Monday, November 27, 2017

Glorious Holiday Weekend

I hope all of my American readers enjoyed their long weekend! (assuming you didn't have to work Friday, of course). I know I sure did :) Every single one of my four days off was BEAUTIFUL. Long entry though, prepare yourself!
One of the gorgeous sunsets from my weekend.
Sunrise another day.
I'm extra thankful for that, because my week got off to a rough start -- driving home from work on Tuesday, an inattentive driver attempted to change lanes into me on a busy bridge and clipped my car. I saw them coming and swerved as far over as I could without smashing into the concrete barrier, and with all of the adrenaline trying to avoid a major wreck, I didn't actually realize they made contact. There is no safe place to pull over for miles without risking life and limb or backing up traffic (which is already horrendous on a daily basis), and the person quickly slammed on their brakes and got behind me so I couldn't get a license plate number. I pulled over at the first available exit to check for damage, but by the time I realized there WAS damage, it was too late to catch the person. While I'm frustrated (and a bit annoyed with myself for not pulling over immediately), my car is high mileage and paid off, and the damage is merely cosmetic. And considering how badly things could have ended if I hadn't seen them coming and mitigated the damage a bit, I'll just count myself lucky and hope karma catches up to them (the damage was on my passenger side so I couldn't see it from inside the car, but they had to have realized they made contact and seen the damage to their mirror). This put a bit of a damper on my Tuesday night, and I was still pretty grumpy most of Wednesday. But the prospect of a 4-day weekend cheered me up a bit!
Nothing like a freshly dragged arena to lower your blood pressure ;)
Thursday our Thanksgiving family plans were an early lunch, so I actually had time to ride after we got home, which was amazing. Ruby and I put in another no-stirrups ride (since I was still in striking distance of the lead in my barn's contest!), and then cooled out hacking down the road. While I was riding, DH (who is the best and why I listed him twice on the things I'm thankful for post!) installed the light in the grooming area that I've had for months now, haha. Of course I had to test it out, so I pulled Cinna out for a quick groom and lunge. (he also installed a nifty pipe system to fill the water trough without using a hose, which will hopefully keep us from battling frozen hoses all winter!)
Extra thankful for her.
Got home to a new light!
 
 
The far side is still a little dim, but I should have sufficient light to knock the dust off the horses and get tacked up!
Friday was the day I'd been waiting for all week -- the weather forecast was 70 and sunny. I had grand plans of working and bathing both horses -- while I didn't quite get that accomplished, I still did quite a bit! It was still chilly when I got up at 6 am, so I knocked out all the outside chores at home, and then did like five loads of laundry and dishes (which I knew would make DH happy, and get me off the hook to spend the rest of the day outside).
This loon always sticks his tongue out after drinking -- 11 years together and it still makes me giggle.
I started down at the barn with Ruby -- we had another excellent no stirrups ride, where I worked on sitting the trot for longer stretches of time. My ability to sit her trot has improved this month with all the no stirrups work, although there is definitely still a long way to go. She also gave me much nicer canter departs than the night before, which was appreciated! The downward transition from canter to trot without stirrups is still a bit hard for me, but it's getting better. Practice makes perfect, right? I was finishing up at the same time a lesson was finishing up, so we hacked out together to cool the horses off. When we got back, I gave Ruby a VERY THOROUGH SCRUBBING. She was super grungy, and I wanted to take advantage of the warm, windy day to quickly dry her. She was a bit grumpy about the face washing, but the end result was definitely worth all the elbow grease and soaked clothes (I cannot bathe a horse without also bathing myself -- no idea how people do it and stay dry, lol).
 
 
So clean!
Pretty even in winter woolies.
While I was letting her dry, there were other lessons going on, and we jumped back in on another hand walk down the road (I certainly got my steps in, haha).
 
Could this kid be any happier? Gosh.
My next goal was to get Cinna ridden, but I was a bit stymied by the fact that I didn't have a ground person -- Cinna is improving rapidly in terms of trustworthiness, but I am still not comfortable riding her when no one is home. I was going to text a friend when I got on and then tell them to send help if they didn't hear from me in an hour, but I ended up kidnapping the barn rat pictured above (who I adore, and is the only kid I can tolerate for more than about 5 minutes lol) to come ride with me! She climbed on Trigger while I tacked up Cinna -- in my new alta escuela saddle!
 
