An Update.

Well its been another gap between postings, I know. But hey, its not easy being me... I mean I have a farm to make presentable, horses to work, and a barn to clean. 

This is how poodles help with barn chores...

 And poodles to deburr after their romp in the swamp. They will be lucky to escape a full body shave before spring's over.

"You can't see me"

Anyway, its been a full wek. I've worked ponies and RC. RC's a champ, per usual and the ponies... well they are quite the ride. Not to say that I don't enjoy the ride, but sometimes I wish I bought well trained horses that I could just hop on and go. Of course this thought stays for about half a second, but its there.
Tilly and I are working on getting her solid on the outside rein. She'd love to just chill on the left rein 24/7, no matter which direction we're going, but that's not really conducive to  an upper level dressage horse, so straight and supple we go! Lots of serpentines and circles, but we're getting better. Which is good since we're 8 days out from our first show.

I like to think that I hand select my Sport Ponies based on their work ethic....

Delight has her moments. When she gives me her back and losens her shoulders, it's like riding a pony Totilas. Amazing. I really makes me wish that I was showing her this year, but I've made my plan, and I'm sticking with it. And that's that.

Which leads me to my 'around the house' project.... Wasps. 

I don't knwo where they came from or when they showed up, but I've been invaded. They have taken up residence in several eves and I'm not a fan. 

The little nest

Can you spot the big next?

Here it is!

Fortunatly Walmart had a deal on a 2 pack of wasp spray with a 27 foot spray. Bingo. Hasta, suckers!

Normaly I would love nothing more that to make my anti-wasp adventures into a thrilling documentary, but I've had a shitty day on the personal life side of things, so you'll just have to take the abridged version.

Go Home Winter. You're Drunk.

So... Saturday was a crappy day. I mean  for me personally, it wasnt bad... But weather-wise, it sucked. It was cold and windy and had spurts of icy rain. I was thinking that it couldnt get too much worse....

And today I woke up to this:

That's right. Snow on May 12. Ridiculous, I say! Ridiculous!

 On the plus side, Bacon was ready to help me with my chores. By the way, have you met my awesome new chores wagon? I assembled it myself with very few droppings of the F Bomb. So we'll chalk that up as a success, shall we?

"Uh, Alison.... This cart isnt gonna pull it's self!"

 Of course since my herd was in for over 12 hours yesterday (hey, what kind of horrible horse owner could look into Tilly's big brown eyes and condemn her to stand out in the rain?), everyone was more than ready to escape the barn this morning.

This grumpy face brought to you courtesy of RC

More snow...

Entered!

Well, I have no pictures for today (boring, I know!) so I'll keep it short and sweet.

As of today, Tilly is entered in her first show of the season. It's a 'local' schooling show. And by 'local' I mean that it's still in this state. So that's a plus...

Anyway, today's my 'get stuff done day'. I promise more pictures next time!

The Great Big Outdoors

So far this week, I've worked all three horses.
Uh, don't you do that every day?

Well, yeah.
But this week I rode OUTSIDE.

I'll repeat....

OUTSIDE.

For the first time in god-knows-how-long I was able to actually work my horses in a full sized outdoor arena.

And all three ponies were amazing. Not a spook/flinch/buck out of either of my mares....

The Ponies in my back yard...

Of course RC was a little 'tard on our first ride. He wasn't naughty (I doubt that he could pull off 'bad' if he tried) but he was excessively enthusiastic about his work.
He even threw in a few bucks... well, little leaps through the air... Well, more like in the air - or slightly less on the ground- but either way it was funny. And adorable.

Delight and Tilly showed their true warmblood-ness by showing off their gaits to the maximum expression when allowed the room to do it. It was nearly too much fun.

Oh and I think I have a sunburn on the back of my neck. Turns out there is a learning curve to applying sunscreen for the first time in six months.
Face, check.
Arms, check.
Neck and chest, check....

Back of neck... missed.  Whops. 4

 Anyway, since I have some extra time on my hands (which is good considering the amount of mud on my ponies), I gave all three a thorough grooming, including hair cuts.

