This is a PSA that ye ole bloggity blog is going a brief hiatus as we get moved. I should be back in two or three weeks. Possibly longer if I'm convicted of murder for killing Hubby, all the residents of New York state, or even just a few of the moving company's employees.
I'm trailering Bobby up on Sunday in case anyone is wondering and would like to divert us to a better location. Virginia maybe?
Coming up with 18 likable things about Bobby is going to be tough, and I know I won't do as good of a job as Beka did, but I have to at least try in order to honor the handsomest big bay Thoroughbred on his 18 birthday!
In honor of Archie's 18th birthday, tell me 18 things you love about your horse.
1. He's tolerant.
2. He has personality out the wazoo. (Blogger, you recognize "wazoo" as a word and not "oxer"? Really?)
"snackzzz!"
3. His ears are so large they would probably aid in flight if that was an option.
4. He trusts me enough to at least attempt to do anything I ask him.
5. He's the fastest horse in the whole world...according to him.
6. He has gravel crunching, rock hard feeties that can go anywhere without trouble, mostly thanks to him not going lame as I learned to trim him myself.
7. He's besties with everyone and everything he meets, even if someone else doesn't like him, which isn't rare as he can be seriously obnoxious about asserting his friendliness.
8. He keeps himself clean while turned out.
9. No spook.
10. He'll trail ride through anything by himself or with other horses.
11. Big jumps look small from the back of a big horse.
giant horse is giant.
12. His trailer loading skillz are flawless.
13. His love for junk food and soft drinks.
14. How quickly he picks things up.
his intelligence really shines through
15. How he changes colors literally every month.
16. He'll get to the other side of the jump no matter how badly you screw up.
working it.
17. Despite less than ideal conformation, he's a seriously fancy mover.
I could not stop getting bashed, burned, poked, or otherwise maimed over the weekend.
It started when I went to get Hubby's wallet out of his truck while we were signing the lease for our new house (that might be a post in and of itself, but we did end up with a place to move both ourselves and the hoss on Saturday), and it was horribly, atrociously, I-hate-New-York-ingly windy. I leaned into the truck and the door slammed closed, pinning my right knee between it and the door frame so hard I instantly dropped to the ground it hurt so fucking bad.
zoom zoom.
Sunday morning we went to the barn to finally get some outdoor riding shots. As I lifted my saddle onto Bobby's back, the girth that I usually secure in the straps on my saddle cover slid off and hit me buckles-first directly in the face. That wasn't much fun either.
warm up jump
Back at home, I got a face full of blowing, burning cinders as we got rid of a bunch of pallets Hubby had laying around. As I was helping bring them over to the fire, I tripped and rolled my ankle.
And that night, while working on a Bobby costume, I came within a millimeter of sewing my finger into a lime green tulle skirt. At that point I just waved the Fuck It Flag and went to bed.
pig dogs love modeling outfits.
So there's basically a whole post of me whining about being an unlucky idiot this weekend. Now for some quick pony stuff!
jumping the edge of the coop because bobby does what bobby wants
Our laid back jump school Sunday was a blast. Bobby was forward and light right from the get go, and he coasted around with a seriously fabulous canter. We kept the forward momentum over the cross rail and coop for warm up without ever getting rude or stupid.
Well. Only once getting stupid anyway. Bobby had just jumped the coop quietly out of stride, and as we came back around, Sarah called out that he looked so calm. Bobby took Great Offense to this. As soon as she said it, he burst forward and charged the coop because HE IS NOT A CALM HORSE, HE IS A RACEHORSE.
And then we came around again and he was fine. Point proven, Bobby. We'll never make that mistake again.
After warming up, we did a small one stride vertical (2'3") to oxer (2'6") line. I couldn't figure out the vertical to save my life, but for once I actually rode like a grown up and instantly upon landing moved on to make sure we nailed the oxer.
recovered and rocking
Bobby didn't really care either way. He was locked onto that oxer the second we turned in for the line. So happy to have his Good Horse brain back. It was definitely missing for awhile there.
We finished up playing over the cross rail a few times while marveling at Bobby's levitation skills.
magical floating horse
We didn't do much for the ride, but I was really happy with both of us. Bobby stayed chill and obedient, and so did my lower leg. My knee might hang six inches over the flap, but this saddle has really allowed me to put my leg where I want it and keep it there. I'm sure being religious about no stirrup work has helped as well.
solid.
Today Sarah and I played dress up and went for a bareback trail ride with our horses bedecked in dinosaur/alligator masks.
a relatively common sight at most barns.
what's common at our barn when i'm around.
I'll share the costume pictures later this week. They turned out pretty amazing.
rawr.
We attempted to go for a long trail ride, but Bobby got to the base of a hill and his brain couldn't decide whether to be good and walk up it, or bad and run up it. So instead it just exploded and he got stuck.
Literally.
He couldn't move because he was broken. As Sarah so aptly put it, "And this is why dinosaurs went extinct."
Eventually he decompressed enough that we were able to turn around and walk back to the barn. So speshul, Bobby.
Sweet baby Jesus, this costume took for-ev-er. It looked so simple when I was browsing pictures online. And it is simple. It just takes for-ev-er to do.
I started with a twin sized fitted bed sheet from Walmart. I didn't really care if it was long enough to cover Bobby's entire body, and it was cheaper than buying a yard or two of real fabric. I ripped the elastic border out except for around his face, and then cut out eye and ear holes so I would know where not to put the cotton once I got to gluing.
the draping stage.