 
I had to get on and off about five times to adjust the stirrups (since I rode Ruby without them and had no idea how long I needed to make them, haha), and then of course we had several people stop by (new neighbors that I had to talk to, and then a FedEx delivery) -- but I finally got to settle down and focus on working Cinna. She was AMPED and I was extra glad for a 911 dialer, just in case. At one point she got frustrated (walking is hard for energetic baby horses) and bolted across the arena, and I couldn't stop her even with her nose on her shoulder. Not my favorite feeling! But once we worked through some of that nervous energy, she was really good.
Let's ignore how badly the teal helmet, green shirt, and pink gloves clash.... haha. I had been wearing a pink vest in the morning, but it got hot!
Post ride -- she told me I should take a picture so I could "remember this moment forever"
I really should have given Cinna a good scrubbing also, but I was getting pretty tired by this point, and the idea of waiting for her to dry made me veto this idea. I felt better about skipping it when the first thing she did after I turned her back out was to find the biggest patch of dirt she could and coat herself in it, haha. We headed back to the barn to help out with evening chores, and when we got back the indoor arena lights were all finished! So of course we had to celebrate by dragging Ruby back out and riding under them, even though it wasn't actually that dark yet. We capped off the day with a quick run through the local farm store to see if there were any to-die-for Black Friday deals (spoiler alert, there weren't), and then I finally crashed on my couch at 7 pm (13 hours and 30K steps later, haha).
The FedEx delivery was for a new sheet, since I went through several from RW that did not even come close to fitting, which made me mad, cause they were teal plaid and PERFECT minus the fact that they literally wouldn't fit any normal shaped horse on the planet.
 
 
In full dark!
 
 
I was going to write about the rest of my weekend, but this post is already insanely long, so I guess the rest can wait for part two!

24 comments:

  1. busy busy!! love the new lights in the grooming area! the lights inside (inside!! c'mon folks!) charlie's barn are super dim and only on one side of the aisle so i really can't even see half of him while grooming. dim light is the worst lol

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    1. That's the pits -- especially when bright bulbs are NOT that expensive! Maybe you need a headlamp for your grooming kit? Haha

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  2. Dang, you productive! I had similar intentions (minus the baths, because it's still too cold for that even when it's warm here) and got about a 75th of it done....

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    1. I felt pretty good about most of my to do list getting accomplished. It's not like Cinna is going anywhere any time soon that requires she be clean, haha.

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  3. Sorry about the car accident! At least your car is still drivable. Sounds like you got some great pony time in :)

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    1. Copious amounts of pony time definitely helped put the car thing in perspective ☺️

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  4. Glad you were OK - that car accident sounds like it could have been so much worse.

    Glad you were also able to put in a lot of pony time :)

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    1. I have seen so many horrific wrecks on that bridge and all I could think about was becoming one of them -- it was terrifying.

      But yes, the pony time was much needed and I'm so glad the weather was so cooperative!

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  5. What a great weekend (except for the car!). What did you think of the new saddle?

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    1. I really like it, it's fun to ride in! I struggle to get it girthed up tight enough (I'm so used to long billets!) and I still really want a sheepskin cover.... I can't wait to trying out on the trails!

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  6. Sounds like a great couple of days (car accident excluded obviously)! Hold on to that loaner kid as long as you can! Mine have all grown up and moved away. Now I have to pay them! The worst.
    Jamp ran away with me like that once when I first got him. I only managed to stop him when he realized he was running toward what he was afraid of. Back then he was a ridiculously strong stallion. Fortunately now he's old and only runs about 20 feet when he takes off. (Yeah he still does it. Some never learn.)

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    1. Haha I will definitely hold onto her! I probably have a good 10 years before she heads off to college 😆

      It was disconcerting -- my arena isn't huge so she couldn't GO anywhere, but I was concerned we might crash into barn rat riding husband's horse, which I desperately wanted to avoid! Hopefully this was a one time deal. Would hate to repeat it 🙈

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    2. When Jamp did it, I was afraid he'd jump out. My fence back then was 5' high, but he was a 1.5M grand prix horse in his last life! Thankfully he's also really lazy so he stayed in the ring.

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    3. We'll just add that to the long list of reasons why I don't jump anymore 😂 that would be so terrifying!

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  7. Replies
    1. I used up my entire quota of productivity Friday and was much lazier the rest of the weekend haha

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  8. What an incredible sounding weekend! I love the "remember forever" photo - too cute.

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    1. My heart melted in a puddle when she said that. She's the kid who could make me like kids, if they were all that awesome 😉

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  9. My blood boiled just reading about that driver. How awful!

    This entry is full of great photos. The one with the barn all lit up at night and the first sunrise one are my favorites. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Yeah I still get mad every time I see the dent on my hood, haha. Oh well. That's life?

      I'm glad you enjoyed the photos! Nor nearly as consistently gorgeous as yours, but I work with what I got 😂

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  10. Replies
    1. I must have taken 30 pictures trying to capture it! And even this one (run through an Instagram filter) still doesn't quite match it! 😍

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  11. You have the most beautiful scenery! Wow

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