"But when, in spite of weakness and disappointments, we set to work in earnest, and persevere steadily, we often find, that, though obliged continually to tack, we make more way than others who have the assistance of wind and tide; and, in truth, there can be no greater satisfaction than to keep pace with others or outstrip them in the race." -Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Goethe



as many of you know, in march 2007 i began riding for and with a new trainer, a former olympic showjumper who can no longer ride due to physical issues. i moved my horse to his property 7/07 and am now a working student 7 days a week. i've found myself talking about sale horses more and more, so i've been making more and more posts friends only. to make things easier on myself, i'm making this journal friends only. comment if you'd like to be added. :) i'm not making any changes to my existing FL, so if you're on it already, you'll stay. :)

I will make a detailed post about this the worst week in history once I have calmed down and can handle rehashing it. For now though I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you all. What a wonderful, supportive bunch you are! The comments, hugs, advice and loans have meant more to me than I could ever express. I know I could not have gotten through this without you guys, and not just because of the money. You guys gave me the courage to do what was right, and get myself and my horse out of that extremely toxic environment. I am heart broken, shell shocked and literaly feel like I'm suffering from some kind of PTSD. It is going to take a long, long time for me to get over this, move past it and be myself again, my REAL self. Times like these show you who your friends really are, and how loved you really are. You guys don't know how helpful and necesarry your support has been, especially alittledffrnt who came through for me in every way possible this week. My faith in humanity, slashed and burned by sam and his family, has been somewhat restored by you guys. *love*

I hear him say, "I love her like a daughter." I hear him say, "have I ever asked you to do something you couldn't do?" I him say, "heather and I would like to invite you to xmas dinner." I hear t say, "you are my role model and I mean that with all my heart." I hear her say, "we are sisters." I hear her say, "I hate him!" I can't bear this. I have to be strong. I have to do this. I have to do this. I will be there in 3 minutes. I have to do this. I can do this.

i'm really scared. i don't know what we're going to do. we don't have the rent money for next month, my mother just informed me. she has been late on the rent every month since december, apparently. and my brother turns 18 tomorrow so we are losing $400/mo in child support next month. there are NO JOBS like ANYWHERE here. i am not even looking at teaching jobs, i just want a JOB. i have no idea what we're going to do.

got on sport today!!! :D i almost cried. it has been such a journey. this is the first time i've broken a horse that i've known since birth and it was pretty awesome. i've done everything w/him, from halter breaking on up to saddle breaking. he handled it quite well. there were some antics but nothing too terrible. ;) i got lots of videos and will post them later! :D :D :D my little baby's growing up!

so since some controversy has somehow appeared in my journal (*gasp* not here! never!) can i just say that i am not "anti"-natural horsemanship. it's definitely not for me, but i have no problem with people who already have horsemanship skills practicing it. what does bother me is a) rank beginners who think they can buy some dvd set and an unbroke 3 year old mustang and be riding "fluidity"/bareback/in a halter in 7 easy steps and 7 easy days, and b) people who act like NH is some be-all, end-all to horsemanship, or that it's some great secret than ONLY practitioners of NH can understand. as far as i can tell, most of it is traditional horsemanship, just done over and over and with a different name. this does not mean i think it's a bad thing. i have the same amount of interest (that is to say, virtually none) in endurance, saddleseat, reining, hunters...many disciplines. that doesn't mean i think they're necessarily bad!

anyway.

had a great day today...christina (meupatdoes called me and invited me to come ride her chestnut ottb, ben, so i headed over there despite the insane heat. it's really convenient having her barn 15 mins away from my work! she rode him, and while there was plenty of head tossing and the occasional pulling on the reins, he didn't look nearly as bad as i'd envisioned. when i asked her what she'd rate him on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being his worst day, she gave him a 6, when i'd expected maybe a 3. hohoho-then i got on, and realized that she was just MAKING him look easy! the head tossing is definitely obnoxious. i noticed he does it mainly at the walk. when we trotted, he didn't seem to do it at all-EXCEPT after cantering. then, back at the trot, he did do it somewhat. he also gets very "balled up," i guess would be a good way of describing it, where he gets *so much* energy that it can't possibly go forward w/o resulting in an explosion, so it goes *up* and he gets very light in front and really BOUNDS in his canter strides. it's interesting to watch, not so interesting to ride. and, of course, i was wearing christina's helmet, which was about 7 sizes to big for me and thus in my eyes the entire time, making it very hard to actually *see* around the jumps scattered throughout the ring. O_o

he's VERY sensitive and responsive...holy shit, riding him made me realize just how UNresponsive my own horse is. i wouldn't rate him as an easy horse by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to liberty, he's a children's hunter (christina said something along those lines at dinner and i agree). all in all a fun experience, hopefully soon to be repeated with a well fitted hat!

afterwards we went to sam's bc i was supposed to give his granddaughter trina a riding lesson, so while i worked with her on gp, christina rode al. wow, that horse can move. i thik i may have said that before, but it bears repeating. i really think he should be marketed as a dressage horse, bc that's where his talent is. he's just such a big, flashy, forward mover.

then we tacked up liberty and will. sam was sort of rushing us bc steven (ace's owner) and his wife and daughter were coming at 7:30, and for whatever reason sam wanted us gone by the time they arrived. we had a bit of a scary moment when christina was suddenly struck by the heat (and no wonder...i felt dizzy when i got off ben after 15 mins of riding, and she rode al for a good 45) and had to dismount and sit in the barn and recover for a few minutes. she came back out and we had a (mostly) pleasant ride. it was the first time we got to ride together, so that was cool. i haven't seen will ridden yet, either, so that was fun. he's soooo cute. his stride is so tiny! she jumped him around and he looked sound as anything, and happy.

liberty, on the other hand, was a complete fucking cow. not as bad as she was yesterday, but still obnoxious, going so fast and with such a big stride. fucking a. my goal was to canter her over the x, since i don't think i've cantered her over a jump since i fell off will. i don't know why i lost my guts so bad after that stupid little fall, but i really did. at this rate, i won't be jumping the gate jump til i'm 40 and by then i won't even CARE if i ever get my stirrups back. O_o i just want my stirrups back! fuck! so anyway, i finally did canter her around and go over the x, squealed like a little girl and felt enormously pleased with myself. so then i went to do it from the other direction, and bc of where it was placed in the ring, you would have to approach it from probably 8 or 10 strides, whereas from the left, you approached with 4-5. so having that many strides coming in would give her that much longer to stretch out and get bigger and bigger until she would have to take off really long, and a long spot is how i fell off before.

so basically, i couldn't get her canter controllable enough to feel comfortably taking it from the right. i'm sure i *could* have and would've survived, but i didn't want to, bc a) i was worried it woul encourage bad habits in liberty, and b) i was worried that i was going to get so mad at her behavior that i'd hurt her. i could tell i was getting really angry and frustrated, and it was just time to stop. i was soooo angry at myself, i was mopey for the rest of the night, as trina, christina, sam and i ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get the horses taken care of and the barn cleaned up in advance of ace's owners' arrival.

christina and i then went to dinner (crack pipes and red lights...it's becoming a tradition O_o) and she made me feel SO much better. we were talking about al and how she wants to see if sam will let her take him to train and show (she's going to go over to sam's tomorrow to ride the filly and talk to him about it) and she was saying within 3 weeks she'd be able to have him ready to go to a big show and pin. then she's like, there's no WAY i could do that with liberty! she really made me feel much better about myself bc damn it, the horse IS hard. you have to work work work every second you ride her and even then, that often isn't enough. she said most people would not be able to ride one side of her. i know that's true...it is a cold comfort, but jesus christ. i want my fucking stirrups back so i can ride my fucking horse!

i'm going for a lesson tomorrow morning before work. i wasn't going to go out tomorrow bc i have to work my day off and then there's an employee picnic afterwards, so basically i'd be at work from 8-8+, but i called my coworker and said i'm coming in late. fuck it. everyone else does it, why can't i?

so, readers who have been committing this blog to memory may recall that i recently convinced sto to try bulk sawdust rather than bagged shavings for bedding. he said he'd always wanted to try it, but bc of his hands, he couldn't. he can't shovel and wheelbarrow load after load of sawdust, and that would be the only way he'd be able to get it into the barn. so i volunteered to do it for him. i'm not really sure what i was thinking, other than i guess i just didn't realize how MUCH sawdust is actually in a load...

but, the bagged stuff costs $5 and lasts *maybe* a week per stall...with 4-5 stalls used daily, that's a lot of money. the sawdust was $250 for a load, which the guy swore would last 6 months (we'll see about that). so weds i arrived just in time to see the sawdust truck pulling out of the barn. i went around back and almost fell over. there is a LOT of sawdust in a load. imagine a huge mound of shavings that's about 15 feet in diameter and 10 feet tall. (have you ever been to morro bay? you know morro rock? yeah...it's kind of like that. the rock of gibraltar springs to mind, as well.)

so i spent the next 5.5 hrs shoveling sawdust into the wheelbarrow and trucking it into the barn. let me just add that sto's wheelbarrow has ONE wheel (trust me, the difference btwn 1 and 2-wheeled barrows is HUGE) and that he's quite proud of the stupid thing, as he apparently cobbled it together from the spare parts of 2 retired wheelbarrows, and thus thinks it's just the most wonderful piece of machinery. he did help shovel in the shavings for a couple hrs, but i did most of the work myself. he wanted 15 LOADS in each stall. we're not going to have to rebed for a month, at least. then i filled up 2 more stalls with the excess. O_o i didn't even want to THINK about how sore i was going to be the next day! (answer: very.)

then around 9:00 it started to RAIN, so i began frantically trying to shovel the shavings into liberty's run, just to get it out of the elements, but about 1/8 of the pile still remained when it started pouring so hard we had to stop. i came out the next night after work to finish what i'd started, and wasn't done til 8pm (had to get up at 5 the next morning for work O_o). so yes, 40+ hrs of work plus 9 hrs of shoveling shavings and i felt like i was going to die this morning. and i woke up at 6:30! on my day off! why you ask? bc god hates me, i suppose.

anyway, here are some pics. i wish to GOD i would have gotten a pic of the entire pile, but i just wasn't thinking, so all i have is a pic of the pile the 2nd day, when most of it was in already. just imagine this pile up as high as the wood pole across the roof of the stall, and that was my pile!



