Tuesday, January 5, 2016

We're moving! Update your links/email!

The blog is making a move... to its own dot com! www.dustysummer.com

Come follow the craziness at its new location. There is a "follow" button on the right side of the page, set up your email alerts at the new address. If you need or want help, email me at atindalla at gmail.

If you follow along via Facebook, the links are already updated.

See you soon :)

Saturday, January 2, 2016

A long review of 2015 and a hint of excitement for 2016

Its that time of year again to reflect on where things started and where they ended up. I started this year off optimistically. Lots of big ideas and plans, and the ever present excitement of being part of the TBS family. There were a lot of changes on the horse front this year, which may or may not have been apparent on the blog. I started off really committed to improving the blog, but as I was distracted the posts dried up a little.

One of the major changes was that Rob and I moved the horses into pasture board and were able to find a little more balance. It wasn't entirely smooth at first, but it eventually settled down. No more running out to clean stalls and feed horses and turn out ponies. Now we were able to take a day off from the barn now and then. We also finally had most of the equipment we needed. It was time to start looking at improving some things, instead of the wild buying spree of the past couple of years. We managed to sell more at the tack sale then we bought, which is pretty crazy.



I took a more active role in the horse's health this year. Gracie had a melanoma removed. We tried out the chiropractor with Gracie, Knots and Gracie got their teeth floated, and there were shoes at different times of year. Gracie's weird udder thing got an ultrasound. Luckily we didn't have any major emergencies, just some minor cuts and bruising. We got serious about saddle fitting, although that is still a work in progress. The horses were in great shape at different parts of the year, and we had top lines at different points. Of course, now they have hay bellies and no top line, but balance right?



Competition wise, we had a big start and a bigger plan: Novice in December. Rob and I both competed at the High Point Derbies, Knots and I went beginner novice and Gracie and Rob went green as grass. Rob was having nervous dreams, which actually turned out to be close to reality. No one got eliminated! I made some big plans for the rest of the year, and then things just kept getting crossed off.



Its always a combination of money, preparedness/time, and transportation. Luckily, transportation is done being a problem, at least on the TBS front. There is a new 6 horse trailer, and we have some friends that are happy to lend a two horse trailer. Rob and I are still driving non-towing-capable vehicles, the focus and explorer. The explorer has been handy with barn things and being able to actually load a vehicle with stuff and people and the dog. Maybe with graduation looming we can bring home a handsome truck and a handy trailer.



We had a little re-emergence in the fall, I went beginner novice at Pine Hill with Knots. There were some sweet professional photographs that I still haven't been able to purchase, but maybe one day. I didn't get to take Jellybean to a show, despite a last minute plan to take her to High Point Farm, but maybe soon. She has been doing great, its just a matter of going somewhere and then evaluating. Knots and I didn't make novice in December. I think we could have made it around if we continued training from October, but being totally honest, I didn't ride for a month after the show. Work-life balance isn't easy.

On the lesson front, I dropped the ball for the most part. Jumping lessons were very few and far in between. There were a couple of cross country schoolings (and another oneand then another one) that made things a bit better. There were some miscommunications and some surprise lameness episodes that made things a little bit disappointing. Dressage lessons were an inspiration. First some tough talk, and then some improvement. Sarah Denham is an amazing person, and Knots has improved a lot this year. We still aren't even close to scoring under 40, but I can see the numbers on the horizon if we get a bit more consistent.



***Warning, non-horsey blah ahead, read if you like, skip to the next horse section if you want to stay on topic.

School has been really killer this year. I started out committed to the PhD program, but after a crappy spring semester with abysmal teaching evaluations (despite my professor being extremely pleased), some rethinking about research dedication, and [finally] investigating career opportunities, I have changed basically everything. I'm going to be graduating with a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry in May, and I can't wait to be finished.

Thanks to my work at the barn and my career investigations, I have realized that I really enjoy teaching people how to reach their potential. And having a PhD isn't going to be the best way for me to meet those goals. I've recently started working in publishing, specifically scholarly book publishing, and I'm loving it. I really want to continue working towards a position where I can work with authors to develop their story. I think developmental editing will be a career where I can work on multiple projects (to fight boredom) and see the difference I'm making. Teaching isn't totally out the window at this point, but its a back burner idea for now.


