And now an overhead of St Johns

The red line? The path from the barns to XC. The awesome "past the arenas, across the race track, around the runway and past the graveyard" trip.

Some coconino details

Overhead view. You come in from the road south of the track.

 

 

 

 

And here's two Novice jumps

The water is to the right in the back of this pic. I don't know what Novice does through the water.

sigh

I'm in the midst of working on a paper worth 70% of my grade. I hate when things are worth that much. So much pressure and my brain is so mushy.

Shots and coggins day for Naners and Ollie this am.

Had to take a break from the paper after I fed the cats tonight. Naners and I went south:  4.08 miles, 57:48. Top speed 12 mph (321 mpm,) avg speed 4.2 mph. We got back, I untacked her and went to brush her head and noticed her right eye was shut. What? I think what happened is after I took her bridle off she scratched her head on the trailer and whacked her eye. Or something. Squirted saline in to see if I could get whatever was bothering her out but noticed a very tiny spot that looks suspicious. I have a call into the vet. Of course she was just here this morning. I'd send her a picture but Naners won't hold her eye open long enough for me to do so.

Update: Got a picture: ulceration. Vet has been and gone, get to give her bute and eye stuff. Now, at 7:22 I might get to eat dinner. When you go to bed at 9:30 this is really late to eat.

And this is what eye stain looks like when it has gone down the ducts or whatever and starts dripping from the nose.

In Hunter Land again

Today Naners and I had a lesson with another H/J trainer, one I've known for a couple of years but haven't ridden with before. The place she works out of is between me and town, so it's not as long a haul as I would have to most other places.

It was a good lesson. She set up a basic course and we worked on keeping Banana slow and quiet and then me just getting out of her way. It was the same, yet different, from what we worked on last fall with the other H/J trainer. With her it was more, "don't support the horse at all, let her figure it out," which of course did not go well. This trainer is more, "ride her and support as needed, but try to set her up so you don't need to intervene." The grail was being able to trot over a jump with a loose rein. Banana is getting better at it.

In her opinion, Banana is a perfectly fine and cute jumper, she just needs miles. She told me a couple of stories of insane things green horses have done that have turned out to be amazing jumpers :D We also need to trust each other a little more: I need to trust her that she'll jump, she needs to trust me that I'll be there for her, but not accidentally grab her in the mouth either (I can't believe that has become an issue for me. I hang my head in shame.) Same solution to both: jump things. I trust Banana implicitly to act as she acts in every situation but jumping. I'm going to try to squeeze in two lessons a week until St Johns, it just seems pertinent. I feel really good about us making forward progress as the weeks go on. I really like this trainer right now. She gave me just the right amount to think about. She found all the holes in our flat work too... I've been spending too much time on conditioning :D

Ollie working really hard

Yesterday I set up that exercise where you have two jumps in an X, so the middle of both jumps intersects. You can do the sides of each jump as a skinny, or jump the X in the middle. I kept it low, only a foot, and expected some issue to arise. Nothing. Naners just jumped them. Yay!

Today's ride north we went 3.56 miles, 4.6 mph average, out for 46 min, top speed 12.2 mph (327 mpm.) We trotted up the big hill twice and trotted up the little hill once.

I knit a hat!

Finished just in time for winter to be over

(We're going to keep the fact that I've been working on it for 2-3 years on the down low. But, 2/3 of it happened in the last three days. Part of decluttering the house is finishing half done projects, right?)

Again with the trash cans?

Another ride out on the road to take advantage of that footing, this time with the pelham. She does not curl or get heavy with it and she listens to half halts really nicely, even when cantering towards home on the side of the road. She might be a little hollow... but I'm going to take that over the other options she gives me at present. I feel pretty confident it's going to give me what I need at St Johns now.

Unfortunately, our ride was marred by a swarm of flies! We never have flies, okay, there are flies but they rarely swarm like that and come on! It's March.

And again with the trash cans, today on their sides from yesterday's intense wind. They were  waiting to get her and careful attention had to be given them. The dirt piles have been deemed safe though.

On the cool side, a bald eagle was flying circles over/around us for about ten minutes at the start of our ride.  I see them enough that it's not like a huge event anymore, but notable.

I downloaded an app to track our ride. I wish I'd done that years ago. We went 4.1 miles in an hour, top speed 10.7 mph, which is 287 mpm. As that's when we were cantering I won't have to up the speed too much to get up to 300 mpm.

We both came back on the sweaty side. I had decided not to lock Naners up tonight, but after she rolled she wanted into the stalls with Ollie, so in she went. Silly horse.

This afternoon Banana and I went down the road to the south, something we haven't done in awhile. If we go south it's just as windy as it is at my house, if we go north we go down into the gulch and it's significantly less windy. There was little wind today. Much to my delight I discovered they did something to the drainage on the sides of the road making the footing awesome. Much to Banana's dismay there were piles of dirt where piles of dirt should. not. be. She's also decided trash cans are suspect and one must be at the utmost level of wariness when such an evil object appears. A whole herd of deer can cross the road in front of us and she doesn't care, but god forbid there's a scary pile of dirt. 

We trotted in both directions, having a lovely time and she was listening so we picked up a canter... and what an awesome canter it was. A car passed us and we just cantered on. I'm feeling more confident about St Johns, now that we've gotten out and gone fast. I need to go back out with the pelham on, to see if it does indeed give me better brakes. I already know it gives me a softer, lighter horse. I've found that horses that went western first really like pelhams and Naners is no different. Surprisingly, I also seem to ride better with two reins. I know, odd.

The last harbringer has arrived

And the meadowlarks are here. As far as I'm concerned it's now officially spring.

Here's a bluebird that was hanging out yesterday:

The Snazzy Stock Tie

So I had this idea... a collar with the stock tie part attached so you can tie it like a regular stock without choking yourself. So we have: The Snazzy Stock Tie

It's made from stuff I had sitting around: white satin from when I tried to make a cinderella costume, the black piping from whatever, I always seem to have it hanging about. The pin was rediscovered upon going through my jewelry this week (and upon discovering the kilt pin stock pin I have is too thick to go through the material.) I have tweaks I will make to future Snazzy Stocks. I have the full intention of making something outrageous to wear at local shows. Because I can. Sure, I could pull out the teal sequined one, but it's only for special occasions.

In other news, the horses got their tootsies trimmed today. For the first time ever Banana actually had enough hoof on her hinds to be trimmed. Yay!