So Much For Claiming I Post Weekly....

I claim on my facebook that I update my blog weekly...but it's been a week and three days since I last posted...*sigh* :P

We were really hit with a snowstorm the Friday (the day after) I last posted...I think it was the most snow I've ever seen at once in my life...over two feet of heavy snow everywhere. It snowed over the course of three days and left everything looking like this: (The view of our driveway)

Doesn't it look like Narnia? ;)

I have a three strand fence...Can't you tell?
We get as much snow as we do because we're outside of town in the "mountains". At the barn where Daisy is, there wasn't nearly as much snow...although some areas were pretty bad because of drifting. I had a snowday on Friday.

I used to post pictures of my barn cats all the time...so I figured I'd put some updated ones up.
My baby boy, Groenemeyer.

And Miss Genevieve.

Snow above the barn roof...

And the barn altogether. Because of all the snow we got, Daisy didn't come home...She'll come home as soon as the property is good enough to walk on :P. In town the snow is melting and it's muddy, but it's melting slowly at our house. I'll definitely need to put a new bottom line on the fence at some point... :-/

This is sorta backwards timewise, but just before the storm I went trail riding and got this shadow shot :)

Then last Friday I went with Lydia (Click here to see her blog) to the farm she boards her quarter horse at to see a newborn foal and watch Lydia ride...here is Momma mare, "Queen Jean"...I love this photo:

And then Momma and baby, yet to be named.

My computer died, as I said, I got my dad's "old" (2 year old) laptop to replace it...I'm still working out kinks. I need to set up allll my old iTunes playlists, I have to figure out how to connect my FLIP video player to the laptop without having the laptop shut off because of it, and how to download an MP3 without having the laptop shut down...as well as figure out how to get my pictures back and be able to put together the video of Lydia riding on Friday...*ugh*...this is all so complicated. Luckily my older brothers are skilled in the PC area. :) Thanks, guys!

Sooo, on to riding. I've still been riding. Last week on Tuesday I did a little jumping, then on Wednesday I rode for an hour and 15 minutes, doing a lot of jumping, and I jumped bareback Thursday. My course was SMALL. A ground pole, a raised ground pole (cavalletti), a vertical...I have no idea how high...2 feet? A crossrail, less then 2 feet, and that was it...The Tuesday Daisy's jumping was bad. She only got through the vertical once without knocking it...she also mysteriously started coughing on Tuesday so I didn't jump much because after a few times she had a mega coughing fit so I stopped. Wednesday was great. She jumped really really well, she ended up rushing towards the end, but generally she was good and she jumped (at least the "big" vertical) round and she didn't knock it often. She was such a good girl. :) Thursday I didn't have much time and ended up going bareback and ultimately jumping...which was crazy because you can imagine my form bareback... ;)

Friday I didn't go to the barn, and yesterday I rode Daisy and Bubba. I rode Daisy first and because I skipped one. day. she had a fit and wouldn't listen at all the first ten minutes... I eventually got the dressage crop/whip/whatever and knocked some sense into her, made her sidepass the length of the arena; that got her attention. After that she was an angel, of course. :P
Riding Bubba was amazing yesterday...I'm riding him again in Fair, as aforementioned...I would post a pic. of him but seeing as how I lost them all I'll post links to two posts involving him:
http://cdgagudl.blogspot.com/2008/07/congratulations-jean.html <- Stuart Horse Trials 2008, when Jean and Bubba had 2nd place in the Novice Division. Bubba was an INCREDIBLE event horse. The best. (from my Mom's blog)
http://ridingdaisy.blogspot.com/2009/07/sundays-horse-show.html <- Umm...Last, I believe, event of Bubba's career, July 2009.

Soo I rode him yesterday and worked on the free walk...and moved on to a free sorta trot, and then canter (although that was not with a loose rein). He was awesome! Best ride ever on him.

Today I rode him and Daisy again. I rode him first and was exhausted as usual at the end, but it was a good ride, too. We worked on bending.

Rode Daisy...due to time limit I didn't ride long, and I worked on some side pass and pivot groundwork, as well. :)

Jean pointed out that the more I ride on the bit with Daisy, the easier it will be to teach her free walk...I totally didn't think of that. Sometimes I need obvious help ;)

It's been in the 30's the last two days, which is nice...Daisy is no longer blanketed :)

Annddd the thrush is coming back in Daisy's hinds full-force because of the warmth...I'm going to buy what Michaela suggested, the Mustad Thrush Buster... :)

That's it for now...sorry for the sudden long post! ;)

Midterm Week Review ;)

Bonjour, ma amies! Oui, je prends l'examen francais aujourd'hui. :)
(I know; my french stinks)
All done. Stick it in a translator...or use common sense ;).

