A mish-mash of odds and ends

I thought I would post an update with bullets today, since I don't really have enough stuff to write a whole post with lately...

• We had an earthquake here last week! An earthquake!  5.0 on the Richter scale, which makes it a baby earthquake, but it was still a little scary. No damage around the city though.
• We finally finished redecorating our spare room - took us forever to get it finished.  Next up is tidying up the garden and lawn.
• Rusty is totally settled in at the new barn without any problems. I was a bit worried about how I would deal with things, since I was a bit spoiled at my old barn having a vet to consult on everything. So far, so good. Rusty is trimmed, vaccinated and had his teeth floated. His eyes have been fine so far (touch wood)...
• Rusty has been good about doing a few pony rides for my friends and their kids. He is a champ with a kid in the saddle and is just happy to plod around on a lead/longe line.  My friend even rode him on her own a bit last night and he was good. 
• I have been having fun riding with some of the other girls at the barn - what a novel concept - having someone else to ride with!  Rusty is also fine out on his own - except he gets a little nervous when we go through one field that has a lot of deer lurking in the long grass. Luckily his spooks are very tiny.  :-)
• I'm a bit obsessed with British hunter/foxhunting tack lately - I occassionaly buy a British horse magazine and they had a big spread about appropriate tack and attire for showing hunter - a bit different from here - I'll do a post on it when I have a bit more info.
• Imagine my surprise when I was at my local tack shop yesterday buying fly spray and I found a very old English hunter style bridle on consignment for $20! A-ha! I bought it.  Impulse buy? Totally.  I'm going to clean it up and hang it up at home or something. I might have Rusty model it for fun, but I doubt I will actually use it.  (So much for my record of going into tack shops and not buying anything! That lasted about 1 week. lol)
• I've also been looking for a wooden tack trunk for ages. I didn't really want to order one online because they are pretty expensive and the shipping would be outrageous. I also don't really know anyone that could build one.  On a whim last Friday, I checked our local horse message forum and found a tack trunk for sale.  A couple of emails later, it was dropped off at my house, since the girl that owned it was moving to a new house about 10 minutes from me... Nice coincidence!

Hopefully I will get around to a post with pictures soon - I have to find a case or something for my camera/cell phone for when I'm riding. Still haven't found anything that I like...

Enjoying the summer so far...

Things have been quiet around here of late.  My Mom was in town visiting for a few days, then we took her and my mother-in-law to New York City for a few days. It is about a 7hr drive from here to a town in upstate NY and then a short 1.5 hour train ride right into Grand Central station.  For a girl that grew up in the country and loves the countryside, I sure love New York City - not sure exactly why, but I've been there three times in the past 13 months!

Grand Central Station

I had a great ride on Rusty on Tuesday - I had the day off for my farrier visit and took advantage of that day to go for a nice 1.5 hour hack!  We saw a couple of deer even!  Rusty was a bit nervous when he heard the deer rustling in the long grass, but he didn't do much, except trying to turn for home once.  I just turned him back and we kept going.   I have been having some nice long canters along the big hay field as well - it sure feels great!  I think riding at this place has done alot for my confidence - I did alot of trail riding as a kid and that level of comfort is coming back. It helps that Rusty has proven to be a super trail horse. He is very reliable and not spooky at all.

I had a minor little surgery on my leg (vetwrap is awesome for securing bandages on human legs as well as animal ones!  And much cheaper than stuff in the drugstore!) on Thursday and can't ride for a few days, so when I was at the barn yesterday, I had to think up something else to do...

I decided to just take Rusty in the round pen and free lunge him for a bit. We both got bored of that pretty quickly, so I took advantage of a yellow pool noodle that was hanging around for a bit of training with him.  Now, I realize the chance of us running into a pool noodle out on the trail is pretty slim, but it amused me and that is all I had, so I just went with it.

He tolerated it fairly well and only was a bit nervous when I was putting it around his feet. He is sensitive to stuff around his feet and that is something I need to work on a bit more.  He took off at a trot when I was flipping the noodle around in the air - who needs a lunge whip when you have a pool noodle?  :-)

After 30 minutes or so, he was a bit annoyed with the whole process.  I was a bit bored too, so we took one last picture and then I let him graze on the lawn for awhile - that was the best part of the afternoon for him, I'm sure!

Must you take more pictures of me? Ugh.

Silent Sunday

Our first three rides at the new place!

Yes, you read that right - I've gone on three big rides since I moved Rusty last Friday.  I think I have put in more hours in the saddle this past week, than I did in most of the month of May at the other place!

Rusty seems to have settled in like a champ.  He doesn't appear to be stressed or anything. Although, he was pretty happy to see me on Monday evening. I got to the barn around 5pm and it was hot and the bugs were vicious...(The deer flies and horse flies are vicious right now - the mozzies will be out in full force now since we've had a bunch of rain.) He and the other 2 geldings had been running around to avoid the bugs and they were all sweaty and wild-eyed. 

Rusty was fine once we were in the barn and away from the bugs.  I had arranged to go out on a nice hack with the barn owner's daughter and a neighbour down the road. All told, we were out riding around for over 2 hours!  I don't think we trotted once, but it was fun walking all over the property and down the road and back.  We visited the neighbouring barn (fancy dressage place), walked an old laneway with a creepy old house (will try and get pics sometime) and even saw a deer hiding out along the trail.

I feel so welcome at this barn - the people are friendly, the property is gorgeous and it really seems to suit my needs right now.  It is also pretty quiet there - there aren't many lessons, if any, going on and people just come and go as they please. 

I sort of had Rusty on a "probation" of sorts...I had been pretty frustrated with a mix of my riding skills and his behaviour while at the old barn.  I had a really bad ride out around the fields at the old barn and was really second-guessing my move to a trail riding facility.  I told myself that I would give Rusty the summer to settle in and see how he did on the trails and I would sell him if needed in the fall.

So far, I think we are good. He has been going out where ever I point his little spotted nose and just trucks along. No spooking, no jigging, no bolting.  *Phew!*  I rode alone on Wednesday night and he was super - we did a few long trots along some of the trails and he just trucked along - no speeding up, no giraffe impressions...  Our ride was cut short due a bunch of black clouds and some thunder. I didn't really want to get caught out in a storm...This weekend, I hope to get a few canters in to see how that goes. I'm not expecting any problems.

All told, I'm pretty happy! Sorry I don't have any pictures yet - Richard took one on Sunday, but I look terrible, so I'm not posting it!  I need to find some sort of holder for my iphone so I can take it out with me while I ride. Any ideas?  I don't really want it strapped to my saddle, in case I fall. It won't do me much good on the horse!