"Scenarios of doom"

Of horses and boys...and everything in between brought up a point in my sledding post about how she always tends to come up with "scenarios of doom" especially when children and horses are involved.  I think that is actually a great quality.  It is called wisdom and foresight.  Looking into the future to try and avoid dangerous situations.  That is a quality all horse people should possess and all mothers.  And as mothers I hope to instill that quality into my children so I don't always have to be their "wisdom".  The only down side is, if you let this quality turn into fear and let the fear dictate your decisions.  Now of course if you feel a situation dangerous or unsafe then yes, you should NOT do it anyways.  Trust that gut feeling.  But if you are avoiding doing  fun things for fear something might go wrong, that is when fear has too much control.

Fear is a powerful emotion and can be paralyzing.  No one is immune to letting it take over.  The story of the first time I took my daughter out on a trail ride is a good example.  I was scared, nervous and thinking I was surely sending my 7 year old to her eminent death.  She was riding our miniature horse Blaze who is approximately 38 inches tall.  I am not sure how one would die from that height but I knew that's what was going to happen. She had also been riding him for two years and only fallen off once in all that time and that was when she first started to ride. But still death or serious maiming was for sure going go to happen.

 So I am on a 15.2 h QH and decided that I had to pony her through the trail to avoid her death.  We get to the first river to cross and Blaze was reluctant to go over.  She had to circle him a couple times and in doing so I nearly wrung her neck with the lead rope more than once.  Finally, someone said they thought it was better if I detached my daughter and let her ride him, because my fear of letting her go is what was going to kill her.  I got off my horse, walked over and unclipped the lead rope.  I will never forget the look on my poor daughters face.  She had tears running down her cheeks and I was holding back mine.  She looked at me as if I was feeding her to the wolves.  She was scared, I was scared and had there not been others out on the trail I probably would have just turned around and who knows the next time I would have ever taken her out on a trail.  My fear would have certainly kept us from moving forward.  Wouldn't you know we had not one more incident from that point on.  She had the time of her life and so did I.  We both rode through the full 9 mile trail, no problem.  From that day on we became the best of trail buddies.  Not to mention that she changed that day, and she changed permanently.  She entered that trail as a little girl who was unconfident on a horse and she came off that trail as an extremely proud and confident, horsewoman.  I am not joking.  She was a different rider from that moment on, it was amazing.

She has since graduated to riding a real horse her 16.1 h Fox Trotter and we have probably logged close to a hundred miles together since then.  Just think all the conversations we would have missed, the memories that would have never been made, the laughter and the mother daughter moments that would have never happened if I had let my fear hold her back.

Now that is not to say that I am just loosey goosey, happy go lucky on trail rides with her or my other daughters.  Nope!  I am ALWAYS on high alert with any of my girls on horses.  I am always looking for potentially dangerous situations and try to avoid them.  I play out scenarios in my head.  Those are the "scenarios of doom."  I fully admit to playing out those scenarios but instead of it keeping me from doing something, I take it as a teachable moment.  I would love to have the ability to always watch my childrens' every move but in reality I cannot do that.  So instead I would rather them take on the ability to evaluate a situation for themselves.  So when you see a scenario of doom don't let it hold you back but find the safest way to deal with it and teach.  I will give you some examples of conversations that I have with my daughters concerning horses.  I call them 'what do you do if's'.  What do you do if; Mommy falls off of her horse and is not moving?  Sound morbid?  I would much rather have a tough conversation than a scared confused child getting hurt because they don't know what to do. Where is my cell phone?  Who do you call?  Do you worry about the horse?  What do you do if: your horse runs away with you?  What do you do if: My horse runs off after a fall?  What do you do if: you are leading a horse and it starts to pull away with you?  What do you do if: you are sledding behind a horse and you see something go wrong?  My #1 rule for my girls is that in any situation THEY come first.  We love our horses but we can always replace them but we can never replace you so in any situation if it comes down to it forget about the horse and keep YOU safe.