Helloooo (in native language)! I should start writing in German...hmm...well, anywhoo. I had midterm week this week, so besides Monday I had the second half of Tuesday and Thursday off, all of Wednesday, and tomorrow I technically have off but I'm going to a pretty longgg choir practice. But ANYHOW, I had lots of fun riding this week! First, we start with a little story from wayyy back last Saturday.

Daisy has a stall issue. She constantly tries to rush into her stall at Jean's farm, and she'll run you along the wall if you don't watch out. Jean doesn't allow anyone besides herself or another experienced adult lead her (besides me, of course) into the stall because she's gotten away with it too many times. She just gets rushy, and it's all Daisy can do to keep herself at a walk. So, last Saturday she was behaving just like that with Jean, and Jean made her walk and got her in the stall, but Daisy was in a big hurry to turn around and get to her hay that she spun so fast she wiped out, no kidding. Jean says she fell over completely, had a sort of stunned look on her face for a millisecond, and then scrambled up. Daisy *strongly dislikes* being seen lying down :P. Needless to say, she seemed a little sore riding on Sunday, but not too horrible. She has also gotten much better about going in her stall, with the help of a chain lead. She doesn't rush in or spin fast at all. I guess sometimes you just gotta learn the hard way ;).

I didn't get to ride on Monday, came back Tuesday and worked her pretty hard at the canter. I've had comments from more then one person saying that Daisy is much calmer this year and collected. She collects so nicely at the canter these days; not rushy at all like last winter. She collects beautifully at all gaits, really. I suppose I should clarify, however, when I say "collect" I don't mean stepping under nice dressage collect (Sheesh...I wish!), I just mean, she's much slower and more controlled. I'm very proud of her these days, with the control and her getting "on" the bit so much.

Wednesday was quite a fun day! A member of the Yautzy Road Yahoos, our 4H club, who rides at Jean's farm received an early birthday gift! She'd been taking lessons on Jean's (technically new) Morgan mare, about 24 years, for a couple months and really liked her; the Morgan is quite showy, and this rider just clicks with her, you can tell. After a bit of grooming and ribbon tying, Jean and I hid behind a feed bin in a stall and watched as said rider walked in to find her favorite lesson pony in the crossties with a big bow around her neck and a sign that asked "Will you be my human?". Of course, it was an adorably sweet moment. I taped it...not sure if I'll put it on here, though. In any case, it was sooo nice to see :). We rode after that, and then went to horsebowl (topic: skeletal and muscular system).

Today was collldddd ( about 12 degrees during the day; 8 degrees currently), and we got a blizzard sorta thing, and after our language tests, my friend and I headed to the barn. We mucked a couple stalls, and then rode Daisy. The arena was loud today with all the wind and snow falling off the roof, and Daisy was actually nervous (which rarely happens). I had to walk her past the shaking and creaking "doors of doom" (also known as the horse-eating entrance) a few times inside before she calmed down enough to ride. I got on, got her a job, and warmed her up and she was ok. When I felt she was doing good, my friend (who's been taking weekly lesson about 3 years) got on. I warned her to stop any time the arena got real loud, but there were no problems, and only one time did we need to do that, at which point the human door of the arena (which is handle-less :P) flung open with a startling noise. Daisy tensed a little and looked up all alert, but she didn't move, and it turned out fine. My friend walked and trotted her, and it was pretty cool to see my horse being ridden from the ground. Two things that really stuck out: her hind end seems to have very little muscle, so she doesn't step under much (however I have been doing the exercises :)) and she has an absolutely beautiful long tail that kinda waves behind her when she trots :). I knew there was a reason why I am adamant about long manes and tails ;).

Also, concerning our goals for 2010 (I haven't forgotten) Daisy can pretty much perfectly do a turn on the forehand to the left, and almost perfectly to the right. Turn on the hindquarters is another story; she sorta does it, but she's confused because she thinks I'm asking for a side pass :-/...And I've been working on flying lead changes over poles in the arena that are set up in a pattern-y-thing (Maybe I'll draw a diagram at some point :P) and she does really well over poles (gets the leads I'd say 90% of the time) but won't do a thing on the flat...any tips?

Alright, sorry this is sorta long...Do you like my new layout?
Hope you're staying warm tonight wherever you are!

