In case you were curious

I didn't forget about the blog I just haven't had a lot to blog about lately due to this:

That would be Buck's hoof in a diaper/duct tape boot because of an ABSCESS!!!  Last Friday morning when I went out to feed him he walked up to me so "head bobbing" lame he was basically on three legs.  I cleaned out his hooves (I thought maybe he pulled a shoe or something) and found a hole deep enough I could stick the end of the hoof pick into it.  Needless to say for the last week I've been doing this to his hoof every day.  

Now there's nothing coming out of the hole anymore and he seems completely sound again.  Tomorrow I think I'm gonna ride him and see how he does, hopefully he stays sound and I don't see the abscess come bursting out of his coronary band.  

Three day vacation after a horse show

Makes my pony a very lazy man.  Plus, I think it made him stiff since he was having a hard time getting going today.  I might need to remember, at a minimum, to get him out of the paddock and hand walk him or something if I'm going to give him a few days off from now on.

Look how vigilant he is LOL!

Despite the obvious stiffness (possible soreness, must keep watch over him for the next few days) he did seem to work out of it and was EXTREMELY well behaved.  I think the long "trail rides" from the trailer to the jumping arena last weekend helped expose him to the great outdoors even more then I had in the past.  Today he was like riding an experienced trail horse.  Again, it could just be because he was some what off today but he really seemed to be enjoying himself.  It makes me think it would be a good idea to go on more trail rides with him every once in a while, which definitely wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit!

MOOOOOOOOOO!!!!  I'm not really sure what this is about...

The only problem I seem to be having as of late is getting the left lead on the first time around.  Definitely could be my fault though since I feel like I'm some what off balance in that direction.  To get him to take the correct lead to the left I have to almost completely lose contact with him and let him figure it out on his own, which leads me to think it's something I'm doing wrong but I can't put my finger on it.  Any suggestions???

Doing what he does best!

Don't know what it's been like for the rest of the states (or other countries for that matter) but we've had lots of rain recently.  In fact, it's rained almost every day since last Saturday.  Been kind of nice since I really thought everything was going to die, but it's a little rough getting the entire summer's worth of rain in a week!  Upside, the grass is green again and as you can see above, Buck is VERY happy about this!

Whoops

I went to Queeny Park yesterday for their Mini Event.  For those of you who are not from Missouri, Queeny Park is this giant county park in St. Louis which also has an amazing cross country venue.  After being back in lessons for a short while I decided it was time to see what Buck was capable of.  He'd been jumping like a champ at home and in lessons and really seemed to love it.

It has been raining here basically non-stop since Friday morning and Sunday there was no change until about noon.  The dressage arenas were set up on the top of a hill in a field so the middle of the arena was a little more crowned then the edges and grass + mud made the arena slick as heck!  Our dressage test went terribly, not so much because myself or Buck did anything majorly wrong, but mostly because he was slipping and sliding all over the place which in turn made him want to be a little... "playful" (judges words not mine lol!)  Here's the video (my mom took it so excuse the lack of the entire right side of the arena!):

After Dressage we went to check out the cross country and stadium jumping since my stadium jumping time wasn't for another hour and a half.  I should have known this was not going to end well but the rain had stopped and I really wanted to check it out since I had never been to Queeny Park before.  My stadium jumping time was 1:52 and when we got done watching others do the course and "walking" the cross country (we could only check out the jumps not actually walk jump to jump) it was about 1.  We took a golf cart back to the trailer because it was a half hour walk to the jumping courses from the parking lot (didn't realize this until it was too late).  I tacked up and started the trek back to the stadium jumping arena.  I was LATE!  My trainer had beaten me up there and asked the people at the ring what they were on (because there was no announcer down where the trailers were parked) and they told her they were still on my division.  However, when I got up there (about 5 minutes after her) they informed us they had been waiting on my for 20 minutes and moved on to the next division!  Honestly, I think they're times were messed up because no one was going in the order they were suppose to and multiple people had scratched because of the weather.  Unfortunately we were eliminated because of this *insert sad face here*.  

