretty weak, all things considered (just established as a Cat 1 before it made landfall) no one was really concerned about it. The number one thing you’ll see Floridians do before a minor hurricane or tropical storm? Mow their grass. Because it’s pretty much a full time job keeping the grass mowed here in the summer anyway, but if it’s not freshly mowed before it gets a bunch of rain dropped on it, you’ll be at jungle status within a few days before its dry enough to mow again. Everybody and their grandma was mowing on Sunday as it started to blow in.

so much water, this is the road in front of the farm

We’re pretty far inland so all we typically get is some wind and rain, and that’s what we got this time too. The wind wasn’t too terrible, but man we got A TON of rain. More than any of the last hurricanes from the previous two years for sure. It just absolutely poured buckets for like 24 hours straight. And it’s been raining a lot the past month anyway, so it was water on top of water. The biggest issue we had was flooding.

the arrow is where the edge of the pond usually is

I was concerned that with all the moisture and the wind we’d lose trees, and with that the secondary concern is structures, fences, or power lines. We did lose one tree but it was in an unused front area and it didn’t land on anything. We also got really lucky in that we didn’t lose power, although it flickered pretty hard a few times. Tons of people around here did lose power, there were trees down all over the place. We got lucky this time!

And even though we got something like almost 8″ of rain, as soon as it stopped actively pouring from the sky I was able to get the horses turned back out. Gotta love that Florida sandy soil… as long as it’s not a low area it dries quick and isn’t slick.

We ended up only missing one day of riding, so aside from being water-logged in our drainage areas, things have been back to normal.

My trainers were on vacation last week so no lesson last week or this week. I did take Presto over to Sweet Dixie yesterday to gallop, but it was so freakin humid that even he wasn’t that enthusiastic after the first few minutes.

I think he was also unenthusiastic because he was alone. Like really really alone, the only horse on the property. It’s always quiet there in the off season but not usually THAT quiet. He kept looking around for his BFF Wally and seemed genuinely disappointed to have no friends. The ground felt GREAT though, and he’s starting to feel stronger again (both muscularly and cardio) after all that time off he had. I’m ready to skip ahead to September so we can get past the worst of the summer and get closer to doing things again. This is truly the swampiest, most boring time of year.

there’s a little roadside bakery on the way to Sweet Dixie and I finally stopped to acquire some goodies

Although I signed us up for a dressage test at Majestic tomorrow… Prelim A. That’ll be our first time tackling that test, which I totally definitely have memorized and have ridden through more than once. Tooooootally. Definitely.

My ride time is like 2:40pm though, which is really testing my resolve to participate. But unless it’s doing some kind of death thunderstorm I really have no reason not to, and I’ve already paid, so… let’s go? I guess?

Next week we should be back to our lesson schedule and starting to pick up some steam again, or at least be back to things that are more interesting. Now if we could turn Florida’s thermostat down a little bit, that would be superb.

Ya know that feeling when you mean to post something on Tuesday and then forget, and next thing you know it’s Thursday? Whoops. Things have been poppin’ around here! Or maybe I’m just getting old and forgetful. Maybe both.

Rubes has been going to Groundwork Kindergarten every day and he’s just a little Rhodes Scholar (Rubes Scholar?). He’s figured out that when I come to get him it means mints (these remain his favorite treat, although I’ve gotten him to eat German Horse Muffins too. He’s not very enthusiastic about anything else.) and groomies, so he always makes an absolute bee line for me. I would be flattered but it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my services rendered. He is DOWN for a nice long full-body curry, heavy on the belly scritches.

The groundwork is doing wonders for his focus though, and him having and knowing rules and boundaries seems to help his brain settle a bit too. He’s a lot more like Henry in the brain… he’s very eager and always thinking ahead, which is good, but he can also get anticipatory and is really sensitive about being wrong. So we keep things very methodical and consistent and black and white.

The groundwork has really helped him figure out how to take a deep breath, focus, and wait for me. He’s been working on staying out of my bubble, stopping when I stop, moving away from me if I move into him, yielding his front end and his hind end, backing, and the verbal cues for whoa, walk, and trot on a circle. This week I also starting teaching him to sidepass over/park up at the mounting block, which he’s starting to understand pretty well. Oh, and he’s learned to smile a little bit, although his is considerably smaller and much slower than Presto’s.

It’s really almost no “work” but it does seem to occupy his brain pretty well, and he’s gotten into the routine. I’m pleased that, if nothing else, he’s a horse that you can now lead around anywhere and never have to even touch the lead rope, vs when he came and was accustomed to kinda dragging people around by a nose chain. For this lifestyle it is a significant improvement in his general day to day handling.

He really does detest the bugs here though, like if there’s one fly on him he thinks he’s being viciously attacked, so he wears a lot of fly gear. Mask and boots at the very least, and fly sheet when it’s not too suffocatingly hot/humid. He got his own fly sheet (from Bow Horse USA, the first thing I’ve tried from them!) so he doesn’t have to keep borrowing Presto’s. He looks absurd when he’s all dressed up, but he’s happy to be bug-free, so… whatever RubenOnRye wants I guess.

In the meantime, I had another jump lesson last week on Presto, with more course work, and it was also good, like the week before. He had one feral moment when a dog came shooting across the ring (Ellie finally got to see what I call his patented Sit And Spin maneuver) but he was really rideable about the jumps. She and Alex are out of town for the next couple weeks so lessons are on hiatus until their return.

And then on Friday Presto came in with a chunk missing out of his fetlock and a puffy leg. I feel like I deserve an award for not freaking out as much as I wanted to freak out, because my first inclination was omg what if there’s a puncture I can’t see and it’s in the joint and he’s gonna end up in the hospital with a joint infection and cellulitis and and and. I’m fine. It’s fine. There was indeed not a puncture, and with some cold-hosing and bandaging and poultice and long walks it was back to normal within a couple days.

What isn’t normal is the fact that Presto is obsessed with licking the poultice off his own leg. He’s such a weirdo about injuries or topical medications… he always wants to lick, like a dog. That’s how he ripped his stiches out last summer if you recall – with his own teeth. Something wrong with that weirdo.

Yesterday we went for a fun casual XC day with my friend Emily, just popping over a few small things so we (mostly me, who always wants to go too slow/underpowered XC) can remember our job. We ended the day by coming the bigger way through the water and he was really super. I wish it was easier/quicker for me to get myself back into the more forward/attacking XC mode… I think I really need to come out once a week and just gallop a few fences so I don’t lose the feeling entirely.

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I’m very clearly not going to be back in the swing of things well enough in time for the August Ocala recognized. I briefly debated just entering the Training, but if I’m gonna do that I might as well just do the unrecognized (which has starter through Training) a couple weeks later and spent 1/3 the money. So, meh. Instead I entered just a dressage test a couple weekends from now (the Prelim test, which I haven’t ridden yet!) at the Majestic schooling show, and then maybe I’ll enter a Modified CT or a M/T three phase at the POP schooling show. We’ll see how things are going a month from now. There’s legit no rush, but it’s prob time to start stepping it back up!