These conversations are always going on, on my farm.  I want my kids(or anyone I give lessons to) to not have to stop and think "what should I do" but it be so ingrained in their mind it is becomes instinctual.  Accidents happen!!  I don't care how careful you think you are, when you are dealing with horses, accidents happen.  Then add children in to that scenario.  And most often in those situations you do not have a whole lot of time to ponder how to handle the situation in the best possible manner.  These lessons need to become instincts.  Example:  How about the time that my 8 year old daughter was leading her horse into the pasture and she tripped and fell flat on her back right in front of him?!  As I watched, in fear, this unfold from about 20 feet away I saw my daughter use her good instincts to avoid a potentially awful situation.  She immediately knew to roll to her side, cover her head and not move until the horse moved past her.  Had she done anything else differently or even if I had been close enough to intervene chances are her 70 lb body would have been stepped on by a 1000 lb horse.  But because she did everything right her horse had the opportunity to step clear of a stationary object and she came out completely unharmed.  Like I said accidents happen

I could tell you story after story about how that girls calm demeanor and quick thinking has been the difference between smooth sailing and a disaster.  She has something special in her future with the equine species and I am glad to say that my fear did not hinder her healthy start into her passion.

Leibster Award!

I have never done one of these award things before.  I actually never understood what they were.  But I have now figured out that they serve a couple purposes.  They show appreciation for a blog you love to read and they also help promote other up and comimg bloggers.  I love the idea so I am going to play along.

I recieved this award from one of my favorite blogs to read,  Dancing Horses.  I recently found her blog and fell in love with reading.  You don't come by very many Mother's of small children who choose not to put their passion aside for the two decades it takes to raise them.  It is a challenge like none other I have ever had to juggle and a sensitive balancing act but so worth all the effort.  So to find another blogger who knows exactly what it is like to do just that is a breath of fresh air that I am not alone and maybe this all just might work.

The rules: Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. Here are the rules:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs!

Now comes the hard part, just choosing 5.  There are so many blogs I love to read.  I mean I am probably some sort of addict.  There are certain blogs that if I don't see a post for a few days I start having withdrawl.  I will not even get started on how I can't wait to go and see comments on blogs my own and others.  Yeah, I have issues but lets get on with it.
I CAN'T DO IT...I can't pick just 5.  So this may be cheating but I must.  So will do my 5 favorite eventing related blogs and 5 dressage related blogs.

Eventing will go first.

Ride Groom Feed
My favorite little New Zelander.  I look forward to all her posts and I love to read about someone training and competing on the other side of the world where it is summer when I am hold up indoors.

Nina's Story
Barbara and Nina are always a great read!

Chasing the Dream
This blog is has a little unbridled opinion.  She is a kick ass rider and has a super cool OTTB and we all know how much I LOVE some OTTB's.

CONTACT
A great writer, blogger, horsewoman and friend.  Through the blogging world I have had the priveledge to get to know Karen and her awesome warmblood Hampton.  At this point I don't even have a choice to follow along with their journey considering that Hampton is now Steady's best show buddy and Steady would probably refuse to be compliant if I didn't read every post.

Sprinkler Bandit
Definitely a favorte is Amy and Izzy.  I read every post and look forward to each one added.  I feel like I know both of them even though we have never met.

Moose on the Loose
Amy is a witty writter and you will hear all about her horse Moose and their adventures in Eventing.


Wyvern Oaks
I am new to this blog too but am loving it.  It is all about a husband and wife pair, loving their horses Saga, Reddums, and Chance on their little farmet in Texas.  This pair amazes me with how versitile they are and that they are training their horses to be.  I mean they even do full fledge jousting, armour and all.  Now tell me that is not cool? 

TBA
Fellow eventer and an OTTB.  What's not to like?!

Oops, was that five?  Math has never been my forte.

I encourage everyone to go and check out these blogs and even follow along in their exciting journeys.

Dressage blogs, and to say I love to read a dressage blog is saying alot considering I refer to it as the "D word".

A Work in Progress....
Shannon is amazing!  She is so educated in her sport and you will surely learn following along with her blog.
Clam, Forward, Straight
Another blog jam packed full of good education in classical dressage.  And another OTTB, LOVE!

Of horses and boys and everything in between.
I have been a long time reader of this blog and she too is a mother of young kids trying to keep it all in perfect balance and doing a fabulous job.  She is also training her QH for the dressage arena and doing great at that too.


CONTACT
Karen gets two shouts since she is first and foremost a DQ...LOL...and cause I think she is cool ;)
Princess Diva's Diary
A fellow Hoosier who is training her 4 year old DASHING warmblood.  They make a great pair and I also love to hear about her daughters adventures into the eventing world.

TB at X
Another jam packed educational blog and she always has lots of audio/visual additions which is really helpful for someone like me.

I am so sorry if I broke the rules.  But these are ALL must reads.  So stop judging me and go read them all!!!!!

For those of you that thought Snappy, my mini, is adorable. You will love these videos.

