Lessons from days past

Ok, I'm a slacker.  We all know this by now.  I actually outlined three posts for last week and didn't get a single one done.  Partially because I do this at work and my staff is out and I'm picking up the slack (or at least I did...for like three days).  Partially because it was my birthday week and I had other inconsequential things going on.  Partially because I just didn't get back to it.

So here is the weekend recap from two weeks ago.

We had a cross country school on Saturday morning.  It was to be the last one before they close the course before the show.  It was just me, Ginny on Pearl, one twin on Riley and one twin on her horse Jr.  Pearl is going Novice and schooling Training.  Riley and Jr are both working up to Prelim.  And me on the derpy pony doing BN.

They're all like "we jumped the Prelim coffin!" and I'm all like "I cantered through the water!". They're like "did you see us go over that Intermediate oxer?" and I'm like "you know I cantered over my first ditch!"  And actually, they didn't say any such thing, and they told me I did a good job when I did my little stuff, since they've all seen where I came from.  It's just me being jealous.

Can't quite compare, but I did things I hadn't done before.  We started off (after cantering a log and a little house for warm up) by going into the box and learning about how to work the watch.  Marcy's system is to walk in the box between 15 and 10 and face the back of the box.  Start the watch when they say 5, and start to turn to the front.  Then you are ready to go from there.  From the first fence, Violet was ON!

Freshly clipped pony.

We jumped all the things, logs, houses, tables.  Then we trotted up the little bank (haven't done one of those in 2 years) and cantered over the rolltop.  Stopped to watch the bank work of the others, then headed back down to a table, left turn to the dinky coop of death.  I got in my own head and muffed the coop, but we got over it.  Came back, did it from the other side, left hand cantering turn to the ditch in the woods

This was a huge deal for me.

The last time I tried to canter a ditch, I ended up on the ground and Marcy had to school Violet over it for me.

Very satisfied post-cross country pony.

After the ditch, we came to a newer jump.  It's like an open coop, or a triple bar, but the base inside of it is painted shiny.  And it was raining.  It read like there was water in there.  Three strides out, Violet and I saw it at the same time.  She said "huh?!" and I said "mm, do it anyway" and she did.  Then up and over a very steep hill down to another table.  Marcy was happy with my ability to get the fence done and get on with the next thing, but we headed back up over the hill the way we came and back over the new fence just to make sure our confidence was good.  It was.

After that we headed to the water, where we did a little mushroom jump and cantered through the water.  Again, a first for me, although Violet has been telling me for a while now that trotting through the water is stupid.

After that, all that was left was a table right hand curve past the turnout fields back to a table and the finish flags.  Violet slowed down a bit coming up to the fields, but then picked back up heading to the last.  She got a bit flat, so I balanced her about 10 strides out and had a decent last fence.  Again, we had a great time, and walked away from schooling saying "we got this"!

Takeaways include to be prepared for shenanigans for the first three fences.  If she's going to act up, this is where she will do it, going away from the other horses.  And don't forget the last fence.  So there we go.

Maddie, the most perfect puppy ever.  In her own version of heaven, sandwiched between her dad and her favorite Miss Mary.

Sunday morning we had a dressage lesson.  We worked on a lot of the same things.  Work on forward first.  Make sure to move hands between the reins when stopping.  Not see-saw, but more a move of the shoulders.  These movements can be more or less depending on the horse I'm riding.  Give reins right before asking for walk from a halt to allow that first forward step.  The same goes in the walk-trot and trot-canter transitions.

We worked on some sections of the test.  The biggest challenges for me are going to be the right lead canter coming right off the change in rein across the diagonal, and going from free to medium walk.

Prepare for canter off the change in rein with one full stride of straight before asking for the canter. Make sure I set up properly for that one, because it will be difficult (for me, not Violet, she's got this) to prepare without bracing.  After the circle, make sure to support going into the final corner before the long wall in order to keep from breaking to the trot, and encourage a very forward canter down the long wall.

A very tired pony after a great weekend.

In the walk work, I should use the rein opposite the judge (left) to encourage her to stretch her head down.  Start to pick up the reins before hitting the long wall.  Pick them up with purpose and insist on Violet remaining balanced and not throwing her head up.  Not being mean, just insistent that she respond.  While training this move, I should stop as soon as she becomes resistant and insist on her putting her head down before starting again.  By doing this over and over, we got more and more steps before she threw her head.

