Just because I have a new “one in, one out except for necessities rule doesn’t mean that I’m not still window shopping and paying attention to new stuff. I like pretty things. Sue me.

I found a UK company, Ponyo Horsewear, that makes BADASS blankets that I definitely must get for Presto for next season (since, as expected, the hand-me-down’s he’s worn this year will not live to see another winter). They have two prints in particular that are perfect for him:

I couldn’t decide which one to get so I’m thinking he’ll get a light sheet in the monkeys and a midweight in the unicorns. They won’t be available in his size until next month so they’ll definitely be for next winter, but they’re just too perfect. Shipping from the UK is expensive, but if anyone local to me is interested in buying some too, let me know and maybe we can do one order and split shipping.

Otherwise, the SS20 collections are starting to roll out. Equestrian Stockholm already rolled out a nice dark green color that captured me probably more than any other matchy set ever has. It’s pretty.

I think the matchy sets still just aren’t really my thing though. Not like that anyway. Maybe if the pad had navy trim I’d be in, the beige just kind of kills it for me. Or if I liked the shape of the jump pad. Or if the boots weren’t shiny. I seem like like very matte suede and very sparkly glitter, but not really anything in between and def not patent. Maybe when they go on sale I’ll like them more. It’s a lot of money to spend on mass quantities of exactly perfect color coordination for someone who literally spent all of Sunday wearing her $29 riding tights backwards and not realizing it until she took them off in the evening (that happened. I did that.). The green is really pretty though.

Speaking of green, the SS20 collection I was most looking forward to was Premier Equine’s. I’m low key obsessed with the merino wool pads, and my only complaint is that most of their color combinations are ugly AF. Like, no, I do I not want lime green and turquoise, or hot pink and dark green, or orange and teal. I have the plain navy ones and the plain white ones, because those are the ones my eyeballs can handle, but I was totally down for adding another pad to the collection if they did some new color combinations. I was all up in their instagram suggesting new dark green merino pads like a crazy person. Like dark green with navy or dark green with natural, or even dark green with gray. I’d buy that.

But they rolled the collection out without adding any new color combos to the merino wool collection at all. It’s confusing, because you know what people will buy 9000 of, if you just keep making them in new seasonal colors? Good saddle pads. Equestrian Stockholm and PS of Sweden have made entire businesses based on that premise. PE did add other new saddle pad styles and shapes, but largely in basic colors. And I don’t want new pad styles, I want the trusty merino wool ones that are A++. So, sadly, another year goes by at PE with the same bad color combos and no new ones. Womp womp.

Luckily I had already pre-given up on PE and ordered a Presto-color-palate pad from Hufglocken last month, because coupon. Navy with dark green and gray piping. It will probably be months before it gets here but that’s fine because I didn’t actually need it yet anyway, it just drove me damn bonkers to look at his green bridle/green breastplate/navy pad that just did not coordinate at all. The pad needed some green to make it cohesive (but not too much green to make it matchy matchy), okay?

I am still holding out a thin glimmer of hope that Punk Ponies will someday roll out a version of their glitter boots in a nice super dark green. Those would be mine in .2 seconds if they did, I don’t even care what I’d have to get rid of to satisfy the “one in, one out” rule.

I’ve also, as always, been keeping my eye on Riding Warehouse’s “new” section. They’ve added some good stuff lately, like Ego7 boots (they even have brown!), the Champion MIPS helmets, fancy new girths, clothes in new SS20 colors (Kastel, we have to talk. Are you ok?), and lots of new saddle pads and colors. Again, a slightly disappointing lack of dark green all around, but there’s some burgundy, which I’m also kinda into. Ya know… if it can’t be navy or green.

What new stuff has caught your eye? Any SS20 collections that are really blowing you away?

I didn’t really have a specific plan for what I was going to do with the horses on Sunday. It was quite warm, Henry had jumped the day before, and I’d done some groundwork with Presto. I wanted to do something with both of them but wasn’t really sure what. I’m struggling these days to come up with things to do with Presto that are new or interesting or even consume like 1% of his effort/attention. 

