A few posts bag, I mentioned that I was having issues with Blogger and my internet browser, and that I was contemplating a different blog host. Subsequent posts (i.e. everything between that post and this one) had been written via phone app. But typing on a phone is ha-ard. And I like things easy. So today I finally took some time to figure out what the deal was with Blogger vs. Internet Browser, and what my options were.
Apparently, blogger does not like whatever version of Internet Explorer I have been using. Which happens to be (according to Internet Explorer's web page) the most up-to-date version. So hrm. No fix there. Next I perused a couple other blogging hosts, to contemplate a move. But, I hate change (I am very RBI) and I've had this blog for a long time now! I didn't really want to relocate... So my third and final option (which is the option I went with, in the end) was to download a new internet browser. Again, I'm not so good with change... but this was the easiest option, and I figured I had very little to lose.
I figured, if anything, I could just download the browser and use it ONLY for updating my blog (yeah, that's how non-change oriented I am). I downloaded google's Chrome browser, which is what I am using right now. So far, it's OK. I like the idea of a home page, with quick "app"s to my favorite places. And of course I like that it is compatible with Blogger, and YouTube (duh, it's Google) which are the major things I use the web for these days...
Anyways. The idea here is to make blogging easier, so that I update more often. We shall see.
Next post will be horse related! I need to post an update on braiding progress (probably combine "attempt 2 and attempt 3" into one post.
Right now it is a whooping 32 degrees outside (Which is crazy cold for my part of Texas!) so I am huddled up inside, sipping coffee and contemplating a bubble bath. It's supposed to warm up tomorrow and, if so, I will be at the barn with my pretty Gwen :)
J
Friday, January 24, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Back in shape
So for the past week and a half or so I have been really pushing Gwen a bit harder in an effort to both assess her soundness and start getting her fit. She has been doing so well! So far she's shown no sign of lameness, just a bit of stiffness when I get her going. I contribute this to her lack if exercise, the chilly weather, and the fact that she has been locked in a stall for three months.
My pretty girl!! Sorry for the slightly fuzzy quality.
Last night and this, I've been asking her to do a lot of extended trot, both on physical extension and in length of time in the gait. She even started offering to canter! I can't wait until the end of February when I can finally ride her again!
J
Monday, January 20, 2014
Exciting news!!
As of Saturday January 18th, I am the proud owner of a beautiful sorrel quarter horse! Yup, that's right! I bought Gwen!!!
I am super thrilled. :)
I did a lot of thinking about whether or not I wanted to purchase Gwen or try to get a younger, more athletic horse... At the end of the day I went with my heart. Everything I want to do, I can do with Gwen. If I someday get really into showing, nothing says I can't own two horses, right? ;)
Honestly tho, I chose Gwen because I knew what I was getting, and what she could do. I chose that over the unknown. Plus, I love her.
J
Friday, January 10, 2014
Perfect practice makes perfect...
Gwen is doing well! I got her out today on my 22' line and we practiced yo-yo, circles and had a long friendly game while I answered a phone call. She did SO well! It's literally been months since we've really played, but I was getting good responses off phase one including a reverse and half- circle backwards Whoohoo!
Also, as part of my 2014 goal of attending a horse show, I have begun practicing braids! This is harder than it first appears (and it already appears pretty damn hard!) because I refuse to pull or shorten her mane. Yes, I am a little bit crazy. But, I know this can be done because I have seen it in person!
Anyways. I have never before attempted to braid hunter style braids, let alone on long hair. My goal is to practice every week end, with the hopes of being proficient enought to do my own braids when we are ready to show later this year. And, I want to document my progress! Below is perhaps the worst attempt at braiding ever documented, but I will show it because I want something to compare to next weekend. 
Ta da!!!
The sad part is that the really GOOD braid is hidden from view by her lock of hair. Oh well! And, btw, this little length of braids took me thirty minutes, thanks to a very curious horse.
Till next time,
J
( posted using my phone)
Monday, January 6, 2014
Need a new blog host
I need a new blog host. Blogger has been great, but now it is incompatible with my internet browser. This is frustrating since I would like to post more updates as part of my New Years resolution, but that just isn't working out at the moment. I am using the app on my phone to write this. Any ideas??
In other news, Gwen's recovery is going smoothly. She is showing no signs of pain and can walk/trot on concrete in a straight line with no limp. Slight orchids when we turn corners tho, so our next job is to do some phys therapy to help her work thru that. In very optimistic that she will be fine. It will be three months since the incident on January 19th and I plan to give her until mid dr before we ride again.
