Mind Over Matter

Over the course of building a business, I have been through many phases of what time means to me, and what busy means to me. When first starting out and transitioning over from a full time job and some small time trimming, I had no time whatsoever, but I only had one horse. Eventually I had two horses, then three, then two again, and then one again, and back to two, and so on. I went from a full time job and small time trimming to a part time job and part time trimming, which inevitably opened up a large portion of free time. When I was not actively working on business building, I had tons of down time to ride and play and do whatever I wanted. I was broke then, but I did all right, and I knew I should enjoy all the time I had, because one day I would have the money instead of the time. The business grew over time, and my free time started to dwindle. I started to have to redefine what "available time and energy for pleasure horse pursuits" started to be. It used to be I would need a full day off to get some real horseytime in. Working days tired me out, and I didn't ride or work horses on those days for the most part. Then my time REALLY started to dwindle, and I realized that if I was going to have horseytime at all, I was going to have to just get over my tiredness at the end of the day and just do it. That was extremely hard for me at first, but I really put my mind to it, and now I get it done. It's not uncommon for me to go out and do 15+ horses, and then ride or lunge a few when I get home. My biggest limitations are daylight and drive time - if I have to drive all over the Metroplex, to get my quota of horses done, it takes significantly longer than if I get them all done in just one or two stops. Every day is different, which is one of the great appeals of my job. I get to see different people every day, take different routes, and have fresh things to work on and see. But I do have to spend some time planning ahead, so that I know for sure when I have time to work whoever needs to be worked. 

The babies take hardly any time at all, although they always take mental energy. The Zoodle Himself is doing extremely well, and continues to be incredibly friendly and kind. He loves people, loves scratches, and will always come over for a snuggle. I've ponied him twice off Pmare, and he continues to get even better at it - he tends to resist for a moment when we start something, then his second answer is generally always "yes" and he proceeds without issue. 

Get a pedicure lady

Dylan is the one who gets the most work, 4 days of riding a week if I can squash it in. This would not be ideal or workable if he was an event horse or a horse who needed a higher level of fitness, but for the time being it's completely achievable in my schedule. It requires me trailering out to ride, which is a rather timely affair. I also have the trouble of not being sure when I will have access to the arena lights at WD, as I tried to use them the other night and they didn't go on. Not good! I need those, and will really need them as the winter approaches. 

I think as I continue to get into more detailed things with Dylan, I'll start fleshing that out better in blogposts. I used to write so much in detail about the rides I would have with Gogo, and have done so much less of that now that I have a bunch of babies who are doing extremely rudimentary and simple things. There is only so much description you can go into when you say, "Groomed the baby. Picked her feet! She was good." But riding an upper level horse when there is SO much in the way of complicated and subtle communication going on... that deserves more fleshing out. 

I bit the bullet this week and rejoined all of the major organizations that I will need for showing - USEF, USDF, and IALHA. The 2017 season in our area starts in the fall, and we go through basically the entire year with shows on the calendar, although the majority of these are jammed up into the spring months when our weather is the best. It's a bit of a circus, trying to get all the paperwork together for this - these organizations all require notarized copies of our lease, which meant K had to go print them off, mail them to me, then I have to go get them notarized, and then send them in with fees paid. Dylan is thankfully lifetime registered with all organizations, so that's taken care of. As for working equitation, I'm a member of WE United and WEIAUSA, and intend to show, but probably my biggest goal is trying to get my silver medal with the USDF. I'll clinic this fall and possibly do some WE schooling shows - and next year, if all goes well, I have my eyes on much bigger prizes, like Pin Oak, Haras, and maybe even the Andalusian World Cup in Las Vegas, as well as the possibility of IALHA Nationals. There is a LOT between now and then, but the possibility of these looming in the imminent foreground is tremendous motivation to get my butt up and go ride, whenever I have the spare time.

Half pass left

Ugh he's so perfect I just love him so much

This doesn't mean I can't take a little down time to have some fun through. On Monday, I did something very different - I rode Dylan bareback and bridleless. I left a halter and lead rope on him, just to be safe in case we coudn't stop, but mostly I rode him in his neckrope. He steers beautifully, although stopping was not quite so easy. How many stallions do you know that somebody can just jump on them bareback and bridless and just go for a spin? He's a special dude, that's for sure. 

Ummm excuse me you're not paying enough attention to me

On the same day that I rode Dylan bareback, I also worked both Sriracha and Lendri. Lendri has basically been off for two months in the summer heat, and has had one lunge this past weekend. I long lined her on Monday, and then this happened...

She's hitched!

