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Posting on a Friday night feels like a real Better Late Than Never situation, but ya know… better late than never?

When I last posted, Presto had completed his first week of showing at WEC and was gearing up for his second (and Praise Be for my wallet – final) week. Originally we’d discussed me showing him the second week in the 1.10m and 1.15, but 1) I hadn’t actually jumped him since the first week of June, 2) there were still some things to work on and play with. So for week 2 he was entered with Ellie for the 1.15m on Thursday and the 1.20m on Friday.

Yup, you’re reading that right – the 1.20m. Had he ever jumped a full course that big before? Def not at a show. I don’t really think at home either. But meh. She had two more horses in the class and he certainly wasn’t challenged at 1.15m, so why not (very easy to say when it wasn’t me riding – I would’ve shat my tan knee patch Jumperland breeches). For anyone keeping track, 1.10m is Prelim SJ height, 1.15m is Intermediate height, and 1.20m is Advanced height. I was kind of excited to see him jump around some bigger jumps since he’s literally never looked challenged at anything he’s met so far in his entire life.

Thursday’s class was the 1.15m power and speed, where he jumped clear. He was def more opinionated and cocky in the warmup than he’d been Week 1 (I kinda figured he might be, sometimes when things are new he’s sufficiently intimidated enough to tone it down, and then once he’s comfortable he ramps back up to full-on Presto) but he went in the ring and was quite reasonable. She rode him more forward this week, and while our event horses will never go in there and gallop and turn and slice and dice the way the real Jumperland people do, he still managed a 7th place ribbon by the time all was said and done. You can bet I made a point to grab that ribbon too, it was expensive AF. I will be taking that, thank you.

On Friday the 1.20m didn’t go until the afternoon and it was HOT. The indoors have A/C, but lemme tell ya… the giant paved parking lot that is ship-in parking and the long walk on pavement all the way back to Indoor 6 was an absolute Roast Fest. Presto had to stand and wait a little while for Ellie to be done with her first horse before she got on him, but he was content to watch the horses in the ring and only tried to pull down the plastic barricade with his teeth twice.

He warmed up alright despite almost getting absolutely run over a couple different times, which he very much is not a fan of. He looked a little bit quieter in general than he had the day before, but jazzed right up as soon as he went in the ring. We’d taken off the running martingale this week, so he was just in a single joint loose ring, and he was definitely taking her more forward (in a good way).

He was actually super in the ring. Slightly less rideable, she said, but he was going forward and he was committed. And for the first time ever in his life, I think he had to give a little bit of effort. We both agreed it still wasn’t a lot of effort on his part, but it was SOME. He did have a rail at a vertical about halfway through, he just wasn’t careful enough with a front toe, and then he got slightly distracted by the jump crew on the way to the one stride which resulted in him cramming two strides in. Honestly I was kind of delighted by that, because even when that happened he never stopped going forward. I feel like he learns more from stuff like that than when it all just goes perfectly. I am literally never going to ride him perfectly.

I was really hoping the show photographer would get a good pic or two but alas I didn’t think any of them were good enough to spend $60 on. I did spend the $20 on the video from the 1.20m class though, which is up on the Patreon member dashboard.

Overall we thought it was a really productive couple of weeks for Presto. Ellie got to experiment with a few little tweaks for how to ride courses on him, and came away with good feedback for me, which we started implementing this week in my lessons. And he feels more educated, more confident, and like he just kinda… grew up a little bit. An expensive two weeks but I think we got exactly what we were hoping for out of it.

I had two jump lessons on him this week and then next week he’ll resume some training rides in prep for Ellie to take him to Ocala and Bouckaert in August.

In Rubes news, he was going really well, and even jumped his first little 2’6″ line.

Buuuuuut now I think he’s trying to brew an abscess. SIGH. His feet and Florida are not a match made in heaven. But I did tag along with a friend to her lesson last weekend and let Rubes just loiter and see the sights. He was really good actually, and kept it together. That’s something productive at least.

Hopefully we can fix the latest footie owwie soon and get him going yet again. It’s been a little bit of two steps forward, three steps back with his progress, and through no real fault of his own.

