Random ramblings

I always think that I don’t have much to write about these days, since I’m not doing much horse stuff...Once I sit down and start typing though, lots of random stuff comes out!  Maybe I’ll try and do a “random ramblings” kind of post every week or something... 

His move looked like this! Luckily I was far away... 

Spencer hasn’t really travelled too far in his paddock with all of the deep snow we have had. He has a few trails packed down around the barn and to his shelter. I figured he wasn’t comfortable walking around in the snow much because it is all hard now and while I can walk on the top of it, he sinks down every other step. 

 I went out to feed on Monday and when I went out back door to see how he was doing, he gave me this wild eyed look and took off galloping around his pasture!   I guess the snow wasn’t too deep/hard/crunchy for him after all!  At one point, he even jumped the manure pile and then did some sort of Spanish riding school moves.  He jumped straight up in the air and then kicked out with his back feet.  I wish I had my camera with me!   It took him 10 or 15 minutes to calm down and he came back to the barn all sweaty and with his head down.   What a guy. I had to walk him for a while to cool him out before I could feed him.

While I was searching for images similar to the move Spencer “performed”, I found this cool post about in-hand dressage with a miniature horse:  http://equineink.com/2008/06/18/good-dressage-comes-in-a-small-package/

His name is Lancelot and he is so handsome!  He has some videos on YouTube and his owner has a book about training minis...

Since I can’t do much outdoors with Spencer right now, I thought I would practice clipping him.  I saw the previous owner clip him and he was fine, but to be honest, I was expecting a bit of attitude when I tried it.  I got out the clippers and he didn’t even flinch.  I was expecting to have to do a few sessions of desensitizing him and calming myself, but I had his bridle path trimmed in about 5 minutes and he would have let me trim his muzzle too, but I didn’t bother.   So, I’ll need to think of something else to work on.  Maybe I should try pulling his mane and practice braiding or something...???

Oh – I just remembered something horsey that I did a couple of weeks ago. I went with a friend to visit her young horse that is in training.  This barn is into cutting and sorting, so we went to watch an afternoon lesson. The trainer then took my friend’s young horse into the arena afterwards, to get him used to the cows.  It looked really fun actually...it would be neat to try that sometime. Maybe one winter I’ll board for a couple of months and do something like that with Spencer!

moooo

The young paint isn't too sure he likes the cows...

Ok - enough rambling for today. More to come next week. I like my rambling posts!  

Managing winter

This is my first winter with my own little barn and my own little horse to take care of (since I was a kid!).  So far, I think we have been doing just fine.  I was unsure how things would go when the snow, cold and ice hit us.

Trying to work a bit in the fluffy snow over the holidays

Tack room –  A+.  It is insulated and faces south/south-east, so it stays quite warm, especially on a sunny day.  Even when it was -25C (-13F) over the holidays, the temperature would range between 0C and -2C (32F and 28F).  My water hydrant is in the tack room, which was a smart move on the original owner’s part.  It has yet to freeze on me, but it does have a little heating coil wrapped around the exposed part, if I need it.

Fencing –   The bottom strand is buried in snow, so I’ll need to disable the connector to that strand.  Note to self for this weekend!  The north-west corner strands in my small paddock are sagging on me as well.  When we got our first big snowfall, I was able to knock the snow off and tighten up the strands, but it didn’t hold up.  I’m going to tromp out there this weekend and see what I can do. 

Spencer -  In mid December, as the weather was getting nastier, I wasn’t sure what to do with Spencer. He has a shelter, but wasn’t really using it.  He would stand in different places in his paddock, depending on which way the wind was blowing. It was getting tricky to put his hay out, because I would put it where he was standing in the morning, but the weather would change by the afternoon, so he wasn’t eating much because he didn’t want to stand in the wind (wimp!). 

Spoiled!!

Of course I felt guilty about this so I figured out another solution (spoiled horse alert!!) – I was able to open the back door of the barn and tie his stall door open so that he has good shelter for the cold, windy days. With this new arrangement, I wasn’t going to blanket him, since he had grown a really nice winter coat.  My friend that was taking care of him over Christmas felt bad because it was -234234234C and blanketed him anyway.  After wearing a blanket for a week or so, his fluffy coat was all squished down.  I pretty much had to keep the blanket on after that.