( some cute ones of liberty and the sheepies! )

i really wish i would have posted last night, bc i had such a great lesson and now i know i will have forgotten a lot of it! i didn't plan on riding long, bc i still wasn't feeling quite right, and sto was disgusted with the fact that i was so excited about the pad/wraps babygotjump made me, so i didn't plan on a lesson. i'm so happy i ended up getting one!

well, first can i just say, my pad/wraps ROCK???? they are TOO CUTE! they're pastel blue with pink/yellow/purple sparkly CUPCAKES on them! OMG *dies* they are darling. i was grinning ear to ear as i walked up to the barn holding the box, and he eyed me suspiciously and was like, what's that? i'm like, you're not going to be as excited as i am... and told him that my friend in CA had made me some ADORABLE wraps and now we had matching ones! i knew he wouldn't be impressed bc he always teases me and tells me if i want to a pet, i should get a puppy, that horses are serious, and here i am wanting to play dress up...oh well! i was not about to let him rain on my parade! so he stomped down to the flood plain to fix the fence while i got liberty all dressed up to take pics of her. OMG can i just say, cutest thing i've ever seen???

so then i rode (sans wraps...i didn't want to get them dirty!) and after warming up we starting cantering the cavaletti jump. we would just canter around the ring, jump and come again. i really wanted to focus on keeping her cantering, and getting a good spot. i swear, my lower legs suddenly felt SO good yesterday! i dunno what happened...something just clicked i guess, but my calves felt like they were locked on her sides and my heels felt really far down. i was happy about that. this no stirrups thing is really starting to pay off.

well, the 2nd to last time, she someone managed to hit the ground line pole *again* and fling it out/behind the jump at a waaaay awkward/far angle *again*, but this time i didn't notice til we were 2 strides out (sunlight/shadows, i guess) so i just let her jump the whole thing, and i swear on my LIFE, she somehow managed to kick the groundpole OVER the entire jump and it landed perfectly on the far sie of the other groundpole. O_o wtf. at this point, sto comes up from the flood plain and is like, i can hear she's cantering WAY TOO FAST! SLOW HER DOWN!

so he comes in and starts working us. mind you, i'd already been riding for about 20 mins, and he works us another 40. without stirrups. remember how i was talking about my lack of longevity? well, i discovered yesterday that i have tons of longevity...if i haven't ridden for a day or 2! then, as i discovered today, i pay dearly for those too-long rides when i overdo it!

he made us work on really tight, fast canter transitions, some even from the halt. we'd go left, then trot, back up and go right over and over. we worked on left longer, bc that's the way she's been being a pain in the ass lately. we also did some trot work, where he had me focus on really using my inside hand and leg to get the bend and maintain the cirlce, to the point that i completely dropped my outside rein. he made me put that hand on my hip. i'll tell you, it was hard to keep her out on that circle, but that's what i need to practice to strengthen my leg. then he all the sudden told me to canter and we had SUCH a nice transition, w/no outside rein at all. it was really nice!

he told me at the end that i look much more comfortable and that my legs have lengthened a ton. he said, "pretty soon something is going to just click an it's going to feel like the most natural thing in the world, and you won't know why it was ever so hard! it took me 50 yrs to become the rider i am; why should you expect to get there in a few months?" then after the lesson as we were cleaning up, all the sudden he smiles and says, "we-ell...if i had to say it, i'd say there's been a *tiny* bit of improvement. [he grinned wider, squinched up his eyes and held his fingers an inch apart.] you're getting better. you'll get there." the fact that he acknowledged my improvement meant a lot to me. it's good to know i'm not imagining things... i dunno. i just felt really encouraged by the lesson and his words!

afterwards i got on will for the first time in over a month. i was hoping sto would at least hold him for me so i could launch myself on, but no. i am getting much better at vaulting onto horses, tho, i'll tell you that much. O_o poor will was so confused by this that he started trotting away...so here i am hanging off the side of him, begging him to stop, and at the same time worried that the minute i managed to swing my right leg over the saddle that he would start to bronc...but he was ok. we rode about 20 mins. he felt *much* sounder than the last time we rode. it's just a shame, since he was coming along so nicely and then BAM..lymphangitis. it's not fair. he will come back...it's just a matter of when and to what degree. after we were done riding, i said something like i hoped we could find him a home where he'd work, cause he loves having a job, and sto is like, "we just pulled him out of a field after a month and then he packed your ass around with no reins and no stirrups...this horse has a job out there somewhere!" he really is such a great horse-i hope we find him the perfect home...

then later on we were talking about how liberty doesn't respect my leg, and sto grabbed my thigh, which is hard as a rock, and he's like, "look at your legs. they're thicker than mine! she should be TERRIFIED of these legs. why isn't she?" if we knew that, we'd probably know how to make her canter slow down, and how to turn water into wine, too.

i finally figured out how to get the pics off my cameraphone and got a plan, so here are ( some pics of liberty in her new clothes! )

so i had a 105* fever all morning, til about 2pm, at which point it went to 104. when my mom came home at 5_30 it was down to 103, and i just took it and it's 102 (my mom brough me some tylenol fever reducer). i was in so much pain ALL DAY. i seriously did not move out of bed. i was freezing all day and wrapped in blankets and my mom came in and yelled at me for not having the ac on. O_o after taking the pills, i feel much better. i couldn't eat all day so i ate some popcorn and popsicles. UGH. i hate being sick! and sto was mad at me bc i didn't call him earlier..i'm like, you didn't answer your phone, and he's like, leave a message! I apologized but he NEVER checks his messages so i've given up on trying.

dude, this past week has SUCKED!

yesterday was really fun. after work i went up to christina's (meupatdoes new barn, which is literally 15 mins from my work, and met her horses alphy and ben. they are seriously much cuter in person! :P alphy is a gem and i don't blame her for wanting to hang on to him. ben is very fancy. i can't wait to see them go! i also met her trainer, who has been friends w/sto for like 25 yrs and is really cool. reminds me sto in a way, actually. and the barn is SUPER fancy. wow. it's exciting that she's so close by now! of course, at the end of the summer, she's moving to germany for a year. :( i finally meet this cool friend and she's moving! go figure. last night i sort of blurted out, "oh that's right, you're moving, that sucks!" and then was like uh...for me i mean. it's great for you! :P

she followed me over to sto's and rode liberty. i told her about how much she was hanging on me in the snaffle on fri so she schooled her in a thick french link that's pretty much exactly like her other bit but with a copper mouthpiece. oh, she was an awful brat! after about 5 mins, christina looked at me and said, "she can be a cow, can't she?" ha! she was just sticking her head straight up and FIGHTING. christina cantered her nonstop for about 3o mins, at the end of which she FINALLY began to relax and soften. she never lost her patience or got mad-she got after her, but in a fair way. the horse deserved whatever she got, BELIEVE me. they didn't jump, just did some pole work, which got much better at the end of the ride. christina is SUCH a good rider. her seat just never moves any further than she wants it to. you can actually *see* her use her seat to collect the horse. it's pretty cool to watch!

afterwards christina said that liberty is an honest horse, but not generous. she's VERY opinionated and wants things HER way. she's not dirty-ie, won't buck/rear, even tho christina said she thought other horses she's ridden would have when asked for something they didn't want to do as strongly as liberty was being asked-but won't give in, either. she'll fight you to her dying breath. it's absolutely true. christine said she's not an easy horse-she hadn't thought she was easy the last 2 times she rode her, but this time she's more fit and as a result, much stronger-and she knows how to use that extra strength for evil instead of good. :P i think that's a very fair assessment of liberty's personality-she has a VERY strong sense of her own opinion and a VERY strong sense of fairness. unfortunately, fair to her means HER WAY. you have to realy really RIDE her to get anything out of her-she keeps you working, as christina said, or she "keeps you on your toes," as bobbi said once when she rode her. she doesn't tolerate any mistakes at all and if you give her an inch she'll take 10 or 15 miles-or at least 10 or 15 strides to the other end of the ring before you can even blink.