So these were my take-aways from lessons the weekend of October 15-16.  October 22-23 coming soon.

A nice walk after a busy weekend.

Back to lessons (after 3 weeks)

Back to lessons after a little over three weeks off for me.  Fortunately, Violet has still been in work.  

She was not happy to see me.  

However, we had a great lesson.  I got on and we went for a nice long walk around the cross country field before our lesson.  

We worked on canter transitions.  Something I have to remember is leg, seat then hands.  In most horses, you would kind of do them together.  But V has a definite order or else she either gets stuck and trots/canters in place, or throws her head in the air.  Either way, she tells you OMG HOW VERY WRONG YOU ARE!  And yes, she yells it.  She did that a bit, but if I don't bid into it and remember to keep my hands UP, she gets over it pretty quickly.  So we worked on our canter transitions, 20 meter circle, and going down the long wall to the downward transition.  I have to remember to sit into the transition in order to bring her shoulder up into the downward transition.  We did that over and over, side to side, then worked on the walk transitions.  Concentrated on using the rein on the other side from the judge to encourage Violet to reach down, which worked pretty well, then getting the transition back to the working walk without getting stuck.  After that, we worked on the trot to halt on the centerline.  Again, almost have to sit the last couple of steps to the halt in order to keep her front and back together and not string the back legs behind in the halt.

After that, we headed back out to the fields, where Violet just wanted to wander around in the wooded parts.  It was a beautiful day, and a great lesson.  I didn't feel too out of shape, partially because Fall arrived!  The heat just kills me.

And although the temps were much better, and I wasn't huffing like a dragon midway through the lesson, Violet was a sweaty mess.  Her winter coat has arrived, and she turned into a shaggy mess. When she gets sweaty and the hair is long, I swear it gets curly.  So she looks a little like a ragamuffin with long hairs, but she was lovely.  We'll take care of the hair closer to the show.  No need to clip now to have her grow it back before the show.

Tomorrow we head out for our last cross country school before the show.

And I may or may not be absolutely freaking out because I have outgrown all my show coats and absolutely cannot find anyone that carries a true plus sized coat.  Found some in the UK, but they won't ship here.  Ugh.

Post Matthew

Ok guys, Matthew was a dick.  But we are ok.

Started off Thursday with a quick walk with the dog to get him out before the worst of the rain hit. What most people don't understand is that, in the beginning, we were getting rain that was not related to Matthew.  We had a damned Nor'easter that hit the coast and we picked up 2-3 inches of rain just from that before the storm came in.  I thought it was funny to watch the weather channel who was doing all their reporting from Jacksonville Beach, just because it was raining there.  I mean, who wants to do reports about a tropical storm when it's beautifully sunny outside, which it was pretty much everywhere else.

Walking Luke before the storm.

 Thursday we were released early from work.  Of course, it's quarter end, my team mate and I did some work from home.  Friday all places were closed, so the hubby, my brother and I tucked in for a long couple of days.  We all of us anticipated losing power, since we live in an older part of town with lots of old oak trees.  So we took showers and filled the tub with water, did all the laundry and dishes, cranked the A/C, filled the freezer with water bottles, and brewed a couple pots of coffee.  We watched our fill of the Weather Channel and local coverage, then watched Pulp Fiction because apparently according to my brother, it's the best movie ever.  The dog was happier than a pig in slop, because all his peoples were home.

The boy and his dog surveying the storm.

As my brother says "it's wind-ing".  See much tree crap in the yard.

Luke and his favorite toy...a water bottle.

The lights flickered twice hard enough to turn off the TV and we were convinced it was coming. While standing on the porch after taking Luke to visit his favorite palm tree in the front yard, we heard a huge BOOM, after which we all turned to each other saying "that did not sound good".  We still had electric, though.

We went to bed and woke up to a cloudy but much less windy day.  The boy was called to go check out stores with his boss.  Brother and I cleaned up the debris in the front and back yard.  It's a pretty big pile, but no actual branches.  I could hear the generators kicking off, and the chain saws buzzing away in the neighborhood.  It turned into a hot, but beautiful day.

