Life is going great, though horses aren't involved much for me. I've ridden a few times over the past month or so, and fell off two of those times. Talk about a blow to the ego, and my butt was pretty sore also.
Before the roll of doom
The first time wasn't really a fall, but I am counting it as one because it was still so embarrassing. I borrowed a friend's mare to ride at the RISPCA Horse Ride, and she rolled on the beach after we went in the water. There was no warning, just all of a sudden she was laying down on the beach. I had to throw myself out of the saddle so that my leg didn't get squished. Then of course the horse got up and trotted away and someone had to go catch her. God, talk about mortifying. She was fine, I got back on and we continued with the ride.
During the lesson, before I got dumped.
The second time was after a great lesson that my friend treated me to. I was so out of shape but we w/t/c for a whole hour, plus jumped a few courses, and I was really pleased with myself. So pleased that I decided to let the horse have his reins for our cool out walk around the field, but then he pulled a very dirty spook and spin and thanks to the total lack of muscles in my body, I fell over like a bowling pin.
Thankfully, I did not fall off on the third ride. I rode this awesome chestnut mare at Maddy's barn. The mare was out of shape but she was so much fun to ride. She is extremely well-schooled and knew a lot of cool things. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I wish I had the money and the time for a lease.
During my confidence building ride with Zoe, the chestnut OTTB
In non-horsey news, everything else is trucking along. I officially started my design and photography business last month, so that is my full time gig for now. I got so tired of wasting time applying to jobs and going to interviews and then not getting the job that I unsubscribed from all the job listing emails and decided to go to work for myself. It's been a lot of hard work, but I am building a client base and offering a lot of new things, like birth photography and freelance corporate design services. Here's my website, which I completely revamped: www.polarsquaredesigns.com. I am traveling to Upstate New York next weekend to photograph a breed inspection so I will post some of those photos here.
Hannah is 15 months old and is just cute as a button. She's a big handful sometimes but she's a lot of fun.
Since I no longer have any reason to spend money on horse stuff, my new thing is baby wearing. I have a good little collection going, and I use my carriers all the time. Here's one:
I've been writing this entry in my head, and occasionally actually IN Blogger, for a month or so now, but it always seems so boring and unworthy off the "Publish" button.
Why? Because I have no horse, and this is a horse blog.
I've been going through a horse crisis of sorts. Horses make me depressed, and yet I miss them fiercely. I've ridden a handful of times but a few weeks ago when I rode Maddy's horse Brantley, I ate dirt because he casually refused the Smallest Crossrail on the Planet (after basically giving me a clear memo that he wasn't going to jump it approximately five strides out) in textbook form at the TROT, and like a total jerk I casually looked at the ground and fell right over his shoulder. So really, the whole thing was a FAIL and it hurt my soul more than it hurt my body, because what the hell happened to this?
Lucy is flourishing in her new home, which I am so grateful for. With a horse as unique and potentially difficult as she is, I am so relieved she is secure in a great situation with a girl who loves her even when she's nutty, and a trainer who is prepared to deal with her on good days and bad.
I've seen photos of her sleeping in a stall full of fluffy white shavings, being cuddled by everyone at the barn, and looking calm and happy. I've heard stories of her being fed lots of treats and munching on hay that's up to her knees in her stall. She gets lots of turnout and I can tell she's in the right place. If our story together had to end, I am grateful hers continues as it is.
I am sad and embarrassed that I failed and became another statistic. Girl gets pregnant. Girl has baby. Girl tries to keep horse, but just cannot handle it. Girl sells horse. Girl loses that whole part of herself.
Classic.
Not that I don't love being a mom, because Hannah is my greatest joy. I just wish I could have figured out a way to do it all.
I went to Equine Affaire with Maddy, Natalie and Lauren, who was up visiting for the weekend. They all bought things for their horses. I bought chocolate and ate my feelings. I just suck so much at being horseless.
So that this entry is not totally depressing, here are some recent photos. Hannah is now 8.5 months old. She says "dada", walks with a walker and also along couches or tables, crawls, high-fives, claps, and plays peek-a-boo. She's also realllly adorable:
We finally got power back this afternoon, after two very cold sub-freezing nights. Last night it was 9 degrees outside and 40 degrees in the house. Yeah, not a great time at all. We had the wood stove going but with no power to run the fan through it, the stove wasn't doing much to heat more than the living room area. We blew up an air mattress using an inverter plugged into Kenny's truck and slept on that in the living room as close as we could safely get to the wood stove. We both had multiple sweatshirts on, two layers of pants, a few pairs of socks, and Cairo had her fleece jacket on and slept buried under the covers with us.
Saturday morning...my car is buried on the left and Kenny's Silverado
(i.e. not a small vehicle!) looks shrimpy on the right
The truck had no problem!
9am on Saturday, no plows in sight. Some roads still aren't plowed.
finally I made it to the barn and the driveway hadn't been plowed. One of the
trees had lost a few big branches that were blocking the driveway. Kenny and
I returned later with a chain saw and moved the branches out of the way
so that the plow could get through.
all the horses were happy to be out once I finally got them out there!
Lucy also had a branch come down in her paddock but the fencing was not compromised at all, and I didn't want to leave them all in just because she had this branch in her paddock. I decided to turn her out and just watch her for a little while to make sure she wasn't going to be stupid with the branch there, and she was fine.
Each morning I was actually excited to get out of bed and get moving, so I could warm up. I did a whole lot of shoveling this weekend! I even dug my elderly neighbour out this morning so I could feel warmer. Kenny and I went driving around in the truck to get the heaters on us. We went to Maddy's house this morning to take a hot shower, which made me feel so much more human. Then we went home and puttered around and then all of a sudden, the power came back on! We had a little dance party.
I had wanted to ride yesterday but by the time I got done shoveling the cars out, clearing the snow from the house, getting to the barn (when there was still a driving ban, by the way), shoveling the barn out, cutting down the tree blocking the driveway, getting the horses out, and doing the stalls, I was exhausted. I was way too tired to ride, anyway. All of the other rough boarders were snowed in but I didn't mind helping them out. We all pitch in and help each other when we can. That is what makes a rough board barn work!
Today, though, Maddy and I finally got out and enjoyed ourselves! We did a bit of work at the barn and then tacked up and ventured out onto the trails. Lucy was very, very spooky. Lots of snow was falling off the trees and making loud SPLAT noises in the woods, which she did not like at all. I sat several pretty big spooks and went right over her left shoulder when she pulled a quick and dirty spook and spin.
BUT...
I was using the rope halter/longe line set up again today, and it worked PERFECTLY! I executed the most textbook tuck and roll, dropped the reins mid-air, landed lightly in the 2.5 feet of fluffy white snow as Lucy flew backwards for a stride or so, she stopped immediately when she felt the rope halter, and I got up and yelled happily, IT WORKED! Then I asked her to come back to me, which she did happily, and I let her know she was a really good girl.
LOL.
Then Maddy and I cheered and I was absolutely thrilled.
Ahhh we are so weird.
I wasn't hurt at all and after bushwhacking through some trees to find a good spot to get back on, I was back in the saddle and off we went. Kenny met us in the woods (the trail runs right past my road so he just walked to the end of the road and met us out there) and took some photos, then came back to the barn with us to get some more pictures. So, a huge thanks goes out to him for taking lots of wonderful photos today for us.
she did get a bit excited at times. this was one of them, and she ping-ponged
back and forth across the trail, so excited but not really sure where to go.
forward is always better than ping-ponging, even if she makes nasty faces
