Good weekend - pictures

I can say that half of my weekend was bad and the second half was good.

Friday, I got in an argument with my SO and left to go sleep at our cottage. I was hurt and I didn't really want to leave, but I did, because I am VERY stubborn! I cried pretty much the whole time, so I think I only caused myself pain.

He called me the next day and we talked everything over and we are back to normal as of Saturday! :)

I kind of lost a day with my horses, since I was so upset, I remained very quiet throughout the day and I had to help my sister trim her colt's feet, which we did in half a jif, because he is such a good boy! He is a long yearling now and he is stunning, I can't wait to see him when he is all grown up! His feet are looking fantastic now!

Talking about hooves, Misty's other front foot self trimmed and is looking pretty good. I can pick her front feet up, so I'm not worried about that... it's the back feet that make me cringe and would probably cause me to hide under a rock. I can't ignore them but I wish I could. I'm hoping I can work with her next weekend and get her feet trimmed, I am only aiming to nip and release her after... the nipping is another thing... I might hobble her to keep from being kicked to death. She is a kicker and has not had her back feet handled at all since birth. If I hobble and touch and massage her feet, she might get more confident in letting people handle her. I want to nip her back feet because they are very unbalanced and are pulling on her white line.

I also have to trim Dandy who is long overdue but her feet keep a great shape, so I am not bothered by it. She will have her feet done this weekend for sure! I have to rebalance Peg who doesn't need a trim besides that and rebalance Pearl who doesn't need a trim besides that. So I have a lot of nipping to do! Fortunately, I have bought a completely new set of nippers and a brand new rasp in order to facilitate the tasks at hand... they work great, I've tried them on the colt on Saturday!

I also got to ride yesterday. I was ready and had the camera set up to take video of Dandy's schooling session, but my girl just wasn't into it and I had poor control and a very energetic horse. She is in full swing of heat and I think the weather had them pumped! Anyways, she was rearing to run and I just couldn't get her fully collected and slowing down her gaits. So I had her running around, we still did circles at a canter, short and long trots. Pearl was out with us and they wanted to race around. We have an area of field that is a bit bigger than an arena, so we used it for schooling. At the end, I got her to lope and jog, but I was too tired to have a video taken and I was sore from holding Dandy back so much, she just wanted to full out run and I am not comfortable enough to let her do that while turnin a 90 degree... she was also hard to bring to a full stop... next time, I will work on that. The rest was great and they got a really good workout. We did about three to four arena turns at a galop, then 3 turns at a walk and trot, then we did it again and took a standing break of about 5 minutes. They were still willing to run after about an hour of that... I was getting sore so I wanted to stop! lol

After like 3 weeks of waiting, I finally got the pictures from the Parade we were in for our annual rodeo. Here are a few of them. I know I am not in the best of shape and I am working on that.

Here's Dandy and I entering our town, to the other side, on my right, is Peg and my sister. You can see a few problem horses scrambling, which I thought was a problem for the situation we were in (Lots of people watching)... If I can get my 4 year old under control, well you can get your 10 year old under control. Peg actually parade walked a good ways. These are the rare photos of me and Dandy under saddle... I like the way she looks. You'll see that I maintain a good contact with Dandy pretty much the whole time, that's because I constantly have to remind Dandy to slow down, she walks really fast and I have a hard time slowing her down, so I keep contact like this to keep her under control and she works fine with that. You can see that her bit is not pulling back, there is just a bit of contact there.

Here, we had to stop to wait for the buggy. I am making a face because we stopped in front of a karaokee bar and the guy that was signing was probably drunk and singing awfully bad... I couldn't wait to get going and it reflected on Dandy, who I had to hold back for most of the time we spent waiting. Beside me is my sister... if you think we look alike, she is my twin sister!

Finally, the buggy makes its way ahead of us and Dandy is about ready to jump in front of it. I have to remind her to be polite and place her back on track!... I'm about ready to get off of my horse and go punch that drunk guy right in the mouth! At the same time I have this lady pointing at Dandy while yelling "Look at that Beautifull Black Stallion" Just goes to show how ignorant some people are... stallions aren't always black and a black horse can also be a mare.. EESH... how irritating! I told her without much manners that she was a mare. Then the lady completely lost interest and walked off.