We did sustain "damage" though.  The neighbor's fence blew over.  Actually, the one in the back and the one on the side, although we have chain link in the back, so we don't really care too much.  On the side, the neighbor died about a month ago (he was very sick for years) and the woman staying there isn't really doing maintenance, so we put it back up.  And we have 4 broken shingles.  I'll get up there sometime soon and replace those myself.

Side fence down.  Luke thought he was getting a bigger yard.

Shingles.

And that was the big storm for us.  Neighbors on the street in front of and behind us both had trees down, and they are still waiting on power.  Work had no power until midday on Monday, but is fine now.

Unfortunately, other people and other areas fared far worse.  The beach was badly impacted.  St. Augustine was under 4 feet of water.  It was eerie to see water flooding areas that hubby and I walked a week before.  A1A was washed away in Flagler Beach, just south of us, and we lost a third of the Jacksonville Beach pier.  We still have 46,000+ people without power.  Schools just opened back up. And this dick of a storm hit every member of my family all up and down the coast.  Family in Charleston lost power and have lots of trees to clear, but were ok.  Family in Myrtle Beach are still without power due to trees down on power lines.  Fortunately, they are ok, though.

And the pony was absolutely fine.  Marcy kept great care of all the horses.  They had rain and lost one night of turnout, but were back to normal by the next day.  I got out there Sunday for a lesson, because, you know, only 3 weekends before the show.  Can't afford to lose another whole weekend.

Mare says "what storm?  And where's my apple?"

Grab the Oh Shit handle guys, we're in for a bumpy ride

So, we are getting a visitor.  His name is Matthew.  He looks to be a bastard.

This is Matthew

Ok, so maybe this doesn't mean much to you.  Doesn't look so bad.  For those of you who don't know where Jacksonville is, we are in the little dip, between where that M (stands for MAJOR, FYI) is coming off the coast of Florida and the Florida-Georgia state line is.  See where the H dot is?  That is where Beka from The Owls Approve is.

Here is a different view, this time showing wind speeds.

Pretty, yes?

Pretty, NO.  See the dark red?  Yes, that is us getting hurricane winds.  Right now my phone is saying winds will go up to 40 in the middle of the night and then jump to 70+ midday until midnight, then back to 60+ until about 8am Saturday.  That is in my neighborhood.  The beach (about 15 miles away) is expecting 100 mph winds.  So yeah.  Big deal.

BIG F'ING DEAL!  Luckily, the pony is being well cared for inland and further south.

We are expecting no electric once the winds pick up.  No idea how long that will last.  My neighborhood is an older one, so they house is really well built (concrete block and brick), but all the power lines on above ground, and we have lots of old beautiful trees, so I would expect there will be the sounds of chainsaws on Saturday.

Luckily I'm only a mile from work and they have a generator.  And showers.  And TVs.  And couches.  Now where are those sleeping bags?

We are not in an evacuation zone so are going to weather it all at the house.  So we are buttoned up and squared away with plenty of non-electric things we can do to keep ourselves occupied.

Best of luck to all of you out there in the path of this guy (including all my friends further south along the coast in Daytona/Cocoa who will see the worst of this).  Let's hope we don't see him again next week when he comes back for a second taste.

Goin to the chapel

 So, we went and got hitched over the weekend.  It was a quite thing, really.  Thankfully.  Because I had a couple of freakouts leading up to it.  I cannot even imagine what I would have been like if I had to plan the whole thing with people.

So after a mad scramble in the morning to get too many things done, we headed off with the dog barking in our ears (the car means barking.  The whole 40 minute trip) to the spa to drop him off on our way to the courthouse.

We got there, paid our money, and went to the little documents room where they had set up a nice arbor.  The officiant was nice enough to take pictures while we said our vows.

Before

During

"You may now kiss the bride"

The rings

After that, we headed to the hotel.  We were a bit early, but they were nice enough to hold our luggage while we went off to explore.  We went first down the pedestrian street, St. George, to check out all the little shops, then made our way to the distillery where we tried vodka, gin and run made in St. Augustine.  After that, we went back to old town and visited the Castillo de San Marco, which was very cool.

Trying to figure this selfy thing out.

On top of the Castillo.  With a cannon.

