Taking a Break

Due to some overwhelmingly complicated life stuff, I think blogging will be on indefinite hiatus -- I will try to still read everyone else's updates, but no promises on comments either!

Nothing wrong, the changes will be good (I hope!) but you know how historically bad I am with changes, so I need a minute to figure out my new normal. In the meantime, the horses are still great (and well-dressed, see above!) and things are still clipping along at a good rate. I will still be posting on social media, so head over there if you want to keep up while things are quiet here! :)

Dead Batteries

You guys I have another Pixio confession to make. This morning I set it up (I'm really getting in a groove and getting quicker with that!) and was excited for some good Ruby media. And then I realized I'd forgotten to charge the camera 😂 I'm legitimately the worst at this! But I did get 3.5 minutes of walking for our warmup, so you can have screenshots of that I guess 🤷 anyway....

My ME contest prize boots arrived last night! Cinna was interested, but clearly not as excited as me haha.

I've been slowly recovering from our hay extravaganza -- yesterday was Cinna's turn to work and I still wasn't feeling 100% so I opted to lunge instead of ride... And then halfway through I was kicking myself because she was being SO GOOD. No spooking, no bolting, no dolphining into canter transitions. She was rhythmic and methodical, keeping her mouth quiet and her attention focused on me.

So majestic, haha.

Cinna would like the record to reflect she could also be a bridle model -- especially when braided Otto is involved. 

When tacking up, I noticed a small wound on the inside of her left hind, but thankfully she was sound on it. There was some swelling so after a short lunge I cold hosed it and cleaned it up really well, and will be keeping an eye on it. She tends to bang herself up a bit and it seems like as soon as I get one cut healed up she's done something new. Horses! Thankfully she's never lame from these misadventures, I think she just likes the extra attention and fussing...haha.

Definitely an attention whore.

Ruby's ride this morning was similarly uneventful, working on simple concepts. I wanted to really focus on straightness down the long sides so I rode a lot of quarterlines to test myself without the rail doing half the work for me. The first few were wiggly but when I really focused on keeping her between the aids she was happy to march along. I dredged up a technique from a previous trainer imagining Ruby as a flowing creek and my job was to clearly set the boundaries (my legs and hands) in a straight line to direct the energy forward -- it's been more than a few years since that lesson (which was actually on Topaz, before Ruby was even under saddle, haha), so I may not be explaining it well, but it made sense in my head and worked for the ride, so I'll take it!

Accurate representation of how we usually warm up -- I'm on my phone setting up EquiLab and the music, while she's just motoring around getting loose.

The canter was a lot of fun today, I am a little sad the camera died so early in the ride. I was really focused on keeping my reins short (because no matter how short I think they are, the Pixio video tattles on me) and my hands forward. I know I'm a broken record, but the left lead canter was so fun I could have ridden it all day. She's getting the hang of letting me half halt more in the canter and not immediately thinking that means break to trot, but rather letting me adjust the tempo. The right lead was a little faster, and she wanted to zoom off a bit more, but it's getting better. 

Realizing I had forgotten to turn the Bluetooth speaker on and remedying that haha.

I'm so grateful for summer hours right now because we're back in a heat index through the weekend, but being on by 6 am means I can usually squeeze in a productive 40 minute ride before it gets up to the 80s.

Tack Model Tuesday

Y'all, I'm pretty sure my horse missed her calling as a bridle model..... Just sayin'

Featuring Ruby's new Red Barn Piaffe bridle that I annoyed Aimee into selling me (just like Otto, are you sensing a pattern? 😂). My horses are incredibly grateful for her good taste, and that she's willing to sell me pretty strap goods 😍 they're also probably grateful right now that I made myself so sick last night unloading hay in the heat and humidity that it's probably going to take me a few days to recover, so they get a mini summer vacay.