And then as I was grooming Henry, it hit me: why not try ponying him on the road? It was a practical idea for a couple reasons. 1) I haven’t ponied him much at all lately, maybe once in the past 4 months. 2) I need him to start getting used to the road. I want to spend the summer hacking him, and would really like to ride him over to the 80 acre farm down the road at least once a week. It’s not very far from our gate to theirs, but it does involve walking down our street to the stop sign, and then a very short maybe 20-30 yards down a busier/higher speed road to get into their back gate. If I can start getting him used to the road before I ever actually climb aboard, we’ll be that much further ahead of the game when the time comes.

Henry himself is generally quite good on the road. For as spooky as he can sometimes be, he’s spent a lot of time road hacking and while he might sometimes get snorty about crossing ditches or walking past culverts, he’s trustworthy and excellent in traffic. Perfect tour guide for a baby’s first road adventure. 

I tacked Henry up, put Presto in his rope halter, and off we went.

The first “challenge” was getting out of our front gate. There are flags on either side of the entrance, big and billowy and snapping in the breeze. The first time I ever rode Henry out of the gate he was NOT a fan of them, but he’s gotten used to them by now. I wasn’t sure what Presto would think… he’s pretty bold naturally, but certainly does have a spook in him sometimes. So we rode up to the gate and I stopped and stood for a minute, letting him see and hear them. He didn’t seem to care at all, so we edged closer and closer until we were standing right between them. No shits given. Even when Henry flinched at a particularly loud SNAP, Presto didn’t care. 

Ok then… out the gate we went.

I turned right, heading down our quieter road first rather than toward the busier main road. First we stayed on the shoulder for a bit, until the first several cars passed us. I wanted to make sure we were safely on the grass and out of the road in case he spooked, but again he didn’t care. He’s lived close to roads for a while, so I guess he’s become accustomed to the cars passing already. The shoulder got too small and slanted to easily walk on so we graduated to the road, retreating down to the shoulder to stop and stand when a car came. He was good about all that, and patient. Even when a very loud very fast car came rumbling past, he didn’t mind. 

I turned up another side road and we were quickly assaulted with car doors slamming, kids running and screaming, and dogs barking and running up to the fence on both sides of the road. That rattled him a bit. There was some snorting and arabian-esque prancing, so we just stopped and stood and let him think about it for a minute. He was worried, but he settled, and we walked a little ways up that road before turning around and looping back. 

Then we retraced our steps but this time on the opposite site of the road, going back toward our gate. We encountered plastic bags (no problem) and lots of culverts (he couldn’t figure out why Henry was giving them the hairy eyeball). We walked up to the industrial building and checked out, which he thought was boring. And then, as we passed the building, he saw what lurked behind.

And so began his only meltdown of the day. All the other shit was totally fine, but the cows were his complete undoing. He snorted. He piaffed. He tried to turn and run for the hills. He bounced off of me and Henry. It was horrific, according to him. We stood there for quite a while just watching them, until I could finally get Presto to keep moving his feet forward. Eventually we got past them, and worked our way up to the stop sign where our road dumps out onto the main, busier road. We stood there for a while watching traffic zip by, which he didn’t care about. So we turned back around, he spotted the cows again, and the meltdown replayed.

Honestly. Cows? COWS? He’s seen cows before. At the vet’s farm there was a resident cow. He saw it EVERY DAY. I mean seriously, of all the things. I guess I should have known that whatever was the least logical scary thing would be the one that caused the hamster to fall off it’s wheel.

Once he settled down we walked back to our gate, and I had him just stand there between the flags and watch some more cars go by for a while until he was bored again. Yes, standing between two big loud flapping flags and watching cars zoom past was the way to calm down the baby idiot’s brain explosion over cows existing. He quickly chilled out enough to where I moved him close enough for the flag to literally flap right next to his face, which I started videoing.

So that was when he decided to grab the flag and yank it, breaking the flag pole mount on the fence and giving Henry a complete heart attack. 

I didn’t see that one coming, which was really dumb considering that I’ve known this horse for his entire almost 3 years, and if there’s one thing I should have absolutely expected, it’d be that. Breaking something? Totally in his wheelhouse. Scaring other horses in the process? Presto written all over it. He had no idea what Henry spooked at and tried to go back and pick the flag up. That would have been the end of me for sure, if he’d come at Henry with that thing. 

The flag is now rolled up in the house, and the new bracket will be here today. Thanks Amazon Prime. Dammit Presto. But, ya know, otherwise… pretty successful first road outing? We just gotta work on the bovinophobia (I was today years old when I learned that that was a word). 

The payoff for making it through a cold soggy week was a relatively glorious February-in-Texas weekend. Temps were in the upper 70’s, it wasn’t too terribly humid, it alternated between overcast and sunny, and there was a breeze but no gale force wind. 

On weekends like this I find myself wanting to do All The Things, both with pony time and with projects. On Saturday morning we went out to breakfast and stopped at Lowe’s on the way home so I could get some jump painting supplies. I grabbed a gallon of white paint, found a deep blue in the Oops section for cheap, and grabbed tape, trays, and brushes. I also picked up a few more poles, since I intentionally left some of mine behind at the old barn for them to use.  

Most of my jumps were gifted to me, and I’m extremely grateful to have them, but they arrived in my possession in need of paint/some repairs and I had not actually done any of that yet. They were useable as they were, and I was in a pinch, so they went straight to work. And they’ve been that way now for… years. I was way overdue. 

It took me longer than I was hoping, but I got all the poles painted white at least. Some will get stripes put on later. I still have to paint the standards, and repair a few of them. Painting jumps does not make my top 10 (or 100) list of favorite activities, but they do already look so much better.

I also got another jump school in on Henry and I feel like we’re definitely back in our groove. My eye is returning and we’re both feeling more confident again. He’s forward and hunting the jumps, and I’m riding more positively. I’m looking to add a couple more jumper shows to our calendar in the near future, if I can find something that works. 

After I was done with Henry I also worked both of the babies in hand a bit. JB is learning the “send” commands and verbal whoa, and basic desensitization (fly spray is murder). He is way more sensitive and reactive than Presto, but also wicked smart and picks up on things pretty quickly. I’ve really grown to like him. He’s going to be that semi-weird, sensitive, one-person-horse type that I tend to enjoy (ahem Henry). 

Presto was a little rude going to turnout the other day so he got a tuneup on moving his body based off of my body language or hand signals. Then he just… held his halter for a while. As one does. He gets salty any time I give JB attention and not him.

Later on when I let them in for dinner Presto put on quite the circus act/arabian impression, because he always has to investigate everything and the jumps having moving around/changed color was exciting. I took the opportunity to snap some pictures, to show how at this stage he can look really different depending on what angle you happen to catch him at. 

It’s supposed to be low-mid 80’s today, and then do the patchy rain thing again for the rest of the week. It’s keeping the grass green, at least, but I’m also getting a little tired of things being squishy. Thank goodness this place drains pretty well. 

Hope everyone else had a productive and horsey-filled weekend! 

Henry has been living the solo turnout lifestyle for a while now. Almost 3 years while we were at the western barn, and while he started out in group turnout at the vet’s place, he eventually got banished again. Why? Because he’s a butthole and if he senses any kind of weakness or submission in another horse, he will chase them, or have random outbursts of rage.

When we moved to the new place I didn’t even bother trying him with other horses. Mostly because he makes me kind of nervous, since I never quite know how he’ll react, and I didn’t want him to hurt anyone. He’s content enough on his own, and it’s worked out fine.

And then February decided to be rainy. Like day after day after day. This presents a bit of a quandary for me, because 1) only one of the pastures has a shelter 2) I’m gone like 10 hours, all day long. I don’t really like for horses to be stuck outside with no option for shelter, especially since I work so far away and can’t get there at the drop of a hat if a more severe storm were to pop up. Of course, I also don’t want to have to leave them inside all day either, especially if the rain is spotty or light or the chances are like 50%, which is how this week was. None of us want them stuck inside for days at a time for no real reason.

So last weekend, knowing that the rain was coming, I started experimenting with how I could make sure they still got turnout, but also that everyone had the option for shelter. In the past I’ve tried putting Presto, JB, and Quinnie in the front field with the shed, and leaving Henry’s pasture gate open so that he could use the barn as shelter. But since him going to shelter would require putting himself very much out of the line of sight of the other horses, he refused to use it, just parking himself dejectedly at the fenceline. That doesn’t work.