She wasn't fully hitched in this picture. The breeching is not on yet. But she is hooked via the traces and pulled the weight of the cart by herself. I approached this way differently than I did with O, who I first dragged a tire with, then put her in drag shafts, and then hooked her to Janky The Training Cart. With Lendri, her intelligence and reactions made me approach this differently. I think I'll approach it differently for every one that I break to drive. I certainly didn't just stick it on her and go - not at all. There was a lot of careful introduction, of leading her and rolling the cart next to her, and behind her, of placing her between the shafts to feel them, of pulling the cart along behind her with her in the shafts but not hooked. She did so well that by the end of everything, I had her pulling the cart by herself with full weight in the breastcollar, although not with breeching as I think that needs more desensitization - she might speed up and get fast when she feels it for the first time. As you can tell by her expression, she was not terribly bothered by the entire ordeal. 

9 months ago, she was at the kill pen and so wild that I almost couldn't wrangle her onto my trailer. I can't believe how far she has come!!

Speaking of wild, Sriracha was not terribly good this week, but here she is lunging with harness and bridle: 

We need much work with acclimating her to the bridle. It took her two seconds to figure out how to flip her tongue over it, which then pinched her tongue and made it bleed. That's not exactly the best way to teach a mule that the bit is not a bad thing. This snaffle is an eggbutt with a double jointed copper alloy mouthpiece, so it's about the nicest thing I could put in there, but I may need to look for something else. 

Despite all that, she sure is fancy isn't she? 

Oh the weather outside is frightful.... and sucky... and cold... and snowy.....

.... yet somehow I managed to man up and go for a ride both today and yesterday. Take that, winter!

O was supposed to do a 10 mile conditioning ride yesterday, but when I arrived at the barn my truck said it was 24 degrees. The wind was howling at a sustained 25-30mph, and the windchill reading was hovering around 10 degrees. At first, I thought, "no way am I getting on." As I was feeding, I realized exactly how sassy the girls were being in the cold weather. They were also being sassy about their hay... they are getting increasingly spoiled about it. When both of them got here, they were quick to hoover up every stem of the delicious tim/orchard/alf mix that I feed - both of them were transitioning from crappy coastal, and Tre especially was only being fed meals, so EVERYTHING in sight got inhaled. As they realized their hay was going to be in front of them 24/7, and that they never had to fret about being without, they started to get increasingly haughty about it. "Oh, this stuff? You put this stuff out this MORNING. Don't you know it's 5pm already? It's been sitting out in the air all day. It's NO GOOD ANYMORE. We won't touch it." Yesterday, they apparently decided that the stuff that S had filled their bags up with that morning was NO GOOD (it's the same hay  as always guys....), and stood around in their shed all day moping about it. O ate fresh hay when offered, and her grainfoods as well, but then stood glaring at me when presented with the several-hours-old hay (again, from the same bale at the fresh stuff I had just given her).

I took it as a reason to get my butt in the saddle. You want to be a hay snob? Fine. We're going for a workout. I will MAKE YOU HUNGRY.

I canned the idea of the conditioning ride (what am I, a polar bear? Screw that) and decided that this day would be our glorious return to dressage. Mind you, I haven't had a dressage saddle on this mare since, oh I dunno... October. I haven't ridden the mare in a bit in that amount of time either. And it was about 10 degrees out with howling winds and grey skies. Surely this won't be a bad idea...

I knew it was going to be exciting when I pulled her blankets and she was already shivering. I tried to put her pads on and quarter sheet, but they all blew off of her before I could walk back over with the saddle. Twice. She was pretty cold by the time I got on, and I couldn't feel my hands.

Understandably, she was terrible for the first 30 or so minutes of the ride.

But, once the bolting stopped, once she had quit running herself into the fence out of control, once she had stopped flinging herself around like a maniac, she settled. She was lighter in the contact than I would have liked, but she took one (mostly). She started listening and started paying attention to transitions. We even did a few turns on the haunches (more or less), and a few head-to-wall leg yields. I hadn't actually ever schooled these before with her, I just started maneuvering her around and realized that she was getting the idea. We ended with some quiet walk-trot stretchy work and some obedient halts, and I called it good with that.

My general plan for the New Year had been to do canter boot camp on the lunge in the Faux-ssoa in January, get back on and do simple walk-trot dressage work (maybe with some canter) in February, and begin more serious canterwork in March, but my guess it that her progress won't be that linear. I'm glad I spent January doing canter boot camp, but truthfully it probably didn't do as much for her as I was hoping. When it comes down to it - and I KNOW this - if you want to progress in dressage, you have to get on and do dressage. Same thing if you want to progress in jumping, you have to jump. If you want to progress in endurance, you have to put the miles in. There aren't any shortcuts or things you can do in the end that are going to be anywhere near as effective as actual saddle time. O likes to carry a slight counterbend to the right (like Gogo did, and like a lot of horses do), and in order to fix that, I have to get on and gymnasticize her. O likes to rush through her half-halts, and in order to fix that, I have to get on and work to rebalance her. In order to improve your under-saddle issues, you have to put in the time and just DO it.