she said something that made me feel good: that liberty has a lot of potential, is strong and is a difficult ride-and that the many horses like this she's known over the years who are ridden by amateurs are also ridden by pros a couple times a week to keep them tuned up. she said that a lot of the good riders at fancier barns who pin in 3'6 eq at devon or HITS wouldn't be able to ride one side of liberty bc they've always ridden either "made" horses or at least horses who are regularly schools by the pros. liberty's been "schooled" by a pro maybe 10 times since i've owned her. yes, she is a challenge and she makes you EARN every bit she gives you...which i guess is why it's satisfying when she does give me something. anything. throws me a frickin bone, for god's sake. :P

she also said that it probably was for the better that i keep her in the stronger bit for now, and later work my way back down to the snaffle. she's just not giving enough and i'm not strong enough to ride her in the snaffle. i can live with that, i really can. so far every great rider who's worked w/me or ridden her in the last few mos (sto, ms, christina, liz) has 100% agreed. also, being at christina's super fancy h-j sale barn was an eye opener...i don't think any of the bits hanging in that tack room were plain snaffles! heh. i'm really reconciling myself to the fact that she may just plain need a stronger bit. she's a strong fucking horse and has a seriously high pain threshold. 2 vets have told me that. and she goes great in the harsh bit, i'm a soft rider (per EVERYONE who watches me ride), and and and...why am i still rationalizing this to myself??

afterwards, i fed and turned out quickly and we went to dinner, where we hung around til 11:30, talking. this morning i woke up at 5:45 for some unknown reason and could not go back to sleep, so i worked in the barn for a couple hrs, then cobwebbed, dusted and vaccuumed the office/tackroom. sto told me before he left that he wants everything really clean and looking good bc we're having a parade of olympians and international riders coming thru this week to look at horses, so i want everything perfect!

it's really f-ing hot again so i may not even ride today. sto's not back yet, so he's probably not going to feel like doing a lesson anyway. and liberty REALLY needs her feet done and the farrier isn't returning my calls! *cries* i did ride in stirrups at work yesterday for the first time in like 10 days (i got injured early tues, was out of work til yesterday, and had taken sat off due to farmsitting at the other place, so my last workday with riding was last thurs). it felt REALLY weird! i kept pitching forward when we first started trotting and it took a couple laps around the track to get my balance. haha, go figure.

housesitting for sto again, starting today. i came over early, before he left, bc he hauled out his shopvac for me so i could clean my car. O_o it is totally clean now! i can't believe it. it doesn't even look like my car! i also spent 3+ hrs at AAA this morning, getting my insurance set up. fucking pennsylvania. and that doesn't count getting my car registered-even tho they were the ones who sold me the goddamn ins, they can't register my car until monday bc the ins doesn't go into effect until tomorrow! which means i can't get it inspected until monday, either, and that's going to take hours! GAH ANOTHER DAY WASTED BC FUCKING PA IS SO FULL OF BEAURACRATIC RED TAPE BULLSHIT WHEN IT COMES TO OUT OF STATE LICENSES AND CARS. WTF MATE.

ok. i feel better now that i've gotten that out of my system.

i spent the rest of the day taking care of the barn and horses. my ankle feels 75% back to normal. sto said we're getting a whole string of olympians and international riders coming in this week to look at al and the filly, so he wants the office and everything cleaned up really well. i also did liberty's legs (she's getting scratches AGAIN...GAH) after i rode. while i was spraying the tinactin on, she got snarky as she often does, lifting her feet up high, swinging them, etc. this time she actually jerked her back foot hard enough that i considered it a kick, and i stood up quickly and swatted her on the butt and yelled at her. i hardly ever ever hit her -a she rarely needs it, and b she's so sensitive she gets her feelings hurt really easily. well, tonight, right after i whacked her, she looked right at me, swung her butt around and took a huge dump RIGHT on my flip flops which were lying by the tack room door. O_o and people say horses are stupid!

i didn't even cheat and use my stirrups when i rode! haha. i did however cheat and use the plain snaffle but she pulled soooo much that it really ruined the ride. even trotting, she would stick her head straight up in the air, tighten the underside of her neck and just pullll. i guess she had a tendency to get like that before, mostly at the canter, tho. that must have been what sto saw when he first started working w/me and he said she dragged me all over the place. i didn't feel it then, bc i was so used to it. i def felt it today. she's not ready to go back in the snaffle yet. oh well.

despite her rankness, we jumped around quite a bit and warmed up/cooled off in the field. we also worked going up and down this perfect 3' bank i found on the walk btwn the ring and the field. she was great about that, go figure. we also worked on lots of cantering, and going deeep into the corners. we cantered around the outside of the mounting block a couple times, which we haven't done before. the mounting block is a huge stairstep-platform one like you might see at a therapeutic riding center, and there's *just* enough space to go into the corner around behind it and not hit the electric fence on 2 sides. she had to really bend and listen to me to get back in that tight space. she was not happy about that! heh.

i'm feeling really good cantering to the jumps. i honestly don't even remember i don't have my stirrups; i'm too focused on everything else. i'm really glad he's making me do this, bc it's giving me a lot more confidence in myself as a rider. i just wish my longevity would increase! i can def go a lot longer than i could when i first started, but i seem to have plateaued at about 45 mins. then my thighs start to hurt so badly that i have to stop. it seemed like for a while there i could go longer and longer every day, but for the last 4-5 days it's been about the same amt of time, with no increase. my confidence and balance and leg have DEFINITELY improved-i just wish i could go longer without wanting to die! i wonder if there's just a time limit that your body reaches and can never get past??

woohoo! i am now cantering liberty over jumps with no stirrups. i can't believe sto was right, that i started doing it so quickly! it's crazy!

yesterday i went up and rode. sto was like, eh i hate to see you ride when you missed a day of work.... he was probably right-my ankle hurt *worse* yesterday than it did tues and i was so afraid it was broken or something and me with no health ins...i'd be in BIG trouble! but riding doesn't involve a lot of walking and w/o stirrups, it doesn't hurt my ankle at all. when i went to get liberty, she nickered at me. sto had moved her to the ring, to keep her cleaner for me, since it was raining yesterday. he's so thoughtful. she nickered at me again tonight, when i went to get her out of her run. she's been very affectionate and demonstrative lately. someone told me long long ago that the only way to *really* make your horse get attached to you is to separate them from other horses, and it seems to be true. we put gp and the sheep down in the flood plain on saturday, leaving liberty alone back in her field (she can see gp and the sheep, and also shares a fence with the mare's run, so it's not like she's completely alone). the first day we separated them, liberty ran the fenceline screaming her head off for HOURS. i was so worried, but sto reminded me of how will behaved when we first put him back there alone-he walked the fence for a couple days. but, like will, liberty got over it and is perfectly fine on her own now. it's pretty amazing! i wanted her to become more independent of other horses, and she definitely is.

so yesterday i was warming up liberty alone and i trotted the x a few times. someone had moved a pile of cavaletti al had been jumping around, so tehre was a single raised cavaletti, and then a pair of raised cavaletti with some poles on/under them. i jumped all that a couple times. then i saw sto coming out from the garage towards the ring and i thought, fuck it. i'm cantering it! i picked up the canter, went around the ring and jumped the 2 cavaletti. it was so EASY!!!! i couldn't believe how EASY it was!!! i was pretty damn pleased with myself!

of course, sto's like, you did it...at a hundred miles an hour! SLOW HER DOWN! so of course that wrecked my stride, trying to slow her canter resulted in her trotting and we trotted the jump. he made me canter it again and again and again, with an eye on slowing her down. UGH. it's SO HARD. it's IMPOSSIBLE sometimes! i don't CARE if she's fast, IF she's balanced and controllable, which she is. he really wants me to get her stride a lot more condensed, tho, so i really want to work on it. i really want to make him proud! i could tell he was happy i did it, tho. he smiled hugely and he's like, "see, you couldn't do this a week ago! think what you'll be doing in another week!" god, how true! it's awesome to see REAL progress and measureable improvement!

and by the end i was SO tired, i felt like i was just going to die. he told me i looked like i was going to hyperventilate. i felt more like i was going to spontaneously combust! he's like, "you're in about as good of shape as an old woman who's sat in a wheelchair for the last 60 years!" he's soooo right. it's awful. i have no cardiovascular endurance whatsoever-i get out of breath really quickly. it sucks. i used to run alll the time. i could run miles. even as recently as when i lived in germany. i wish i had enough ambition to start running again, but i don't. :( then afterwards he's like, "no pain no gain...but i hate to see you in agony. i wish we didn't have to do this, i wish you were the most natural rider in the world but you're not...any talent you have is ACQUIRED, not natural, and you're not athletic on top of it all, so you just have to work harder." i know, it's true, and i am totally dedicated to becoming a better rider...i wish i could get more motivated to become a better athlete...