Henry’s also been having a little bit of downtime because it was legitimately just HOT AS ACTUAL HELL here last week and for most of this week. He doesn’t sweat well and I always hesitate to ride him on the super hot days because I don’t want to essentially “pre-heat” him for the day ahead. It’s hard enough to keep him comfortable in the afternoon. Although he got a new misting fan and has been considerably more comfortable with that. It makes a swampy mess, but he’s happy, so…

I think it might be cool enough over the next few mornings to ride him at least lightly. We’ll see.

Last but not least, I did a little bit of a rebranding for my business. The past couple years have kind of taken me more away from the data side of things and into the writing side, so I thought it was time to recalibrate and refresh to put it more in alignment with what I spend most of my time doing these days. New name, new logo, new focus.

The website is up at theriddenword.com and Instagram is riddenwordmedia. Still working on setting up the facebook page, but otherwise it’s done. There’s lots of stuff on the portfolio page if you know anyone or a business that might be in need of my services! (we gotta pay these show bills somehow and I’m definitely too old for OnlyFans)

Somebody was living his best bougie lifestyle last week, bankrolled by his mother.

So basically, just a regular day in the life for Presto. Somebody really needs to tell him he’s not from a wealthy family.

Anyway, he made his first little adventure to WEC, doing a 1.15m class with Ellie. We really had no idea how he would be… he’s never been there before and it’s a lot of atmosphere. Hence the whole point of me paying a relatively absurd amount of money to just do one class – he needs to see and experience stuff like this. It’s time. It needs to happen.

His class was in Indoor 6, which luckily isn’t too far from the ship-in day parking. Basically the ship-in parking is in the very front of the parking lot, then you have to walk across the parking lot, around and past Indoor 5 and a little covered, past another parking lot, and then you get to Indoor 6. It’s not close, but in WEC terms (where, depending on where your ring is, you could be in for a 20-30 minute walk) it’s not so bad. Presto did take a little exception to the rubber mats that made up the horse path, and wasn’t a big fan of the barricades with sandbags, but he survived (against all odds, he says).

We had some time to kill (because when does jumperland ever run on time) which worked out great, honestly. He was definitely on his toes when he first went into the indoor, but he had time to sit and watch some horses go, and spend time just walking around. Which is right around the time I realized he really truly has never been in an actual INDOOR before. A couple small/bright covered rings, but a true indoor… I don’t think so. Especially not one like this. About 1/3 of the massive indoor is the warmup ring, then there’s a little alley made up of barricades in between the warmup and the show ring itself. There are bleachers on one side, lots of little exit doors on the sides and the end, plus jump crew sitting just behind the wall. Not to mention all the hoopla of the WEC decor, like the 700 trees and signs and shit that are all over the ring, and the jumbotron and the big scoreboard.

Truth be told, we really didn’t know what to expect. When he started warming up he definitely seemed a bit fresh, but Ellie quickly put him to work doing some more intricate flatwork and he settled really well. He was great for his warmup jumps, good about the traffic in warmup, and didn’t seem particularly bothered by anything. And then he went in the ring and just… marched right around. Like… we were all surprised by how good he was, actually. Ellie let him go slow and used lots of the ring so that he had time to process everything, and while he was alert, he never got worried or spooky. It was a slow but very steady and honestly quite boring (in a good way, for him) round – time faults, but no jump penalties. He really couldn’t have been any better.

So this week he’s gonna go back and do the 1.15m and the 1.20m with Ellie, and see if he can repeat his success, or if (as he does sometimes tends to do) he was on his best behavior the first time because it was new. The 1.20m should be interesting… he’s not jumped a course that big, so maybe he’ll finally look alive and have to try a little bit for once. Maybe?

He had the following day off, then a stretchy hack day followed by a flatwork day. On Sunday I took him over to Sweet Dixie bright and early for his weekly conditioning ride. It’s been mega hot and humid here, but it wasn’t too insufferable (your opinion may vary) yet at 7am, so off to the hill trots we went. I’m in the process of trialing the Horsepal heart rate monitor to review on Eventing Nation, and this was our maiden voyage. It took me about 5 minutes of stubborn “I don’t want to read the directions” fidgeting with all the various parts (it comes with lots of accoutrement) before I pulled up the “how to” video and was set up and ready to go within a few minutes. You’ll have to wait for the actual review but this one is different from the ones I’ve used in the past (Hylofit and Seaver) and the first test run was very promising.

