Year: 2010

Thinking it would be helpful to donate to a tree association, Ex did. He didn’t realize that by donating to a tree association (namely Arbor Day Foundation) they would sell/giveaway our mailing address to SOOOOO many places that the little money that was donated was surely spent in marketing propaganda coming in our mailbox (or what is more commonly referred to as Junk Mail). We’ve been snail mail spammed for months now working to get off these other lists.

So starting with that I’ll throw in that by joining the Arbor Day Foundation they send you 10 very VERY young trees so that’s a nice return on your donation for sure. Ex thought it would be nice to have oaks and I do agree that oaks are quite beautiful but also slow growing. The long and the short of it is we ended up with 10 seedling type oak trees now planted in pots. Not really knowing what to do with them here and knowing we couldn’t plant them in a pasture without them getting dug up, eaten or otherwise killed by a horse it came to me. Ex has quite a few colleagues that are buying houses and what a great housewarming gift but a cute little tree!

One step further to wrap the trees I thought it would be nice to use only what we have around the house so no buying wrapping, bows, etc and only reusing stuff. So the wrapping isn’t the prettiest on the planet but it’s unique and, I think, sends a nice message. This is our first little tree to give away and I think it’s just too darn cute in it’s red, white and blue trappings!

So take heed… feel free to donate to worthy causes but perhaps figure out some way your address doesn’t get handed round to all the other foundations that will send you cards, letters, “gifts” asking for money therefore negating your original intent. Here’s the tree picture! Too cute!

I thought this was a great promotion and it’s starting today so check it out! Leave it to Equestrian Collections to offer a great and timely contest that’s with our safety in mind!

Equestrian Collections is very happy to announce that Troxel Helmets has agreed to sponsor their Facebook Contest this week. Go to the Discussions page under Troxel Helmet Contest and share a story of how a helmet has prevented you or someone you know from being seriously injured.

Next, become a fan of Troxel Helmets on Facebook so you can see your story posted on Troxel’s fan page and Safety Center Headsmart Blog. Equestrian Collections and Troxel Helmets will each choose one winner on Friday, March 19, 2010. Each winner will receive a Troxel Performance Package, which includes one Troxel helmet of your choice, one Barn Beanie, and one Helmet Tote. Equestrian Collections and Troxel Helmets strongly believe that all riders should wear a helmet. By sharing your stories, we hope you can help us to convince others to choose to wear a helmet.

You can also buy a helmet from Equestrian Collections website and get $10 off your order of $120 using the coupon code below:

Whew! We need a forklift! Three days and a few broken backs later and the 200 forty pound bags of Equine Pine are moved from the offloading on our country road to dry storage in the barn. We have been testing the Equine Pine product for the last month and I’m in love with it. It’s economical, SO easy to work with, better for the environment with a smaller carbon footprint than shavings or straw AND for smaller farms it’s idea that you can store enough bedding for a couple horses for an entire year just in a few simple pallets!!

It’s just too kewl not to share so as soon as the weather clears up and it’s almost enjoyable to be outside, we’re going to shoot a webisode on the Equine Pine product!

Check them out if you have a chance at http://www.equinepine.com/. It seems like a great company, they own their own plants so you know you’re going to get a consistent product and they just seem like all around nice folks! Now lifting the bags wasn’t too hard but it would have been all said and done in a matter of minutes if we had a forklift to move them for us. 😉

So the “horse with no name” now has a name! Because I called him the “horse with no name” for so long I double checked the band that sang that song and it’s America. His sire is Sir Donnerhall and he’s out of a Bolero mare so there’s direct Sandro link and being a Westphalian he needed to have a name starting with the same letter as his sire so an “S” which led me to call him Sandro’s Amerika. Now there was a famous singer named Sandro de America that was revolutionary in his time being the first latino to sell out Madison Square Garden and how appropriate I thought since I think this little Sandro has the movement to be a record breaker as well and like the latino singer the looks to wow the crowds. I haven’t really decided on a barn name for him but Sandro seemed to fit for this blog post at least!

I could tell he needed his teeth done but what I didn’t know is that he was extra fussy the last few weeks because he still had his wolf teeth and they hadn’t even pushed through yet. Poor little guy. I felt so sorry for him but they are happily out. He’s loving putting his bridle back on again and once we get more than one day of decent weather I’m looking forward to getting back into a regular training routine with him so we can get him going and list him for sale. He’s just too cute!

Wolf teeth no more!

I was passing out a light lunch just now and Carrara was sunning herself on the other side of the field. Feeling very nice, I thought to go feed her next to where she was laying down, Well… setting the food down in front of her, she looked up at me like the princess that she is, looked at the food bowl and proceeded to eat lying down! Gotta love it! A short video of this was too funny to pass up.

[quicktime width=”480″ height=”320″]https://blog.horsegirltv.com/imgs-all/carrara_eating.mov[/quicktime]

Are you late for a very important date? Well, I showed up well in time for a charity luncheon tea themed party. Each table held a theme and I was invited to the Alice in Wonderland theme. I guess she couldn’t get anyone else to dress up as the White Rabbit so I was let in on the gig. Of course I jumped at the chance to dress up like a bunny and sit with a group of ladies at a fairly tale designed table. Janice, the host of our table, did an amazing job putting the design together and each of the participants were great! I didn’t get a group picture emailed to me yet but this is one of me just before the event started. We had the Queen of Hearts, Alice (of course!), Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Dum and the White Rabbit too.

The food was great. The conversation at our table oh too fun and it was really nice that proceeds from this clubs events go to high school scholarships in the local area!

Oh check out the vest from http://www.ridingcouture.com/ and of course I’m wearing white breeches and a riding scarf so a bit of horsey got into the rabbit costume!

