Category: Uncategorized

I have to admit that I’m one of those people that tends to get so one-tracked that sometimes I forget anything else exists. This weekend I took some time to hang out with the SO, relax, and let my mind go elsewhere.  Some delicious blackberry pear cider helped it on it’s journey.

We were also dog sitting for SO’s sister. Her dogs are hilarious, but having 4 dogs in this house (a Chiweenie, a JRT mix, a Pit mix, and a GSD mix) was a lot. They provided us with a lot of entertainment though.

I did still manage to ride Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and mostly body clip Henry. He’s not a big fan of having his legs and belly done so we’ll probably have to have the vet come give him sleepy juice for me to finish. In the mean time he looks a little goofy.

My first jumping lesson with my new trainer was unfortunately postponed, but hopefully it’ll happen sometime this week instead. I did get to try on Henry’s new Magyk Equipe XC boots and they fit great. Many thanks to Riding Warehouse for the super fast shipping… as usual, a great experience. Love those guys! And I couldn’t resist PS of Sweden’s awesome weekend sale on their quarter sheet. It’s navy, it’s wool, it’s fancy, and it’s $60 with shipping? I never stood a chance…

One of these days I’ll have pictures or video of me actually on my horse. I swear it really does happen.

Also known as pretty much the best day ever.

My new Ogilvy that I bought myself for my birthday has finally arrived (because addiction means never having just one). This one has a much more dirt friendly color scheme… no light colors to show dirt and make me crazy. Greige with navy trim and chocolate piping.

Now the pretty navy one with white and baby blue trim can be reserved for special occasions.

And also my Fauxgilvy (or so I have dubbed it) shipped today too. I needed a half pad that fit under my dressage saddle, but didn’t really want to buy a THIRD Ogilvy, so I found a seller on Etsy that makes a similar style pad. It won’t get used nearly as much so hopefully it’ll work for a while until I am rich enough ready for another Ogilvy. The cool thing about this one is that it’s reversible, so one side is all black (for schooling) and the other side is white with black trim and french blue piping (for show – to match my coat). Fingers crossed it’s decent!

My stirrup leathers came yesterday for my dressage saddle so I’m finally complete on dressage accessories. Thank goodness because it was getting really old having to switch my stirrups and leathers back and forth between saddles. AND, my Majyk Equipe XC boots should arrive today. It’s like Christmas (albeit not as fun because I had to pay for everything) around here this week.

I think we (dare I say it?) are pretty much fully equipped for our new venture. For now. Anyone wanna buy me an air vest? Cuz I ain’t got no more monies…

 

I can only assume that the Apocalypse is coming.

Because I had a dressage lesson on Tuesday night.

And I didn’t hate it.

In fact… it was almost… enjoyable.

Well not quite THAT enjoyable, but still… I didn’t hate it, and that scares me. A lot.

Also, I officially joined USEA. It’s happening.

I’ve had the chance to use the PS of Sweden bridle a bit more this week and I’m really digging it. I’ve finally gotten everything adjusted and configured exactly how I want it. The noseband snap already has me ruined for life… I keep trying to snap the nosebands on my other bridles now and feel sorely disappointed when I realize they don’t have one. However, I’m already really tired of having to switch my bit back and forth between bridles so if you have a Nathe or HS Duo bit for sale let me know!

 

I have made zero progress on 2pointober. I haven’t even worked on it, aside from our usual conditioning rides which I mostly do in 2point anyway. Is there an award for Least Improved? I might even backslide off my baseline time considering I’ll be out of town the whole last week of the month…

Yay for blog hops! This time Hand Gallop asked: What’s the origin of your horse’s show name and barn name?

Even though I don’t talk about Sadie much here since she’s leased out, I’ll cover both ponies.

I bred Sadie myself, so I picked her names from the beginning. Her sire is the stallion Westporte so I knew I wanted something with West. The finalists were Westbound and West Hollywood but I really prefer one word names, so Westbound won out. For a barn name I picked out a few, depending on sex. If it was a colt it was going to be Bodie, no questions asked. If it was a filly it was either going to be Stella or Sadie. I picked Bodie because it’s a gold-mining ghost town in Cali and you can’t get more “western” that that. Stella was a character from the series Rough Rider Weekly, and Sadie was the nickname of Wyatt Earp’s wife. Obviously I had way too much time to think about names while I was waiting for her to be born. Once she was here Stella didn’t really seem to fit her, so Sadie it was.

Henry was a little trickier. His registered name is He’salmostsweet, because he was born the day before Valentine’s Day. When I bought him his barn name was Jerry. I have nothing against all the Jerry’s in the world but I just don’t think it’s a good name for a horse, so for the first day or so his name was NotJerry. I thought there was something about his eyes that made him seem like a sweet old soul, so I looked through old fashioned men’s names and really liked Henry. I was going to tie that into a show name of Fairlane (like Henry Ford, Ford Fairlane… SO is a big classic car nut) but there were so many crazy circumstances that fell into place juuuust right when I bought him that Happenstance seemed more appropriate. It’s a more popular name but it fits the whole situation so well I just couldn’t pass it up.

Yeah, I know… I’m crazy. But sometimes it works out.

I’ve had my Mondoni Kingston boots for a while now, and I’ve been abusing the heck out of them. They were kind of a medium brown color to start with

But as they’ve worn they’ve faded a little in some spots, and my super powerful Texas-fueled sweat had left a slightly darker coloration in other spots. They looked great right after I polished them, but with the way I abuse boots they wouldn’t look great for long. So I decided to dye them a dark brown, hoping that would a) even the color back out a bit, and b) make them a little easier to keep looking nice.

Supplies:

Fiebing’s leather die (I used Chocolate)
Gloves
wool dauber
polish

I have some Resolene coming that I will use as a top finish, but I haven’t done that yet and you really don’t HAVE to do it if you don’t want to. It just acts as a nice water resistant top coat.

If your boots have a top coat or thick finish, you probably want to use deglazer on them first. Mine did not, so I skipped that part. Instead i just wiped them down with a rag that had a little bit of Dawn dish soap on it, then a plain wet rag to clean off any residue. Then I let them dry thoroughly (I put mine in front a space heater because I’m impatient).

After that I went to work. There’s really no technique or science to this… you just basically paint them with dye. I did two coats just to help cover everything more evenly. Yes, I still managed to get dye all over myself despite the gloves. Luckily it washes off pretty well with soap and water if you do it immediately.

Then I let them dry again, put a light coat of polish on top, and voila! Chocolate brown boots.

Before:

 

After:

 

This was so much easier than I imagined it to be in my head, and really gave new life to my boots. I’m super happy with the color too!

I noticed this weekend that my dressage saddle could really use a touch up… it’s got some rubs and scrapes on the front of the flaps and cantle that just aren’t really improved with conditioner. So I bought some black dye and will tackle that next. That one will probably require deglazer and will definitely require Resolene, so it’s a bit more of a project, but I’m curious (and brazen) enough to try it out.

Now I keep looking around for more things to dye. I’ve got most of a bottle of chocolate dye left!