Not the tractor, that was Valentine's day 2 years ago. The thing behind it.
You know what that is? That, my non-hobby-farm-friends, is a manure spreader.
Oh, how I love thee.
Lest you crucify my dear, darling, wonderful, thoughtful husband, I asked for this to be my present. You have no idea how much of a PITA it is to spread composted manure by hand, using just a wheelbarrow and a rake. It's time consuming and tiring. This spreader is basically life-changing.
He even assembled it for me, and I've been gleefully spreading the love ever since!
See that thinly, evenly spread tiny chopped up manure bits? You have no idea how happy this makes me.
Note: I actually threatened my husband that if he ever spent that much money on jewelry, I'd kill him in his sleep. A girl's gotta have priorities, right?
Paddy's rehab has been trucking along. I've lost track of how many minutes we're trotting now, but we've been doing mostly straight lines out on the trails, at a very slow pace. I think we're supposed to start cantering in a week or so, but we'll see how things continue. If Paddy's leaping, bucking, and galloping out in the pasture is any indication, we'll be fine.
Heading out on the trail.
Last night, we went over to one of the flat fields where we work sometimes, so that we could actually trot some big circles and I could ask for "real" work. Problem is, certain Haffies have been off "real" work for going on three months now, and apparently they have no desire to be anything other than a trail-riding lawn ornament.
Look over there! It's a bird! No really, it's a bird. WTF.
Me: Ok, inside bend, check. Now, trot, Paddy!
Paddy: Trotting like a western pleasure Haffieeeee.
Me: A little more forward please.
Paddy: Too much effort. How about I hang my tongue out and put my nose on my chest? Nyaaaaaaa!
Me: (As giant glob of Haffie slobber from aforementioned tongue whapped me on the knee) FORWARD.
Paddy: NOPE!
Me: *pony club kicks*
Paddy: FINE. IMA RACING HAFFIEEEE!
Giant culvert is not scary but that's the path home. Just FYI.
He tried running, he tried sucking back. He tried throwing his head, he tried pulling me out of the saddle. Everything (i.e. nothing) was more interesting than me, so he couldn't possibly focus on what I was asking for more than a second. He fell in, he fell out, he threw his butt over 5 feet when I asked him for a little bend. Anything to get out of working properly. I kept my hands down and quiet, elbows relaxed, leg on, and owned the inside rein. We quit when he was able to give me a decent circle in each direction.
Normally we canter this stretch.
It's kind of funny how many evasions he can think up - he KNOWS what I want, but apparently coming up with the wrong answer is much more fun than doing it right. And his evasions are never dangerous, but they sure do keep me on my toes!
It's a good thing he's basically the most adorable thing ever. Otherwise I'd be posting a for sale notice.
We've had Gus for just over a year now, and until recently, he's never shown any interest in a dog bed. Then, about a month ago, he started getting up on the couch at night.
Did I mention that we have a strict no dogs on the furniture policy at our house? And do you have any idea how much hair a Pyr can dump on the couch in one 8 hour sleeping period? It looked like someone had knitted our sofa cushions.
So off I went to Costco, to procure the largest dog bed I could find. This turned out to be a duplicate of Elias' 42 inch round bed. I'd show you a picture to prove that it was too small for Gus, but he wouldn't stay in it for long enough for me to take a picture, so you'll just have to take my word on it.
Next up, I visited a couple of local pet stores. Apparently a 30x40 inch bed is considered XXL. Gus said this was unacceptable.
So of course I ordered the biggest bed I could find off Amazon. This turned out to be a 47x38 inch Serta memory foam bed, which I was pretty sure we could use as a guest bed in a pinch. It arrived on Tuesday.
This is the biggest box I've ever seen.
Gus for size comparison.
Husband and Gus for size comparison. At this point we were both wondering if I'd actually bought a human-sized TWIN bed by mistake.
I don't usually write much about my lessons, because I find it hard to write about minutiae in an interesting way. However, I do enjoy reading about others' lessons, because I always learn something. So here goes - with loads of pics and some video.
We've been warming up at the walk with tons of bend and changes of direction. I've mentioned that Taran likes to tilt his head instead of actually bending, so getting true bend through the entire body - including from the base of the neck to his nose - is a focus of the whole ride. He also will be great going one way, but if I work too long one direction, he gets stuck and finds it very hard to change his body to bend in the other direction. So I ask for a lot of changes of direction to start with.
Right head tilt instead of bend. This apparently creates giant weird neck muscles.
Better.
Here's a video of our super awkward walk warmup. The interesting take-away for me is that it's OK to hold onto the right rein until he does what I'm asking for (with appropriate ask of inside leg, of course), but when I give, I need to follow him and keep the contact, instead of just throwing it all away as a "reward". In other words, keep the tension in the rein, but allow his neck to straighten.
As we moved on to trot, I'm looking for more of the same bending, but *I* have to be steadier with the connection. If you listen to my trainer's comments, there are some notes about better contact - and of course, more inside leg. Always more leg.
Falling out on right shoulder works great (for him)
Better into the contact.
Haha, just kidding.
OMG WTF WAS THAT!!?!?! (I have no idea, because there is literally nothing there and we'd been past that spot like 50 times already. Weirdo.)