***
As far as teaching at the barn, I have really enjoyed this last year. The clientele has exploded, and we have such great students. We have made huge improvements to every aspect of the barn, including fencing, shelters, arena footing, and the club house. We said goodbye to several employees, clients, and horses while welcoming new team members, new clients, and new horses. Our lesson string improved and lots of our clients welcomed new horses into their lives. I started working with new students and got to make a difference at summer camps. Our students got to show and learn some new horse and life lessons. I am so proud of everyone! I really just love watching their successes.

Looking forward to this next year, I'm very optimistic. I'm not really sure enough about work to start making lots of plans, but I feel the optimism at the barn and I'm happy to be a part of it. I have some light goals I'm thinking about in the back of my mind: I want to take Jellybean to a show, Knots to another beginner novice or novice, and I'd like to get Gracie worked out and rideable. I'd like to go foxhunting this winter.

Just a few more months of craziness before this graduate school thing winds down. While I haven't been super consistent this year with riding or my own lessons, I feel like our progress isn't measured in show results and outings. I really just want to have fun riding my horses. And I succeed at that every time I saddle up.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

The Ponies Survived Vacation

For Thanksgiving, we traveled up to Ohio to visit with family. It was lots of fun, and really great to spend time with the family. We even got to hear about some of them reading the blog (Hi!!!)!

While we were away, one of the students was taking care of the farm. I wanted to text and ask if my horses were still alive (they are accident prone you know ;)), but I was afraid of what we might find. So I just crossed my fingers and visited them when I finally returned yesterday.

And... they survived! This probably means they are saving up some catastrophic injury for Christmas Eve, but for now, all accounted for.

This enters the final work push before the end of the year, so unfortunately there isn't going to be much barn time. Add that to the darkness setting in about 5:30, and December isn't a great month for outside time. Nevertheless, I'll try to come up with something amusing. I've been posting random pictures on the Facebook page, and I'm going to try to write here, at least as a break from dissertation writing.

In the mean time, this sequence of photos is the interaction with a newer horse, Tribute. Jellybean was socializing with me, then he came over.



Jellybean left the scene. 


Then Gracie came up


She said get out of here!



And Gracie snuffled for treats. I didn't have any, and she was sad. The end.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Jellybean Canters a Jump

Updates are few and far in between when real life gets in the way. In any case, I got to ride Jellybean twice this weekend.

Friday afternoon ended up being a bit of a drama that ended well. I got the barn with just enough daylight for a short schooling ride, hopefully over fences. I grabbed Jellybean, tacked up and was just about ready to get on when I noticed some loose horses. It turns out one of the more mischievous horses had broken a snap on a gate and let himself and two others out to frolic. Sadly, I put Jellybean in the round pen, already tacked up, and went to help.

Twenty minutes later, I walked to the round pen to see the saddle sitting sideways and Jellybean covered in sand. I had a mini-freak out as I worried that the tree of the saddle was broken. Luckily it wasn't, and I tried to calm down and get into a good mindset to work with a baby horse as I lunged her around.

I mounted up as the last bit of daylight faded and I was forced to ride in the dressage arena. Not my plan... Anyways we had some solid work. We practiced twenty meter circles at the trot and canter. Jellybean was trying to move off the leg sometimes, but we still have a lot of work to do. Its funny though, because the difference in working with a green horse as compared to a resistant horse is very evident in the progress. I think Jellybean in month 1.5 is where Knots was in month 2-3, depending on whatever variables matter.

On Saturday, I was determined to jump Jellybean, and so I got to the barn much earlier and brought Robert along as help. We warmed up a little bit in the round pen again, and Jellybean impressed me with her responsiveness to verbal commands. Whip is backup, not primary for sure. We went into the jump field and warmed up at the walk and trot before moving into the canter.

The only sticky point was moving off the right leg. She didn't want to move over one bit. I had on spurs for motivation, and she just didn't care. I kept at it, but we didn't have a very successful run of it. Eventually I got to a place where we could end happily and let her have a long rein for a few minutes.