J
Friday, October 25, 2013
Not so Good News
So... last Saturday I went out to get Gwen and saw this:
It's a laceration about two inches long and about an inch deep on her right hind, just below her stifle. While it doesn't look *that* bad at first glance (bad, but not life threatening bad) it's very deceptive. A hour or two later, she started squirting joint fluid. Not. Good. She was immediately put in a stall, and a vet was called.
Good news: she's expected to make a full recovery. The injury doesn't seem to be too severe, and our biggest fear at the moment is infection. She's on some very powerful (and expensive) antibiotics and confined to a stall for the foreseeable future. But it's going to be a long recovery period. Like, three to four months. Ugh.
Tomorrow will be one week since the incident, and so far her wound is looking SO much better! She stopped leaking joint fluid on Monday, and she's not limping very badly at all (she has no trouble walking around her stall, and is actually doing donuts out of boredom. More on that later). The vet should be out again tomorrow to take another look, but it's healing so quickly that I think we'll be fine.
I'm hoping I'll get the go-ahead to start doing some gentle ground work with her. No circles, of course, but at least some porcupine game. We need to refine some of our games and I think it would help cut her boredom if I gave her something to think about.
But yeah. This week has been "fun".
J
It's a laceration about two inches long and about an inch deep on her right hind, just below her stifle. While it doesn't look *that* bad at first glance (bad, but not life threatening bad) it's very deceptive. A hour or two later, she started squirting joint fluid. Not. Good. She was immediately put in a stall, and a vet was called.
Good news: she's expected to make a full recovery. The injury doesn't seem to be too severe, and our biggest fear at the moment is infection. She's on some very powerful (and expensive) antibiotics and confined to a stall for the foreseeable future. But it's going to be a long recovery period. Like, three to four months. Ugh.
Tomorrow will be one week since the incident, and so far her wound is looking SO much better! She stopped leaking joint fluid on Monday, and she's not limping very badly at all (she has no trouble walking around her stall, and is actually doing donuts out of boredom. More on that later). The vet should be out again tomorrow to take another look, but it's healing so quickly that I think we'll be fine.
I'm hoping I'll get the go-ahead to start doing some gentle ground work with her. No circles, of course, but at least some porcupine game. We need to refine some of our games and I think it would help cut her boredom if I gave her something to think about.
But yeah. This week has been "fun".
J
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Assumptions
Gwen and I have been rocking lately, and before I go into the meat and potatoes of what I wanted to say in this post, I'll do a quick update.
Since the summer is unbearably hot here, and I am naturally lazy (introvert here), Gwen and I have gone bareback since June. It has been a FABULOUS opportunity to work with her on the ground, and take the pressure off of riding. I'm not as sleek and trim as I was at 16 (*Cough*), so our bareback sessions are usually short, sweet, and SLOW. Over the past few weeks I have been getting a bit of trot out of Gwen, but it takes very little to tip me off of balance. She's such a wonderful partner that the second she feels me wobble, she halts. It's nice to know she's not going to dump me, but it's hard to progress when I never get a chance to establish my balance while trotting.
But, we have come leaps and bounds on other rideing-related things. Our back-up absolutely ROCKS. I can usually get a really nice back up without touching the reins. She's so sensitive to the slightest shift of my weight, that I have to be really careful not to lean forward and inadvertantly ask her to back up. She's also gotten super responsive at taking directions from my legs/seat/weight that I barely use my reins (we've been going one-rein all summer, too). It's so nice to know that my horse is listening to me, and trying so hard to do what I'm asking her. I'm definitely not up to par, and have been trying so hard to get better so that I can give her clear cues and not accidently cue for something I didn't mean to.
Anyways. Bareback is great, but we've progressed about as far as possible, since I can't trot/canter/jump (although, we DID take our first jump over the barrels bareback last monday!! It was AWESOME!!!)
Along with riding bareback, in my non-barn time, I have been doing a lot of looking into saddles, saddling, saddle fitting, etc. I came to the conclusion that my western saddle did not fit Gwen. It was just way too big for her. In fact, I don't think any western saddle will fit her, without being too small for me. I'm not that big, but she's got a short back.
So earlier this month, I sold my western saddle to a friend at work, who is getting ready to bring his horse home. I feel confident that the saddle will fit his long-backed TB, and it's a good fit for him both physically and financially. It's a synthetic saddle, so he won't need to worry about leather care.
So I've been on the hunt for an english saddle since then, and I know exactly what I want. I'm going to go with a Wintec again, and I'm really leaning toward the close contact saddle. Thankfully, there's a used Wintec all-purpose saddle at the barn that actually fits me! (most of the saddles are child-sized). Yesterday, I took it out and tried it on Gwen and... it fits her perfectly! I was amazed. It's like fate!
