Blog Hop: October 10 Questions

Yay, a return of the 10 questions posts! I'm a sucker for random knowledge about all you cool cats in the blogosphere, so hopefully you're just as interested in my random answers! ;) Thanks Liz for a fun bunch of autumn questions!

1. Most equestrians quote fall as their favorite season to ride. Are you one of those that does? Or maybe not; what is your favorite season to ride, if so?

Normally yes, fall is my favorite season to ride, but this fall has been a bit bizarre in MO – we’ve had lots of unseasonably warm temps and an astonishing amount of rain. Neither of which I am complaining about, it’s just made it kind of hard to get into the “fall” mindset! Although I think as of today I can safely say fall is here.

2. Do you clip your horse in the fall? Or maybe you wait a little longer?

I don’t typically do any clipping for winter – Ruby lives in an insulated barn and is regularly blanketed, and doesn’t grow too much of a winter coat. The guys at home get blanketed when its stupid cold or when its wet. Plus my riding schedule is never regular/intense enough to justify clipping, so mine stay hairy beasts all winter :)

3. Have any costume riding events in October on/near/around Halloween? What will your horse be dressed as? What about yourself? What would you dress as if money/time were absolutely no issue?

Yes! In the past I’ve participated in both a local rail show’s costume class (as a princess riding my unicorn). This year I’ll be attending a haunted hunter pace – I went last year and it was one of my favorite events of the whole year! I can’t wait to go again this year. We’re still hashing out costumes. But if money/time were no object, I would love to dress up Cinna in LOTR-type gear and get matching stuff for me – for any of my LOTR fans out there, the first time I re-read the books after getting into Andalusians, I realized that Tolkien must have had Spanish horses in mind when he wrote about the horses of Rohan. “Their horses were of great stature, strong and clean-limbed; their grey coats glistened, their long tails flowed in the wind, their manes were braided on their proud necks."

I will never not share these photos. God bless this horse.

4. Is your horse afraid of any autumn colors? Or maybe has a certain quirk that only appears in the autumn?

Haha not autumn colors, but Cinna can get squicky about the leaves crunching under her hooves on the trail the first few times we go out once the leaves have all fallen. Such a special princess.

5. Pumpkin spice. It’s everywhere right now. Find any natural pumpkin [squash] spice-esque recipes for your horse?

No, but that gives me idea for next year’s garden! Ruby will eat about anything you hand her, so maybe I need to locate something fun to try. Cinna is a bit more difficult, so I can imagine her turning up her nose.

Unimpressed with your pumpkin spice.

6. We’re getting to the end of the calendar year, and final few “big-bang” shows to look forward to?

Not really. It’s been a slow year show-wise for us (aka just the one little baby schooling show for Cinna in March). A lack of consistent riding means I have no interest in signing up for shows. Plus we have some big expenses coming up so I’m trying to cut back on anything non-essential.

7. Winter is coming. What are you doing to winterize your trailer/rig/car?

Just the usual – making sure regular maintenance is performed. I’d like to get the trailer in to the truck wash to get a good power wash out of the horse compartment, but we’ll see if that fits into the schedule. We also need to take the diesel back to the shop – something wonky is up with the batteries (they’re not terribly old, but the place we purchased them from won’t stand behind the warranty because they say the batteries test fine, even though they won’t start the truck about half the time?) so the truck needs to get looked at again and in all likelihood we’ll just end up replacing the damn things. Truck maintenance kinda sucks.

8. Do you have any autumn traditions you/your horse follow?

Rumchata hot chocolate at the tack auction on Friday nights? In past years I normally would be frantically tallying points to see where we were for year end awards, and squeezing in more shows wherever I could, but that’s just not on my radar this year.

9. October in many places marks the beginning of deer hunting season. Does this affect your riding at all? Do you wear blaze orange or modify your schedule to accommodate the season?

This is less important to me since the barn moved. At the prior facility, we had access to awesome trails, but it was limited during hunting season. The new facility doesn’t have trails. My trail at home is still fine to ride on because it’s bordered on one side by pasture and doesn’t get close enough to the other boundary to worry about hunters (although I do usually still make it a point to wear very bright colors if I’m on it during hunting season). I do have to pay a little attention to some of the trails we haul out to though, some of them are closed during deer season. It’s hard for me to remember the dates because we don’t hunt, so sometimes I get all excited and have stuff planned out only to realize we can’t go because of the dates. Boo.

Cinna trying on a sheet, since fall has arrived!

10. What are you most looking forward to goal-wise as the final months of the calendar year approach?

Hmm that’s a tough one. Probably just a fresh start for 2018. A lot of this year was spent in flux trying to find a new balance for the new “normal”. I still don’t feel like I’m there yet but some progress has been made. Maybe my new normal is that there will never be a normal again, and I just have to continue to adapt and work with the external forces I have.