 Then we headed back to the hotel where we checked in, showered and got ready for dinner.  A shuttle came and took us to a really nice restaurant that is a St. Augustine institution, the Raintree, where we had a great meal and tasty drinks.  Then back to the hotel where we sat on the balcony in rocking chairs enjoying champagne from the local winery and chocolates as we watched the ghost tours go by.

Champagne and chocolates in our room.

The next day we got up when we got up, wandered around looking for a light breakfast, and got some coffee at the little coffee shop.  Then we headed to the Whetstone Chocolate Factory for a tour.

We're sexy and we know it.

 After that, we did a wine tasting at San Sebastian winery, hit the distillery up for a bottle of gin, and headed back to town for lunch.

My handsome husband after we discovered the best BBQ we've ever had.  27 Smokehouse.  If ever in St. Augustine, it's worth a try.

We went to the wax museum (request of the hubby) and then got ready for our professional photo shoot.  We met the photographer and did pics around town, changing clothes mid stream.  It was hot, and I was a sweaty mess, but she swears she can edit that out.

Sneak peek of the professional pics

 The last day, we got up and had breakfast at a little out of the way place and checked out of the hotel.

A fantastic Inn.  They treated us well.

 And headed to one last place we wanted to check out on the way home.  The lighthouse.

Iconic

217 steps, and he was willing to hug up on me anyway.  Good thing he loves me despite my sweatiness

Looking up the inside of the lighthouse

After all that, we headed home to pick up the dog, do laundry and grocery shopping and get ready to put our lives back together.  Welcome to the real world.

And while I was out taking a bit of a break from the real world with my new husband, I watched as the rest of the Market Street crew showed at the schooling show to get ready for the show at the beginning of November.  Remember that?  The one that I'm registered for?  Yeah, feeling totally unprepared, but the money has been paid, and the pony is getting clipped, so I better figure it out quick.

Other matters

Yes, I know this is a horse blog, but there are other things going on in my life.  Of course, it all impacts my personal horse-world, so I'll use that as the tie in.

First and foremost is the wedding.  Yes, it is on.  Friday, I will be married.  We have received all the stuff (clothes, rings, etc.), I have found a photographer, and had showers.  Now all that's left is to get my nails done, finish my gift, and pack.

The boy is into all the stuff that goes with a wedding, so we have custom jerseys to wear around St. Augustine, as well as "Team Bride" and "Team Groom" cups to carry around, just because he wanted them.  He's such a sentimental goofball.

Getting my "something blue"

On Sunday last week, I was lucky enough to have a shower thrown by Marcy and Ginny.  We went to the spa and had some things done and had lunch with all the ladies.  Then that night, a few of us met up with the boys for dinner at one of my favorite places.  We had such fun at the spa that we decided we have to do this more often, like once a quarter or so.  I made sure we invited a couple of people who no longer have horses in our program, but are still part of the Market Street crew, and it was so nice to see them again.

I am blessed to have such a great group of people that wanted to help me and Collin celebrate.  There were three people that did not make it that I really wish had, but you know how life gets in the way. At the last minute, Ginny was called away for work and could not make it to the party she planned. My best friend from college could not get away from her full house in MD when her husband was suddenly called away for his job.  And my Mom couldn't make it because her sister was unexpectedly admitted to the ICU with some heart issues.  But I will see them all soon, so it's fine.

I'm still looking for the "something borrowed".

I was lucky enough to have another shower at work, where they got cool things like M&Ms with our picture on them, and a cake made of cupcakes carrot and chocolate that made the shape of a dress, baked and decorated by a very talented woman in our payroll department.  Such sweet people I work with.

The ladies that organized my shower with my cake.  

Participants in my shower.  It was mostly an excuse to eat cake!

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

And then I promptly got sick.  I did not ride.  I did not move.  I made sure to try not to breathe on the boy.  I did make a "just married" plaque to hang on the spare tire of his jeep, and then the front door once we get home.  But mostly I slept for three days straight.  I'm not totally better, but at least everything isn't running now.  That means that I will not ride for three weeks, though, which really sucks.