Totes worth it to have beautiful green hay stacked all the way to the rafters of my hay barn with 18' sidewalls 😍😍😍

Trail Ride: Three Creeks CA

I think I might have recovered some of my brain cells enough to write a coherent entry. We'll see! This weekend we finally got a break from the heat wave, and Saturday was GORGEOUS. Once chores and catching up on some things around the house were done, I dragged DH on a trail ride. I didn't want to drive super far, or deal with a ton of people, so I scrounged up a new place we'd never been to try. Since it was a new place and I wasn't sure what to expect, I opted to take Ruby.

I know, I know. Shorts and sneakers. What am I going to do with him?

We went to Three Creeks Conservation Area -- it wasn't overwhelmingly awesome, but I'd ride there again. It's open to pedestrians, bicyclists, and horseback riding, but the parking lot definitely isn't built with horses in mind. Although there was a really nice mounting block, bonus! When we got there, there were two other trailers, and a few cars. We actually ran into the other group riding as we headed out (they were just getting back). Because there wasn't a lot of room to park (and also I was worried some idiots would block us in), we ended up parking on the side of the gravel road (it dead-ended in the parking lot). That worked out okay, and we were tacked up and on the trail quickly. After running into the big group coming back as we were going out, the rest of our ride was pretty quiet -- a handful of pedestrians, and one other pair of riders (on really cute gaited horses!). Thank God no bicyclists 🙄

I got fun new color blocked Kerrits tights from TOTD and kind of love them. 

There wasn't a ton of shade, so I'm glad we had nice weather (80 with low humidity) -- I think it would have been miserable in the 90s! It probably also would have helped to get there earlier in the day, but ya know. There were some nice open fields to trot in (if you were so inclined, which we mostly weren't), some hills, and one particularly rocky section -- if it hadn't ended about 150 feet in, I would have turned around, because my horses are barefoot and huge rocky sections are not my favorite. The conservation area is called Three Creeks because it has....three creeks (shocking, right?). But we managed not to hit any of them on our ride, which unceremoniously ended at a sign that said "trail closed". There were a few other trail forks we could potentially have explored, but we were reaching the end of DH's patience, plus our hay guy had called and needed us for the afternoon, so we opted to head back.

The rocky section -- didn't photograph too well!

It was a quick, easy place to ride, and would probably be a decent first outing for a young or green horse. I think we'll probably go back, just because of how convenient it is, but it definitely won't be replacing Indian Camp Creek as my favorite trail! The rest of the evening was devoted to farm work, moving various tractors and pieces of equipment to and from hay fields. The tractor pulling the rake was having some mechanical issues, so we ended up not getting anything baled, but DH headed back out there yesterday afternoon for a few more hours of work and I met him to bring home 180 beautiful bales of hay 😍

I know it's not technically "his" tractor, but I still think it's pretty sexy!

I climbed up for a minute while we waited, haha. 

DH told me we need a third truck, so he can hook his boat up without unhooking anything else. Right *rolls eyes*

 Mmmm beautiful hay! Didn't lose a bale on the way home either haha.

 Too tired to unload at 9:30 when we got home so we just stashed it all.

Doing chores this morning was fun haha.

Tired Thursday

I have both words and media for you, but no brain cells to organize them. DH got called in to work overnight unexpectedly and I've been melting in this heat wave for most of the week and dealing with some work-related stressors. So you get this miscellaneous photo dump in lieu of a real post, but I figure since it's a holiday week things are slow in blogland anyway! 😉

Teeny sass.

My dogs definitely aren't spoiled or anything. 

My newsfeed is full of heat memes (although I think it should break for this weekend, thankfully!)

Had a super ride on Monday, and got the Pixio to cooperate for footage! 

Will I ever learn to sit up and stop staring at her neck? Probably not. 

Celebratory carbs and Chianti on Tuesday after Zumba (probably defeating the purpose of Zumba lol).

Went to the sandbar yesterday for the holiday. Most of it was underwater 🤷🙈

Ruby had some feeling about this morning's work.

Hopefully everyone survived the 4th with all their digits and sanity intact! 😎