As for the other boys, Rubes hasn’t been doing much of anything because with all this rain we’ve gotten (so much… so much rain… it is pouring again as I type this) his feet just aren’t doing great. He was looking about 80% better yesterday and got to go for a little hack, much to his delight, but they’re still just too soft and sensitive to do much.

He’s got very little wall and very little sole, and his extensive multi-step hoof care routine is probably the only thing keeping him from being entirely crippled at the moment, but it’s still not great. It’s a fun juggle between keeping him inside and dry vs him absolutely climbing the walls, going batshit crazy, and then running like a dingdong when he does go outside. If he pulls a shoe and takes even a millimeter of wall with it, he’ll for sure have to go back in glue-ons, so the balance of his lifestyle is precarious right now at best.

Henry has been pulling his weight, though. When it’s this hot I have to be really careful with him since he doesn’t sweat very well, so he really only gets ridden on the days where I can be on him by 7am. We keep it short and to the point, but (despite his resting grump face) he’s always happy to be doing something. If nothing else it’s giving me something else to ride while Presto is in more of “full training” mode.

I’m hoping to take Henry to a little schooling derby next week for shits and giggles, as long as it’s not too scorching hot. I think he’d be delighted to drag me around the BN.

The biggest mystery is how I’ve managed to miss three weeks of updates. Well, that part isn’t so much a mystery… we still don’t have a farmhand and I’ve been working seasonal shifts at WEC, so I’ve just been spectacularly strapped for time to sit down and write anything substantial. We’ve got a new girl starting here at the farm hopefully next week that will be helping with feeding and mowing, so fingers crossed that’ll lighten my load back up a little bit. It is hot and I am tired.

You know how it is with a 60-acre farm full of almost 30 horses – every day it’s something else on top of the regular chores of feeding/stalls/mowing. Someone’s got a runny nose, someone’s got a cut, someone’s got a fever (on a holiday no less, because obviously), someone broke the fence, the blades fell off the mower, the shredder is literally smoking, we’re one day short of grain, etc etc etc on and on it goes in perpetuity. It wears on you when it’s 7 days a week. I will be delighted for the new girl to take some of it off my plate.

The REAL mystery is who’s causing all this barn chaos. Like who tipped over my drawers? Presto doesn’t know.

Who knocked the fan over, picked up the bag of mints, and flung them all over the place? Presto isn’t sure about that either.

Who pulled my gloves out of my pocket and dropped them in the puddle? We don’t know yet, but Presto is on the case.

Truly a modern day case of Unsolved Mysteries.

One thing we have (finally) officially wrapped up though: breeding season! I mean… we were done breeding no matter what, but we did the last heartbeat check a few days ago, so we’ve confirmed all the pregnancies now. It’s going to be a wild spring, particularly April. Send help.

This will def be the biggest WTW foal crop ever, and we’ve already got a couple of the foals spoken for/reserved. I can’t even make full eye contact with that list yet… none of us will be sleeping.

In horsey news, Rubes has really started to blossom a bit in the past few weeks. At this point my impression is that he’s more of a jumper type, and he really really likes doing exactly the same thing every day. Routine is his jam. He’s been jumping the cavaletti, and I moved a couple jumps into the ring to make an actual line, which he’s cantered down several times now like a bonafide Real Boy.

He’s starting to get it, and he’s quite a good little jumper. He wants to naturally use his body well, it’s mostly just keeping him relaxed in his body and mind. The more he does it though, the better he gets.

Of course, as soon as I was like “we’re on a roll, time to take him on another off-property adventure” his feet decided it was time to do The Florida Summer Thing and just.. fall apart. I’m keeping them as dry as possible, but we barely had much wall to start with and I’m totally losing the war. He was about to lose a shoe so the farrier came and re-did him, but there’s almost nothing to nail into and I think now he might have a hot nail.

So, ya know… jury is still out on that one. I was really really really really really really hoping to avoid having to do glue-ons with any of my creatures this year after the hell that was last summer, but I’m starting to lose my last glimmer of hope that Rubes will be able to avoid them. That wall ain’t looking good.