Manure Pile – The previous owners left a decent sized manure pile behind. I had intended to have someone come in with a tractor to remove it, but my budget last year didn’t allow it.  I didn’t plan on keeping Spencer in his stall much, if at all over the winter so it didn’t really cross my mind.  Of course, now that Monsieur Spencer has his own private horse hotel, complete with housekeeping staff, I’m adding the manure pile every day!  During the holidays, the snow was blowing and drifting a lot, so every couple of days the manure pile would get drifted over and covered with snow. It was tricky to push a wheelbarrow out far enough, so the manure pile is a little closer to the barn than I would like.  I can’t do much about it now, so I’ll just manage it until the spring.  Spencer also likes to paw at it (bored?) so it is a bit messier than I would like as well.

One thing I would like to change in the barn is the location of the light switches.  The switches are in the tack room, but getting there involves opening a gate in the pasture, which is hard in the dark and cold. My tack room outside door has also frozen shut several times so far this year, so getting in that way isn’t the best.  I go in via the main sliding doors and it would be nice to have light switches there as well.  I’m hoping to have an electrician out this summer to see if we can get that fixed.

All in all, we are faring quite well this winter. I sometimes daydream about taking him to a boarding stable for the winter so we could ride, but it is also nice to have time off to relax and try to stay warm!  The days are already getting a bit brighter by the time I get home from work, so by late Feb/early March we should be able to get started on some work!

I do find myself occasionally longing for the long, hot days of summer and a sleek horse!

Happy New Year!

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wasn't going to write a 2012 year in review post or post any goals for 2013.  I think most of you who read this know that Spencer and our new house were the highlights of 2012.  As for 2013, I'm going to let the chips fall where they may. I have some ideas of stuff I would like to do, but I'm just going to focus on building my relationship with Spencer and see where we end up.

I had a nice Christmas holiday with my family this year.  They live about a 7hr drive SW of where I do, so the weather at this time of year always makes the driving dicey.  We dodged two major storms this year, so I feel lucky.  We now have at least 20" of snow, if not more.  This snow all arrived in the past two weeks! Hopefully that is the last of it for a few days at least.

I don't really have much to report other than I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Here are a few pics of Spencer in the snow from the past few days.  Hopefully I'll be motivated to write more in the coming weeks.

Thanks, Boo to winter and some cute pics

I wanted to thank everyone for their great comments on my past few posts. It is really nice to read all of the supportive comments!  I had another great lesson with Amy this weekend, which I'll write about later, if I don't get completely buried in snow!

Our weather forecast is pretty much snow, snow, snow for this week!  :-S  I like snow - it is pretty, but it makes driving to work and travelling for Christmas a bit more of an adventure...  We are forecast to get almost 50cm (19") by the end of the week!!!! I hope the weather people are wrong!

Since I don't feel like writing anything big today, I thought I would post some cute pictures of Spencer from a month ago, when it was still green and slightly warm!

I like seeing him lying down to sleep!

I also like my telephoto lens that allows me to get close without disturbing him

Roxie was curious and thought she would investigate...

Spencer wasn't too pleased with having his nap interrupted by a cat!  He even tried to nip at her, which I missed. ..

Roxie gave him lots of room on her trip back to see what I was doing...

I am having fun getting some pictures of Spencer and the cats. It seems I'll be able to get some nice snow shots if the weather forecast is accurate...

Keeping it real – Part 4

Phew – this story is getting long! I’m trying to keep it brief, while documenting the process for myself to re-read later on if I get stuck.


The trainer – let’s call her Amy – was due back for a second lesson on a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago. On Saturday afternoon I decided to take Spencer for a short ride. I tacked him up, headed out to the ring and proceeded to walk around a bit. He was cranky and grumpy and quite tense. Of course, this made me a bit tense and annoyed. I tried to let go of the annoyed feeling, but was having a hard time. Old thoughts of “you can’t do this” were creeping in to my mind. After about 20 minutes of a crappy ride, I put Spencer back out in the field and sulked around the house for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning, I went out to catch Spencer to try and clean him up a bit before Amy arrived. Any guesses as to how that went? I couldn’t catch Spencer at all. He was pinning his ears at me and trotting away when I got close. He hadn’t tried that with me in the 2.5 months that I owned him so far. I was very glad that a trainer was on her way to my place!