tonight he was in a right pissy mood when i arrived. liz was finishing up with al and she had some clients with her, and sto later said that he'd been waiting on them since early this morning, wasting his whole day, so no wonder he wasn't his usual cheery self. i came in and immediately went back and started doing stalls (my ankle is much better today, thank god-i'm shooting for saturday to go back to work) and generally tried to stay out of the way. they left and i got liberty tacked up and he stomped in and growled at me to ride her and turn her out in the ring, as he was going inside. so i did...after warming up we immediately went to cantering the jumps. i planned on jumping the cavalettis, then coming around and jumping the x, but the *first* time over the cavaletti liberty SOMEHOW (and god only knows how!) managed to hit the *ground pole* with one of her 7 or 8 flailing feet and push it out at such an awkward angle that that jump was finished for the night (gettiing on and off is not an exciting prospect when you have no stirrups and a fucked up ankle), so we just worked on the x. it was actually a good thing, bc coming from the right you had to get really tight into the corner and only had 4 strides to get to it and i had to really focus to keep her straight and forward, as it was at a really odd angle (they'd moved it out of the way of a line they'd apparently built for al today). she kept landing on the wrong lead, which was bothersome, esp since she decided her left lead was going to be shit tonight, very unbalanced and just all over the place.

overall, tho, i was pleased, bc she was *really* rocking back on her haunches coming to the jump bc she had so much less space than she did going to the cavalettis. plus, i had put it up a hole making it about 2'...and the picket i have to jump 3 times to earn my stirrups back is 2'3. so i figure i'll practice a couple more days on the x and get really good at coming over it a couple times in a row and maybe by the time sto gets back from his weekend trip i'll be able to do it! wouldn't that be lovely!

he came out after i was done riding and we worked in silence for a while so i thought he was pissed off or something but he finally told me about his day and we ended up talking like normal. he told me he watched something on good morning america today about how you shouldn't drink from a hose bc a lot of them are made with lead, so i thought i'd pass that along bc i know all us barn rats love to drink from the hose! he had me halter and lead the colt to their turnout. he made a couple praising comments about how well i'm working with him and what a positive effect i've had on him, which made me feel good. then when i was leaving he came to the car and wanted to see my new PA license (4 hours at the DMV...with my GRANDMOTHER...the 7th circle of hell, i'll tell you...Penndot needs a MAJOR overhaul) and my old CA one and we talked for a little while longer. i just love him so much and i want to please him...so much so that i'm going to deep clean my car tomorrow! i've never vaccuumed my car for anyone...ever...it must be love...

i had a really crappy day at work today. first i found out that my favorite foal, my little friend, had to be put to sleep. :( then it was 100* plus extremely high humidity, which is miserable, and also makes us have to limit turnout, which stresses me out immensely. then i was leading a 3yo colt, a racehorse, and he spooked and clobbered me, kicking/stepping on me really har in the ankle bone. i screamed, it hurt so bad. my boss came running out and told me to go get in the pool. i had to leave early, bc i could barely walk. it's not getting any better...it really hurts! :(

i went to sto's and hobbled in and he gave me a set of crutches, which helped. he was so nice, he's like, just sit there and take it easy, and he did the whole barn while i sat there with my foot on a tack trunk. liz and ken came and she rode the filly and al. this is the 3rd time she's ridden the filly. she taught her to canter under saddle. this filly has the most gorgeous, balanced, uphill canter you ever saw. it's actually sickening bc her canter is SO much nicer than my horse's. they bought a farm down in VA and are moving at the end of the month, which is sad. i was just starting to become friends with them.

i did ride, bc i figured a hurt ankle wouldn;t effect me since i don't have any stirrups anyway. it was hard to get her to bend to the left bc i couldn't really use my lower left leg, but other than that, i'm really glad i rode. we had a great ride. we jumped the x a bunch of times and finally started landing on the correct lead. her canter was quick, according to sto, but i couldn't feel it, i'm so used to her occasionally wild canter by now. O_o i honestly feel just as comfortable cantering and trotting w/o stirrups (i just wish trotting didnt hurt so much!) as i do with, so now i just have to get more comfortable with jumping. tomorrow i'[m putting up the x again. i figure if i go up a hole a day, pretty soon i'll be at 2'6, and then the 2'3 picket should feel small...right?

so much for riding, heh. sto called me at said his wife wanted to go somewhere for the 4th, so he told me to go over and ride or do whatever i wanted with whomever i wanted, but he wouldn't be there. i decided not to ride. for one thing, it dawned on me that liberty hadn't had a night off since last weds, and for another it's raining and shitty outside. i still could've ridden the pony bc the one (only?) good thing about stonedust footing is that it doesn't get muddy, but the entire farm isn't covered w/stonedust, of course, and the pony herself was BROWN. you couldn't even tell she was white under all the mud. so i just fed, hayed, watered and did meds, and brought the pony into the stall next to the run so she and liberty could talk, but liberty would be left in the run/field alone with the sheep.

when the first sheep came into the run w/her after s/he heard liberty's grain hit the feeder, liberty FREAKED out and i'm not sure if she struck it with her hoof or just hit it w/her body bc it happened so fast, but she broke the double sided clip that connected a water bucket to the wall and actually flung the whole bucket into the air, splashing the water all over herself and the clean bedding i'd just laid. i was pretty disgusted with her. she's lived out there since monday. she needs to get over herself already!

so i went out and did the rest of the barn and when i came back and checked on her, 4 of the sheep were in teh run w/her. she was pressed as tightly into the far wall as she could possibly be and had one eye on them, but she was eating hay and seemed more relaxed. at least she wasn't flailing around breaking shit. O_o tomorrow we're going to ride like we'd planned to tonight, and then i start my first night of farmsitting at the other barn w/jetta.

you should check out this song, hey there delilah, if you haven't already. i just love it. it's such a simple, pretty song, and so bittersweet. i feel so bad for delilah...i know just how she feels...she has a guy that she loves so much and she knows he loves her and their love is so pure, but he doesn't love her enough to get his shit together, figure out that his "art" is never going to get him further than the local club his roommate's cousin owns, and grow up. meanwhile delilah is off in the big city in college, trying to better herself so maybe she will have something of a life someday, working her ass off, probably holding down 2 or 3 part time jobs while trying to compete against all the rich kids at her school who got in bc dr. daddy hired SAT tutors and an application specialist and donated money to the library. and delilah knows she has the guy back home that she loves way more than the stuck up preps she meets at school and she knows eventually she'll have to decide...a life of poverty and uncertainty with a guy she loves, or stability and probably stagnation with a more sure bet?

but i'm not bitter or anything.

had a fabulous night at sto's! when i arrived, liz and her husband ken were there, and she was on al. liz, btw, is the woman who won 14 grand prix. she and ken have competed all over the world, in many fei and world cup competitions. so basically, she's an awesome rider. i was able to catch her taking al thru the regular gymnastic a couple times, and then canter him to a single, the picket btwn the wishing well standards. he stopped dead but she tapped him and he jumped it from a standstill. :P nice to know even grand prix riders can get a stop on him...

then sto was like, hurry up and get your mare...i asked liz if she would prefer her own saddle and he's like, she doesn't know anything about it yet, just go! :P so i ran and got liberty in. she was hanging around the blocked door to the run in w/gp. i tacked her up and liz mounted. i told her briefly about how green she is and how she was broke late and we've been having canter issues. she warmed her up with some very nice trot work and then went to canter. well. it warmed my heart to see her have a couple false starts and occasional breaks. :P she even made the EXACT same GAHHHRRRR sound several times that i make when i'm frustrated with her (and that sto has told me to never do again, and which i've been trying hard to not do). haha.

BUT once she was warmed up and got her going, her canter was really pretty nice. so she started taking her thru the gymnastic, an x one stride to a "cavaletti oxer"-stacked cavaletti. she went over in twice perfectly, so sto and ken went over and set up a jump behind the cavaletti, making a triple bar of sorts, about 3' at its highest point. she jumped that perfectly, too. it was funny-from that point on, everytime liberty would jump it perfectly, sto and ken would whoop and holler and make a big fuss over her, then look at each other and scurry over to raise the jump a hole. :P this went on until the jump was 4'4 with a 5'4 spread (sto measured it afterwards).

i wanted to just melt watching her jump. her jump is FABULOUS. first of all, 4'4 didn't seem to take any more effort than 2'6. 2nd of all, she has a lovely bascule, tucks all her legs up perfectly and even and uses herself so she looks like she's flying. 3rd of all, she never once hesitated, sucked back or even thought about not jumping. she knocked the rail down a couple times, but sto and ken would just laugh and set it to the same height. each time she knocked it, she came around and jumped it perfectly the next time. her form was just sooooo lovely! sto was so impressed. everyone was so happy w/her. she also jumped the picket/wishing well with no problems even tho she's never seen the wells set up as standards before.

afterwards i got on just to canter her each way and cool her out so i could see if she felt any different. liz's saddle is sooo comfy (a hermes) and being in a close contact really makes a huge difference. her canter was AMAZING. it was that lovely canter we got at my 2nd ever lesson at his place which hasn't since been repeated. it's so funny. i've been so indoctrinated with the dressage mantra of outsidereinoutsidereinoutsiderein. well guess what...she responds a MILLION times better to INSIDE rein. while liz was riding, sto was pointing out how she used her INSDIE rein, which he is always telling me to do, but which i've had trouble getting used to. tonight i did it and what a DIFFERENCE it made. she immediately softened and bent around my inside leg and became that much more adjustable.

