Hair, Hair Go Away!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

I had Friday off from work this weekend. Yay for Spring Holiday! Bobby was out in the morning to do teeth. X, Miss, Bugs and Kaye all had their teeth floated. And then Bobby proceeded to make fun of our "geriatric" horses. So what if Kaye, Bugs and Miss are 19, 20 and 21 respectively. You'd never know to look at them, or by how they act. All three of them act like they're about 10. He was pretty impressed with how good of condition they all were in, especially Miss. Anyway, we got some stuff done around the barn and I was able to ride. Miss and I had a flat lesson with Astrid and Kaye. We worked on our canter some more, which really needs some work. I'm getting so frustrated, but I think Bonnie's going to get on her and do a little fine tuning, so that should help.

Friday night was Lexy's concert. She was chosen to be part of the Elementary Song Fest. It's a pretty big deal, she was one of 7 kids from New Brighton chosen. All day Friday she was at Rochester High School practicing with the group that included kids from Beaver Co, Butler Co, Lawernce Co, and Mercer Co. And then the concert was in the evening. That was the first time the kids had all practiced together, prior to the concert they each practiced at their own school. The kids were very, very good. It was a good concert, and Rhonda Ficca only had time for a brief speech. Finally a concert that wasn't the Rhonda Ficca Show! Lexy had a lot of fun, I'm really glad that she's getting into stuff like this, she's far too serious sometimes.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, I couldn't wait to get out and ride. Plus we had a surprise coming. Morgan was up for a few days from Tennessee! I rode Miss in a jumping lesson with Astrid and Kaye. Bonnie had three bounces set up for us to do. Went through that a few times. And then I lost my reins and had to do it with no hands. I love jumping with no hands! It's one of my favorite exercises, I swear it feels like your just flying. The fences were just set as low cross bars, mainly for Astrid, and well Miss gets bored with little fences. She wasn't really even jumping the first one, just stepping over it and then jumping the last two.

So we had a great ride, but I feel so bad afterward. It's starting to get warmer, but Miss refuses to let go of her coat. Even though we didn't really do all that much, she was soaked. I untacked her in the arena and let her and Kaye loose to roll and dry off some. But of course Miss doesn't roll, so she went into her stall with a cooler. It was nice outside, but still a little on the chilly side in the barn. Poor girl, she just won't shed yet! Bugsy's like that too. He'll be the first one to start getting a winter coat (in August!) and the last to lose it. It's like he's worried that it might suddenly get cold in the middle of summer.

I changed X's bedding on Saturday. Nikki has been using this Best Cob stuff on Image and her and Derek are looking into become a distributor of it. It's kind of expensive to start out, one 40 lb bag can cost $6-9 and you need 3-5 bags for a stall. It starts out pelleted, but as the horses move around and step on it, it will fluff up. The stuff is great though because you waste so much less of it. When it gets wet it just clumps together like kitty litter. You can really just pick out the piles and the wet spots and the rest of it still looks clean. I was amazed on Sunday that X's stall was still clean. He can destroy a stall overnight. Bonnie is trying some of it too, on a few horses. It's too expensive to use in all the stalls, plus you really need to pick it everyday. But we put Miss, Kaye, Bugsy, Big Cuddles, Airy, and Spider on it. We also switched Miss and Twinkie's stalls. Hopefully putting Miss in an inside stall will help her allergies this year. Make all the pollen and stuff from outside work a little harder to get to her.

Sunday was another beautiful day. We cleaned the stalls first thing, turned the baby out for a while. I was going to tack up Miss to ride, but she had a little bit of heat and swelling in her right hind. So maresie gets the day off. Bonnie tells me to tack up Kaye instead, which made Kaye's day. She does not like being stuck in her stall. So Kaye and I had a dressage lesson. We worked on the canter, so easy with her and yet I struggle so much with Miss. Not fair. After I rode I ended up just spending a lot of time with Miss, grooming her and giving her some cookies. She really wasn't herself. I think it's because she has sooo much coat and it was pretty warm that day. I think she was just hot and not feeling well because of it.

Unfortunately it was back to work on Monday. And next weekend I only have one day at the barn. March 22nd is A Chocolate Sunday and I'm helping there. So I won't be able to ride. I'll just have to make sure I make up for it on Saturday. Maybe if it's nice enough I'll torture X and give him a BATH! I'm evil I know.

0 comments: