Considering how many things I order from overseas, I’ve had surprisingly few issues over the years. The odd thing stuck in customs forever, but nothing too crazy or dramatic. Guess my time was due.

I mentioned last week how I ordered a quarter sheet from PS of Sweden’s new outlet site, theHORSElet. I paid for it, including shipping charges, and two days later I got a shipping confirmation. All was going normally. And then, the next day, I get an email from UPS saying I owe $263 in import charges.

So off I go to investigate. First – was the email legit? I logged into my UPS account on their website and yep, there it was, a notice about owing import fees on the Sweden package. I have had to pay import fees here and there on some things I’ve ordered from overseas, so ok sure, but the rate is generally 9-20% of the value. $263 was… waaaaay off. Like, closer to 500%. So then I pulled up the UPS invoice itself to take a closer look. Turns out that actually none of that charge was import fees or duty fees or taxes – it was all freight charges.

At work my department is under the same organizational umbrella as Shipping, and indeed my best work friend was the head of Shipping for almost 10 years. And we use UPS, including for international shipping. I sent the invoice to him and he immediately said “They forgot to check the box”. On international shipping paperwork there’s a box where the shipper designates responsibility for the UPS shipping/export charges. If they don’t check that, then all the freight gets charged to the recipient. He told me that if I had already paid theHORSElet/PSoS for shipping as part of my purchase, I could dispute it.

So I started calling UPS. Five transfers later (including one VERY FREAKIN RUDE lady) I finally got assigned a case rep, who seemed very confused about the whole situation. I told him that I had already paid the company for shipping, and it looked like they messed up their paperwork. He asked me to send him any invoices/receipts I had from the purchase and he would look into it and call me back. That was Friday morning.

I had also emailed theHORSElet to let them know of the mistake. At this point I am still willing to assume it’s a mistake, anyway. I got an auto-response from PSoS saying they would get back to me ASAP, and since it was Friday I was fine to wait until Monday.

Yesterday came and went with nothing from them. I could see both of their accounts active on Instagram, so I contacted them there as well, telling them the whole situation, what was happening, and saying I had sent them an email about it but not heard anything back. While I was waiting for a response I heard from someone else who also ordered from them last week and ALSO got a big invoice from UPS. It looks like my issue was not unique. I know that last week was the first time theHORSElet offered international shipping, so I’m still inclined to believe this is a mistake made by their shipping department on the paperwork. However, it clearly wasn’t an isolated incident. They need to fix this.

They messaged me back on Insta, but only addressing the part where I said I had emailed and not gotten a response – they just asked me when I emailed them. That’s now as far as we’ve gotten. Hopefully they will actually be helpful in getting this resolved. If they aren’t, I definitely will not be happy.

I also have another email in to the UPS rep, asking for an update. This is a mess, start to finish. There is some added complication in that the receipt I have is of course from theHORSElet, but they shipped it under their PSoS company name. That could cause some problems when it comes to proving that I’ve already paid them a shipping fee.

We’ll see what happens. For now I would definitely recommend holding off on ordering anything from theHORSElet (or honestly even PSoS) since my situation does not appear to have been a one-off. Hopefully we can get it cleared up quickly and they can fix whatever happened in their shipping process. I’ll update once I get some resolution!

I feel like this year so far has been one big Adjusting To Change exercise. Learning the new normal, and then learning the new new normal, and then learning the new new new normal, which just keeps evolving. Really kind of brings home the Heraclitus quote “The only thing that is constant is change”.

Working from home from my actual home is definitely a different ball game than working from home from the farm. I’ve changed the structure of my day, although every day looks a bit different depending on what’s going on. It’s not as easy to duck outside for an hour and go ride Henry before it gets hot… now “ducking outside to ride” is a minimum 3-hour thing. I am lucky to have some flexibility though, and indeed my day is actually most productive when I break it into two parts. Sometimes I have a day packed with meetings that makes it more challenging to unshackle myself from my laptop, and it doesn’t give me a whole lot of time at the barn during the week. But in this particular era where everything is temporary, I’m just taking it day by day and making it work as best I can.

Because of that, I don’t really have time for both horses on weekdays. I have to pick one or the other, and of course Henry has priority. This is always the time of year that I dread the most with him, heading into summer, because of his struggle with the heat. I’m trying to get him ridden as consistently as I can before I start having to back off. Despite being a bit of a chonk he does feel really good right now. Maybe a little too good. The sass level is high. Later this week I’m going to try to get him over to the giant field across the street so he can gallop, because he definitely feels like he needs to blow off some steam.

Presto, on the other hand, has been shelved for the past few weeks. After I bonked my head I thought it was probably a bad idea to ride the baby horse for a little while. Although now that I think about it, Presto is generally the far less spooky one. Hmmm.

But anyway, now I’m healed up and I finally had time for both horses yesterday, so Presto was called back into duty. And how was he after 3 weeks of doing absolutely nothing? Clearly he was quite feral.

Yeah no just kidding he was super quiet. It was as if not a single day has gone by since his last ride, everything was retained and there was no silly behavior. That’s the longest he’s gone between rides since I started him, so I was curious to see if he would backtrack a little or not, but nope. This was ride #9 and I continue to be fairly pleased with how he’s going despite our slow progression. He’s had as many rides in 2 1/2 months as most have in their first 2 1/2 weeks, but our atypical program seems to be working just fine for us.

I always put Presto on the lunge line for a few minutes before I mount up, just to get him focused. We do a lot of transitions to get his brain into “it’s work time, pay attention to me” mode. It also gives me an idea of where his head is at. Sometimes the upward transitions come with sass, other times you can’t even get the whole word “whoa” out before he’s stopped dead. Yesterday was the latter. After a grand total of 3 minutes lunging, I got on.

I did notice on the lunge line that he’s a bit unbalanced in the canter at the moment. He’s definitely growing, as you can see in his picture, and the canter quality and balance tend to come and go during these spurts. Because of that I decided not to ask him to canter this ride, so we just rode around the ring for a few minutes, walking and trotting and doing some circles and figure 8’s and transitions. Then I figured… he’s being so quiet, lets go out to the field.

He perked up a little bit out there, but was still a good boy. After we walked for a little while I decided to see how he felt about trotting out in the open, and it was very anti-climactic. We trotted a lap of the field, I told him he was amazing, and we quit with that.

I think he’s ready to start riding out in the fields more now. That was my whole goal for the spring – getting him “broke” enough to be able to hack and trail ride this summer, and I think he’s pretty much there. Or at least ready to start small and work our way up. Obviously with 9 rides he isn’t a super quiet broke reliable horse but he’s got an excellent whoa and he’s not particularly spooky or anything, so at this point I feel pretty comfortable riding him out.

We’re still waiting for his tongue-relief bits to arrive (there was Bombers back-order, they’re supposed to ship this week) but Presto seems content enough on a loose rein in the Myler for now. Knowing horses, I will be shocked if he actually likes the fancy expensive bits that I spent hours discussing and agonizing over, because they’re turds and nothing can ever be that easy.  But we’ll see. I have a long weekend coming up so I’m hoping we can do some more exploring.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Since Ellie is the last WTW foal of 2020 I figured she could get this edition of Foal Friday all to herself before we get back to including all the babies. Plus I have like a bazillion pics of her from this first week, and it’s hard for me to pare them down because I am admittedly biased towards Presto’s little sister and her beautiful dam.

But first and foremost – the Baby Bets contest winner. This one was a nail-biter right up until the very end. Austen came out swinging, being the only person to guess Remi pretty accurately. That was impressive, because nobody else saw a chromey chestnut colt coming, that’s for sure. Getting the date right was what sealed the deal for her there with the early lead. But then Madelyn guessed Ollie pretty close to spot-on, tying things up. It all came down to Ellie, and even that didn’t break the tie because they both guessed bay filly. For the second year in a row Michelle had to pick a name from a hat, and the winner is Austen! We will start getting your prizes together and be in contact with you shortly. Thank you to everyone who participated, I always think it’s really fun to see who guesses what.

Ok, back to Ellie.

It took her a few days to really figure out those crazy long spider legs. As you can see she’s still in the process of unfolding, but she’s managing herself pretty well, getting more and more sure of her stilts by the day.

She’s brave and curious, not scared of things but always wanting to figure them out. That sounds pretty typical of Sadie and her foals. The first day she was turned out in the paddock with the poles Sadie took her over there to let her sniff it and take a look, then made slow deliberate circles over the pole with her, leading the way and showing her how it was done. I told Michelle she owes Sadie a bonus for her training services.

Every time I see Sadie with one of her foals I remember how awesome it is to have a mare that really “mothers” their foals like this, teaching them things calmly and clearly. She’s so intelligent and deliberate about it. Not all mares are like that.

Both Sadie and Ellie have continued to do well over this first week. Those couple days around the birth might have worried us a bit, but luckily everything has been good. Ellie got plasma as a precaution, and while some foals are a bit backed off from humans after that (running a bag of plasma requires an IV catheter, time, and restraining the foal to keep them still while it runs, so it’s not particularly pleasant) it didn’t seem to phase Ellie at all. She was still just as friendly and kind afterwards as she was before. Sounds like someone else we all know.

As she’s figured out her legs she’s gotten more and more playful, galloping around, leaping over the pole, and even managing some fairly impressive bucking.

It also looks like she has a registered name now too, although I’m not sure if the spelling/format has been finalized yet, it has been the center of much debate. It’ll either be O’Tembo or Otembo. Tembo is swahili for elephant and O’ kind of combines the english “of” with the swahili “elephant”. Otembo is a creek/wildlife area in the Congo right in the heart of African forest elephant territory. Although just for fun, go google translate “O tembo” from Swahili. Spaces and capitalization change the meaning, and it kind of had me rolling. But anyway, whichever one it ends up being, I think it’s a pretty word, and unique, and kind of makes for a good story. (Also this did lead to me googling the Swahili word for giraffe so I can use it on Presto)

It was a great foaling season for WTW and I’m excited to see how these four kids continue to grow and interact. For those who have asked, Ellie and Remi are sold (to the same person, so maybe we will get to see a continuation of their adventures over time!) but Oakley and Ollie are still available. You can message the WTW facebook page if you’re interested!

Out of curiousity, how long do you guys want me to keep doing Foal Friday? I figured the world needed some weekly cuteness this spring in particular, but how long do you want me to keep it going?

The barn owners made it back safely from Florida on Sunday, so I am officially living back at home in the city. It’s necessary of course, but I’m suffering a little bit from horse withdrawal this week. Although the farm is a lot of work, there is so much to be said for having your day bookended by horses. First thing in the morning, feed the horses. Last thing before bed, check on the horses. I am still a pony-loving kid on the inside, so I thought it was awesome.

But, everything already got pushed back a month thanks to covid, so it’s time to get the ball rolling again. The SO started his new job on Monday THANK GOODNESS, so the timing was pretty perfect on that. He’s a mechanic at a luxury dealership (Bentley, Maserati, Lotus, Rolls Royce, and Aston Martin – and apparently they get paid more hourly for working on the Maserati’s for some reason? who knew.) pretty close by. He was originally a mechanic by trade but got burnt out on the business a while ago and went a different route. He was hesitant to go back, but the money is good and so far he seems to like this particular dealership. It definitely looks and feels like a high end shop, and they prefer quality of work vs just pushing things through as fast as possible. Plus it’s naturally a solo job, they all have their own tools, are spread out, and they’re cleaning things/wearing masks and gloves, so his risk of exposure is quite low.