wow. sto just kept ranting about what a great jumper she is and how much jump she has and how we have to get me going so i can get her to her full potential! the 4 of us sat around and talked for a long time. at the beginning, i sort of wandered off bc i didn't know any of the people they were talking about, but sto called me back and i ended up getting to hear some great stories about some great riders and shows. what cool lives these people have had. i'm envious of them, but i'm also so happy they're in my life. liz is going to start coming up and riding al more regularly so we're going to ride together!! so exciting!!

he was totally right...seeing her ride (what a BEAUTIFUL rider...she doesn't even move and she's just so fluid) and how well my horse went just made me salivate. i know that i will do whatever i have to to get there. i am sooooo happy i moved her and my only regret is i didn't jump on this chance the INSTANT it was extended to me!

after they left, sto and i did all the barn chores together and it was fun bc we just talked the whole time. we really get along so well, i just love him. he is going to start bedding w/sawdust, so yay. he said he's wanted to, but bc of his hands he couldn't move that many wheelbarrow loads of sawdust, but now that i'm here... :P considering that 6 mos of sawdust costs only a little more than ONE month of shavings, the work i'll be doing in just that regard should earn me about a month of board. :P

we also had a lonnnggg talk about the mare and i told him everything i've been thinking about her and held nothing back. he said he agrees 100% and does NOT want to put her down and is going to try his hardest to make her comfortable as long as he can...but it doesn't seem like it's going to be long, no matter how much we want it to be. :( when we went in there to work with the colt and give her her meds we saw that one of the tumors had indeed burst and had bled. :( probably it was from the colt jumping and playing on her, which the vet warned us about. it's so sad, bc she seems just FINE otherwise. he said that no matter what he's burying her on the property-he won't have her "fed to the lions." now i'm about to cry again. it's just so SAD!

tomorrow-libery, gp and al if i have time. i want all the hrs in the saddle i can get.

sto came back early this afternoon. while i'm happy he's home so we can get to work, i do wish i had a few more days with liberty there at the house. this is the first time in my life that i've had my horse at a private home and taken care of him/her myself, as opposed to a public boarding barn, and can i just say i LOVE it. it's a great feeling to have complete and utter control over when your horse eats, gets turned out and where, the cleanliness of the stall, the amt of hay, everything. it's really wonderful. i remember having a shadow of this feeling when she was on stall rest and i was doing partial self care but it's so much better to be the only one who does/decides anything for the horse. not to mention, i love looking out the window and seeing her there. :)

i rode her last night when my mom/grandma came to visit. we just did simple wtc flatwork. i thought about taking her thru the chute that's still set up, but i decided against it bc i figure we're going to start hardcore jumping training this week and i don't want to stress her legs anymore than i have to (the footing is pretty hard-it's stonedust). her canter was reallllyyyy good. i dunno what it is about that ring that just makes her canter more nicely. we did big circles, little circles, up and down the ring and she felt really balanced and soft. then i did the whole barn-or what i THOUGHT was the whole barn. sometime during all this, my grandmother pushed some random button on the tv remote and screwed up the satellite dish, which sto had warned would happen.

fast forward to today-he'd said he'd call on his way from the airport, but he didn't, so when they rolled up around 2 the house wasn't as spotless as i'd have liked and i was lounging around in my pajamas, reading. at least the barn was done and all the horses were in, no doubt standing in front of their fans. sto seemed happy to see me but that happiness ebbed away as we toured the barn...

first of all, part of the electrice wire on the front field had broken fairly early on into his trip, which apparently shorted the electric altogether, which may have been why the horses were so easily able to break thru the fences. then he noticed that i hadn't cleaned the manure out of the ring from when the mare/foal were turned out. then he noticed the filly had been rubbing her damn tail again, which he even warned me to watch out for (in my defense, it must have happened this morning or last night, as it wasn't like that friday when i groomed her). he was really mad about that. the i went to clean will's stall and when i kicked him out of the run, i saw he was dead lame. and i do mean dead lame, worse that he was even with the lymphangitis (this is the other leg). my guess is an abcess, bc he was perfectly fine last night and running around like always when i kicked him out of his stall.

sto is seeming less and less happy to see me as each mini crisis is discovered.

then i point out one of the post and rail boards needs to be screwed back in, and when he goes to fix it he sees another board on another fence had been chewed. he's like, who'd you have tied up here? i'm like, no one. he's like, well i guess it was those blasted goblins again... the only thing i can think of is cocoa did it while she was loose on the property yesterday (my MOM let her out-she got there before i got home from work and just made herself at home).

he said he didn't want to have me ride anything today bc he'd been up since the equivalent of like 2am and was tired. so i just tacked up liberty to hack her. while he was out cleaning the ring he suddenly squawked, did you *shift* this? i rode over to where he was and found him pointing at one of the stakes the electric tape is wrapped around. i'm like, yeah, they knocked it over, so i stuck it back in the ground. he's like, you stuck it in the hole i had a tree growing in! i'm like, oh...well...i saw a stake lying on the ground next to a hole, so i figured it went in the hole...

he's like, you gotta *think* about these things, you're never gonna be a good horseperson if you don't learn to *think*... and right at that moment, he noticed i was riding liberty in her big fat snaffle and he's like, you put that big anchor back in her mouth, didn't you?? and i'm like, yeah, i didn't want to use the other while you weren't here, and he's like, well i'm here now, aren't i? and i'm like, i meant, if you weren't watching me... he got really mad and stomped off grumbling and moaning and disappeared into the barn for almost the rest of my ride. i was feeling *really* bad at this point bc i could see him out letting cocoa and the goat's waters overflow, etc and i just started feeling like i did a really bad job. i mean i know it wasn't THAT bad-the horses are all pretty much healthy, well fed, etc-despite will's strange lameness and the fact that the mare erupted a huge new melanoma on her haunch-the barn was clean and the house was pretty much clean, just a few dishes in the sink. also, i cleaned all the tack, stripped will's run in and kept it clean (lemme tell you what a horrible job that was :x), al will now tolerate getting tacked from both sides, and the colt will walk right up to me and let me halter him and is even starting to lead (as sto commented while watching me interact with him, he likes you! he couldn't believe how the colt would come right up to me and not even bite :P).

i still felt bad, tho. i just tried to concentrate on riding liberty as well as possible, in case he happened to be looking out a window. i rode the first half w/o stirrups. i swear, my leg feels a lot better and it's a lot easier for me to ride longer times w/o stirrups. then i brought her down to the end of te ring closer to where sto was in the barn and cantered. he came out after i started going to the right, watched for a few moments and commented, well she's looking better, huh? and nodded. that just made me feel soooo much better! i *knew* she was feeling better.

he got over any madness he may have had and we discussed some more details of getting her stall set up and stuff. i'm going tomorrow morning to ride al and have a lesson. then i'm going to go to walmart and get some more stuff i need and go back and hang around up there the rest of the day (after cleaning stalls at the barn, of course. O_o oh well, 3 should be empty, so that'll be good). it's just so wonderful having your horse at home! i can't wait til i have my own place!

tomorrow at 9am liberty will be on her way to her new home. i'm so excited! i went to agway and got stuff for her stall (buckets, muck tub for a pasture trough, fan) and a bag of feed so i can wean her onto his stuff. i'm not a big fan of what he feed (blue seal textured horse feed) but i can live w/it for a few mos. i also got her stall set up when i got home. i'm going to put her next to will, so at least she has a buddy when he's in his run, and she'll be able to see out into his field-and see the sheep. O_o

last night was borderline disastrous...i came home and did the barn and it was WAY too hot to ride. when i was finished, i went to put the mare and foal back. usually you just open the gate and they walk right into their stall. well, last night the mare decided to play catch-me-if-you-can and no amount of grain or begging was getting me anywhere near her. finally i gave up in disgust and went inside, ate and showered and by the time i was ready to go back out and try again, it was lightning so badly i was afraid to go outside. a HUGE thunderstorm settled right over us, for hours. it was awful. the thunder was SO loud! we lost tv but thankfully didn't lose power while i was awake. i felt so bad for the mare and foal, tho! not like they cared-i turned on the outside lights several times and checked on them and they were happily grazing, as far from the gate as they could be. even so, i tossed and turned all night, worrying and having nightmares about the horrors that were going to befall the horses.

so imagine my dismay when i went out this morning to al and gp's gate, shaking gp's grain, and neither dashed to meet me as they normally do. i bent down to try to see thru the trees and didn't see them anywhere. i was so afraid i didn't even want to move and go see if i could find them. finally i forced myself to walk along the fence and finally saw them-in the filly's pasture with her. O_o they'd ripped down all the electric tape that separated their fields. lovely. i threw al and the filly in their stalls and let the mare and foal in (she was more than happy to come in then, the witch!) and noticed that they too had torn down the electric tape in their field (which blocks off part of the grass, for safekeeping, i guess). lovely! when i went inside i saw the clocks were blinking, so who knows how long the power was out for. long enough, apparently!