Amy arrived and she worked with him out in the paddock. She moved him around the paddock to show leadership, the same as you would in the round pen. He finally settled down and responded to her cues and we caught him and brought him in the barn. We then headed out to the round pen and it was my turn to try and work with him. Amy was giving me tips as I worked. After a few minutes, I was feeling more confident and relaxing a bit. Spencer was responding to my body language and would get a bit confused if I mixed up a signal. Amy thought that the “join-up” exercise would go a long way in helping me realize I could do this and that Spencer wasn’t dangerous or out to get me.

She also somehow helped me cut through all of the old “ideas” (for lack of a better word) I had been holding on to about me ruining my horse, or not being good enough to do xyz. I also didn’t have to worry about all of the different training methods different people had been trying to teach me over the years, or methods that I had tried to use with varying levels of success. I don’t really know how to explain this - but it wasn’t anything she said - her way of handling Spencer was just so basic and focused on responding to his body language. There was no anger, no tension and no frustration in her methods.

We worked with him in the round pen and on the longe line for about an hour, stopping every 5 minutes for me to ask more questions. I really felt by the end of the hour that I could work with him safely and actually make some progress! I then tacked him up and rode for about 20 minutes. I had a really good ride and it was 100x better than our ride the day before! I was sad to see Amy go – I wanted her to move in, or for Spencer and me to pack up and move to her place, so we could work with her full time!

I feel like I made incredible progress in the week following my lesson. Monday night I repeated the round pen exercise and was very close to getting him to join-up. I was already more adept at the longeing work and wasn’t getting any attitude from him at all. The following Sunday I tried the round pen again and was actually able to get him to join-up with me. I was pretty happy with that. It was a big step for both of us.

Note: I know a lot of people feel differently about the concept of join-up and whether it works or whether it is completely silly. For me, it was a big deal, because just two weeks before, I was too nervous to go into a small enclosure with Spencer. Now, I felt I could at least work with him safely and be a better leader. I was hoping to start building some respect and this experience was the foundation for that.

This past week, I have been limited in my work with him, since it has snowed a bit and the footing isn’t great. It is also dark by about 4:30 now. (Oh how I would love an indoor arena to magically appear at my place!) I feel that shorter sessions are still good for us – even if it is only 15 minutes or so.

And that catches you up with the past few weeks. I really feel that I am in a good place and have a good foundation to move forward to work with my horse. I think we’ll do really well this spring and summer. I’m so glad that I didn’t give up on myself or him!

Keeping it real, Part 3

I don't mean to drag this story out, but it is too long to post all in one shot.  I only have one more part to go to wrap it up!

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I made an appointment to have this new trainer come out to my place. I was nervous and didn’t really know what to expect. It turns out she was friendly and easy to talk to. I gave her an overview of Spencer’s behaviour and my issues and we got down to work.


We rigged a round-pen (actually a square pen!) in one corner of my riding ring, using some electric rope and plastic fence posts with some ground poles underneath.

(Note: I wasn’t 100% sure that he would stay in this ring – he probably could’ve jumped the fence or crashed through it without much trouble. I do not recommend doing this at home without a trainer or an experienced friend to help you out if things get messy. Fortunately, Spencer was very good in this space.)

She then proceeded to use round pen work to see what Spencer was all about. She felt that some of his behaviour was just plain attitude: he is a bit dominant, as well as being a bit lazy and just didn’t want to be asked to do anything. She got a lot of attitude (bucking and kicking out at her) from him at first, which made me happy, in a strange way. Wanna know why?

Up until this point, I was taking his behaviour really personally. Like he was cow-kicking at me. Or being difficult with me and me only. When in reality, he was a bit frustrated and annoyed in general. Not taking things personally was a huge first step for me. I figured that if that realization was all that I got out of the lesson, then it was worth it.