Sunday Stills Challenge: The Letter "C"

This week's challenge, the letter "C", was relatively easy...I just stepped out the door, looked around, and took "C" pictures...not good pictures, but the subjects do start with "C"...

My first one wasn't actually taken outside...this is my model of an edible cell.
No, I'm not enjoying Biology this year... :-/

It was pretty annoying to make...but there it is...it's a Cell, with a Cell wall and Cell membrane and Cytoplasm and Chloroplasts...lots of "C's" (in case you want to know, it was made with a brownie)

Each year, a place pretty close to where I live hosts the Cosequin Stuart Horse Trials. All entrants to the event (which has included Jean for summer 2007 and 2008...at least, those are the summers that I went, too) receive a Cosequin bucket with merchandise...I got one of the buckets :) I love them. This one is pretty faded, but...another "C" for Cosequin (Cosequin is a VERY good, VERY expensive join supplement for horses)

Next "C": Cats.
Miss Genevieve tonight...a little bleary-eyed...

And cat number 2...Groenemeyer...who came home today sporting (for the first time in 2 years) battle wounds...wonder what animal he was hunting! :P his nose is scraped up, and so is his paw and the base of his tail...I put some antibiotic ointment on...he'll be fine.

And, last but NOT LEAST, I made a video of my CROSS COUNTRY jump schooling I went to last weekend with Daisy-Mae! Our first one!
I know, it's not actually a "still"...so that's why it's not the main part of the post. Feel free to watch it, if you're interested...and I apologize for the *terrible* quality, I'm not sure why the quality got so much worse after the video was saved on my computer... :-/...I'm not a tech geek, so it'll take a bit for me to figure that out... :(

Check out more subjects with the letter "C" at Sunday Stills!

Happy 11th Birthday, Miss Daisy-Mae!

Today, Miss Daisy is 11 years old. She was born August 19, 1998.
Happy Birthday my Daisy girl!

BTW, for those of you who may notice, those reins *were* new...picture taken about a month ago. They were new and in-use until the day Daisy took off galloping with me using the reins on a halter and the snaps broke :-(...

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About a month ago I bought a box of "All Bran" the cereal, or w/e it's called, and a jar of molasses. Today, I put them to use. I made carrot and molasses bran cookies.

I almost got sick while I was making them. My stomach still feels funny now, just looking at the cookies. The molasses had the most disgusting smell EVER. I really felt like I was gonna lose my lunch :-P. I found the recipe here. The recipe is:

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup bran
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 cup grated carrots or apple

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and oil two cookie sheets.

Put aside a small bowl of white sugar and a drinking glass with a flat bottom.

In a large bowl mix all the ingredients thoroughly. The mixture shouldn’t be too wet, and should stick together.

Add more flour to make the mixture firmer and hold together if necessary. Drop by teaspoonfuls, about 1 ½ inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Grease the bottom of the glass, dip it in the sugar, and stamp the cookies to flatten them slightly. Bake for about 10 minutes. This makes about 25 cookies, depending on the size. Store in an air-tight container or bag.

I probably should have asked you horse people if you had a recipe...one NOT involving molasses. EW. The cookies turned out ok...they look strange, and although they described them as "crunchy" mine seem more like "rubbery" :-P but I did the ultimate test: I gave one to Daisy. And she ate it with gusto, nodding her head up and down like she does when she REALLY like something and licking her lips...well, as long as she eats them. :-P I have a mounted 4H Yautzy Road Yahoos meeting tonight (I'M RIDING BUBBA AGAIN!!!) so I'm considering taking some for the horses there...but don't want to be laughed at in case those horses don't like it. :-P

BTW, if you make the recipe, you WILL need to add more flour. Either that, or less molasses, I guess...

Horse Blogger's Meme

So we all love horses. First of all give us the name, age, gender, breed, height and markings of one of your horses. This can be a horse you ride, a horse you own or one you owned.

Name: Miss Daisy-Mae (Daisy)
Age: (On August 19) 11
Gender: Mare
Breed: Quarter horse/thoroughbred cross
Height: 14.2 hands
Markings: Socks on hinds and sock on left front, and crooked blaze w/ snip...her blaze looks like a penguin :-P

We need a visual of that horse. How about a picture standing still and a little description or story to go with it.

This is Daisy on her first day at our farm...or, rather, the first day our farm ever had a horse :-P. Originally, her fence had metal T-posts, but after a week they were replaced with wood posts, and part of her pasture was sectioned off for grazing. The picture above is her in the place where now there are two grass pens...every year she was fine int he pens, but this year she's been colicky each time she went in them...so now I can't let her graze there anymore and I have empty pens sitting there :-/

Now that we have seen a pic how about one of clip clop being ridden. Tell us about the picture.