And away we go! I had taken extra carefull steps to ensure that my horses where bathed, groomed and looked good, which earned me 50$ that I shared with my sister, who helped me get them prepped. Got their tails combed out, manes combed and everything matching. Most other horses, except the paint, were muddy, sweaty, out of control and had bad feet! The white gelding below at my left had only one shoe on a front foot, the others probably flew off, but they didn't bother putting shoes back on or taking off the only shoe. Those people have a lot of money and their horses are poorly taken care of. I felt bad for the horses.

So there it was! I am pretty happy about the way Dandy looks under saddle, I had no idea how "on the bit" she really was and how collected she is. Can't believe how black she is either! She was fantastic and never spooked at anything, she did this like a pro and I never felt out of control at any time. It was her first time exposed to loud noises, speaker, loud music, a LOT of people, a LOT of different horses and she didn't even bat an eye! She's such a good girl!

Vacation!

As you may or may not know, my vacation starts in less than 5 hours! This means that I wont be able to write on my blog for the next week. I am going to the cottage, where there is no Internet, no phone or TV... I can't wait!

Here are some of my plans for my vacation.

1. Ride, at least every other day.

2. Spend quality time with my mom, who is also on vacation!

3. RELAX! I need to rest, I feel exhausted.

4. Spend some time outside, as usual.

I didn't plan any work on the farm, because I feel like I REALLY need the break. I will still be able to go to the farm every day to check up on everyone and everything.

We had an earthquake here on Wednesday (5.0 on Richter scale)... the horses seemed fine about it. The dogs were just going crazy! I was in an office building and it shook quite hard, stuff was falling off the walls and at one point I really felt as if something could fall on my head at any given time. Of course, I didn't know what it was given that there is the G8 and G20 summits and that we were advised to be on our guards about suspicious people (I work for the Canadian Government)... At first I thought it was an explosion, then I felt like the upper floors were crashing down, that's when I took my purse and ran for it.

It's not until I was out of the building to notice no material damage to it that I realized that it wasn't a bomb... then I saw the streets flooding with people and realized that our building wasn't the only one afffected, then the thought of an earthquake was the most likely. Anyways, nobody was hurt and there wasn't major material damage, just a few reported cases. It is the first strong earthquake that I witness and let me tell you that I could feel the building swaying from side to side. I'm sure I was as white as a ghost and my legs were shaking the whole time I was going down the stairs. I thought my office window was going to fall out of the sill! I didn't know if it was going to get worst before it got better, so I got out, like everyone else actually.

Anyways, glad that's over!

We are participating in a parade tonight for our annual professional rodeo. It opens tonight with a horse and buggy parade. I am taking Dandy, Peg and Pearl. It will be Dandy's first time in a crowd and with horses that she doesn't know... I don't know how it'll go since she is so friendly and always wants to meet all the new horses. I don't think that she'll be out of control, once we get working, she always pays attention to the rider. I'm not at all worried for Peg and Pearl, the old girls have been in races, they know the whole crowd, noise and strange horse stuff. It'll be their first time since they got rescued that they'll participate in any horse event. They have been with me for over a year now, they are both doing great and are very happy horses.

I will take many pictures of the preparation to the parade and the horses... I will get my mom to take pictures of the parade itself... since I am riding in it... it's kind of hard to take pics and I don't want to carry the camera with me. It's a great first time for Dandy, since there isn't supposed to be any sirens, I'm sure it wouldn't phase her, but I might feel more comfortable! :)

So I'm off on vacation and will only be back in the office on July 5th. By then, if I'm not too busy, I might post stories and pictures! Have a great week everyone and I hope that you did take some time off from work to enjoy summer... my week isn't supposed to be too hot, but not too rainy (except Monday, but I have erands to run!). See you in 10 days!