I bought one bag of cotton stuffing, even though I went back and forth a few times if I should get a second while I was there. I finally decided that if I needed more, I could always go back for it. I also picked up a $3 mini hot glue gun and a 30 pack of glue sticks. While Hubby and I were at Michael's a few weeks ago, they had fake flower chains on sale, so I snagged a pretty one of those, too.
before a much needed face fluff trimming
From there, it was just a matter of gluing the cotton down on the sheet. If you're stupid enough to want to do this costume for your own horse, here's a gluing tip: only lay a few stripes of glue down at once before pressing the cotton onto it. That glue dries really quickly, and you'll just have to go over it all over again if you try to do large sections at once.
much better.
The cotton pulled apart really easily while still retaining its volume, so I ended up only using three quarters of the bag. I did, however, have to go back for a second bag of glue sticks. I ended up using about forty over all.
I got as much of the face area done at home as I could, but because of the elastic, it was hard for me to hold it flat and lay the cotton down like I wanted to. I ended up having to finish gluing that part on at the barn while it was on my horse.
I glued the seams together to cover his chest and under his head, and then carefully escorted him outside with my BM along to bribe him to put his ears up.
And also to laugh at him.
We got a good five minutes of him patiently posing before he got a face itch and rubbed it out on his leg. That was the end of any containment of the cotton.
going in for the itch.
the result.
I don't even know how BM and I were still breathing at that point we were laughing so hard. Bobby continued to stand there unperturbed with fluffy pieces of cotton blocking his eyesight until we could get control of ourselves. The struggle was real.
"hai guys. why are you on the ground?" because we're dying bobby. we're literally dying.
Once we were done, I rolled everything up and was contemplating whether or not to just chuck it, or bring it home, stuff it in my trunk, and chuck it at some point in the future. Fortunately, one of the barn kids walked in and asked what I was going to do with it. She is a girl after my own pink-loving, horses should be in tiaras at all times heart, so I said, "It's all yours, S. Use it well."
She was seriously thrilled, so I hope to see her grey pony being tortured sometime soon, and I'm glad all that fucking time I spent gluing isn't going to go to complete waste.
For the most part, Bobby Magee is a pretty amiable dude. His ground manners are essentially flawless, he longes on a loose line off of voice commands, his spook involves snorting and possibly skittering a step sideways, and he puts up with a lot of foolishness under saddle.
But Bobby also has another side. The one that involves flinging his body around, throwing himself and his rider into walls and fences, shutting down and refusing to move an inch, and even the occasional rear or buck.
I call this his Mighty Magee side, and it's a clear indicator that the devil lives inside him thanks to the Crazy As Fuck gene passed on from his papa.
"I EAT UR FACE OFF IF YOU BRUSH ME."
yeah, bobby. totally buying it.
The past week or so, all the good in Bobby has slowly been leaking out of his ears, and it's being replaced by a cheeky fucking shit head attitude. This happens a few times a year, and it's an easy fix.
I gave him a couple days off, then put him on the longe and just let him do his thing. He was a little confused at first because Bobbys are very polite gentlemen on the line. He was walking along with a big, swinging gait and continuously flicking his ears towards me when I told him his walk looked lovely.
The devil seized him in his own speshul "I'm so crazy. You better look out. I am a Crazy Horse." way.
He gave me the sideways stank eye, pinned his ears, swished his tail (I know, I know. You're on the edge of your seats wondering if I'm going to survive this!), and then TROTTED WITHOUT ME TELLING HIM TO.
>gasp<
he's eating that horse's face off!
not really, but i would give him a cookie if he did. that horse is a dick.
He did a few head snakes, a couple barely-off-the-ground bucks, and then cantered on his own.
Really, it was the craziest thing in the whole world. He is just so naughty I can't handle him sometimes.
He repeated the whole routine the other direction, but perhaps with a little less energy. Being so dangerously crazy is exhausting.
I got on him afterwards and had an absolutely perfect dressage warm up, so I got off of him after fifteen minutes and called it quits. Gotta keep those Good Horse brain cells in there and nurtured.
totally innocent.
Today we went on a long walk trail ride where the Good Horse brain cells sprung another leak, and he refused to walk along the path I was trying to keep him on. He was all, "NO! WE DO NOT WALK ON THAT PACKED DOWN, THAWED OUT, TOTALLY DRY TRAIL. WE WALK IN THE CORN FIELD WHERE WE SLIP ALL OVER BECAUSE THERE'S STILL SNOW AND ICE AND HARD GROUND BECAUSE I SAID SO."
Whatever, Bobby.
Trail rides are good for restoring brain cells, even if it's a delayed process.
I also accomplished two costume creations in the past two days, so be on the look out for those. They were both serious fucking pains in my ass.
1. Trail ride. Yes! Sort of.... We've been walking every inch of the available trails whenever we can. It doesn't count for much, but at least we've been out of the ring a few times a week.
2. Back to 3'-3'6". I got so fucking bored in the indoor, I even did 3' in there a few times. We only got jump in the outdoor a couple of times because of snow and frozen ground (Wait, isn't this Spring?), but we did do a few 3' and 3'3" fences out there. No 3'6" yet though. Stupid fucking never ending cold.
3. The trot to canter transitions in Training A and B.Yep, we finally nailed these down with minimum tantrums.
4. Pick out hunter shows. DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE WE'RE MOVING AND MY SHOW SEASON PLANS FOR DOING THE LOCAL HUNTER CIRCUIT WITH MY BARN ARE OVERRRRRRRRR. SOB.
so much butt muscle.
April Goals:
1. Find a good barn to move Bobby to. One with a minimal amount of crazies and a maximum amount of turnout and hay fed.
2. Locate a place to school cross country. NOW THAT WE'RE MOVING AND MY LIFE IS OVERRRRRRR.
3. Find some viable show options. NOW THAT I CAN'T SHOW WITH MY BLOG FRIENDS.
Basically just survive the move with as much spring pony time as possible.