Snappy is the coolest little guy you could ever own.  The horse does everything.  Today we introduced him to pulling a sled.  He is trained to drive but pulling a sled is different in the noise it makes, the way it pulls on him.  He tends to be a hot little stinker so I always stay on high alert but he did super.  You can see in the first video he got a little too excited and had a little rodeo moment...lol.  Notice I made the kids wear their helmets.  By the time we were done he was pooped.

It was a bit trial and error trying to find the best way.  To introduce him I led him.  Then after running for 20 minutes and being wiped out I decide to give the driving method a whirl.  It worked great.  My husband only got me driving alone but after making sure it would work I took the kids on the sled with me.  It was blast!  I have always disliked my driving lines(what drivers call reins) but now I now they are way too short for sled jouring.

Recipe for insanity.

Take a couple weeks of rain and knee deep mud.
Add a week of freezing temperatures.

Mix together: makes treacherous frozen mud.

Then take buckets and bucket of rain and put on top of frozen ground.
Throw in 30-40 mile an hour wind gusts.
Add on to that temperatures dropping 20 degrees in about 3 hours.
Lastly add 3 horses that have had no outlet for energy considering they could barely walk on the ground for a few weeks.

That my friends is the perfect recipe for what went on out in my pasture today.  It made for some great footing for the horses.  The ground was still frozen a couple inches down but there was just enough mud to add to the insanity.  I had mud splattered in my face twice and once in the mouth, bleeehh.  It was insanity.

I caught a few minutes of it on tape.  Believe me this was not the worst of it.  It went on for a few minutes before I realized they were not quiting and I had time to go get my camera. This went on for hours.  Steady was the instigator which I have never seen before and even got worried for all the pawing and rolling he was doing.  I am not kidding when I say this went on for hours.  It is not unlike them to run off for a minute or two once turned out but this was something I have never seen.

Equestrian or Meteorologist?

I think I am more of the latter as of late.  Saddly.  "Let me 'splain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up."(Anyone else LOVE that movie?)  See winter had yet to show it's face.  It shows up with extreme temperatures.  Then disappears as fast as it came and with the warmer temps comes rain.  Then the temperature drops 25 degrees in a few hours.  And this pattern repeats itself.  Weird.  Not complaining.  Just observing and slightly annoyed but it has not been a bad winter just kind of strange and slightly annoying.  Weather.com has become my best friend. 

I have nothing to write on the riding front and little to say on the topic of horses.  It is pretty much, feed, water, clean up poop, a pat on the neck, kiss on the nose around here lately.  I saw this super cool video, of a race horse being dicsected.  WOW, just WOW!


 

The D word. Not four letters but still makes me cringe.

I tell you, as soon as I finally start to like I get a grasp on this thing called dressage.  That is when I realize how little I really know.  It is like an onion with layers and layers.  You can peel one away just to find another layer.  Like onions, it too, can make me involuntarily start crying(kidding of course.  Kind of).

I wish I could have seen this about two years ago when I started on this journey. 

The Dude is back! and with scratches...ew.

Real quick I want to get the grossness out of the way first.  That swelling the other day?  I think I finally got to the bottom of it, with the help of my farrier.  I believe he has scratches on the back of both pasterns.  His LH being the worst.  It is not severe right now so I am hoping to nip this in the bud.  Other than that Steady is officially barefoot for at least the winter.  Now on to the good stuff!