As for Presto, he’s also a bit of a mystery at the moment, or at least a mixed bag. He had some training rides and was doing great, went to Chatt with Ellie and was “perfect” for the first two phases to lead the Open Prelim…

And then decided to quite literally go for a few spins on XC in a very Interpretive Dance kind of way. Like he started out fantastic, turned into a ballerina in the middle, and finished fantastic. Was superb at every combination, no problem with any of the hard stuff, just… tuned into the Tasmanian Devil in front of some random tables for no particular discernable reason. We’re all scratching our heads a little bit. We’ve got a few hypotheses and some ideas for next steps/things to try, and I had (yet another) chat with my vet, showing her the videos. Back to the drawing board a bit, but hopefully we’re a step closer to figuring it out. We have more data, at least, for whatever that’s worth.

The good news is, it’s not just me that’s the problem. The bad news is, it’s not just me that’s the problem. Horses are nothing if not frustrating. Ellie was super happy with 95% of it, and they said he traveled well and actually was quite a good boy in the barn. We’re close. We’re so close, I feel like. I sure do wish horses could talk.

Presto will spend a little time in Jumperland at WEC over the next couple weeks while we try some things, and then we’ll figure out more plans from there!

Oh – I also did a big closet cleanout and have a shitton of stuff for sale (because see all of the above, which is all expensive AF). Let me know if you’re interested in anything!

One perk of Presto having a little summer vacay is that it gives me a little more time to focus on the others. Particularly this dude.

I’m figuring Rubes out more and more as time goes on, and one thing that has become exceedingly clear is that he thrives on routine. That makes sense, he was a racehorse forever, and racehorse life is all about routine. While he’s learned over time to be more flexible about how his day is structured (he used to get IRATE if he wasn’t worked before 8am), having a really predictable routine when I’m in the tack also seems to soothe him quite a bit. So I’ve been structuring his rides pretty much the same every day, and he’s really starting to focus more, which is helping things “click”. He’s a horse who likes to always know what to expect.

As of right now, that looks like this: we do his normal flatwork, wtc with transitions between and within the gaits, leg yield, a little shoulder or baby haunches in, spiraling in and out, etc. Then we trot some cavaletti until he does so quietly – this could be 1 time or this could be 5-6 times, depending on the day. Once he’s straight and quiet and paying attention, we canter some cavaletti as singles. If he wants to get a little yeehaw about it we go back to trot and wash-rinse-repeat. At this point the focus is really just rhythm and straightness. Once we’ve got all that down pat (which again, could be 2-3 times or might be 6-8 times) we might end with cantering the cavaletti on a bending line or making a shorter approach off the rail.

Some days are better than others (this mostly hinges on what else is happening around him… like the day the internet company decided to set up a huge orange umbrella under the telephone pole right in front of the ring and Rubes was holding his brain together with scotch tape and a prayer) but day over day the improvement is there. He’s very smart and always trying to figure out what I want, but he does need a lot of routine and predictability (at least right now) to help him maintain his focus and his calm.

Tell you what though, I’m really happy with how his canter and his jump are coming along. He is indeed the athlete I thought he was. Once I can wrangle the brain, we’ll be in business.

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He did go on another little outing, and was calm enough to where I probably could have gotten on him and ridden him around, but considering that he’s really anticipating ACTION whenever he goes somewhere (obviously we get on the trailer and go to race, ya know?) I felt like it was more important for him to just take a look around, have some grass, take a deep breath, and then get back on the trailer and go home. He still has to figure out that going places doesn’t always mean something exciting is going to happen. Until then, I think it’s more beneficial for him to just hang out. The riding stuff is not and will not be the hard part with this horse, it’s going to be the anxiety. And since I have the benefit of not being in any kind of rush with him, we can just take each day as it comes and do whatever the best thing is for his brain on the day. I think taking that time now, in the beginning, will be better for him in the long run. If I try to get greedy I think I could create a problem where there doesn’t have to be one.

Aside from Rubes I’ve been working with a couple of the 2yo’s a bit. Andy is old news I suppose, I’ve been working with him since he was a weanling, but now that he’s actually 2, things are going to start getting a little more exciting. He ties, he loads, he knows whoa and walk voice commands and the idea of lunging (walk only), he’s ponied, and he’s worn saddle pads and such. This summer he’ll wear a bit for the first time, and a saddle, and start learning about trotting and maybe some ground driving at the walk.