I need to be quicker with the corrections. I can't let him flop around with his head tilted for half a circle - I need to ask for the bend with my inside leg, back it up with fingers, and then relax when he responds. Oh and FFS don't pull back on the stupid reins. Here's the video of our trot warmup...
If you pull the horse into the new direction of bend, you lose the connection and he gets hollow. Duh.
If you push him into the new bend by using your new inside leg to ask for the change of direction, you get to keep the connection and all the other nice pieces too. Also Duh.
3 loop shallow serpentine - note nice connection and left leg asking for the change of bend (at least, I'm going to pretend that's what my left leg is doing, because otherwise it might be doing some strange yoga move on me)
Wait, maybe not...
SCREW YOU LADY I HATE DRESSAGE
If you want to see the epic objection, it's near the end of the video. But to get to that, you have to enjoy some actual pleasant changes of bend and nice trotwork (for us).
I had issue with the canter videos (mostly watching myself flop around was painful) and we just did a smidge of canter at the end, so you get a few stills. The upward transitions are still sticky and a bit of a toss-up (literally, he tosses his front end up), but the canter itself is getting stronger and more balanced.
Horse looks decent, wtf left leg?
Focus on the horse and not whatever my leg is doing.
So there you have it. From walk warm-up, through iffy trot to nice trot, to iffy canter. This lesson was really all about the connection and getting bend by owning one rein or the other (in a nice way), and that's my main takeaway and what I will continue to work on. We have some really nice moments in the trot, and we're definitely getting to be more consistent. Canter and walk... eh, I'm sure those aren't scored much so I really don't need to care for the schooling show this weekend, right?
I've been working Taran a lot on coming properly over his topline, and that's been going pretty well. As you could see in his confo shots earlier this month, the under neck muscle is going away and being replaced by muscles on top of his neck - where they should be!
However, in the last week or so he has developed this weird muscle on either side of his neck, just in front of the shoulder. See the lump?
Lumpy left side.
Really lumpy right.
I've managed to create this muscle by using my hands incorrectly for bend. He tends to cock his head one way or the other (more to the right) instead of actually bending, and initially I was using my hand about a foot away from his neck to ask him to follow the rein. In a lesson about a week and a half ago, I was told that was too far - so when riding on my own I over-compensated and started using my inside hand toward my opposite hip. That motion has created this muscle in such a short time!
The answer (as discovered at my last lesson on Sunday) is to ask with my hand slightly away from his neck, so that I don't close the angle too much - but also don't drag his nose around with my hand over in space! Somewhere in the middle, lol. That muscle is already disappearing, and I'm doing stretches and a little massage to help it on its way.
Anyone else ever seen a horse with a muscle like this one?
After Cash's scare last month, I decided it was high time to pay the retired boys a visit. MC, Fuzzypony, and I headed up on Saturday to say hi and feed them carrots. They both look great - Red is as fat as ever, and although Cash has lost some weight he seems to be doing well.
Note the tongue.
Spotted woolly mammoth.
As ever, he's so polite about asking for carrots.
This is as cuddly as he gets.
Have an extreme close-up of Reddums begging.
As always, many thanks to Claudia and her amazing team at Paint Creek Farm for doing such an amazing job taking care of the boys. I know that Cash especially requires a lot of extras, and it provides so much peace of mind to know that she's giving them what we cannot.
If you have older horses, I hope they are faring well this winter!
Naturally, the awesome rides can't continue forever. Eventually something has to give.
Look at our canter from Tuesday. Our canter is great. Our downward transition, not so much, but there's always something. Why can we not do more of this canter?
Last night's lesson was so not what I wanted. Taran started out stiff, I started out too demanding. Having an agenda when riding is generally a bad plan. Riding Taran when it's dusk is also generally a bad plan, especially when all his buddies leave him alone in the arena just as it's getting truly dark. I never really got him truly connected, so our canter transitions were several steps back from where they had been.
This is not the face of someone who really wants to play.
I had also decided to try riding in my saddle, since Fuzzypony's tends to put my leg on his shoulder instead of back where it should be. My saddle doesn't fit him as well, so he objected to me doing any form of sitting trot by doing his little hop-canters. Add that to the fact that I was working on not driving with my seat - which at this point means I am not coordinated enough to do anything else with any other part of my body - and we definitely didn't end on a good note. Blarg.
Then I switched tack and brought Paddy out, because he's far enough along in rehab that we can do a 30 minute w/t lesson. We did one last week, and he was super - those short trots on straight lines were just the thing to get him really listening and on the aids. Alas, last night he had his own agenda, which involved walking as fast as he could and ignoring me completely. We did circles. We did laterals. We did bending. He was having none of it - it was dark and he was alone and he couldn't possibly be expected to actually focus and work. We quit after 30 very frustrating minutes when we finally got a few supple bendy circles and I couldn't feel my fingers or toes because it was so cold.
Sometimes cuteness is the only thing he's got going for him.
Ah, horses. The highs keep you coming back for more, the lows crush your spirit and leave you wondering if you'll ever get it halfway right.
Naturally, I have plans to ride all weekend - in hopes that we'll get it halfway right. :)