Henry has played with the other horses over the fence and I never saw any aggressive behavior from him, so first I tried the easiest option of putting him in with them and making a group of 4. That lasted for about 10 minutes. He and Presto are well acquainted enough to where Henry isn’t TOO psychopathic towards him, and Presto knows to steer well clear. But JB just kept trying to go up and make friends with him repeatedly, and he made the crucial mistake of being way way too submissive about it. Henry sensed weakness, pounced on it, and started chasing him. I had to intervene and quickly put the kibosh on that. As I suspected, he can’t be trusted alone with the babies.

Plan B was to make two pairs, which I really hate doing in general because I feel like 2 is the worst number for horses. They tend to get overly dumb about their friend, and one or both turns into a moron when the other one leaves. But… I didn’t have a lot of options, and was willing to try it. So the babies went out in the front pasture with the shed, and I turned Henry out with Quinnie in the middle pasture that opens up into the barn courtyard. I figured I could just leave that gate open and they could have the barn to use as shelter.

I put Henry with Quinnie and thought “Ok, here we go”. He marched up to her, they sniffed noses, he squealed and pinned his ears, and Quinnie looked at him deadpan like “Who the fuck you think you are, bucko?” and starts grazing, ignoring him completely. Henry was perplexed. You could see the hamster spinning at mach 5 on it’s wheel in his brain. He tried again, puffing up to her, ears pinned. She didn’t even so much as acknowledge his presence. And so began Henry’s love affair with Quinnie.

They’ve been out together all week now, and he is very much NOT the alpha in their relationship. He goes where she says, when she says, how she says. He’s been transformed from a psychopathic baby-chaser to a relatively pathetic puppy dog. She owns his ass.

But she’s also nice about it, too.  Not mean, just very clear firm lines. They’re always pretty close together and she seems to enjoy having an adult companion again. She still keeps track of what the babies are doing in the pasture next to hers, and they tend to all tend to hang out in the same area. One time I caught Henry trying to mess with JB over the fence and Quinnie came barging between them, reprimanding Henry and moving him back away from the fence. She ain’t got time for that shit, and she ain’t having it. She couldn’t really manage him when all 4 were together, it was too much chaos, but she can manage him pretty well one-on-one.

Having the barn for shelter on the rainy days worked pretty well. I hung a couple slow feed nets, so they wouldn’t have reason to wander out into the rain if they didn’t want to, and they chose to stay pretty dry. Presto is a little salty about the whole ordeal because Quinnie is his favorite friend too, but he seems to be getting over it. And Henry, while totally devoted, has not been stupid about it yet, knock on wood. Yesterday I rode him and no one had a meltdown about being separated.

I like that Henry finally has a friend, and as long as he can keep himself together about it, he can keep her. We’re getting a few days off from the rain but I’ve kept them in their pairs. If he doesn’t try to kill anyone and can keep his brain in his head for riding, I’m happy to let him stay with her. We shall see. For now, they’re pretty darn cute. They both look like fat old mares… they’re BBFs – best broodmare friends. There’s a real Golden Girls aspect to them, especially when they’re standing nose to nail under the tree in the afternoon, taking a nap.

Fingers crossed that we’ve found a good solution and Henry can actually have a friend that he doesn’t try to murder for once.

Guess who’s officially a teenager today?

Yup, it’s Mr. Hesalmostsweet aka Happenstance aka Henry aka Henny aka Handsome aka Boo.

Since we’ve got a tradition of birthday hats/headbands by now, he picked one that had an appropriate amount of sass to match his personality. Well he really wanted one that said “worship me and give me cookies” but I couldn’t find that so we settled for the next best thing.

Where does the time go, y’all? I can’t believe he’s 13. I’m not ready.

Also, man I really didn’t notice how terrible his halter looked until these photos. Ignore that.

This afternoon we’ll definitely celebrate Henry with lots of cookies, some peppermints in his dinner, and a nice long canter in his sidepull so he has ample opportunity to spook and be wild and pretend to try to buck me off. All his favorite things!