Robert set up a 12"ish cross rail, and we trotted over it a few times, then I got a wild hair and asked him to set up a small vertical. We trotted over it a couple of times. The best part was that Jellybean actually looked for the jump as we made turned toward it. She perked her ears forward and went right over. This is a great sigh!

We ended by cantering a few times over the vertical. The placing pole was too close, but she managed to figure out her feet. I was trying to offer forward guidance only, I didn't pick spots or keep much contact, just kept her moving along. I was really pleased. Here's the video:



Anyways, I'm thinking about taking her to the December 20th Derby. Its a 2' division, but I'd like to school her over some cross country jumps first. Looks like the field will be all I get a chance to practice before hand. Cross your fingers it drains sometime.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

A bit of a break

Quick announcement: Are you following the Facebook page? I post lots of extra pictures there and sometimes interesting links or videos. 

After the show, I kind of abandoned poor Knots. Although, who are we kidding. He lives in the pasture with grass and basically no riding... What more could a horse want?

Life is getting pretty crazy right now, and since I was making so much time for show prep, I kind of got out of whack with the working side of the equation. After the show, I basically worked all the time for a couple of weeks, then took a vacation to NC to watch my bestie get married. 

Then I came back and was completely exhausted trying to be on a schedule and daylight savings time and blah. 

So here we are, a month later. I actually rode Knots on Monday, bareback. I don't know if that counts or not. 

As a funny aside, I didn't get in touch with our dressage trainer for any of that off time. I did send her a text and give her an update, which basically said no shows until degree finished. She responded with something to the effect of... I figured you'd get back to real life after the show. I find that amusing for some reason. Mostly because I appreciate that she doesn't stop talking to me when I am extremely inconsistent. 

In other news, I had some real talk about what I am doing with 2.5 horses and how I can get at least one of them a regular job. I really love both Knots and Jellybean, but I don't actually have time to ride both, so I need to figure something else out. We were talking about getting Jellybean to a couple of shows and then leasing her to a pony clubber or student. I can take her to the GAG show in December and run goldilocks at Pine Hill this winter. Then we can talk about who. 

I like this idea. I definitely don't want to sell Jellybean, but I want to push along with Knots and see where we get. In the meantime, Jellybean is 4.5 years old and its time to start doing something. 


She thinks this talk is dumb by the way :p

Monday, October 12, 2015

Link to some professional photos from the show

Troy Roane took photos at Pine Hill last weekend, and got some photos of me that I don't immediately think are bad :~)

Here's the link:
http://troyroanephotography.com/p642941848

I'm especially fond of photos 3, 6, 7, 9, and 21.


Unfortunately, I won't be able to post any here, since the photos aren't currently in the budget. But maybe some time. In the meantime, check out the link.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Have and Have Knots, Beginner Novice Schooling Horse Trial

Sunday we finished our first beginner novice horse trials. We picked up some important lessons (bigger bit) and had some fun, and got to support Three Brothers Stable and our favorite venue, Pine Hill. 

Saturday was a long day of prep. Maggie decided I needed to wear a jacket, and I asked her what she thought about button braids. Then she slaved away for quite some time, pulling Knot's rowdy mane and then gelling it into submission. Next time we might leave a bit more hair, but Maggie did a fantastic job. We even made the braids a little bit more fun with some sparkly turquoise yarn ;)

Photo cred: Maggie

So with our spiffy braids in, all my tack cleaned and packed, and the general things ready to go in the morning, I covered Knots up and ruined the rest of his evening:


He really has the worst life ever. Drunken trail pony life was soooooo much better wasn't it?????

I also got to use a spiffy new gift from Robert, my very own tack box!


And so we got up [relatively] late, and left the farm about 6:30 am for my 9:24 ride time. Not too bad. After our dressage lesson on Friday, we decided to have a slow warm up and focus on being chill. No more crutch of the side reins, just us. We worked on serpentines and Knots was fairly calm at the trot. We didn't canter. Then we stood around on a loopy rein and waited for our turn.

Unfortunately I got in a hurry and didn't make the two laps around the dressage arena I was planning on. The whistle (car horn really) blew right as I finished lap one and I just ducked right into the arena. Oops.


 We got fair scores. We weren't on the bit, which was indicated to be a key factor at this level :~) We did have a quiet test for us, and I was completely surprised to see a 7.5 for gaits. Who knew.