today was the first day all week that i rode at work. it's just been so miserably hot, i couldn't fathom it, but my boss was riding and i wanted to ride w/her. it actually wasn't so bad. i came here and did the barn, then went up to ride liberty, as she hadn't been ridden in 3 days and i didn't want her completely wired when i brought her up here tomorrow. at first we had the ring to ourselves and it was great-we did a looong warm up, no stirrups and no reins, with me stretching my legs down and my arms/back up and it was funny-liberty started to stretch down a lot too! we had time to do a bit of no rein/stirrup trotting before the appy girls came in, and then connie and her daughter, so the ring was really crowded. even so, i cantered her both ways. i just kept her on a smaller circle at one end of the ring. i was really proud of how she behaved, even tho she was bitter at the other horses as usual, her canter wasn't bad. connie even commented on how much better she looked. (and one of the appy girls commented that liberty was the first "dressage" horse she'd ever seen w/o a flash. finally someone appreciates me :P) no, i most likely won't ever have a horse i can lope along on a loose rein with a group of horses, like connie and the others were doing. i can accept that. it's not like i plan to do rail classes anyway.

after cantering, i had to work a long time to get her calm enough to walk again. again, i tried everything to get her to walk. finally she just gave up and calmed down. so we did some more trot work, which was fabulous, very rhythmic and responsive. she was likely feeling good from her massage yesterday. she seemed to enjoy her massage more than usual-she hasn't groomed me as much the last few times, but yesterday she kept randomly reaching over and going to town. :P it was sooo adorable. colleen said liberty is building some muscle over her back-not a lot, but more than last time. she also said her muscle feels the most balanced over her whole body as she's ever felt it. she said she's really developing her stifles and glutes, which is good-we're building up a hind end! she was the most tight in her neck, which makes sense-lots of times she braces against me at the canter, adn we're doing a lot more canter work now. colleen showed me a few rubs to do before riding to loosen up her neck.

and now i must go to sleep-big day tomorrow-work at 5 am, move liberty, finish work, come over here and deal with everyone, then at 6 i'm going to a standardbred race with my coworkers!!! i can't wait!!! 2 fillies we bred on our farm are racing, so it should be very exciting! my boss said to dress "to get our pictures taken"...not sure what that means, but it'll be fun, no doubt.

my hometown is on fire.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire27jun27,0,1072673.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-california

they quote 2 people i know personally in this article. my mom told me about it last night. i had no idea it would upset me so much. my stepdad's neighborhood where my sister is currently living is very close to the evacuated areas. we talked to her last night and she sounded as upbeat as possible. the flames are also apparently very close to my high school. it's only a matter of time before every town in CA burns, i suppose, but it's still horrible to think of it happening in YOUR town, esp such a bad one. almost 200 homes have been lost so far. my thoughts are with all my fellow tahoenians. :( i wish there was something i could do.

i almost didn't feel like riding tonight. i'm really glad i did, tho, bc liberty and i did our first walk to canter transition w/o stirrups. this is a huge improvement. i wish i had someone to videotape us, so you all could see how truly bad her canter is. it's getting better, tho...i swear...

when i got to the barn boyd (farrier) and my bo's were in the aisle talking and i talked w/them for a while. one asked me if i'd just woken up (no! just got off work! sheesh!) and the other said i didn't look like i really wanted to be there. i figured i'd feel better after i rode, tho. i laid out the same 5 stride canter poles, this time 22 steps. i think 23 will be perfect, as 22 still seemed slightly short. damn horse and her massively long stride! we warmed up again w/no stirrup walk and trot, then did some more "desensitization" work to get her to accept my leg with stirrups as well as she does without. she's getting better, seems like less jigging every ride.

we cantered left first, did some circles and went over the poles a bunch of times. she was good w/the poles to the left, again had some trouble to the right. she actually tripped over them the first time. O_o she loses her balance so easily and quickly, and really jars me around. i definitely won't be doing canter poles w/o stirrups for a loooong time, until her canter is much more fluid and balanced. she just gets soooo strung out down the long side that she has a lot of trouble collecting herself back up thru the short side before she has to go over the poles, so she hits them all wild eyed and buggy legged. she does get progressively better, tho.

to the right, i started out just doing circles, with lottts of bending, and making the circles really tiny. she actually started to balance and rock back and give me that nice canter we've gotten a few times. she couldn't hold it for long, tho, and started to seem to get tired (ie, fall on forehand and rush) so we went over the poles. she's starting to get the idea that she doesn't need to put in a grand prix jumping effort to get over the damn 3" poles, which is good.

then we took a walk break, then back to no stirrup work. i started w/lots of lateral stuff (it's easier to do w/no stirrups bc as i said she accepts my leg better), then i set her up and asked for the transition and got it in one shot, walk to canter. of course i was so excited that we GOT it that i forgot to steer and we went right over one of the poles. O_o i got my shit together and we cantered for probably the longest i've ever cantered her w/o stirrups w/o breaking to trot. i was very happy with her!

afterwards i had another long talk w/my farrier. i love him bc he is just a wealth of stories and gossip about the local horse community-he knows everyone. he's going to come to sto's and shoe liberty for me, which is really great of him to do. he's always swamped w/business and usually if people move from a place where he shoes, they have to find a new farrier, but he said since i'm coming back and it's so close and he likes my horse he'll do it. i also have just about convinced my mom to go on a "fun nature walk!!!" w/me and liberty on friday so i don't have to go alone. whee?

oh man poor sto just called me and they're still on the tarmac...they were supposed to have taken off HOURS ago but couldn't due to the storm!! it sounds like it's coming back...there's lots of thunder in the distance but no rain yet. i'm going to go do the stalls and then worry about whether i should bring them in...eeeep...i hope like hell it's not raining in the morning so we can turn out at my barn! i hate doing stalls when they're in.

update: well, their stalls take about 3 mins each to clean...they really aren't that messy of horses, i guess. i don't like the bagged shavings he uses. i'll have to try to convince him to switch to sawdust. it's so much easier to deal with. i laid out their feed and hay for tomorrow morning and got will some more hay and water. i don't know if i mentioned it, but he's sharing his field with the 9 sheep. :P they've taken over his run in stall and are forcing him to share. when i went out tonight they were happily eating his dinner hay instead of the weeds they were put out there to attack. will was standing in there with a resigned air about him. i put more hay in his feeder and will have to take pictures of them all in the run together. it's pretty cute. also, nothing gets those sheep to move! you have to go thru the run to dump the muck from the stalls and they seemed to want to play wheelbarrow tag. not clucking, yelling, waving my arms or threats of bodily harm would get them to move! one even tried to ram her way past me! (they don't have any horns to speak of, but still!) what finally got them to move you ask? trying to pet them!

the thunder passed quickly and it's sort of drizzling now but the clouds are breaking up and you can see patches of blue sky (yes, it's still light. today is the longest day of the year, after all). i put the mare and foal in their run, but the others are out grazing, so unless it gets substantially worse they're out for the night. it's so nice being able to monitor your horses from the window, and decide what to do with them!

so here i am on my first night of farmsitting for sto. when i pulled in the driveway one of these crazy PA thunderstorms rolled in and it started POURING soooo much rain and lightning RIGHT over top of us. it was crazy. so i couldn't turn out the horses who are in during the day (the filly, al and the mare & foal). i fed them and gave them hay and water and then took care of the horses who live out (cocoa, gp and will-will has a run in to a stall attached to his field, tho). when i went around back to feed gp it started raining even harder, so i abandoned her grain bucket under a bush and went back around front. i went to get my clothes out of my car but right as i reached for the handle a bolt of lightning struck the ground right in the ring! it made the loudest CRACK and hurt my eyes! i turned and RAN into the house!

in the time it took me to make and eat dinner, the storm had passed. that's PA for you! it seems like we have a thunderstorm every night. so i got everyone turned out. it seems the filly and al have become quite attached (their fields are separated only by a hock-high strand of electric tape) and were going crazy for each other. it's kinda funny, bc al goes in a field w/gp, but they don't seem to be that attached.

i'm going to give liberty the night off tonight so i can get things situated over here and figure out how long it takes me to clean the stalls/runs and get them set up for tomorrow morning when i bring them in. if it's not too hot, they can just stay out, so we'll see. i plan to ride liberty up a week from tomorrow, to give her a few days to get acclimated with me around to ease the transition. i'm so excited! sto's last words to me yesterday were, you better be prepared to ride your ass off when i get back... O_o yay!!!!

i've been doing a lot of trail riding w/liberty this week (w/no stirrups O_o), just trying to enjoy riding w/my friends while i still can. last night we worked in the outdoor bc no one was around to ride with. the outdoor was about half flooded, but liberty walked and trotted thru the deep puddles w/no problem. i also introduced her to the apparently scary new flower boxes that everyone has been saying have been scaring the shit out of all the horses. she did bulge away from them the first time we passed but i didn't make a big deal and she didn't care any other time. we worked on accepting the leg at the walk and maintaining rhythm at the trot thru different sized circles, figures, change of direction, etc. one thing this whole no stirrups thing has taught me is that she accepts the leg just FINE when i don't have my stirrups but tries to "squirt" away from it when i do. so i've been working on that. i don't get it. anyone have any thoughts?

at the canter, we've been working on bending. i'm getting that idea thru her head slowly but surely-ie, we will go as deeply into these corners at the canter as we will at the trot! she's doing fine at it, accepting my leg quite well, ironically enough. did some very lovely stretchy trot circles at the end w/her stretching all the way to the buckle but maintaining the contact and rhythm. then we walked around the pasture trail to cool out and she marched right by the sheep pen, even when they started BAAAHHHHHing their little sheepy brains out!

work is much quieter now that the art shindig is over. we also have a bunch of new employees, so that spreads the work out a little. mintano and i took 2 of our training horses on a long hack thru the fields the other day cause it was toooo hot to work them for long. i was on eli, the 3yo andalusian stallion i'm sure you've heard me mention here before, and she was on leia, a 2yo tb filly that she broke herself. we took them over water, thru an active construction site and around open fields with minimal problems. the worst was some balking and spooking at a scary tarp. well, actually, the worst was when leia COMPLETELY out of the blue spun around and double barreled eli right in the chest and she got him GOOD. it sounded like it really hurt! of course he spun around and bucked/bolted towards home but i pulled him up and he wouldn't get too near her the rest of the ride. O_o poor guy was really minding his manners, too! but then again, who knows what sort of lecherous hey-baby horsey vibes he was sending her!

i have a lot of things i want to update on but i haven't been in a writing mood lately. i'm sort of worn out, i guess. should be nice to relax around the farm for a week or so.