I look so young in this picture! The first summer I had Daisy I didn't show, so I just had her as a fun backyard trail horse. I rarely do the above anymore; ride in shorts, bareback. I only ride bareback a lot in the winter; summer she's too sweaty. The first summer, I'd ride her in the morning or afternoon, and then in the evening, around 7, after dinner, I'd hop on her bareback and go for our "after-dinner ride" down the driveway...


Show us a head shot and a short story of a time with your horse. Doesn't have to be related to the picture.

Daisy LOVES to beg for treats...she can be food aggressive, but when out of her stall in cross ties she behaves for treats. She's not all "up in your face" pushy for treats. She stands there, stretches her neck out but doesn't move, puts her eyebrows up REALLy high, wiggles her lip, and waits for the treat. She tries to make herself look really cute. But she doesn't push you around; if she did, I'd NEVER hand-feed her, because that just BUGS me.


Horse have any bad habits?

There are miniature ponies that live down our street. Daisy knows that. So she's always trying to get down to see them. This year, my last ride before she got picked up for fair, I tried to ride her left off our driveway onto the road(the ponies are to the right). She told me she didn't want to, but she stepped out. But just a few houses down, she stopped. She does that sometimes; she'll go from walking along to just stopping and not budging. No matter what. Normally, I give her a smack, and eventually make her go foreword; I don't let her just turn around. But where we were stopped that day we happened to be in front of a house with kids playing in the front yard, and they were watching me and Daisy. So I feebly tried to give her a smack, but I didn't want the kids to think I was being mean to her (they were little; wouldn't understand) so I let her turn around and trot past our driveway and go down the road until we reached the minis. Then she gets all offended if you don't let her go right over to see them. So Miss Daisy forced me to get off and walk her back and forth in front of the property, to show her she couldn't go there until I said ok. We went off past the place and did some canter work farther down, and then I let her turn around and visit. The kick? Once she gets there, all excited, she just smells their noses once, then stands there and stares into the distance like they aren't there...I'm like, wow. ANYWAY, the pony she's visiting with above is Jax, the stallion she has a mini-crush on :-P.

A picture of your horse in action (ridden or not)

Daisy and I at county fair this year; one of her wild starts for barrel racing :-P.

Five things your horse likes

1. Being ridden. I keep her alone at home, and if I don't ride her for a day she's sad. I know it. She has her ears pinned 99% of the time when I'm on the ground, but on her back, just walking or trotting along the trail or road, they're never pinned. She's happy.
2. Treats. Apples, carrots, stale bread, sugar cubes, peppermints, skittles, horse treats, animal crackers, etc.
3.Barrel racing. Besides just trail riding (Where she snorts a TON in happiness at the start of the ride) she loves to barrel race. She may have her ears pinned the entire time, but that doesn't mean much; she obviously likes it :-P.
4. Galloping. I always let her go on pretty long gallops on the shoulder of the road and she LIVES for it; she knows it's coming. Her daddy was a thoroughbred; she's definitely got it in her. I haven't galloped her for real in a few days, and today she was really fidgety. I was wondering why, and then it occurred to me that I hadn't galloped her. :)
5.Having her face brushed. I really itch her face with a soft curry, and then brush off the loose hair, and she LOVES it.
Five things your horse dislikes
1.You brushing her chest. BIG no-no. She does NOT like that.
2. Spraying water under her tail. She doesn't always put up a fit, but sometimes she'll kinda curl her hind end in and act offended.(I guess I don't blame her)
3. Other horses near her. She will pin her ears and though she's never done it, I wouldn't be surprised if she kicked them.
4. Tennis rackets. At fair this year, we had to use one, and I thought she'd be fine with it; normally with stuff if she smells it and you let her see it and you talk to her you can talk her through being afraid. NOT with the racket. She was nervous of it the entire time :-/
5. Motorcycles. Those things are SCARY! She's pretty good about them passing her on the road as long as the engine isn't really loud, but she half-reared at the last parade and got really scared because bikers revved their engines. Dumb biker people :-(.

Random picture of your horse and the story behind it.

I got my hair cut about a month ago and I really liked it...so my mom did a photo shoot with me and Daisy and I didn't wear a helmet *gasp*...but she stood SO still when I sat on her like that. A lot of times at shows when I'm waiting for a class (in Western) I sit Indian style on her with my legs crossed over the horn :)

A picture of when you first got your horse.

Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but I have tears of joy on my face because just literally 5 seconds before my mom said the words "Should I write the check?" and I knew Daisy was mine. *Sniff*

Give your horse a kiss and tag a few friends

(the first week that I had her)

If you read this post and you have/had a horse/lease a horse/ride a horse, whatever, feel free to consider yourself tagged and do the Meme! Just let me know you did it so I can read it! And get ready; you need a wide variety of pictures! :)

I got this meme from Sydney at http://bitlesshorse.blogspot.com .

We Have Another Show!

Daisy and I went to a horse show about an hour away with Jean on Sunday and participated in English and Western combined pleasure/equitation, etc, classes. We got 2nd place in Pleasure! :D Out of a lot of people, so that was cool...and 3rd in command...we had to leave early, unfortunately, because of thunderstorms, so we didn't get to the barrel racing :-/...BUT I have another show on Saturday evening! I'm going to ride both Daisy and Sissy in the show so that should be fun! Plus, I'll still be in the same division, just ride twice each time, so I'll be beating "myself" on the different horses :-P

These videos show first the 8 horse trailer our club uses (the most we've used it for is 7 at a time) and the second is Daisy and I running Texas T in July at a show...we're kinda slow there...It annoys Daisy that she can't do Texas T without my help :P.

Let's Get it Started

Tomorrow I leave to start staying at Jean's house...Sunday is our first open game show of the week...it's a small show, but this year our club will most likely double the size of the show...we'll see how it goes.

I rode Daisy today, did some barrel racing, and she seemed awesome...Hope it lasts.

Monday we don't have a show, but our club will spend the day decorating our stalls (last year's are above in the picture) at the fair. Tuesday the county fair begins. Tomorrow is practically the start of the wonderful, fun havoc. :)

I'll try to update you while I'm "away" but I won't promise anything...probably just words, no pictures, if anything.

Until my next post,

Post #193

Hello, all!

I ended up not riding in the parade on Saturday...Considering how Daisy wasn't completely fine with the last parade, my mom and I didn't have good "feelings" about this one, as it would be a much longer, larger parade, so I opted not to ride in it...turned out that it was fun, anyway, and I was glad I was there to help out.

Our club still attended the parade, and it was a good thing! Without us, there would, again, be NO horses! What a shame! :-P

I arrived and promptly started braiding tails with ribbon; I did one pony, and then another club member wanted it, too...then I did 2 or 3 forelocks. I'd just like to say, I LOVE our club; the majority of the members....well, actually, all of them, are younger then me, some a lot younger, but it's so fun that way. I never had younger siblings or younger relatives living near me, so it's kinda fun to hang out with the "little" kids. :)

The parade finally started, after getting everyone mounted on ponies and moved out of the way as our club's three trailers were taken away to the place where the parade would end, to pick us up.

We did a lot of waiting in the beginning because traffic was still going on down one side of the street, so we had some waiting to do to get onto Main street. One of our club members was riding Maggie, a Standardbred that Jean recently rescued. Maggie looks awesome now, and was a former Mennonite buggy horse, so she really shouldn't have been nervous at all, but her rider was a little nervous, so I stood with them for awhile...by the time we got going, Maggie was fine. She's a beautiful girl now....maybe one of these days I"ll so before and after pictures of when Jean got her; she's awesome now!

Once we got going, Scout, the pony I rode in a show in May, started getting a little excited, so I lead him and rider for a little bit...then they went alone again, then he got super excited as we passed by a mini-stage playing music, so Jean and I both held him...it's so...sad and annoying. We passed that stage playing music, and the music was loud and jumpy; no wonder Scout was nervous! I wish they'd have turned it down...

The rest of the parade was uneventful; I saw some friends of mine, and it was fun listening to the crowd "oooh and ahh" over the ponies; two of our ponies, Mouse (far left pony in the middle picture) and Biscuit (last little buckskin pony in the last picture) are small and ADORABLE, and you could people all of the place saying "Oh, look at the horsies! Look at the little ones!" :-). At the end of the parade we passed a McDonalds, and we joked that we should ride through the drive through...maybe if I ride next year, I will :-P.

For those who are interested in the horses, left to right in the middle picture are Mouse, Phoenix, and Mari (Samaria is her full name, I think)...Last picture left to right (that you can see; the three ponies) are Bella, Biscuit, and Scout.