Joining him on those adventures will be Rue, the filly that Michelle retained from the 2023 foal crop. I’m going to start playing with her a bit more and get a feel for her temperament/personality and what she might be suited for, hoping that she can have a bit of a sport career before she joins the broodmare band. She’s a tall girl, with a temperament more like a gelding, so we’ll see how she takes to things.

As for Presto, he’s been out hacking a few times this week and seems to be feeling good. Tomorrow we’ll start some stretchy w/t/c and start moving him back into work next week. He’s definitely starting to act bored and wild (just what everyone wants – a bored and wild Presto) so I think he’s ready to get back to his normal stuff.

In other news we’ve had another mare with a confirmed pregnancy and one with a confirmed heartbeat check in the past week… all we’ve really got left is one mare waiting on her pregnancy scan, which is this weekend. Then we’re done! Once we wrap all that up I’ll post a list of what all we’re expecting next year. It’s quite a few (biggest crop yet?) and a wide variety of horses, so it should be pretty fun in 2026. We’ve already had some inquiries on next years foals, and we’ve only got one left this year (Ivy – the upper level event prospect).

In less great news, both pairs of my riding boots have suffered catastrophic wounds in the last couple weeks. The heel has completely separated on my black ones, and I’ve worn a quarter size patch through the calf of the brown ones.

I have super glue and a leather patch on the way, so we’re about to be doing some experimenting. Ain’t nobody be affording new boots at the moment.

One other thing: my first podcast episode with OTTB on Tap dropped this week, check it out here if you’re so inclined! And make sure you’re following them on facebook and/or insta for exclusive vlogs, updates, and more podcast episodes (plus just really great OTTB content in general).

I went looking for the right meme to start off this post before I realized I didn’t really need one, because this picture just kind of sums it up.

I dunno what’s up with the month of June, but it’s swept in here with some bad vibes. Real bad. I dunno if I’m supposed to burn some sage or hire an Etsy witch or what, but my god.

Area Championships went like shit.

Well ok, there were good parts. Which is probably a little more frustrating? Ok maybe not. But uuugggggghhh guys. Sometimes I wonder wtf is wrong with me to revolve my entire life around a sport that only gets harder the more you do it and the higher up the levels you go. Why couldn’t I be obsessed with a sport that involved inanimate objects without thoughts and feelings and bad days of their own? Or like… crochet or knitting or making little felt woodland creatures? Questions I ask myself sometimes.

I have very little media from the show. No one was there with me when I did dressage and there’s only one pro pic I like well enough to buy it but cannot bring myself to spend the money. I actually thought Presto was pretty good for the test. There were no real mistakes, nothing that was a particular whoopsie, it was just one of those where we needed more sparkle in general. Usually for him that ends up getting a 29-31 but this judge was not impressed with us and gave us a 35. Ouch. That’s usually the type of score we get when there is a real mistake or two. To be fair, the judge didn’t like any of us that much and I was still in 2nd after dressage.

XC was 95% the best round we’ve ever had.

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Finally, FINALLY it was really forward-thinking and flowing out of stride and I was seeing things coming forward. Presto was absolutely bang-on at the combinations, even angling some of the skinnies and foot perfect through the hardest water combo he’s seen to date.

So what caught us out? The coffin complex that he’s jumped through about eleventy million times. I still have no real clue exactly what happened. We came out of the turn, there was the A element MIM rail, I rode forward to it, and…. he said nope. I’m not sure if it was the fact that there were a ton of people/cars right around there and he was distracted, or what. Genuinely I have no idea. I even have it on video and me and Trainer both are just kinda like I dunno what the excuse is there. I re-presented and he jumped through super, and went on to absolutely ping around the rest of the course like it was a Novice. Genuinely aside from that moment it was by far our best round not just at this level but maybe ever. Sigh. One of those times when you really wish horses could talk.

We had SJ the next day and he warmed up feeling GREAT. Was jumping fantastic, still seemed fresh and happy and ready to go. Went in the ring, picked up the canter, went to fence 1, and he absolutely just reining-horse slid to a stop at the last second and lawn-darted me in spectacular fashion. Like really spectacular fashion. We checked him out nose to tail and couldn’t find anything wrong, but I had my vet out a few days later to give him a really thorough once over just to make sure there wasn’t something small that we were missing. She spent quite a while poking and prodding and jogging him and checking his eyes and his ulcer points and blah blah blah, I mean shit we even went over his feeding program. Absolutely nothing noteworthy to be found. Which is great because obviously you never want to find an issue, but it just leaves us with more questions really.