After some basic round pen work, she did a bit of work getting Spencer to respond to her on the longe line – she called this technique “gypping”, a term that I wasn’t familiar with. It is sort of like longing, but the horse doesn’t trot in endless circles. She would use her body language to send him out on a circle to the right, then would switch and go back to the left. She also used this technique to get him moving his feet around.

She then did about 20 minutes of work ground driving/long lining him. As far as I know, he’d never done that before. He caught on really quickly. By the end of the almost 2 hour session, he was responding much better. He probably really appreciated the clear leadership he was getting from the trainer. I watched intently for the whole session and asked about 10,000 questions. She was really good about giving me straightforward answers. This first session/lesson was mostly about her working with him to get a starting point. I still wasn’t feeling 100% comfortable tackling some of the exercises on my own.

I was pretty happy with the outcome of the first session – it showed me not to take things personally and to let some of the frustration and anger go. That alone was well worth the time. I booked her to come back again in two weeks.

In the meantime, I was back on my own with Spencer. I wanted to try some of her techniques, but was just a little unsure on how to proceed. I was still a little nervous around him and wasn’t sure that I could get the same results as she did. My mind was flooded with all of the new things I was learning. It also seemed funny to have worked around horses for many years, but never had I had all of this information presented to me in this way.

To be continued...

Keeping it real, Part 2

So, part 1 of this little tale found me all nervous, anxious and uncomfortable all at the same time. I was questioning horse ownership and all of that nonsense. I was angry that I wasn’t a better horseperson; angry that I have confidence issues; and just angry at the whole situation in general, worried that I had bought the wrong horse YET again...etc. etc.

Every night for a couple of weeks, I would come home from work, toss Spencer some hay, give him a pat on the head and go back in the house and worry about these issues. I was driving myself crazy, so I decided to write out a list of some options and hope that a solution would present itself.

My thought process went something like this:

How could I give up on this face?

• Give up horses completely – why did we buy this farm, blah blah blah
• See if Spencer’s old owner would buy him back
• Try and sell Spencer
• Send him to a trainer
•  Move him to a boarding barn
• Become magically more confident
• Ignore things for the winter and deal with it in the spring
•  Get some lessons at home, but who/how with darkness, weather etc.

After lots of pondering, I realized that the majority of the issue was me – a lack of confidence, a lack of leadership and probably some handling issues (where I was trying to get him to go forward, but my body was saying stop etc.) I figured that I had a good chance of working things out if I could get a bit of guidance. I thought through all of the horse trainers/coaches that I knew of and just had a hunch that none of them would really be able to help me. They might be able to work with Spencer without any problems, but would they be able to teach me?

I should note that I’ve been really trying to get to the root of my confidence issues this fall, because I’m tired of saying that “I’m not confident about xyz”, or “xyz makes me nervous”. I have been reading three books that I was hoping would give me some insight:

1. Jane Savoie – It’s Not Just about the Ribbons
2. Mark Rashid – Horses Never Lie
3. Monty Roberts – The Man who talks to Horses (a re-read. I initially read this one a long time ago)

The Mark Rashid book really had me thinking about horse behaviour and leadership, while the Monty Roberts book reminded me about kindness and patience. I thought that some sort of natural horsemanship type person would be the best to help me, but I’m not typically a huge follower of that sort of stuff. I find some of it hokey and only angled to sell you more gear and training videos.

All of this thinking and planning and pondering gets tiring after awhile. I tend to worry about a problem for a few days, then try and forget about it for a few days. On a whim a few days later I decided that I would browse through our local horse classified site - which I hadn’t looked at in weeks - to see if I could find a cute companion for Spencer. (Not sure how adding a second horse would help my issues at this point, but it was a welcome distraction!). The first ad I saw was for a natural horsemanship trainer... The ad was brief and it said the person would travel to your farm to help you. I thought it was kind of strange that is what I thought I needed a few days before, but hadn’t known where to look.

I did a bit of research and this young girl seemed like the real deal. She had a legit web site and had been giving clinics for a couple of years. She had references and the thing that really caught my eye was that she was not a student of any one famous horse trainer. She had worked with several, but was developing her own style.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and set up a lesson with her at my place. I figured one lesson couldn’t hurt.

To be continued...

Keeping it real - Part 1

*Note: These events happened back in October and I started writing this post a few weeks ago... I have been tempted to just post cute horse and cat pictures and not talk about the not-so-good things that have been going on...

************************************

I haven’t been posting as much lately because I’ve been in a bit of slump. I find I really have a hard time when it gets dark so early – I have about 45 minutes of “daylight” left by the time I get home. Also, Spencer and I are having some minor issues. I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about it, but haven’t had much luck. Today I just decided to try typing it out and see what happens...

When I bought Spencer, the only negative thing the owner and coach had to say about him was that he sometimes had a bit of attitude with new people. They said that with new people he would get a bit bossy and sometimes do a little cow kick, but if you nipped it in the bud it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t really think anything of it, as he was really good for my rides and the following six weeks after I got him home.

Our first six weeks were great – he was easy to handle and I felt very comfortable riding him. He didn’t seem outwardly stressed about being turned out alone at all. After the six week mark, I noticed one day he was tense and a little difficult to handle. He cow-kicked a couple of times in the cross ties, but I gave him a little smack and he stopped. I continued on with my day/week and didn’t think much else of it.

A couple of weeks later, I was longing him instead of riding since it was really windy. After about 10 minutes on the longe line, he started cow-kicking and stopping to face me. He wasn’t acting dangerous or anything, you could just tell he was frustrated and didn’t want to work. I was able to get him going again, but then stopped the longe session because it just didn’t seem to be worth it to push him, as I was getting angry and frustrated with the whole situation.

I have kept in contact with his previous owner and emailed her once the behaviour started showing up. She was really helpful and said that it was just him being a bit dominant and grumpy and he would work through it. She explained that she was a bit nervous as well when she first bought Spencer and he really helped her become a confident leader. She told me that he had never been aggressive or dangerous in his behaviour. She mentioned that she thought he might have had ulcer issues in the past, but never had a vet confirm it. He wasn’t acting like a horse with ulcers to me and I had a chiro check him over, so I was fairly certain there weren’t any obvious pain issues.

At this point, I was able to see that there were several small problems brewing:

• Spencer was alone and to me seemed a tiny bit anxious all the time
• I was spending less time out at the barn since it was getting dark so early and I was nervous
• I was becoming more and more nervous of his behaviour and didn’t want to do something to make it worse
• Since I struggle with confidence issues, I was sure that I was a big part of the problem – I didn’t have the confidence to be a good or consistent leader, so Spencer was trying to take control

To be completely honest, there were a few weeks where I was really questioning horse ownership. I felt that I was ruining a good horse and that I didn’t deserve to have horses. I had this nice little property and would only be able to have a quiet old horse that wouldn’t be as much fun to ride, etc. etc. I even contemplated asking Spencer’s previous owner if they wanted him back. The only thing that stopped me was that I was sure that if I just had the right knowledge, I could turn things around, as I really like Spencer.

To be continued...

Naughty, naughty horse!

I've decided to try and make an effort to write more on this poor neglected blog. I was sitting at my desk pondering what I could write about, when I saw something interesting from my office window.

Exhibit A:

Can you see the problem?

I decided to keep an eye on the situation and a few hours later I was rewarded with more evidence:

Naughty!

 I yelled at him from the deck and he popped his head up to look over at me and then proceeded to go right back to trying to eat grass over the fence.

I wasn't doing anything...

Now, it is important to note that he had hay in not one, but two locations, one being inside his nice dry shelter. He chose to stand out in the rain and try to get grass (which is admittedly greener and more plentiful on the other side of the fence).  I am also aware that he is on the chubby side, so that is why I started restricting him to his smaller paddock.  He was not impressed.

Up until yesterday, my fence still wasn't fixed. I had asked my friend John to help out, but being an old farmer (his words, not mine!) he had forgot about the repair. I called him yesterday, begging for him to come over.  He made it out about an hour before we lost all daylight and made the repairs and he got the fence working.  I feel fairly confident that I could do repairs on my own now, after bugging John with lots of questions!