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The GREAT news is, I got a natural trimmer!!!!! I'm SUPER excited! I found the name and number for one "through the grapevine" and made and appointment for yesterday afternoon...it was awesome! (did I already say that?) I'm completely thrilled. If you've read my blog from the beginning, you'll know that since I got Daisy I've had problems with her hooves; bruising, getting cut, her being lame, having to soak her hoof, not riding for a week or two at a time, etc. Last year, I had her shod. To put it plainly, it was horrible. She reared, she wouldn't stand still, she obviously hated it, and though I didn't admit it mostly because I thought there was no choice but to shoe her, I dreaded the farrier coming. I read The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd by Joe Camp (gifted to me by my awesome uncle :)) and was completely convinced. Shoeing is terrible.

What I realized yesterday was that the natural trimming gives the horse's hoof actual shape. Normally, the hoof is trimmed so that it's flat the way it would be if it had a shoe on. That's fine, if there's a shoe (which are bad anyway), but if they're just flat and there's no shoe, the parts of the hoof that are NEVER supposed to touch the ground do and that's what causes the horse to go lame and people to say that the horse needs shoes. I found it completely incredible yesterday to watch and listen to the trimmer as he explained the way the hoof should be shaped, and how many problems he's solved with his natural trimming. Horses that were lamanitic so bad that they would be put down were saved because of his trim. The trimmer studied in Canada with Lisa Huhn for awhile, and he said at the end of his studying he had to dissect 16 horse hooves. He said that it was terrible what he saw; the coffin bone in hooves of horses that had shoes was completely deformed and twisted because the shoes were SO bad.

All I can say is, PLEASE, read up about the natural trimming and try to find a trimmer near you; it's not simply having a horse go 'barefoot'. If you go barefoot but still have a farrier trim their hooves, they are still in pain because the hooves are trimmed wrong. Check it out, it's a fascinating subject, actually.

I mentioned to the trimmer that I have Daisy on Smarthoof, a hoof supplement, and he said right away that the supplement was a waste of time. He explained that there are so many excess ingredients in supplements that it really just makes a horse more anxious than need be, and it ends up not using half of the supplement. He said he switched his horses to just plain rolled oats and black oil sunflower seeds and that the sunflower seeds make the horse's coat shiny and give the hooves all the "supplement" they need, naturally. I'm SO going to try that! He also said that sweet feed, which I feed Daisy, is actually too sugary, and just increases the chance of thrush in a horse. I'm almost disappointed with myself for not having questioned feed and supplements before; it all makes so much sense. Really makes me motivated to question everything. Just because the majority of people do something and don't want to hear otherwise, does not mean that it's right.

Daisy evidently LOVED the trimmer; he patted her and even gave her a hug in the beginning, and was one of the few people to ignore her angry ears in the beginning. She seemed to like him from the start, and was so still and quiet, we barely held the lead; sometimes it felt like we could have dropped it right there on the driveway and she would have stood still. It was awesome.

The natural trimmer is holding a seminar in our area soon, and I'm hoping to go; I'm completely intrigued. Makes me want to go into natural horse care when I'm older! That would be a cool job!

Alrighty, sorry this was so long! Hope it gave you something to think about...

Anything and Everything...Beware, ***Long*** Post

Sooo, I haven't posted in ages. If that isn't apparent, I don't know what is. I mostly haven't posted because SO much has happened, and I have so many pictures I didn't know where to start. So I solved the problem; I'm not posting pictures. Maybe in another post I'll post pictures with captions, but here I'm just writing.
Please grab some popcorn and refreshments, or you may not make it through this post. It's a long one.

Last I wrote, I was on the verge of going to a Memorial day parade with my 4H club, the Yautzy Road Yahoos. We went. We rocked. The end.

No really, that's not the end. oooook, here I go.