After a hiatus from laying our hens decided to start working again. This is our first egg of 2010. Unfortunately only one sad day after this photo was taken, our neighbors dog came down and killed one of our hens. Then there were two. It was really sad to watch that unmanaged dog run back home down the street with our food providing hen, dead in her mouth. This will likely stunt their laying and set us back further still buying eggs. At least our other neighbors hens are laying and we can buy from them to keep it local and fresh.



This is a reminder to pet owners. Please be responsible. Spay and neuter your pets. Don’t buy from puppy mills and for heavens sake DON’T let your dogs run loose all over your neighbors property. But then again, I would imagine most all HorseGirlTV viewers ARE responsible pet owners and don’t need this sort of reminder.

A local stable called Blossom Ferry Farm (http://blossomferryfarm.com/) offered a Fix-A-Test recently and I drove out to meet some of the locals as well as watch Tanya and Fidge go. It was a bit of a trek to get there but well worth it meeting several nice dressage folks! Tanya and Fidge were super as shown by a few pictures I snapped with my trusty iPhone.



Here’s Tanya getting a few notes from the Fix-A-Test judge Susie.



No DQ (or Kings) here! I was met with big smiles and even handed a cooler with something to put in it! Wow! These folks roll the way I like to enjoy a horsey afternoon, mellow and without pretension! The owner of Blossom Ferry, Paige, actually gave me 2 of the coolers which I proudly brought home and look forward to enjoying outdoors as the weather warms up!



It was such a great time and I look forward to getting out and meeting more local soon!

I occasionally read and post to some bulletin boards online when the notion strikes me that my opinion might be helpful to at least one person. Most all the time the threads I post to are constructive and people very friendly but not all are this way and some people get quite heated which I find interesting as I enjoy debate but feel it shouldn’t result in name calling. The poster I’m replying to in the paste below commented about my training with Anky but she also included a great quote from Kyra “If you always do what you always did than you’ll always get what you always got” which is brilliant that if you’re fighting your way around the sandbox beating you head against the slanted wall wondering why what you’re doing is not yielding the results you desire then why keep doing the same old thing. For what it’s worth I thought this particular reply might be inspiring to being open minded about your training and hopefully reflects Kyra’s wonderful quote.

Quote:

Originally Posted by caddym Horsegirltv – I love your blog and am so envious of the time you had in Holland

Thanks caddym. My time training with Anky was life changing in many ways. I likewise spend a significant amount of time training by Hilda Gurney in SoCal in 2004 and must say that my time with her was simply amazing. The opportunity to work extensively with one great legendary top sport person is a fleeting chance for most but two simply amazing. I’ve also ridden with Anne Gribbons (best elevated trot), Jeff Moore (grasp of rider biomechanics), Janet Brown-Foy (toolbox), Sabine Schut-Kery (soft seat), Bettina Drummond (riding from independent seat) and the late Hans von Blixen-Finecke (just in aw the this incredible, yet fragile looking older gentleman would still mount and school passage on your horse for you! RIP).

My point with the name dropping is that I’ve been lucky to train with some wonderful people at the top of their game many of which are complete contradictions in their systems.

Parenthesized above, my best take away, apart from major training scale reinforcement with Janet Brown-Foy was her analogy of riding with your toolbox and I’ll completely paraphrase now as over the years I’ve morphed it yet essentially the toolbox is you and your horse, the tools you put in it must build as the training scale does adding more and more advanced tools (i.e. – don’t attempt lateral is your straightness is not there). Some people never obtain more than a hammer and a handful of nails so to master the use of the hammer and a few handful of nails is the ultimate goal.

The above blathering aside, my tools of speed control building to softer and softer use of a ‘resistance rein’ (giving/softening when the horse gives but NOT throwing the reins away) and tap with the leg instead of push was a great addition to the growing tool box from training with Anky.

Further digression… some people prefer Sears, Black & Decker, DeWalt or Makita and might think their brand superior to the other but if the end result is a successful building project then who is to say the Makita is better than the Sears brand or components of Anky’s brand is better/worse than anyone else.

It was nice to see this thread last as long (even though still quite short) as it did in a focus of talking about training technique before it was taken off track.

I look forward to another one that lasts longer even. Perhaps keeping it focused on training techniques it’s all tied up in the Subject line utilized? What I enjoy talking about is not the labels placed on a single component of a particular riding style but riding fundamentals and true basics.

Best regards,

While the upper east coast will not likely rally around the title of this blog, a few snow days were welcome here. If the weather is going to be cold and wet and training halted simply because the arena is closed then why not get to enjoy the lovely white stuff? We received about 5 inches overnight to wake in a winter wonderland Saturday morning. This was Zita’s first snow at the farm as she was in training this time last year and missed out on the one (much lighter dusting) we received last winter. Even Picollo got out a bit on the dusting we received up on the porch.

Here’s Zita frolicking in the fresh snow!



Ex even got up early with us on Saturday morning for feeding to witness the wacky Zita play in snow.



Our low tech feeding system isn’t really built with a snow day contigency plan. Just a bit more horse (or in the case) human power to drag the hay and grain through the snow.



To keep the horses toasty warm we shut the top Dutch doors overnight leaving their back windows open for fresh air. Of course Carrara is always excited about morning hay and grain!



As soon as it was warm enough they were turned out in the fields to stretch their legs a bit. They both were quite playful but surprisingly they were both quite careful with their fun! Smart horses!



Here’s the little guy playing around. Man is that horse balanced and athletic!



This is day two of snow and the arena almost free of snow. It’s still lovely. The horses got out yesterday as well for quite a bit longer since much of the backside field snow had melted. Now today it’s quickly melting away and we’ll be looking forward to jumping back into training by Wednesday! It was certainly a fun break!