John working on repairing the cut wire...

After I'd asked my questions, I left John to finish his work. An amazing sunset was lighting up the sky, so I took a few pictures.

Spencer enjoying the last evening in the big field

We are getting some amazing sunsets this time of year...

I gave Spencer one last night and morning in the big field before shutting the gate until the ground freezes up. I may let him out there when the snow hits, just to give him more space to wander around.

I plugged the fence in this morning and did a few tests with my tester and it looked like the current was good and strong.  I was a bit surprised that the cats touched the fence a couple of times and didn't get a shock. I decided to just wait and see if Spencer would test it for me.

Sure enough, after a couple of hours, he decided to try for some grass. He bumped the top wire with his  chest and must've got a little jolt. He then stuck his muzzle right onto the top wire and got a really big zap!  He took off bucking and snorting. I cheered with delight, as that means that the fence is working well.

He spent the next couple of hours eyeing the fence suspiciously, but hasn't tested it again.  Success!!  :-)

Finally, a post!

Man, it has been over 6 weeks since I posted anything here.  Oops!  :-S  I always feel like I should write more but never get around to finishing any posts.  I'm going to try and get caught up on the past few weeks. Nothing exciting has happened, but why not document it for posterity?

I was able to fit in two riding lessons at my place in October. My old instructor came over to have a look at Spencer and put us through our paces. She just lives one road over from me now, so it is nice to have her close by. (She is also a vet...)  

After two lessons,  I have long list of things to work on:

• Keeping my lower leg steady (not too far forward or backward)
• Asking for him to move off my leg with pulsing pressure instead of a solid leg-on squeeze (we found this worked better with him)
• Keeping my hands steady (sometimes my hands are all over the place trying to steer)
• Keeping my head up and looking where I’m going. I have a tendency to look down and to the left
• Riding one handed – keep my shoulders straight

In addition to all of the above, she had me work on transitions and steering with lots of poles and cones. These exercises often frustrate me as we start working on them and then they click later on.

I even made a little graphic of the tricky one we worked on.  I was working on walk-canter transitions and after the first two or three upward transitions, Spencer was anticipating and was trying to canter all the time.  So, we would do one transition, then go around the pattern so he couldn't anticipate as much.  I worked on steering and speed control (maintaining the jog) as I weaved through the cones instead of cantering.  (see lovely drawing below!)  The poles are just there to define the riding area (my ring is 170+ feet long, so we just shortened it up a bit) and work on square corners at the walk and jog.

Nice graphic...lol

I was to enter the cones at the top right corner, weave down and back up, then continue on to the right.

The first time through the cones I went the wrong way at the end.  I was gently corrected and told to try it again. The second time through, I went the wrong way yet again.  After a few mumbled bad words, I smiled and reminded the instructor that I was really bad at geometry. The third time through I still went the wrong way!  I may have said a really bad word out loud...  My instructor chuckled and said that she often found that adult riders often have a hard time working on more complex patterns after spending the day at work. I was able to get it by the 4^th time through!  Lol  

I rode again a few days later and practiced the exercise again.  I was able to get it a bit easier the second time!  

I don’t have a ton of riding time left at my place, seeing as how my ring is grass and it has been raining a fair bit.  And it gets dark super early.  *sigh* Late fall and early winter here are tough to take sometimes!  I’m planning on continuing lessons with this instructor at her place over the winter. I think it will help me to keep that going. Spencer will get a nice holiday once the deep snow and crappy weather hit us full on.

A long rambling update, of sorts

I haven't been great about posting lately - you'd think with a new horse, I would be posting all kinds of stuff!   I guess I just have little tidbits of stuff that don't really amount to a whole post. So, today, since I'm up early on a Sunday morning, you guys will get the whole rambling mess!

Spencer is doing well - I had to mow (and rake!) 3/4 of his paddock with my lawn tractor, since I'm a bit concerned that he is gaining too much weight.  My vet friend came over last night and assured me his weight was ok.  His weight is on the high side of normal, so I do need to monitor that and not let it go any higher.  Oh the fun of an easy keeper!    I had also bought a grazing muzzle, but it looks like I won't have to use it after all.   I have also not been feeding him any grain, with the exception of a small amount of a vitamin/mineral supplement. I have used a grand total of two bales of hay in the past month!