Today was our second day in a saddle. We're going slow (I can definitely tell that Gwen is not as confident in a saddle as she is bareback. Understandably, since she hasn't worn one in months!). We're taking things slow, but I have a feeling I've been pushing her a bit faster than she'd like. I'm making a concious effort to SLOW DOWN. I'm just so excited to be jumping.
Which takes me to the real reason for today's post. Lately, people have been making a few comments about Gwen's behaviour. Said individuals are not exactly experts (let's just say that the oldest one is eleven...). Rather than correct them, I just kinda shrug it off and proceed in silence. I realized that I just do not have the patience to explain what I'm doing. This struck me as sad, since I really ought to be an ambassador for Parelli/Natural Horsemanship, and here I am making a point not to explain why I'm doing what I'm doing?? Why not?
It's because of assumptions. People see me playing the circling game with Gwen, and assume it's lunging. Rather than take time to explain what it is, and how it's NOT lunging, I just grit my teeth (metaphorically speaking) and ignore it. I let them think what they want and just carry on. It's ten times harder to explain something to someone who already assumes they know what's going on, than to explain it to someone who's clueless. And lately, I just don't have the patience to deal with it.
Example: Today I was playing with Gwen on my 12' instead of the 22', because I wanted to put more focus on riding than on-line. She was very unconfident, whether it was because she was saddled, or because there were so many other people in the ring (she's also gotten used to being just one-on-one with me) or both, I don't know. Either way, our circling game was pretty broken. I was prepared for this, and made sure to start her out on her favorite direction, rather than asking her to go her "hard" way. I let her walk for two to four laps, just letting her settle in and relax, before I asked her to change direction and go the other way.
Predictably, when we changed direction, instead of making a smooth transition, we had a lot of stop-start-stop-start. I gave her the time she needed, and she let out a soft sigh and started to relax. However, even after this small release, her circling to the left was choppy, and she would only walk a few steps before she'd stop again. She'd stop, look at me, and I'd gently ask her to keep going. It was during one of those stops that a kid on horseback halted along the rail, said something about Gwen just standing there. Something along the lines of "Gwen's just like 'I don't wanna move!' she's so funny". I said something back like "Yeah, she's just going to stand for a moment" to which the kid replied "Because you don't make her go" with the attitude that I was being a bad horsewoman, because I wasn't *making* my horse go forward like I wanted her to. I answered, (slightly more sternly than I probably should have,) that "No, I'm *not* making her go. I'm letting her rest and think about it," at which point the kid did not reply.
But the comment pissed me off. Like SERIOUSLY pissed me off. Because it had the assumption behind it that Gwen was behaving badly, or stubbornly, or lazily, and that it was my job to "make her go", with the attitude of "you're letting her get away with <insert whatever>". I don't want to be a bitch. I really don't. But I do not have time to correct someone whose already made up her mind about how to handle horses. This is probably not the attitude I should have. Really, a better way to handle the situation would have been to say "No, I'm letting her think about the situation. She's not being stubborn, she's insecure. If you'd like to know why I'm doing this, I'd be happy to talk to you about it after the lesson." Because I am. I really, really AM happy to explain what I am doing, if that person honestly wants to know.
I guess what pisses me off the most is that people assume Gwen is stubborn, or lazy, or naughty, etc. And they like to TELL me that she's being naughty! As if I will laugh and agree with them. I don't. Gwen is not naughty. She's never, ever BEEN naughty! She's the sweetest, most sensitive horse I've met, and I am not being biased (well, maybe a little). But really, she is. She gets nervous, so she stops. She gets unconfident, so she stops. She gets worried or timid, and needs to stop and assess the situation, to see if she's OK, to see if I'm OK, and then she can process, breathe, and we move on. But people don't see the timid/nervous/shy/unconfident part. They just see the stopping and assume she's being lazy, and I'm letting her.
It's amazing to me how no one (outside of Natural Horsemanship) ever describes a horse as "shy", or "timid". They're always "lazy", "Stubborn", "mean", Mares are all "bitchy", geldings are always "grumpy". I've never been introduced to a new horse, and been told "You have to be careful with him, he's very unconfident about his feet". It's always "He's stubborn, he doesn't like to have his feet picked up so you have to do XYZ to make him do it".