Since I was eliminated I didn't really know what to do, Buck was kind of acting like a fool because people were jumping all around him in the warm up and I just wanted to get away from there.  The lady at the stadium ring said if I got to the start box on time (my cross country was at 2:08 and it was 2:05) I would be able to run through the course if I wanted to.  I decided some cross country schooling is better than none so we hurried over, made it with about 30 seconds to spare.  I also made the executive decision to canter between the jumps and trot them just because I wanted him to listen to me, when he gallops he gets a little out of control (thus the riding cross country in a kimberwick).  I'm posting this as well, at the beginning it's very far away because my mom couldn't zoom in anymore, but you get the idea.  It was a great course and if I had not already been eliminated it would have been a blast to gallop!

So that was our fun weekend with a mini event and I can't WAIT to go out again.  Plus, lesson learned on paying attention to the right times.  My trainer placed 1st and 4th in her division on two 4 year old Trakehners from New Spring Farm so all in all I think it was a good day.

As fellow equestrians I'm sure you will understand my excitement in this.  I got to go shopping... for my HORSE today!  It wasn't a big deal, I purchased a pair of black SSG gloves (very nice by the way, I rode with them this afternoon), a nice leather halter (I thought Buck would like to look handsome when he goes for trips off the farm), and a new set of stirrup leathers for my jumping saddle (let's just say the others were not jumping safe anymore).

The one purchase which REALLY excited me was this:

A Charles Owen JR8 helmet!!!!  Ok, maybe not a big deal to anyone else, but to me, after using the same helmet I've had since I was I dunno... 10 years old, it's a HUGE deal!  I've always had this paranoia in the back of my mind about my current helmet not being able to hold up to a fall anymore, because of it's age.  I'm not really sure what the life expectance is for a riding helmet, it's never been dropped or anything, but it is 17 years old.  I'm thinking if nothing else, this new helmet will have the "modern" technology my current helmet lacks and, hopefully, will put my mind at ease.  Plus, it was specifically fitted to me (I have a huge head, 7 1/4!!!).  My current helmet was fitted to my 10 year old head and therefore, is a little bit TOO small and feels like it's squeezing my brain!

Rode my pony boy tonight, he was perfect.  I can't wait until we get our arena finished so I have a flat place to work.  I've decided currently there is not a single flat stop on my property for us to work.  It's awesome for hill work (Buck has a weak right stifle) but makes flatwork or anything else virtually impossible.  My husband got a phone number for a guy who does work with a bulldozer so I'm hoping he gets ahold of the guy and he can help us out, for a reasonable price of course!

I've pretty much decided I'm terrible at blogging.  It's fun, I like writing... when I remember (or have the time for that matter)!  I'm sorry for those who were actually nice enough to follow my blog, and also for those who occasionally take the time to actually look at it, I'm a slacker!

It's been over a month since my last post and since then I've gotten a job, started training with a different trainer (still at Cheryl's facility but with her assistant trainer Emily), and oh there was that big deal... the Olympics!

Photo from NBCOlympics.com

If you have been paying attention at all you already know the results and a big Congratulation goes out to all who medaled in the 2012 Olympics.  Obviously eventing was what I watched the most of and really, I'm proud of our US team, even though they didn't place they still came in 7th which isn't bad at all considering some of the things that happened to them (poor Boyd and Otis having to scratch due to injury in their first Olympic Games).

For those of you who haven't been able to watch any of the equestrian portion you can go on NBCOlympics.com and watch entire event replays (so long as you have a television subscription which shows their channels) and I won't spoil the rest since those who watch know what happened and those who haven't should DEFINITELY watch!

Back to me (ha I'm sure you'd rather hear more Olympic talk!), I FINALLY got a full time job (after a couple of months of panic because I wasn't sure we'd be able to pay our bills at the end of the month!).  Hopefully now my husband and I can pay all our bills AND we'll have some money left for fun stuff (which for me is always horse stuff).  It's with the Missouri Department of Social Services and I'm not really sure what else I can say about it since there's some confidentiality paperwork I had to sign but I'll just tell you I'm pretty excited.  It's in the evenings from 4PM to midnight which gives me plenty of time to still work with my horse and hopefully go to some different events!  The unfortunate side, however, is my husband does not get off work until 4:30 in the afternoon which means he doesn't get home until around 5:30.  I'll already be at work every day before he gets home except for the one day a week I work 9AM to 5PM and the two days I have off :-(

Also, started riding with Emily, Cheryl's assistant trainer.  It's been fun, she's very talented and makes everything so easy for me to understand and Buck is doing pretty great already.  We're still in the process of building an arena at home so there is not a whole lot of great places to ride.  We're doing a lot of hill work though which is great because Buck has got pretty weak stifles, more specifically the right one.  I'm hoping we get to go to Queeny Park in St. Louis at the beginning of September for their one day mini event (all three phases wrapped up in one day) and test the waters a bit...