Near 50 degrees and sunny in January, in Indiana.  Simply lovely!  I decided to pull out the video camera today, thinking that I could catch some of Steady's insaneness on tape and hopefull see a possible cause  But instead my wonderful horse came back out today and I and a wonderful ride.  You have to excuse my HIDEOUS posture and position in the video.  See in my lesson with LAZ she told me that I am arching my back and that is making Steady hollow out.  Then when watching Anne Kursinski teach she kept telling the riders to "sit on your butt, not your crotch."  Also "to melt into your horses back".  Muscle memory can be a SOB, when it is incorrect.  It is so bad that in my lesson with LAZ I was not physically capable of not arching my back when sitting up and keeping my shoulders back.  So though it may seem a bit over the top I know I need to over exagerate pushing my butt under me and rounding my back to get those muscles to stop locking in that position.  No I do not plan to ride like that but I am trying to untrain my muscle memory so I can have a rounder, sitting on my butt, more melting into my horse position and a softer seat.  But in doing so I look like it is the first time I have ever been on a horses back, slouching, leaning forward, legs forward, eeewww, but I was doing it on purpose.  No one ever said training is pretty.  Other than that I am pleased with our work.  I had a few ah ha, moments during our ride.  I decided to not fuss with his mouth so much.  I had a feeling that was one source of his temper tantrums.  Not so much messing with the reins to get him to come round or slow down.  Whattaya know it worked wonders.  You will notice also that I keep taking my hands and rubbing his neck, kinda throwing the reins away(all while being hunched over, beautiful).  That is #1 to reinforce good behaviour but #2 it is a way for me to keep myself in check that I am NOT hanging on his mouth.  I decided to video from the start of our ride rather than wait until he was warmed up so that I could get a more fair assessment of any lameness/soreness going on.  Toward the end of our ride I am able to regulate, speed and tempo with out the use of my hands and he became quite obedient, supple, round with good movement.  I did some sitting trot without stirrups in both directions.  Anne mentioned that she feels you have a more "correct" position without stirrups.  So I gave it a whirl.  Steady seems to quite like the sitting trot for some reason, even not being in the best shape, which I find interesting.  He was very sticky moving off my leg for leg yeilds at walk and trot both sides. But once I got one nice step under himself I praised him and let it go. I had no plans to pick any fights today.   He had a split second of silliness in the trot/canter transition to the left but that comes with Steady and lack of fitness. Not worried about it and he also switched behind at the end, again, fitness and not worried about it.  I am quite pleased with him and myself for working through this.  Next time I come on here whining about my awful, dreadful, hopeless horse someone please remind me he will become sane again someday.

I broke it up into a series of eight fairly boring videos.  Watch if you have nothing else to do with your time ;)

Posting trot and sitting trot going left.  Goal: to regulate speed and tempo with body and seat, light contact.  Politely asking him to take contact, not demanding it.  Cause like I said I was not trying to pick any fights yesterday.


#2 is a very sad attempt to make an unfit, out of work horse to do leg yeilds and turns on the forehand at the walk and trot.





#3  Posting and sitting trot work to the right.  Again nothing of great excitement.  Decent work for our current condition.





#4  Short canters in both directions.  My position looks so grotesc I am hesitant to even post these videos.  Barf...but it was truely serving a purpose.  My back muscles are even sore today because of it.  Which means the memory is changing.  Please don't judge my riding on these videos you can go back and clearly see I do not ever ride like this.



#5  A small log jump in both directions.  Can you guess which direction the pasture is in? 



#6  Second attempt at the log.  Just wanting a nice calm, pop over the jump.  It improves but I am still not happy with it.





#7  Steady finally comes back to me reasonably well in the direction of the pasture.  I am pleased, we are finished.  I ask for a collected square halt, no flipping his nose out which he likes to do.  Which I am reasonably happy with exception that afterwards he gets all dramatic and dorky and starts being weird with his head and neck and I couldn't get him to stop.  Dork!



#8  Me just being mean to my sweet horse...lol. I just had to torcher him a little and embarrass the Dude on the world wide web.  Poor guy but oh how I LOVE him.

Being a more effective housewife and learning how to be a more effective rider, at the same time!

Who knew that you could do both of those things at the same time?  I watched the on demand videos of the George Morris clinic and learned a great deal about being a quiet effective rider all while folding the laundry and cleaning the kitchen!!  I watched the videos on my android tablet and just took it to the room I was working on.  It was such a great way to spend my day.  I got things done that I don't enjoy doing, all while learning about the thing I LOVE doing.  Win for my husband and win for me.  It really made me truely enjoy my day even on a beautiful sunny day that I wish I could have been riding.  I still felt like I was accomplishing my riding goals and getting my responsiblities done.

I watched day 1 with Anne Kursinski on the flat.  It was interesting watching these great young riders and very talented jumpers that struggled with the basics that Anne was trying to teach.  She was essentially teaching them the basics of dressage.  I grew up in the jumper world and fully understand how you can be able to jump a 4ft course yet have no idea of dressage basics.  But she stated repeatedly that the things she was teaching will make them much more effective riders in a jumper course even though it was "just" flat work.  I watched as she got on a girls horse that was flipping his head and resisting contact the girl seemed to respond just the way I think I typically interact with Steady.  Kind of feeding into that arguement with him by too much 'correcting' and moving about.   The horse reminded me exactly how Steady was acting the other day.  While Anne was on him she was incredibly quiet but very persistent that he could and would move into the contact.  He pitched a huge fit, rearing repeatedly until he finally accepted the her leg and her hands and moved forward into the contact.  That is exactly what I felt was happening on my terrible ride the other day all except Steady was bucking and bunny hopping instead of rearing.  The other difference is I don't think I kept my cool as wonderfully as Anne did.  I started thinking about my ride and realized it was one of the first rides since my lesson with Lee Ann.  Lee Ann was telling me to do just what Anne was doing on that horse.  She told me to just be where I wanted him to be and persist until he accepts it, no arguing just quiet persistance.  She warned me that I may very well piss him off for a while because I am changing the game plan on him.  Light bulb!  Why didn't I realize that was what was happening during that ride?