 Anyways, 46.8 put us in last after dressage. Strangely comfortable place to be ;). We took a short jaunt back to the trailer and chilled out for a couple of minutes before stadium came up. I walked the course, which was very straightforward, except for some deeper sand and a A/B jump that was a long two or a very short three. I figured we were going to take the three, depending on the canter I had. I even got to walk the course before tacking back up.

Down in the warm up arena, the craziness was everywhere, as is typical. We jumped over the vertical a couple of times and then the oxer. Maggie pointed out he was behind the leg, and I got him moving more in front of me for the last jump before we went up to stadium to wait our turn.


Our round wasn't awful. We started off on the wrong lead, running away from something. He wasn't listening very carefully, and after my jokes about the fat snaffle, karma came along and reminded me I didn't really have brakes. Luckily, I have been riding Knots for a while (2.5ish years) and he doesn't worry me when he gets quick. We did rub the second fence hard; the pole was balanced on the jump cup by some strange miracle. I'm pleased with the effectiveness of my riding. There were a couple of sticky spots that I managed before the got out of hand, and while the combination was super crappy, I did end up getting three. More schooling with flowers is in our future. 

After the scores came out, we moved from 5th to 4th. It looks like there were two riders riding hors concours, which basically means for fun and not ribbons. 

After stadium we had a looonnnngggg (ok 2 hours) break before cross country. We were parked right behind the stadium warm up, so we got to watch lots of people ride through their warm up. The other TBS peeps were hanging out, and we got some quality time laughing at Knots. This link is him acting ridiculous with the kids: https://instagram.com/p/8bRS3LoHzP/?taken-by=3brothersstable


Pony has a hard life, like I said earlier. 

Eventually it was time for XC. We were pumped! We went down to warm up and popped over the logs a couple of times and then lurked by the start box until it was our turn. We went watchless (watches for XC are expensive!!), so we got a cool rubber wristband. Optimum time for this course was 6:00. 

3...2...1...Have a good ride!

We cantered off sideways to the welcome log, and then we were off. Knots took off. I didn't have any brakes at all (remember, fat snaffles are not jumping and definitely not XC bits...). I had no more arm strength or core strength... but somehow he checked before jump 2. Then he was paying a bit more attention. We turned left into the woods, and Knots let himself get a little worried about the dark/light transitions. Jump 3 was ok, and then up the hill to the log on the hill. Down we went to jump 5. The big white coop with brush on it make Knots suck back a little on the approach. I closed my leg and off we went. 

At this point, we were still booking, but I was a tad worried about going too slowly, since our last horse trials we got time penalties. We jumped the next couple in the woods. I tried to stay out of the deep sand (in retrospect, should have used that for a little extra brake power). Knots wasn't being totally crazy. He was checking before jumps, but powering off after them. 

Eventually we came out of the woods and through the water:


Clearly we are not just loping along, although I think his being short definitely has something to do with the ba-da-dum ba-da-dum.

After the coal car, we were almost finished. A bench, a teal box, then up the hill to the last roll top and done! We were pretty pumped at the finish line. I hopped off and started walking him back to the trailer and a shower. We met up with our friends at the middle of the hill and chatted about the round. 

I was fairly nervous all week that Knots wasn't going to be conditioned well enough for this event. He only took about 5 minutes for his breathing to return to mostly normal after galloping around the course. Optimum time was 6:00, we completed the course in 5:19. Penalty time was 4:39. I'd say we were pretty good!


After getting Knots cooled out and rubbed down with some liniment, we settled in to wait for the standings. At the end of the day, I finished double clear on my dressage score of 46.8. Not even close to enough to be competitive in the beginner novice. I think I finished 15th out of 21 in the entire beginner novice. I guess that wouldn't make some people happy, but I just wanted to go out and jump around a course and not have any problems. The dressage has already come so far this year, I can only imagine how it will continue to improve. And then we can start killing it in the ribbons :p

Maggie and I keep talking about how far Knots has come. He isn't very far in the grand scheme of things, but he has come so far for himself. Old picture for fun:



Last parting information, there was someone watching my cross country round through the water who remarked on how happy Knots seemed going through the cross country course. What a lovely thing to hear.