Rode Buck this afternoon and he was great, a little distracted since I do not have a structured place to work him, but we walked and trotted some hills and that really helped him to focus a little more.. or maybe it just made him tired and he didn't care what else was going on anymore haha!  He's so dull to my leg I really think I need to start doing some sort of exercises to build up the strength in my leg.  He doesn't hardly pay any attention to me until I get my leg out of position and goose him with my heel... bad for me because I already have a poor leg position as it is!  I was playing with fate after a bit, a friend of my husband's showed up, started up a chainsaw and proceeded to cut down the huge trees in behind my house (the area we've designated for the new arena)... I decided he had been good for the 30 minutes I was on him and it would probably be best if we quit while we were ahead and before I ended up on my head!

From now on I promise to TRY and keep up with this blog!  What's the point in having it if you don't write!!  Oh and I'll try and remember to get some pictures at the horse show to post, since any other time I'm riding Buck there's no one around with a camera (or my husband is too busy doing other things haha!).

Oh and I almost forgot, I was looking at a pair of tall dress boots and I was wondering if anyone who reads this has used TuffRider Ladies Baroque Dress Boots?  They're not too expensive and they look pretty decent but I am having a difficult time finding any consumer reviews about them.  If you've had them please, let me know what you thought!

Happy Hunting... My Rear!

I was so excited the day I graduated from Stephens.  I thought, "now I will finally be able to ride more, I'll get a full time 8 to 5 Monday through Friday job and have the entire weekends to myself!"  WRONG!!!!

Now it's almost July, I've had one interview and never got a return phone call from it and I just found out today I didn't even get an interview for a position change in a department I've worked in for the last two years!

I've applied for probably ten State jobs and haven't heard anything back from any of them and I'm going in two days to sit down for like five hours to take some crazy required written exams for three of those jobs.

If you can't tell by now I'm REALLY frustrated.  I guess if I wasn't tied to this area it would be easier to find a job but we've bought a house and my husband already has a career which he can't just pick up and leave from.

So now I'm stuck working full time hours for part time pay at a department that doesn't even want to give me a chance to change positions because I apparently had a bad interview over a year ago as well as working part time at another department but only being able to work the hours no one else wants or when someone calls in sick or wants a vacation day.  Which includes working over nights, working double shifts (both jobs in the same day), and working almost every weekend.

I guess the only upside to the situation is I don't have to go back to class, downside... I'm afraid we're going to lose everything!  Obviously these part time jobs do not pay enough to cover everything and with buying a new house and what not the extra bills are really starting to freak me out.  The stress is mounting and I'm just not sure what to do about all of it now....  HELP!!!

Remember

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!  I would just like to say thank you to all the men and women who have served in our armed forces and remind everyone to think a soldier... Today is not just about BBQs and partying!

Kinda disappointed myself today.  I have a tendency to be a slacker when it comes to getting show/clinic entries sent in early, typically I wait until the last day I can send them off... bad habit.  It finally caught up with me today when I emailed about the Greg Best clinic which is coming to my area in a couple of weeks and found out it was full already :-(  Sad day, him and Gem Twist were one of my favorite pairs when I was growing up, I even have the Gem Twist Bryer horse still somewhere!!

Lesson learned, today I filled out all the entry blanks for shows and clinics I wanted to go to in the near future so I would make sure and have them done and ready to go.

On another note, we're finally getting some rain in the area.  I don't think it's rained here for almost a month now!  This beautiful view of the clouds as I went home from work tonight just gave me this feeling of how thankful I really am for the freedoms we all take for granted every day which are defended by those who serve in our military...