Another thing on my plate right now is my foot.  You remember when I got surgery last year and all my problems were solved?  Yeah, not so much.  It's doing it's same thing again.  I feel like I'm walking with a stone in my shoe under my toes.  And it hurts when I ride, at least until I start a lesson or something and quit thinking about it.  But I do think it's making me ride more on the outside of my foot on the right, which is adding to my lopsided-ness on the pony.  I'm ignoring it for the most part right now.  I will get to the podiatrist, but not until after the show.

Speaking of the show, entries opened last week.  I need to register, but first had a question about the new BN registration requirement with USEA.  Marcy says don't worry about it, since it does not go into effect until December 1, and the USEA season ends at the end of November.  If I were to register now, I would have to pay the full thing again come December, so just wait.  So now I have to figure out how to work the Event Entries site, since I've never done that before.  It's kind of exciting.  I asked if we were still on track to complete that, and was told at that time yes, so I guess that means I'm good to go.  We'll see since I now have an extended leave from riding (3 WEEKS!) and only a month before the show.

Barn door shot for my blog-friend Emma.  We don't really have doors, though.

Cross-country mayhem

Or how we fared with 10 riders going cross country schooling.

The harvest moon setting as I headed to the barn.

It was a great day.  I got up at 5am and to the barn by 7:30.  Packed up the pony with the five that we were taking from our barn (Violet, Charlie, Riley, JR and Finn) and headed out.  We signed in at the Florida Horse Park around 9, hoping to be out schooling by 9:30.  It was a bit after that, because we had to find the others that were joining us for this schooling.

So there we are, a total of ten riders and eleven people (we had one extra, just in case).  One of those was not schooling, since he was only 6, but he did walk around with us on his mother's retired Training level quarter-horse, lagging toward the back of the group so he could holler "Mom, can I trot?!" to catch up, and asking pretty smart questions for someone new to the whole eventing thing.

"What do the numbers on the fences mean?"
"Do they get to stop between the fences, or do they just keep jumping?"
"Do they try to make it more dangerous as it gets harder?"

A beautiful foggy morning at the farm.

   Yeah, pretty perceptive little one.

Anyway, it was a varied group, with most of the riders doing Novice, a couple that were working on Training, and two of us doing elementary.

We were in the saddle for three and a half hours.  It was fun though.

Pony is ready.  And thanks to Ginny for the saddle loan.

I had one goal.  To not have any stops.  As a bonus goal, I would love to work on some of the BN fences, but that was up to Marcy.

In getting V ready, we discovered I had no rein stops on my regular bridle, so I went with the french link gag that we have used in the past since the reins on that bridle had them.  Yeah, in the future, I will simply switch the reins.

Violet gets a little, well, to be frank, she gets a little bitchy about pressure on her poll.  In the past, we have simply made her deal with it in order to get the control I needed because she was not happy about leaving the group and being in the field with OTHER HORSES, OMG.

This time, she was really very good about separating from the group, and very rideable and controllable.  I didn't need that extra.  What it did do is make her throw her head in the air and become disconnected from back to front.  Which led to "OMG MY LEGS ARE GOING SO FAST, IS THAT A FENCE, I SHOULD PUT MY HEAD DOWN TO LOOK" and a pop-step in front of the fence.

But she didn't stop.  Not once.

My cohort and I spent a while going over the same fence while the rest of the group was working on the banks.  Once we both got our horses going forward over the fence, we upped the ante and jumped the Beginner Novice bench that was next to it.  Neither of us had problems.

I discovered on the second to last fence that part of my issue that day was leg position.  When sitting to go forward in the last few strides, I was pushing my leg forward and losing my pushing leg on the pony.  I am so used to being able to stretch down and around the pony, in both dressage and stadium, in my saddle that I didn't realize when I did that in the cross-country saddle, it actually took my leg off below the knee.  So, I'm looking forward to the next time we school when I can work on correcting that and learning what it is supposed to feel like.  Definitely got better after I was informed.

Accomplished and tired pony.

So, while we were a little worried about the whole mass of riders heading out to the field, and it took a great deal longer than I anticipated to get everyone happy with their schooling, all the horses were good, and it was fun.  Violet and I managed to hit our goal, and we have expanded our group a bit, and I think that's a great thing.

On a more somber note, this was kind of a last hoorah for Marcy who is heading back to surgery tomorrow to redo some work on her clavicle.  Hopefully she will heal quickly this time and be back on and working before we know it.