I cut three inches off of Tilly's tail because, while long, it had that ratty uneven thin pasture pony look to it. A bang job later... She looks like someone loves her and she could show her face in the show arena. Success.

Deli's tail is already short (but thick!), so I only conditioned it and picked it out.
RC has been cultivating tail all winter, with his tail in braids of varying intricacy for the past few months. And now, after nine years of work... It touches the ground. I conditioned it, but couldn't commit to banging it just yet.
I mean what if I ever enter an open show? I understand that best tail wins...

Guess we'll have to fall back on good training.

There's No Place Like Home....

So today was the day. All of the ponies came home.Of course I took full advantage of the indoor arena prior to our departure since I assumed that introducing three tired horses to each other in a new situation might be easier and smoother than throwing three fit show horses our together on a cool windy day.

It was a thought....

"We're ready!"

I will say that I have had three amazing rides in a row on Delight, so I'm more than looking forward to riding her out in a full sized arena  (finally!). Even Tilly has really got her stuff together this week... Show season here we come!

Anyway, back to the story.

I rode the horses, loaded all of their gear then drove them home. I had one section of fence that I wanted to fix before I turned them out into the 'sacrifice pasture' that I have freshly fenced off; so the horses went into the barn to enjoy some of my nice timothy hay for half an hour before I kicked them out.

I started with Delight, because she's the most self-secure pony that I have. If she's out all by her lonesome, she's not going to get overly worried about anything.

They seem quiet...

Next out was Tilly, because she's my least secure pony. I really didn't want to leave her by herself either in the barn or out in the field.
The mares said 'hi'... then it got exciting.

 There was some leaping.

There was some squealing.

 There was some bucking....

Even from Tilly!

After five minuted for so of showing off how athletic they really can be when not held back by their rider, both mares chilled enough to snatch some bites of hay. I took that as a sign that they were ready for the Instigator. 

"Oh look! Food!"

Enter, Mr. RC.
Dramatically, per his usual.

"Dun da-dun DA! Here comes RC!"

"Trot on!"

"OK, two minute breather, guys"

"Watch me BUCK!"

"Oh, Hi Alison. Any treats?"

I'd really rather not ride that movement

And Tilly gets in on the game. 

Finally, a nice calm herd.

So... now everyone's home and the real work can begin!

The Final Countdown (Again)

So... guess what happens tomorrow?

The ponies come home!!! Finally, I'll have everyone back under my watchful eye.

I have a 'sacrifice lot' fenced off so that the ponies dont churn the whole pasture into mud in a day.

I have the barn cleaned and ready to go.
I have the trailer all hooked up and ready to split tomorrow morning.

I even went out and stocked up on sawdust (because if you say 'shavings' up here, they just look at you like you suddenly started speaking in tongues) so that everyone would have plenty of fresh dry bedding.

And two hours later, I had three freshly bedded stalls and 25 wheelbarrows of sawdust unloaded.
Obviously, even RC doesnt need 20 wheelbarrow loads of sawdust, so where is a girl to store all of the leftovers?
In her brand new shavings bay.

Sexy, isn't it?

Water, Water Every Where!

Well, quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted to complain about the snow.

For one thing, I took three of my students to a show. It was exciting... however that's not my story to tell, so let's just say that it ended with three tired horses and three happy kids. Which makes it a good show, right? 

Because two of the three had new-to-them horses, I opted out of this show, so no pony came along. 

 I did, however, was my truck.

 Then it rained (of course) on the way to the show.
But when we got to WI, it was warm, sunny and spring-like. Nearly a whole different world from the UP that we left behind. My prayers must have been answered, though, because we've had four nice days in a row up here now and the snow is melting off at a very high rate. So high that we are now experiencing flooding.

Good thing that bridge is 60' wide

To the South....

My creek, north of my bridge

Another show to try to capture the sheer volume of water

My former log bridge is under water....

Everything bewteen the road and the snow: rushing water

Of course, with the spring temps, all of my ponies were just fantastic today. Woohoo. 

Two more days until they come home....