Or it's "She's stubborn and won't pick up her right lead". It's never "She's not comfortable cantering yet". This is something I am very aware of. Gwen is not confident cantering. She's especially not comfortable cantering on her left lead, so we spend a lot of time warming up at the trot, online and riding, before I ask her for a canter. And while we're warming up, if she feels paticularly unconfident that day, we might not canter at all. Or I might ask for a few steps, and then stop there. It took me almost a year for her to be confident trotting with me on her back, (when she's not confident, it's like riding a run-away jack-hammer) but now she can trot almost slow enough and smooth enough to qualify as a western-pleasure jog! And that's because I didn't start out asking her to trot all the way around the arena! We trotted one step and then walked. Then two steps, and walked, and so on, until she was comfortable trotting down the short side of the arena. And then the long. And now we can go all the way around! She wasn't being "lazy", she was anxious! Now that she knows it's nothing to be afraid of, and she's not going to be pushed past her comfort zone, she's happy to trot with me.
Anyways, I've probably exhausted the topic of assumptions now. It's something that I have to live with. More than the assumption, tho, what ticks me off is that the people making the assumption don't really care to hear the explanation. I've tried telling a few of the girls about what I do, and it just kinda... goes in one ear, out the other, and they go back to doing things the way they always have. Oh well. They're only teenagers. Maybe they'll grow out of it?
Until next time,
J.
Since the summer is unbearably hot here, and I am naturally lazy (introvert here), Gwen and I have gone bareback since June. It has been a FABULOUS opportunity to work with her on the ground, and take the pressure off of riding. I'm not as sleek and trim as I was at 16 (*Cough*), so our bareback sessions are usually short, sweet, and SLOW. Over the past few weeks I have been getting a bit of trot out of Gwen, but it takes very little to tip me off of balance. She's such a wonderful partner that the second she feels me wobble, she halts. It's nice to know she's not going to dump me, but it's hard to progress when I never get a chance to establish my balance while trotting.
But, we have come leaps and bounds on other rideing-related things. Our back-up absolutely ROCKS. I can usually get a really nice back up without touching the reins. She's so sensitive to the slightest shift of my weight, that I have to be really careful not to lean forward and inadvertantly ask her to back up. She's also gotten super responsive at taking directions from my legs/seat/weight that I barely use my reins (we've been going one-rein all summer, too). It's so nice to know that my horse is listening to me, and trying so hard to do what I'm asking her. I'm definitely not up to par, and have been trying so hard to get better so that I can give her clear cues and not accidently cue for something I didn't mean to.
Anyways. Bareback is great, but we've progressed about as far as possible, since I can't trot/canter/jump (although, we DID take our first jump over the barrels bareback last monday!! It was AWESOME!!!)
Along with riding bareback, in my non-barn time, I have been doing a lot of looking into saddles, saddling, saddle fitting, etc. I came to the conclusion that my western saddle did not fit Gwen. It was just way too big for her. In fact, I don't think any western saddle will fit her, without being too small for me. I'm not that big, but she's got a short back.
So earlier this month, I sold my western saddle to a friend at work, who is getting ready to bring his horse home. I feel confident that the saddle will fit his long-backed TB, and it's a good fit for him both physically and financially. It's a synthetic saddle, so he won't need to worry about leather care.
So I've been on the hunt for an english saddle since then, and I know exactly what I want. I'm going to go with a Wintec again, and I'm really leaning toward the close contact saddle. Thankfully, there's a used Wintec all-purpose saddle at the barn that actually fits me! (most of the saddles are child-sized). Yesterday, I took it out and tried it on Gwen and... it fits her perfectly! I was amazed. It's like fate!
Today was our second day in a saddle. We're going slow (I can definitely tell that Gwen is not as confident in a saddle as she is bareback. Understandably, since she hasn't worn one in months!). We're taking things slow, but I have a feeling I've been pushing her a bit faster than she'd like. I'm making a concious effort to SLOW DOWN. I'm just so excited to be jumping.
Which takes me to the real reason for today's post. Lately, people have been making a few comments about Gwen's behaviour. Said individuals are not exactly experts (let's just say that the oldest one is eleven...). Rather than correct them, I just kinda shrug it off and proceed in silence. I realized that I just do not have the patience to explain what I'm doing. This struck me as sad, since I really ought to be an ambassador for Parelli/Natural Horsemanship, and here I am making a point not to explain why I'm doing what I'm doing?? Why not?
It's because of assumptions. People see me playing the circling game with Gwen, and assume it's lunging. Rather than take time to explain what it is, and how it's NOT lunging, I just grit my teeth (metaphorically speaking) and ignore it. I let them think what they want and just carry on. It's ten times harder to explain something to someone who already assumes they know what's going on, than to explain it to someone who's clueless. And lately, I just don't have the patience to deal with it.