It is quite nice to see someone else having problems and getting corrected.  Makes me feel like I am not alone and that even though I feel like we have so many issues but that all horses have issues.  Along with all riders have issues, no matter what level.  It is also very helpful to watch and see those issues being corrected and how they were corrected.  The thing that stood out the most is that it is all about the basics!  Anne was telling the amazingly talanted kids riding amazingly talanted horses to do the exact same things that I am told in my lessons.  It is about quality work, being a pateint quiet rider, being connected with your horse, so many great points.  I am looking forward to folding some more laundry(first time I have EVER said those words before)  and watching more!!

Follow up from the disaster ride.

I have not ridden again since.  His hooves are getting quite long and I thought I would be better off waiting until the farrier came out today before I rode again.  But in mulling over it all and also going back to my posts from last year about this time and reading about my rides they sound very similar.  Now I am not ruling out pain but I know the way I describe a situation and the way it feels on his back can really get misconstrued.  As Steady's Mama and his only rider my instincts say it is just who he is.  He is the kind of horse that cannot go 2 weeks without someone on his back.  He does not handle cold weather and little work well at all.  He is super athletic and I believe it is just the down side to that athletisism.  I feel like from now until late spring I am going to feel like I am just doing damage control any time I get on his back.  Just like I felt last year.  The biggest difference from this year to last year is that now I am demanding correct work and that is just adding fuel to his already hot fire.  And then you add to the fact that Steady when he is not in the best shape, his back causes him issues.  It is like a snowball effect and there is not alot I can do to control these circumstances.  I think my focus now needs to be more one how am I going to handle it. 

I do not have the entire answer right now.  Nor could I considering the weather has the biggest impact on the whole situation.  What I know I can do is take it one day at a time.  I need to come to grips with the fact that I may not be able to ride for weeks at a time and I cannot get down on myself for that.  I need to come up with a plan on how I handle coming back from the long breaks.  But I do feel I need to resign myself to the idea that no real training will happen until late spring.  That is the toughest for a overly driven person but it is part of it so I may as well accept it.

I hope to take those energies and focus them more on the mental side of riding and the physical fitness side of it for me.  I need to read.  I dislike reading but I do enjoy topics I love.  My problem is I hate to pay the money for books but I cannot find any of the books I want to read as ebooks or in libraries.  So if any of you know of any good books that are ebooks let me know.  I also plan to watch clinic videos.  I am thinking also maybe a lesson or two on a different horse.  Then I can work on myself and be a better rider come time that Steady is halfway sane again.  So this will most likely be an ongoing post about how I am learning to handle a horse like Steady through the winter months.

At a loss...

...not for words, of course.  I don't think that has ever happened to me.  But the words that keep coming to mind are not very nice.  So this post may be littered with foul language.  Sorry in advance.  The weather is B.E.A utiful today!  The ground is still partially frozen so we don't have terrible deep mud.  All would be right in the world if my horse would not try to kill me when I rode.  I am pissed at him for being such a dick.  I am frustrated at the thought that there may be some lurking problem that I have yet to discover.  There is his mouth, or his legs, or his feet, or his back or who knows what else could be the problem.  All I know is that the amount of times he bucked today, threw his head up to avoid the bit to run off, offering to take off into a canter when not asked and bucking like a dick head when I ask for a canter, is enough for thoughts of the legalization of horse slaughter come to mind. 

Like the title says I am at a loss.  Do I continue to ride and hope and pray that one of these stunts doesn't get me hurt?   Do I just give up on the idea of riding for the next month and a half and let winter pass?  Do I tackle his shitface attitude and work it out of him...lol...it is not even possible to work Steady until he is tired and gives up.  But anyone who thinks I am wrong I would LOVE for you to come ride him and prove me wrong.  He is being a bastard and I am not happy with him.  On one hand I like to tell myself mentally that this is not my horse and if I can just get through this I will have my rock star back come May.  But May is so far off and I want to live to see it.  One thing I do know is my horse is a "One Upper".  You say work he will gladly work faster and longer than you care to find out.  You piss him off he will piss you off.  He thinks he knows every thing and will gladly tell you to buzz off if you don't go along with his program.  You cannot out do this horse and it is beyond frustrating.  But when the words, 'one upper' come to mind I can't help but think of the worlds best 'one upper' I have ever seen.