I’m still working from home for as long as my company will possibly let me… I know they plan to start bringing certain groups/people back in starting June 1 but I don’t know yet where I’ll fall within that plan. I’m thinking of trying to see if they’ll let me work from home at least a couple days a week permanently. My company has been very against that in the past, but I think we’ve proven it’s totally do-able. Productivity has actually increased, if you look at the metrics. We’ll see. It would make things a lot easier for me, especially in the summer when it’s too hot to ride in the afternoon.

I did miss Grem though. I hadn’t really realized how much I love that cat until now. And the corgi, of course, who is really starting to struggle with his DM (I don’t think I ever talked about that, but yeah he’s got DM). I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be with us, so it’s nice to get more time with him now. Plus there’s also a new cat in the house since I was last living here, the black cat that SO got during Black Friday. I’m a total stranger to him, but he seems to be warming up to me.

Naturally, as Texas likes to do in the spring, it rained absolute buckets on Tuesday. Like 5″. With some tornadoes peppered in for good measure. One passed pretty close to the farm but luckily no damage was done, just lots and lots and lots of rain. And there’s supposed to be more rain coming this weekend. Figures, since I’m now pretty much recovered from my tumble and ready to get back to my regular riding schedule. Presto is going on 3 weeks now since his last ride and his Pest level has been steadily increasing along with his boredom. He needs to get back to his “job”. And Henry is looking an awful lot like the retired broodmare, physique wise. His dad bod is legit.

Which is mostly fine I guess. Yes USEF/USEA is starting horse shows again on June 1 but that’s not happening for me. The summer is way too hot for Henry, and at this point we haven’t shown since last July anyway. Plus I’m just… not convinced that starting horse shows again is the right move just yet. The smaller one day shows where everyone can work out of their trailer? Yeah, sure, that’s doable. But multi-day horse shows with shared bathrooms and stabling and travel and hotels and restaurants? I don’t think that’s a good idea yet. Especially not in places that are starting to see a rise in covid cases again (which is a lot of places right now). If some very local shows happen I’m not opposed to taking Presto for the day, but otherwise I just can’t see us doing anything until at least the fall. And I’m totally fine with that. It just needs to not rain buckets so I can get more rides on that punkass baby horse.

Speaking of which, since we have had a big gap in his schedule, I decided to forego Presto’s training vlog this month and do a combined April/May edition at the beginning of next month. The idea of making the vlog was too much for my concussed head at the beginning of this month, and honestly there wasn’t a ton to cover anyway. Hopefully we can get a little bit done in the second half of this month and be a little more interesting.

Today I’ll finish tallying up the results of the Baby Bets contest to publish with tomorrow’s Foal Friday post! May the odds be ever in your favor.

Since I went timbeerrrr out of the tack room and broke my helmet a couple weeks ago, it obviously meant that I needed a replacement. The one I broke was the navy Traumavoid, and they do have a replacement policy, but due to the age of the helmet it would have only been 25% discount. Plus I would have had to send the helmet in, which adds some cost. I was willing to do that, but first I wanted to see what other MIPS options were out there, especially with all the sales and discounts happening right now. When I bought the Traumavoid it was the only MIPS helmet on the market, so it was an easy choice. Now there are many.

The one that had really caught my eye was the Charles Owen My PS. Charles Owen and Champion are my two favorite, most trusted helmet brands (I have the Champion SNELL skull cap for XC), so trying the new MIPS options from those two was my first preference. I liked that the My PS had a slightly wider, lower brim… since I was looking to replace my “daily driver” helmet, having a little more sun protection for summer was appealing. The My PS does come in an even bigger, wider brim version too, which was admittedly a bit much for me (it’s massive). I wanted just a little extra, not A LOT. It also comes in navy, which is important. I had a 15% off code for Riding Warehouse which made it about the same as what I would have spent on the Traumavoid, so I decided to bite the bullet and try the CO. Worst case scenario it didn’t fit, and RW has free returns so if it didn’t work out I could just send it back and go to plan B – the Traumavoid replacement.