We all arrived at the parking lot of a bank right near where the parade would start. Jean recently got a 9 horse trailer, and one of our club member's has a dad that kinda half-owns it and pulls it for us. It's awesome. We had 4 horses on the trailer: Jean's ponies Scout, Mouse, and Bella, and my Daisy. We also brought Jean's trailer with our club member's horse, Mari. Or maybe Bella was on that trailer...idk, anyway, it doesn't matter. Our OTHER (There are a lot of members) members brought two horses: Liza and Molly. In total, there were 7 of us riding. Some of the horses were a little excited as we tacked up; the band was rehearsing and lining up right next to us. We spent awhile tacking up. I braided a ribbon in Daisy's tail and a flower in her forelock (My new profile picture). She looked great. Finally, we headed out. We have some pretty amusing pictures of us riding through the bank tellers. We were at pretty much the end of the parade because the parade marshall didn't want firetrucks to drive in horse manure. (BIG deal, right? FIRETRUCKS. Can fight fires, go to accident scenes, drive through woods in brush fires, but can't handle horse manure. I don't get it...) Jean's husband is into old cars (Nice old cars :-P) so he drove behind us, which was kinda nice, there were maybe one or two other people behind him, so he made sure he gave us room behind the horses that those people might not have given us. Daisy was pretty good...she was excited. I don't think she was necessarily afraid; she was "looky" but more interested then nervous. She did want to walk fast, though. Daisy is not a horse that enjoys meandering around, especially around other horses. She'd much rather run; race them. Sooo she had a little trouble walking slow, but it was ok. Sometimes she really got annoyed, and ended up walking sideways down the street....soo we look like idiots, but at least she wasn't rearing, bucking, etc, right? Right. Finally, a 4H mom and then my mom held Daisy for a bit so she'd slow down, and she really seemed better after that little "attitude adjustment". Jean had grown up in the area where the parade took place and rode in it as a teen, back when a lot of people rode. Unfortunately, there hadn't been any horses in the parade in years. Fortunately we came along :). I was surprised how quiet it was; not many people clapped or cheered. I wonder if it was because they were bored and didn't want to or actually knew not to scare the horses...who knows?

At the end of the parade we rode back through a graveyard and back down the street. The worst part was then. We were going back to the trailer, fairly close, across the street from a gas station. Two guys were on motorcycles (Daisy's only fear, aside from cars that splash water on her on the road after it rains) and they revved their bikes just as we were going to ride by. I can tell you one thing, Daisy was already busy looking at a flag when that happened, and you better believe she was not a happy camper. She half-reared, half tried to bolt, but I was like "Oh, man" and one of the 4H mom's heard it and grabbed Daisy....the guys kept making noise, and she was signaling for them to stop. After a few steps they did, but it was enough, damage done. Daisy was like "Where are the noisy beasts that are trying to eat me?!?!!!!!" lol. But we survived. We got to the trailer and all as well.

Lesson learned; next time we do a parade (*cough*-this Saturday) I'm round penning her a ton first. Let off some of that steam! :-P I'm glad we went; our club was pretty popular. We had 'walkers' who threw candy to the crowd, and held a banner with our name. Pretttttty cool. If you'd like to see pictures right away, check my mom's post here.
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Next event was a pleasure show the following Sunday. I rode alllll day long; English in the morning, Western in the afternoon.
It was another club event (you finding a pattern here?)


Daisy is not an English horse. You know what? She's not a western pleasure horse, either. She had been doing very well getting her right-lead canter, but it still wasn't automatic. I really had to work to get it; not hard, but I couldn't go trot to canter, walk to canter. For me, it's side pass, stand, canter. You can't do that in a show ring. We ended up not placing all morning in English; she never got her right lead on the first try (not always on second try, either). One time we technically got 7th place, but they don't ribbon to 7th :-P. She looked pretty good, though, I'll say that. But not at a canter. We finally placed half-way through the morning in hunter hack. They set up 2 cross rails that you had to go through. We schooled over them twice before the actual class. The first time, Daisy went over the first one, but then swerved the next one. I blame it on my not being totally focused and giving her leg. She wasn't afraid; she was lazy and hadn't expected it, so she wanted to take a look. We tried again and she was fine. When the class started, she was fine. A few horses refused (repeatedly), some wayyyyyy over jumped (Daisy kinda did), others swerved away from the jump, some didn't enter. In the end, I think we got 6th place, which isn't THAT good, but at least we placed. I was happy. :)


The best part of the day is always Trail class. We rock at trail class because we only do trail riding at home :-P. This trail class was kinda boring, and a little disappointing. It had rained the day before, so there were puddles in the ring that all day we just avoided. Now, they took the biggest puddle and Incorporated it into the class. They set up jump standards at the side so you couldn't go around, and you had to walk through. It was a big, deep puddle; covered Daisy's hooves. She plunged right in.


The next part was a mailbox on a barrel. We are used to mailboxes on posts, so Daisy was kind of confused, but she got over it fast and we got out the paper, flashed it to the judge, and moved on.