*dies* so i felt fine all day today and thought to myself, gee i'm not as out of shape as i thought! i'd figured i'd be really sore. well, i wasn't until i got back in a saddle w/no stirrups on it. O_o omg. my thighs started burning right away. i last 20 mins and i had to get off. AAHHH!!! bobbi said she looked really good while she was trotting, tho, so that's good. i also got her to canter after only one false start tonight, which was good. however, i only lasted 3 rounds at canter before i felt like i was going to melt, which was bad.

so i got off and longed her a few mins each way, then we did some ground stuff. i mainly wanted her to step over with her front legs but cross her near hoof over her far hoof, rather than just bringing it next to the far hoof (if that makes ANY sense!). it took a bunch of tries to the right but when she understood what i wanted she was able to repeat it several times, and she figured it out much quicker going left. we also worked on ground tying, coming when called, etc. it was fun and relaxing.

we have this huge art thing going on at work this weekend, so the whole place has been a madhouse all week with dozens of people in and out setting up. the sad thing was, tuesday, some people came and set up a HUGE white tent under which a couple hundred people are supposed to mingle. tues night we had gale force winds and hail and the whole tent was torn to shreds. i got to work weds morning and my boss is like, have you seen the tent? go have a look. so i go out the door where it was and i'm like, i don't see it??? and she's like, yeah, that's the point! the whole property looked like it was hit by a tornado-we had about 5 trees down or halfway down, leaves and branches EVERYWHERE, the feed room soaked, etc. it was insanity. it's going to be a looooong day saturday! i have to work from 8am to like 10pm! *ack*

so here i am back in PA! i landed around 5:30. it's weird, i feel like i should be in CA...whenever i go "home" after a trip i go home to CA...except this time. it's a really weird feeling! i'm happy to be hear, tho. :)

i went out to the barn right when i got home and nobody was there, weird for a sat night. liberty seemed happy to see me-she came over to the gate, at least, and looked thru the bars at me. she has really bad scratches on both her back legs. :( i meant to clip her feathers before i left bc they're growing in a little since the last time i clipped them. damn it.

bobbi, jetta and brooke each rode her twice according to the schedule, so i figured she wouldn't be too hyper or anything. i brought her in the outdoor to ride and she was great at first; we walked around a few times, completely avoided the basketball player walk, did some leg yields each way, then picked up SUCH a nice, relaxed trot. we trotted around a couple times, did a few shallow serpentines, changed directions, and BAM liberty tweaked out. worst behavior i've ever gotten from her in an arena. balking severely (throwing up her head and slamming on the brakes, so she kept almost hitting me in the nose), then when i'd try to push her forward she'd try to spin, and when i wouldn't let her spin, run backwards. i could not figure it out and tried to work her through it for quite a while but she was just being awful. it was the weirdest thing!

finally i called jetta and asked her if something weird had happened to traumatize her, and she said no, bobbi had ridden her out there thurs and she was great. she was just being such a brat! and it's not like there was anything new anywhere that she could have been afraid of. and she's NOT a spooky/balky horse in general. this behavior is on a par with how she acted when we saw the cows.

i rode her into the indoor and she was perfectly fine. we did a little trot work and went straight to canter. her canter is def better outside, bc it's bigger, i guess (or she's just out of practice from not cantering for 10 days), but it really wasn't horrid, either. we did spiral in and out each way and she was really good. we schooled doing a calm walk and trot after cantering and she was really good about it. also did some WONDERFUL transitions! wow. i worked really hard on getting her bent, shoulder in, and inside shoulder lifted before asking and she'd SPRING into it. very nice.

thennn i decided to break up the monotony by schooling some simple changes. the first was right to left and she did it perfectly. a while later after schooling the left lead a bit, i remembered i was working on them (i changed the plan, christina! ;D) and asked her again, again going right left. i was just about to ask her for a trot when she just gave me this perfect flying change! i was sooo proud! i praised her to high heaven, came around and tried again, but going left-right she was late in the back, so i let her trot to swap. (sto would not have approved :P). i figured that was good for our first day back in work and we went outside and wandered around the neighbor's driveway area, bc i thought maybe she was seeing his white mailbox when she was acting up (which has always been there, but who knows-she may have never noticed it?), but nooo. she was perfectly fine walking up there and even stuck her nose *IN* the mailbox when i asked her to smell it. *sigh* mares!

oh, and sto called me this morning with some very cool news! he got in a new training and sale horse, a 4yo holsteiner that's just recently been backed. i'm so excited to ride him tomorrow! we talked for a long while (i was at the LA airport) and i love that he always seems so interested in my life, remembers what i say and loves to talk to me. :) makes me feel good. reminds me of dick, actually. anyway! i'm going over in the morning. :D

will post the rest of my pics from my trip soon...

also from monday, lj was being a fuckup earlier
i hung out with nancy for most of the afternoon and then went back out to the barn to ride gunner. tipper was back in their corral by then and he too seemed happy to see me. i used to ride him a lot too-my uncle kept him for my aunt, but she seriously rode him less than once a year, so ashley and i ended up riding him all the time. what a fun horse he was in his prime! he could turn a barrel like you wouldn't believe, had great cow sense and was totally bomb proof. well, sue, the lady who leased gunner while i lived in germany (and has since bought her own horse) was finishing up when i got there, and she got me a bit concerned. she said gunner had developed all sorts of bad habits, including pulling back, and that she didn't think i should take him on the trail w/o taking him in the arena and trotting him around for a while, since he'd been much more hyper than usual lately. she stayed w/me while i tacked up, and tho gunner seemed his old self (he LOVES to be groomed and have a fuss made over him) she seemed convinced he was going to rip back and run away at any second. she also convinced me to use this very severe looking curb with a really high port and said he was uncontrollable otherwise. at this point i began to wonder how much she'd actually been riding him since i left for PA-my guess is now, not a whole lot. she also mentioned that some woman had leased him briefly when i decided to stay in PA (hmmm no one ever told me that!) but that she was very timid and eventually couldn't even get him to leave the barn area. gunner is a very smart and sensitive horse, and it's always been really easy for him to get peoples' numbers! (ie, not a beginner horse)

she also convinced me to take him in the arena for a while. she left right after she saw me start trotting. well, he was his normal mellow self (he's always been a great arena horse-much calmer in the ring than on the trail!) so i trotted him for about 30 seconds and then headed out. i had already decided i was going to do a very easy ride, just walk down to the end of the valley (probably 3 miles) and back, trotting and cantering if he felt good. he did try to throw a fit when i asked him to walk over the bridge that leads out of the barn area to the road down the valley but i got after him and he was fine after that. in fact, he was so lazy and slow that i was concerned. when i asked him to trot when i got to the open areas where we used to gallop all the time, he moved off in this tiny western pleasure jog and kept trying to walk. i was like, wtf?? i actually had to give him a tap w/the end of the reins to get him to canter. that's just NOT like him. however, he didn't feel off or stiff so i figured it was just his being out of shape.

we went down into the creek and circled around and came back. i would usually canter as far as the last gate btwn the trail and the barn area (it's about a mile btwn each of the 3 gates down the valley), and when i asked him this time, heading towards home, he was MUCH more like his old self and we had a great long canter. he also pulled up perfectly easily when the neighbors came thru with their truck and i asked him to walk, and cantered off again after they left. it just felt so GOOD to be out in the middle of nowhere on a road that i KNOW is only used by one neighboring family, with a wide, graded trail alongside it. soooo fun!!!


yes, tipper ALWAYS gets that happy when he gets his hay!! no lie!