But, yay, it does fit, and it’s pretty comfortable. I haven’t had a non-skull cap Charles Owen in quite a while (maybe since my AYR8 10+ years ago?) and I’m impressed with some of the improvements. My biggest complaint about them for years was the non-removeable liners, so it’s great to see them adopt that. I wouldn’t have bought the helmet without it, because Texas = head sweat. The navy is a pretty shade too, nice and dark and not too purpley (my only complaint about the Traumavoid smooth navy was the slightly purpley shade – it didn’t match my other navy stuff very well).

I also got one of the new Equetech XC shirts that Riding Warehouse is carrying now. I got to provide input on which shirt colors/patterns they should stock, and was happy to see some of my ideas in their inventory line-up. They’re a nice relatively lightweight athletic type shirt, I can see myself wearing it a lot. The XC shirts are meant to go under a vest of course, hence the sleeve patterns, but I think they’re cute on their own too. Free round of applause for anyone who can guess which color/pattern I got. 😉

There have been a few other acquisitions lately, most by necessity. I pre-ordered a couple more face masks from Dreamers and Schemers.

And honestly it looks like face masks are going to be a part of life for a while. They are not a requirement here, but it’s such an easy and simple way to help do your part that I’ll be wearing one in public for the forseeable future. And my company is going to require them once we start coming back into the office, so I’d like to be able to stash some in different places (car, work, purse, etc), plus have extras to rotate through so I can wash them and never be without. If I can buy them from an equestrian small business, even better.

I also spent several days going back and forth on what bit to try next for Presto. From all my experimenting I’m relatively convinced that he doesn’t like tongue pressure, and after talking to reps from Bombers, Neue Schule, and an online bit store, they all agreed based on the description and video. I think part of it is that he’s a fussy mouthed baby who hasn’t figured it out yet, but I also think there’s some discomfort there too. Trying to put his tongue over the bit is a classic tongue pressure evasion. Maybe I’m wrong and I bought him two bits for nothing, but I’d rather explore every avenue than just plow through and tell him to get over it. Having a horse be comfortable and happy in the mouth is obviously really important. I found a UK shop that has really good prices, so I got him a Bombers Happy Tongue and a Trust Innosense. Both have tongue relief but otherwise are quite a bit different, so hopefully he’ll like one of them. Naturally the Bombers is backordered for like ever, because ‘rona.

 

Speaking of ‘rona problems, remember my Hufglocken Mattes pad that was in shipping purgatory? I ordered it forever ago (December? January?) for Presto and it shipped from Hufglocken’s location in Australia on March 25. It had been sitting at the airport in Sydney waiting to catch a flight since March 31. That’s how backed up stuff is! It finally got a flight on May 7th, after over 5 weeks sitting there at the airport waiting. Totally bonkers. Now it’s sitting in LA waiting to clear customs. We’ll see how long that takes. I’m glad I ordered it well before I could ever possibly need it.

I also did order one slightly less necessary thing… I dunno if anyone has seen The HORSElet yet, but it’s basically an outlet site for PS of Sweden. Mostly it’s past season colors for saddle pads, clothes, polos, etc, and that’s not really my thing so I’ve barely looked at the site, but for some reason yesterday I clicked on the New button. Remember the big deal with me trying to find just the right quarter sheet last fall? I ended up not getting anything, because I couldn’t find what I wanted in my price range, and then Henry ended up hurting himself anyway. But then voila, yesterday I saw the PS of Sweden quarter sheet (which had been one of the top 3 on my list originally) at 60% off. Only $58! I nabbed one for next season, because I doubt I’ll find the style I like for that cheap again anytime soon. We’ll see how long it takes to get here, with the ‘rona. Luckily I won’t need it for like… 6 months anyway.