It was freezing and miserable out, but I feel a renewed sense of drive in me to continue on. Now that I have been reminded about what kind of hard work it really takes to get where I want to be, I have no excuses, not even the weather. If I want it done, if I want to get where I want to get, I have to get on and get to it.

Slight counterbend. Only one way to fix that!

That drive to get on no matter what *almost* continued through to today. I had every intention of getting on for another dressage ride - I really WANTED to get on! Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, and snow was blowing and falling hard all morning. Yes, you heard me.... snow.

Ponies down the road.... fluffed up and wearing their nice frosted coats. 

Luckily, the snow stayed away from the barn for the most part, but I couldn't get around the fact that the wind chill was hovering somewhere between -4 and -2 degrees, with actual temps in the low teens. I had been outside working all morning, and was absolutely frozen when I got to the barn. Poor O had two heavyweight blankets on (yes, two!!) and was STILL shivering underneath them. It was just cruel to take her blankets off and make her get even colder (and subsequently tighter and hotter) all for the sake of a ride. I added a third heavy blanket and went looking for my neck rugs - of course when I found them, I rediscovered that Gogo had more or less destroyed both of them (I had long since forgotten about them both). Poor mare! But, with tons of hay, a shed, three heavies and a friend to snuggle with, I think she'll survive.

I did manage to hop on for a little 'bareback' toodle around for about 15 minutes - we were both freezing, so we needed to get out blood pumping! I tied her lead rope onto her halter, jumped on top of all three blankets, and off we went. We patterned on the barrels for a bit and called it quits after we had moved enough to both stop shivering. She really likes the barrels in the way she really like endurance (and jumping as well) - the idea is REALLY simple and doesn't take a ton of mental finesse and focus on her part. You go fast, and you turn, and that's about the extent of it. I think once she has a better understanding of dressage, she'll get into it in the same way, but it is much harder for her to deal with mentally because there is a lot going on, and none of it has anything to do with going fast.

Getting a nice long drink after she was done. A REALLY long, long drink! It's so cold that the ice freezes up quickly - the horses have to keep their troughs unfrozen by going back to them often. Mine understand the concept, but I worry about them. We have no tank heaters - there's not a reason to have them usually - not to mention the fact that the tanks all have fish and we don't want to fry them. Therefore, breaking ice it is.

Hopefully it will warm up this weekend....

Uhh, brrr.

Hooray, Icemageddon 2013 is finally mostly over! My yard and driveway are still covered in several inches of ice, but all of the roads are clear, and it was in the 40's today. Hopefully it will continue to melt over the next week or so.

It hasn't been very much fun being trapped like rats in our own homes for the past 5 days though. This is what we've been doing to entertain ourselves. I know, I know, that outfit.... at this point I have a PhD in layering, even though it makes me look a bit like a hobo Eskimo. Can't say we're not innovative about finding ways to have fun in the dismal weather though!

Thank GOD, we finally managed to get by Tuesday. The city of Fort Worth finally decided on Tuesday they they should probably do something about the several inches of ice still on the roads, and were laying down salt on the bridges and blocking traffic for HOURS. Yes, it really did take them five days to figure out that maybe they should try to make the roads passable, since the sun was not coming out and the ice was not magically just going away. I lived in the Great White North for 25 years and I've never seen anything like this. It was absolutely insane.

Tuesday morning, I had had quite enough of staring blankly at the walls of my own home (seriously, what do homebodies do all the time? I need to be outside, I can't live in a building forever!), and made it to the barn before I had to leave for all of my make-up appointments (seriously, being iced in will RUIN your tight schedule). It was absolutely bitter cold, even by northern standards - my truck said it was 16 degrees. My trailer tack room door was frozen shut, so I had no way to get to my tack, but I still wanted to ride. I hadn't been on O in over a week, given 1) the dog attack, 2) the truck mishap, and 3) Icemageddon. It was 16 degrees and the horses were all spinning around like tops. Hmm, what to do?

S and I were tired of sitting sidelined, and we decided to go anyway. We hopped on our horses with their blankets still on, S's horse in a simple snaffle and O in a sidepull/halter. Lucky for us, both of us have exceptionally chill and awesome horses, and jumping on with just their blankets on and halters when it was only 16 degrees out and neither of them had been worked in a week was no big thing.

Omigoodness, when it warms up, MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT FUZZHAWK. 

I tell you what though, six months ago I could DEFINITELY not have ridden this horse on a 16 degree day at all, much less on a 16 degree day with no saddle or bridle, after a week of no work, through a huge wide open field, right up to a big herd of cows. She's such a cool cucumber now that I can do just about anything I can dream up. 

She is just. Too. Cool.