Love Penelope!

Horse not forsale and leg update.

I have a 20+ year old pony, who is not looking for a new home. He is sound, sane, still doing ok, but he is aged. He is not looking for a new home because he is not being dumped. Actually, he is standing about in a field wearing a new blanket, and eating hay and being fed twice a day just like he would be if he was still a much-loved, usable horse. If you know of a new home that would like to pick up my old horse who has done his time with me, who would like to pay his vet bills long into retirement, please don't call me, because it's my job to do that for him.

I stole this from a friend on facebook and had to share it!


January 5th 7:30 am, swelling has gone down significantly.  I dare say it is all but gone!!!!

My instincts tell me that he just took a miss step.  See I was whining and complaining about the mud and was so happy when the ground froze.  What I did not forsee was the mess that the frozen uneven mud would be.  The mud was so bad that when it froze it made rock hard ruts, holes and rivets.  The horses are really struggling to walk over it and I am guessing he was either fooling around and took a bad step on it or even just walking over it could do some minor damage.  All I know is it seems short lived and for that I am happy!  I am going for a light ride today cause our weather is quite lovely.

For a good laugh take a look at this video.

Do I know my horse or do I know my horse?

Unfortunately in this case it doesn't matter if it is pitch dark outside or not I could tell something was not right.  Like I expected, swelling and heat :,(

I am by no stretch of the imagination a lameness expert.  Then you make that hind end lameness and I am useless.  I have no good way to check him out properly either.  I do not trust the ground for lunging and no ground person to check while I ride.  Walking in the pasture he looks perfectly fine.  Putting weight on it like normal.  Here's hoping it is just a minor tweak and will be fine in no time.  I was considering taking a lesson on the 14th but that is not going to happen now.  My recipe for a healthy horse is rest and lots of it.   I guess now my obsession is going to turn to trackng his leg.   So here goes.


January 3rd 8:30 pm notice swelling and heat in LH.

January 4th 2:30 pm LH leg appears exactly the same.

A photo to brighten your day and some moaning to bring you down.

I will post the picture first that way if you don't want to stick around for the moaning you can leave after viewing the photo.

When it is too cold and muddy for the kids to come out and give treats we find a way to improvise.

 

And this isn't the farthest he got his head into the window.  That is my adorable 6 year old Macy, the treat feeder.

Now onto the moaning.  I must say I am not looking for advice or the get over it stuff.  I am just looking to vent.

I just spent the last 5 days hosting my husbands side of the family.  Mother, father, brother, sister, her husband + 2 kids, other sister and her husband were all here.  They eat alot of food and they make a big mess and they took up the bathroom almost the entire time.  And after hosting them, feeding them and cleaning up after them we get a text from his dad the next day saying "God told him that if my husband shaved his gotee off that then God would proper us." WTF?!  Who says stuff like that?  My in-laws!  A simple thank you would have been nicer.   I escaped to the barn as much as possible.  Now I am feeling like I have the worst horse show hangover with none of the amazing horse show gratification.  I spent 2 months grocery budget(with no offers to help pay for food BTW), my house is a disater area and I am sinking into a SAD(seasonal affective disorder).  To top it off my husbands car just started pouring out oil from somewhere today.  I am broke, overwhelmed and depression is setting in and I cannot ride!  First it was too muddy, now it is too frozen and I am pretty sure Steady hurt himself today.  It was dark when I was bringing him in tonight but he was reluctant to walk over the hard, bumpy ground so I tried my hardest to check him out and is LH Pastern seems swollen and warm :(.  I am going to put off bawling over this until I can at least check him out in the day light and hope and pray that tomorrow when I go out that I see nothing and it was all a figment of my imagination.  And if you pray, I ask you do the same.  Damn it!  I was really wanting 2012 to start out better than 2011 and right now it sure seems like it is headed in the same direction.  I also will not being able to to afford Event Camp this year :(.  Though I am excited about the other clinics that will free me up to be able to do.

You may notice a distinct difference in my moods and posts when I cannot ride.  It is my therapy and going without can have adverse affects.  Also I hope to God my In-laws don't read my horse blog.  I am fairly certain they don't but if they do, they have never liked me anyways so I don't have much to loose.

Bitchfest 2012 is over.....for now.....