All winter long, when I was sick (which was more often than usual this year) I would do ground work with Daisy instead of riding. I worked a lot on side passing over poles, because last year at the county fair we did bad in a trail class because we couldn't do that. I worked hard with her on the ground, and finally moved to doing it on her back. She's good at it. She's awesome if you start standing just over the end of the pole and side pass over the pole. She's not so great at going down AND back at the same time. And that's what we had to do. Figures. However, we were better this time around then we were last summer, so that was good. The pole we used was a small tree (not a true "pole") so of course Daisy wasn't as good. Of course. I got her over going left pretty well, but then she put up a fit about going right. That was frustrating because I knew I had a limited amount of times I could try before the judge would ask us to move on. I tried about 3 times, and I knew the judge would ask us to stop any minute. I figured at that point, I had to ignore placing and just get my stubborn little mare to do it. I turned to the judge (half-way across the arena) and called (very unprofessionally :-P) "Can I please try again?" and the judge nodded sympathetically and held up one finger. There we had it: one more try. I got her to do it. Pretty messily...we ended up stumbling a bit and really only going well in the middle of the pole, but we did it. It was better than other people, because the majority couldn't do it at all. After that, we hopped over a cross rail and we were done. Pretty boring trail class compared to others...but we got 4th place. We always do well in trail. Always (knock-on-wood).


The rest of the day wasn't that great. Daisy got more and more tired as the day wore on. We stunk (as always) in Western Pleasure and Equitation...and western horsemanship...we didn't place in any of it due to Daisy's right-lead dilemma. We still had fun, though...at least, I did. The end of the day, we had command class. That is truly, besides Trail Class, the most exciting part of the day. It is, in essence, Simon-Says on horseback. Except without Simon. Whoever doesn't do what the caller calls out within 3 seconds is disqualified. In the past at this particular show, Daisy and I tied for 1st place. At the county fair we got 1st, too. I'm not sure how we did so well back then, because Daisy was even more terrible at her leads back then...I guess those wins were miracles. But in any case, I was excited for Command. Daisy wasn't; she was very tired. I was soon to realize just how tired she really was. But we forged on.

There were a lot of entrants, as usual. I don't remember how many, but probably about 20. We went on and on; Daisy's responds fast. Especially when she gets into command class; she knows what to do. Miracle of all miracles, she ACTUALLY got her leads right. At the end, it was down to 3 of us in the ring (I thought at the time it was 2, but apparently I didn't see the other person). They called for counter canter. Guess which direction we were going? Right. Guess what Daisy FINALLY did. Of all times.

That's right. She did a right lead. And not the left that the judge was looking for. I noticed it right away. When they said counter canter, I got confused (I'm not the brightest person, if you haven't noticed). I was so sure they'd ask for a canter, that I'd been preparing to ask Daisy for a right-lead canter. When they said left, I knew I wouldn't have to try hard for left. But I kinda squeezed her and turned her and sidpassed her and somewhere in that jumble of commands she did a right lead. It's a shame that I don't know just what I did; It could've come in handy.


In the big picture, I was happy that Daisy did her right lead. That's what I'd wanted all day; she just picked a nasty time to do it. That's alright, though. One of the other people did the lead wrong, too (well, technically right...you know what I mean? :-P I'm probably confusing you) so we were disqualified at the same time. I thought that'd put us in a tie for 2nd, but somehow they picked and put me in 3rd...soo I'm just going to say I got 2nd. It sure felt like 2nd. I left the ring and another person congratulated me, saw the yellow ribbon, and said "What? I thought you got 2nd!". I just said I thought so, too...so please just agree with me and say I got 2nd. :)


I trailered and exhausted Daisy home and put her up for bed.
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It took Daisy a week to get over that show. I'd ended up riding her for 7 hours. 7 HOURS. Now, I wasn't really "riding" her so much as sitting on her back that long, but it really drained her. I thought she was having a week-long colic afterward. She was lying down ALL the time. Not just a lot. All the time; she went so far as to GRAZE lying down. I still rode her, but she wasn't as peppy, and she pawed the ground a lot, and was constantly sleeping. She finally got better the following Saturday (the day I had decided to call the vet if she wasn't better; luckily she was). I've learned that I have to pick one division to ride in next time, either English or Western, or part of both. Daisy can't handle it all, poor girl!
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We haven't done much since the show; we just hung out at home. Daisy hasn't (Knock-on-wood again) gotten lame yet this spring, without shoes but with Smarthoof, a great hoof supplement. I'm praying and hoping that she'll stay strong so I don't have to shoe her.

Maybe I'll post pictures tomorrow or the day after. Until then, thanks for reading this long post. You must be a dedicated reader. Thank you, I appreciate it. :)



If you didn't make it this far and just skipped stuff, that's fine, I forgive you. :)