Example: Today I was playing with Gwen on my 12' instead of the 22', because I wanted to put more focus on riding than on-line. She was very unconfident, whether it was because she was saddled, or because there were so many other people in the ring (she's also gotten used to being just one-on-one with me) or both, I don't know. Either way, our circling game was pretty broken. I was prepared for this, and made sure to start her out on her favorite direction, rather than asking her to go her "hard" way. I let her walk for two to four laps, just letting her settle in and relax, before I asked her to change direction and go the other way.
Predictably, when we changed direction, instead of making a smooth transition, we had a lot of stop-start-stop-start. I gave her the time she needed, and she let out a soft sigh and started to relax. However, even after this small release, her circling to the left was choppy, and she would only walk a few steps before she'd stop again. She'd stop, look at me, and I'd gently ask her to keep going. It was during one of those stops that a kid on horseback halted along the rail, said something about Gwen just standing there. Something along the lines of "Gwen's just like 'I don't wanna move!' she's so funny". I said something back like "Yeah, she's just going to stand for a moment" to which the kid replied "Because you don't make her go" with the attitude that I was being a bad horsewoman, because I wasn't *making* my horse go forward like I wanted her to. I answered, (slightly more sternly than I probably should have,) that "No, I'm *not* making her go. I'm letting her rest and think about it," at which point the kid did not reply.
But the comment pissed me off. Like SERIOUSLY pissed me off. Because it had the assumption behind it that Gwen was behaving badly, or stubbornly, or lazily, and that it was my job to "make her go", with the attitude of "you're letting her get away with <insert whatever>". I don't want to be a bitch. I really don't. But I do not have time to correct someone whose already made up her mind about how to handle horses. This is probably not the attitude I should have. Really, a better way to handle the situation would have been to say "No, I'm letting her think about the situation. She's not being stubborn, she's insecure. If you'd like to know why I'm doing this, I'd be happy to talk to you about it after the lesson." Because I am. I really, really AM happy to explain what I am doing, if that person honestly wants to know.
I guess what pisses me off the most is that people assume Gwen is stubborn, or lazy, or naughty, etc. And they like to TELL me that she's being naughty! As if I will laugh and agree with them. I don't. Gwen is not naughty. She's never, ever BEEN naughty! She's the sweetest, most sensitive horse I've met, and I am not being biased (well, maybe a little). But really, she is. She gets nervous, so she stops. She gets unconfident, so she stops. She gets worried or timid, and needs to stop and assess the situation, to see if she's OK, to see if I'm OK, and then she can process, breathe, and we move on. But people don't see the timid/nervous/shy/unconfident part. They just see the stopping and assume she's being lazy, and I'm letting her.
It's amazing to me how no one (outside of Natural Horsemanship) ever describes a horse as "shy", or "timid". They're always "lazy", "Stubborn", "mean", Mares are all "bitchy", geldings are always "grumpy". I've never been introduced to a new horse, and been told "You have to be careful with him, he's very unconfident about his feet". It's always "He's stubborn, he doesn't like to have his feet picked up so you have to do XYZ to make him do it".
Or it's "She's stubborn and won't pick up her right lead". It's never "She's not comfortable cantering yet". This is something I am very aware of. Gwen is not confident cantering. She's especially not comfortable cantering on her left lead, so we spend a lot of time warming up at the trot, online and riding, before I ask her for a canter. And while we're warming up, if she feels paticularly unconfident that day, we might not canter at all. Or I might ask for a few steps, and then stop there. It took me almost a year for her to be confident trotting with me on her back, (when she's not confident, it's like riding a run-away jack-hammer) but now she can trot almost slow enough and smooth enough to qualify as a western-pleasure jog! And that's because I didn't start out asking her to trot all the way around the arena! We trotted one step and then walked. Then two steps, and walked, and so on, until she was comfortable trotting down the short side of the arena. And then the long. And now we can go all the way around! She wasn't being "lazy", she was anxious! Now that she knows it's nothing to be afraid of, and she's not going to be pushed past her comfort zone, she's happy to trot with me.
Anyways, I've probably exhausted the topic of assumptions now. It's something that I have to live with. More than the assumption, tho, what ticks me off is that the people making the assumption don't really care to hear the explanation. I've tried telling a few of the girls about what I do, and it just kinda... goes in one ear, out the other, and they go back to doing things the way they always have. Oh well. They're only teenagers. Maybe they'll grow out of it?
Until next time,
J.
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