He got a training ride and then I did a little jump school on him and he was 100% normal for both. Happy, eager, forward. We took him XC schooling on Saturday and jumped a bunch of ditches and stuff to see if that had anything to do with it and he was literally foot perfect.

So, ya know… anyone’s guess is as good as mine. Myself and my team can’t find anything wrong, nor has he had a bad day since then.

To be honest I was pretty upset about it last week. I do not handle disappointment well (one of the reasons why I don’t ever let myself get that excited about anything… why does disappointment feel so soul-crushing to me?) and it was just incredibly defeating. I’ve been absolutely busting my ass all year, scraping together money to take more lessons and riding whatever I can, whenever I can, and applying so much mental focus and physical effort to be just be better. I feel like me and Presto have both improved massively, so to end up smacked in the dirt at the first jump of SJ was just a huge shock, tbh.

In my head I know that when we choose to do hard things and push ourselves and step outside of our comfort zone, failure is an inevitable part of the process. The best horses and riders in the world still have bad shows or end up in the dirt. I also know, very familiarly, that horses aren’t robots and they have bad days too. Knowing all of that doesn’t make it any less devastating in the moment. My biggest fear is fucking up my horse and it really felt like that’s exactly what I had done. It took me several days to pull myself back from the ledge. But at the end of the day you can either be defeated by failure or you can be motivated by failure, and I dunno about y’all but I’m not a fucking quitter. We’re gonna choose to learn from it, put it behind us (I’m trying to, I swear), and move forward.

That was the very long-winded way of saying that Presto’s summer vacay got delayed a week and actually started this past Sunday. So he’ll get a week off and then very light hacking, then gear back up for some summer stuff. A think a little refresh and reboot will do us both some good (even if he claims he’s terribly dreadfully bored already).

In the meantime, Rubes is starting to buckle down a bit and I’m eyeballing some off-property outings for him. Or I was anyway, until he did this.

By some absolute miracle we managed to get a shoe back on there, but I mean there’s like… almost no wall left. Love that for me considering summer (the season that absolutely murders horse feet in Florida) has barely even begun. I can already tell that me and my farrier are gonna have just a peachy keen time. We’ll see tomorrow if Rubes is sound and then go from there.

In more “the vibes are bad” news (I told you they’re BAD) – there will be no bebe horse for me next year. I was very excited to breed a super nice big TB mare to Cashmere, but it looks like she probably has a bit of an infection that needs to be taken care of. So… I dunno. I already feel like I’m majorly behind the 8-ball as far as “pre-loading” the next horse in my string. Presto is 8, after all, so even a foal born next year wouldn’t be rideable until he’s 13. Now we’d be looking at 14, best case scenario.

Ideally a 10 year age gap between horses would be considerably better (like Henry and Presto, which is perfect), but buying a 2 year old is certainly not in my budget at the moment and probably never will be. I have no solution to this particular conundrum at this time, and for now my Cashmere frozen semen will just sit sadly unused in my storage tank. Also really disappointing and depressing, at least to me, because I was really looking forward to starting the process again with another homebred (the toxic voice in my head went “that’s what you get for getting excited“… ugggghhh).

We did get another mare bred for the WTW program last week though. She gets negative points for ovulating at 1:30am, that’s just the worst timing possible for humans that like to get any modicum of sleep. She better be pregnant. We’ve got another one or two to breed but for the most part breeding season is winding down, and I’m ready for it to be over. It’s getting HOT here and as of right now we don’t have any other barn help besides me, so the farm and it’s 30ish horses are my 24/7 responsibility for the foreseeable future. Having one less thing on my plate would be lovely.

One fun thing at the end of this massive post of shit news: to lift my spirits I took Henry for just a XC round at the POP schooling show this weekend, and it was legit the most fun. He might be 18 but he’s still got it (for about 4 minutes, anyway).

Hopefully everyone else is having a better start to the summer than I am. And uh… if you know of any good ways to fix the vibes, I’m all ears.