( pics from the afternoon ride )

the following was written monday
i got into ventura last night and WOW is it great to be here!!! i was positively giddy about seeing my uncle. he's prooobably my favorite person in the world. i just love him so much. we had a great day at the ranch today! the sad thing is, he's really disengaged from the ranch over the last couple years, since pat (aka barn manager from hell) took over in spring of '04 (i came home from germany to find pat there, and we pretty much hated each other on sight). it's a shame bc the previous manager, larry, had been the manager for like 20 yrs and is my uncle's best friend, and my uncle was like the honorary assistant manager. everyone at the barn loves him and he always befriended everyone and helped people all the time, and hosted get togethers and stuff. most of the boarders had been there 10 yrs or more, so it was like a big family. well, not anymore.

my uncle (his name is dick, btw) said that he no longer feels any sort of drive to befriend the new people and honestly doesn't even like hanging out at the ranch anymore. he's full leasing our old appy tipper (tipper was born the same year as me!) to the guy who'd been half leasing him forever and moved his own young horse, newt (the one i fractured my pelvis off O_o) to tejon ranch for training. the only horse he has left there is gunner, aka my horse. gunner is actually my cousin julie's horse but she NEVER rides him and when i lived here we split everything down the middle (except the riding time; i got 99.5% of that). i consider gunner my first horse, bc he's the first horse i was responsible for and cared for on a longterm basis. he's 15 now (yikes! he was like 7 when we got him!), an appendix qh with about the worst conformation i've ever seen :P. he has an extremely long back, which made jumping hard for him and we actually had to stop jumping him about 4-5 yrs ago. however, he LOVES to run. we always called him gunner the runner. his favorite thing is to go out on the ranch and just gallop, chase cows, etc.

well, he definitely remembered me! i was worried he wouldn't-after all, it's been almost 2 yrs. i walked towards his paddock and saw him scrounging around for food bits and called gunner, gunner! and he immediately pricked his ears and came walking towards me, and we met at the fence. he started nickering! i couldn't believe it! it was the sweetest thing!! my boy remembered me!!! i hung out w/him for a while and then my friend john came over to say hi. (there are maybe 10 people left out of 50+ that i know. sad. they all came up to me at some point during the day to hug me and talk. i was the barn darling, if i do say so myself! everyone loved me and i road all the horses. me and my cousin ashley. *sigh* the good old days!) he already had his mare cricket tacked up and asked if i would ride her for him, as his leg was bothering him. of course i took him up on it. cricket is a really pretty liver chestnut qh whom he bought as a baby, and who was a little nutty when she was younger. now, at 8, she seems to have calmed down quite a bit and was very good on our 2+ hr ride all over the ranch (i went w/my friend nancy and her mexican horse lucero, whom i used to ride 2-3 times a week).

it was soooo nice to be back on the ranch!! we went on a decently long trail ride, about 2.5 hrs, traversing a large swath of the ranch. we had to cut thru several herds of cattle with their babies, which is always cute. it was so funny-i kept remembering things that happened, like, oh, that's the gate ashley got smooshed into while we were racing, or that's the hill that bentley bolted down while we were riding double and bareback, or that's the field where we'd drag logs and jump over them. so many memories! back at the ranch, there were several people out who've been there forever and word had gotten around that i was back, so everyone kept coming over and hugging me and talking. it was so cool to catch up with everyone! it's amazing how quickly you can forget about how you feel about somewhere...these people have known me since i was very young and therefore my relationship with them is at a different (deeper?) level than the people who've only known me a year or two, as an adult. it was just good to be HOME.

v
gunner spots me and walks over to meet me!

( pics from the AM ride. PARENTAL ADVISORY: no helmets were worn during the making of this post! )

had mad dramaz back home with my car almost getting towed and cops running around checking every possible known address for me (which is weird, considering nothing in that car is in my name-it's still in my friend's name who took the loan out for me FIVE years ago, we just never transferred the title over after i paid it off) and me and my mom got in a huge fight bc she was supposed to go over and pick it up weds and didn't and GAH...but hopefully it was all taken care of!

had a nice day today, hung out w/tom bc melissa had to work 8-4. what a cool guy! great catch. too bad he doesn't have a brother who wants to move to PA! :) we watched a couple movies and drove to the beach and went tidepooling. i got within about 20 feet of a HUGE pack of seals...at least 50! some of them scurried into the water as i approached but most couldn't be bothered to lift their heads up to look at me. :P big lazy sods. then she and her roommate armando came home and we all ate pizza and watched ANOTHER movie (flicka...i def don't recommend it :x) and then melissa and i spent several hours getting things together for our friend's wedding and tawking. i'm glad i decided to stay up here for a couple extra days.

greg called and couldn't get it together to borrow his brother's truck to make the 2-hr trip up here and wanted me to come down there..which would have been fine...if he'd called earlier than FOUR PM. ughhh, so typical for him. he's always been totally flaky and in fact that is what cause 90% of all the fighting we used to do. so he wants to try to get a train down to LA and visit me there but eh...i'm not holding my breath.

tomorrow we're going on a beach trail ride at this place that's like right around the corner. we stopped by and the horses all looked to be in excelling flesh and lived in good sized pipe corrals, so we're giving it a go. hopefully i'll get some pictures.

i miss my girlie! if any of you have any updates on her, feel free to leave them...

so here i am in sf, at my best friend melissa's place. well, actually daly city, but sf is the next town up and we actually spend half the day there today. my trip yesterday went well, aside from the fact that i had to get a ride into philly w/my uncle who leaves for work at 5am, then find some trains to the airport and arrived there 4 hours before my plane left. O_o i somehow fell asleep stretched out on those uncomfortable ass airport seats, with my alarm set, but i guess i didn't hear it over all the people talking, planes taking off and loudspeakers blaring constantly. when i finally woke up, they were calling me over the loudspeaker, basically telling me to get my ass on the plane or it was leaving without me! whoooops. everything went fine after that and melissa and her bf tom (whom i hadn't yet met) picked me up in san jose.

her house is really adorable. i've never liked the bay area much at all but i absolutely love this part of daly city. the houses are all small and look like they were built in the 60's/70's but have SOOOO much character! they all look different and are loud colors, etc. very cute. she has hard wood floors, paneled walls and the wall btwn the kitchen/dining room is that retro (well, i guess it wasn't retro at the time it was installed!) cork and mirror patterned tile, and a fenced in yard for her pit bull boss to hang out in (i've known boss since he was born, so he's my baby :). tom is a very cool guy and we've had a good time thus far. i'm actually going to stay up here in northern ca longer than planned; a friend of ours from childhood is getting married soon, and she's having some get together in some private box at an oakland a's game on sat, so i'm going to stick around that long. greg is probably going to come up tomorrow and hang out while melissa has to go to work in the city.

so far we've had mexican food twice (yay! it's hard to find good mexican in PA!) and gone to the beach. they also just got a huge salt water fishtank, so we've spent quite a long time sitting in front of it gaping at the fish like simpletons. it's nice to be back in CA. i feel sort of like i did when i first moved back from germany: like i'd never even left. on the other hand, it doesn't feel like home anymore. like, at all. but i guess i'll see how i feel when i actually get down to ventura.

oh man. big thanks to christina for her 2 days of riding liberty...what a HUGE difference! i got on her tonight and we were both ready to work. we started working right away, getting a slower walk, and doing tons of leg yield and other lateral stuff. i got a couple really nice haunches in to the left (she's much stickier off my right leg. right leg canter has also decided to be bad). her trot was soooo tiny, it was hilarious. lana was out in the ring finishing up a lesson when i started, and i saw her glancing over at me a couple times-i could tell she was surprised at how slow liberty was going. :D

then we started cantering and WOW. i worked so hard on keeping my leg on all the way down: weight in the heels and calf ON, and not letting her "squirt" forward away from my calves like she wants to! i also worked on sitting as still as possible, feeling my calves and thighs touch her and the saddle, keeping my seat still and quiet, and thinking about making her go my speed with my seat and the first few times we cantered she was going so slow i actually had to urge her on w/my leg! i couldn't believe it. it's amazing that with just a few weeks w/sto and TWO LESSONS w/christina what great strides (no pun intended!) we have made. i just felt so good, and she felt so slow and quiet!

after we cantered quite a lot (no more dicking around. we're working mostly on canter from now on. her walk and trot are fine; what is it christina said? why wash clean dishes?) we took a walk break but i insisted she walk my speed and move off my legs when asked. when we went to canter again she was much more resistant (tired?) and picked up the wrong lead twice in a row. i remembered what christina had done when she tried that yesterday and brought her to a dead stop and tried again. when she got it, we cantered around maybe 5 circles and called it a night. i was sooo proud! i'm so sorry to be leaving her! go figure, we finally get going and i'm going to be gone for 10 days. my friends are going to do w/t or trail riding with her, so at least she won't completely lose all the conditioning i've put on her. watching the videos from sunday, it's apparent that she's really muscling up nicely in her neck and along her stifle and butt. hopefully those will continue growing over her back!

i will post the video of me. i'm uploading the ones of christina, and she can post them or give me permission to post as she sees fit. :) i know she wasn't as forward as she should have been in the first element of the gymnastic; she was tired, i guess, and i tried to get her going a little a few strides out but she didn't canter btwn the elements. oh well. i'm just pleased to finally have a recent video of us!

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c12/dieblauereiterin/?action=view¤t=liberty5_27_07033.flv

thanks so much to everyone who commented on my last post. :) hearing your comments definitely made me smile!!!

i'll prob be gone for a while bc my internet usage will prob be sporadic, but christina (meupatdoes) had her lesson w/sto this morning and it went FANTASTIC!!! i was thrilled. i got video of her and she took one of me, so i'll post those when i have a chance. it just went so well. she and sto are now in the other room talking business, will is longeing himself around his pasture looking good, and liberty is dripping dry and munching hay, and christina and i are getting ready to go on a trail ride lj meetup. i'm pretty content right about now!