 Mowing my pasture? That is just crazy!?!!

I never suspected I would be cursing the fact that I have too much pasture!  I guess I need a few more 4-legged bodies out there to help eat it all.  I'm considering donkeys and maybe next year I might consider adopting a standardbred or TB from adoption agencies here. We'll see how the budget looks.

I have been having fun taking pictures of my cats outside. They follow us around like dogs a lot of the time. They will even come for "walks" out back if we call them.  We do have to be careful that if we go for a walk on the road that they don't follow us. We usually have to round them up and put them in the house if we leave the property!

(The Hubby would also like it known that he does not like cats (or any other animals for that matter! lol)

The fence is not hot, in case you were wondering...

I have been working on a budget for the house - since we've moved our mortgage is a bit bigger, so it eats up more of my disposable income that I used to blow spend on tack and things.  Being on a budget is not much fun, but it gives me a good idea of what we are spending where and how we can make it work for us.  Mostly the budgeting exercise is a way to save up extra money to afford more horses - who am I kidding? lol

I've also started planning for doing a few club shows next year! Hopefully that happens, as it has been on my bucket list for a long time.  I definitely have a horse that can do those shows, I just need to get myself tuned up!  I also want to plan ahead for the cost, so that a lack of funds is not an obstacle.  The local shows are pretty cheap for the day, but I have to add in trailering and probably some tack purchases. I've been told by that I can probably borrow tack for next year, but I don't want to assume that will be the case.

I have also decided that I'm going to take lessons over the winter at the place I where I used to board Rusty. She is really close and has lots of different horses to ride.  I was going to just not ride over the winter, but I figured that if I want to try showing, I need to keep my riding going. Too bad it won't be on my horse, but I think riding different horses and keeping my legs in shape will be well worth it.

I told you this post was going to be long and rambling!

Tentative Steps Outside the Comfort Zone

I'm having a great weekend so far - we are getting stuff done around the house and barn, as well, I've worked with my horse a fair bit.

Last night I took a few minutes to try and get some nice photos of the new guy...  I then dragged out some poles and cones and did about 45 minutes of showmanship type stuff with Spencer.  Most of that was for my benefit - he is apparently a showmanship pro.  I'm ok on the the basics, but need to work on my turns...those are tricky for me for some reason.

This morning, the hubby and I cleaned and organized another section of the barn. He installed some brackets for shelves to store some lumber and my jump poles.  It is nice to have all of the spare lumber and tools organized so that there is more room for our stuff.

After all our work was done, the hubby went into the house for a break.  I decided that I would ride while I was still outside. I had a hunch that if I went inside and sat down, I wouldn't be as motivated to go back out!

I got Spencer ready and tacked up and headed out to the riding ring.  I couldn't find my mounting block anywhere! (I can get on from the ground, but it isn't a pretty sight right now.)  I looked all over the place for something to use to help me get on, but had no luck.

 I decided that the easiest thing would be to just go out and hand walk Spencer around the neigbourhood side streets. I have been meaning to do this for a week, but kept chickening out.

Today was as good of a day as any, I figured.  We headed out on to the road and within minutes, 2 cars passed us. I was nervous, but Spencer didn't care.  Phew! Good to have that over with!  I walked around the more quiet side streets for another 15 minutes or so and waved at some neighbours.  After walking for a while, I started hunting around for a way to get on my horse and ride!

I managed to find a big rock and used that to jump on. I was still a bit nervous, but decided I was close enough to home that I should be fine.  I rode Spencer back home!!!  I was so happy, that we were out there alone and doing ok!  We were even passed by 2 cars on the way back and Spencer didn't seem to care at all.  I was finally starting to relax as I got home. I think in a few more rides, I'll be fine out on the road with him.

He didn't seem to react to my nerves at all, which is what I was hoping for in a horse.  He was looking around a fair bit at the houses and people, but aside from some minor steering issues, he was really, really good.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of our adventure, so that will have to wait until next time.