As a typical horse freak there are some weird habits or quirks that I have and most of the time I can't belive that there are some people who still will claim me as a friend. Overall most people think that I am just plain weird. It is not my fault thought that they can not handle my awkwardness and awesomeness all at once.
1) If I want you to stop moving I say "Whoa" and I give you only a few seconds before you have better have stopped moving.
2) If I want you to speed up I will 'cluck' to you, and if I am behind you you had better respond quickly because I will smack your behind.
3) When turning a corner my inside leg will move in an effort to keep the shoulder in.
4) I practice patterns while walking, especially if there is a show coming up. Reining patterns are the hardest for me to remember so usually there is a lot of spinning and lead changes involved.
5) Listening to music with me is an adventure because I will all of the sudden exlaim, "that is a great freestlye song!! Find me a pen and paper." I will then proceed to write down the song, artist and start a pattern all the while telling my friends to SHUSH!!
Then there are the things that just make me plain, traditional, psycho crazy and when people look at me they go, "Oh, she has horses".
1) During the winter, when we feed hay, my pockets are constantly filled with hay. And not a little bit, almost another full bale! In my jeans, in my jackets. I preactically leave a trail.
2) If you were to look in my car you would see: rope, a hay bag, my riding helmet and a saddle pad. 'Cause you never know when you will need one of these items.
3) Once my horse start shedding I am no longer allowed to sit anywhere. There is always hair attached to some part of my clothing.
4) Any story that someone tells reminds me of a story about a horse. It tends to drive my few friends insane. I can't believe they have stayed as long as they have.
5) Every other picture on my phone is a picture of a horse, or a friend and a horse, or another horse item.
There are other things I do as well, like 2-pointing over speed bumps, and lengthening and shortening strides as I walk. Having a particular way of tacking and untacking my horse. In fact, I rarely let anyone else unsaddle my horse. They never put anything in the correct place! Hmm, maybe this is why I only have a few friends who still answer my calls....
10)
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Cleaning up
Getting your horse clean
I have a gray horse.
His coat is white, which mean getting and keeping him clean is a pain in
the rear end! But, over the past couple
years I have found a few things that really help get him shiny.
- I wash my horse with… Purex… shhh. You know, the laundry detergent. You have to be careful with this one though. If your horse has sensitive skin, don’t use it. I tried it in a small area the week before the show to make sure that he didn’t have an allergic reaction.
- The Cowboy Magic greenspot remover is the
best thing for early show mornings to clean in manure stains.
- Baking
soda is good for getting really tough stains out of tails. It takes a bit of scrubbing, but a water
baking soda paste is helpful.
- The
Cowboy Magic detangler is awesome for brushing knots out of manes and
tails. I show Arabians, and mane
and tails are our pride and joy, they have to look nice. This product is great for untangling.
- Then
after your horses are clean you can spray them with a body shine. I have…..um, Cowboy magic…. *cough*. It is a really good product line!
Washing horses is one of my favorite parts of working with
the horses. My horse tolerates the
baths. He couldn’t care less whether or
not he is clean and clipped.
It is especially fun if you can wash your horses with friends. I wash and clip my horse the night before the
show then wait until he is completely dry. I braid his mane and tail (learned how to do a
four strand braid recently!) then I put him in a smaller pen with hay and water
so he can’t roll. If he has the ability
to roll I would have to completely have to rewash him the next morning. I have had to do it before. I will not do it again.
Once I get to the show, I pull Silver out, brush him down
with a freshly cleaned soft brush, use my green spot remover to clean up his
legs. Then I take down his mane and tail
and brush it our so it is long and flow-y and beautiful. Use my awesome little horse shaver to take off
any few whiskers I missed, use a wipe to clean out his nostrils, hips lips and ears. Spray on body shine. If there are flies I will put the white SWAT
in his ears and spray him with a fly spray.
Then we are all ready to show, and he usually stays fairly clean for the
show.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Show day
Horse shows are always an exciting experience for horse
people. Whether you are just beginning
or if you have been showing for nigh on 40 years, there is something about a
horse show that just gets you all hyped up inside. Maybe it is the adrenaline rush when you
finish a reining pattern or the pleasure in picking up the correct lead. Maybe it is the elation you feel when your
horse does a perfect pivot in showmanship.
Or maybe it is the delight when he does everything just perfectly all
day. Whatever it is horse shows are days
that most horse owners look forward to and plan for all year, ok that’s a lie,
I know it is coming all year, I start planning the week of and am usually
franticly packing the trailer the night before at 10 pm. Either way show day is always fun. You get to see your fellow horsey friends and
when you say something like, “Silver has not been soft on his vertical lately.”
They know what you mean and are ready to offer advice about what to work
on.
I show a variety of classes, and my horse is an overall good
horse to do anything on. I ride English,
Western, do reining, and I love showmanship!
I train all year for showmanship, I think that being able to get on a
horse and look good is hard and for the most part takes talent. But if you can show a horse on the ground,
that looks amazing, and professional, and *sigh* a great showmanship
performance makes my heart go pitter patter.
The only other thing that can do that is watching Andreas Helgstrand
ride Blue Hors Matine in the 2006 freestyle. …. Yeah…… back to reality. My horse and I have gotten to be fairly good
at showmanship. I can do a pattern
without having to hold onto the lead rope, and I think that shows the bond that
my horse and I have.
I also really enjoy reining, the fast circles, the slow
circles, the run downs and the roll backs.
We aren’t great at reining, but we are decent enough to do well. I prefer pattern classes to rail classes. My horse isn’t what judges think a pleasure
horse is, but he is obedient and does well in a pattern. Unless it is trail. We suck at trail. Like crash and burn, hope the earth swallows
you whole kind of sucking. We can do
trail at home and he will back through the “L” and over the bridge, side pass
over the log, dude he would probably do a back flip, he also does really well
on an actual trail (except for rushing water) but as soon as he gets in an
arena we are lucky if we get to open and close the gate.
Getting ready for the classes is also a fun part of hors e
showing. Horse showing is really the
only time I do anything to my hair except for the occasional times I flat iron
after blow-drying. For a horse show I
blow-dry, flat iron, pigtail braid it and put it into a long bun across the nape
f my neck. Using a total of 3 bazillion
bobby pins and 2 cans of hairspray, my hair does not move, and the hat does not
come off. After having my hat fall off
once and having four strands of hair keeping the hat hanging from the side of
my face, I use bobby pins like they are staples. My hat does not come off….. ever! I love the feel of my freshly pressed jeans
and button up shirt. Pulling on my boots
and mounting to quickly warm up and memorize my next pattern. Waiting outside the gate for my name to be
called, last minute pattern reciting, checking collars, cuffs, pant legs and
the horses gear.
Then riding into the arena with a smile on your face to show
off your horse and do your pattern flawlessly.
Standing in line and listening to the names being called and counting
off the people in the class, “and in fourth place number 241 not me! At least
third) and in third place number 102 (not me! In the running for first!)” If you have ever showed you know the feeling
of realizing that you may have taken the top placing.
If you own horses and have never shown in a horse show,, it
is something you should look into. It is
a wonderful experience, and if you have friends to go with it is even more
fun. I mean, come one, hanging out with
a bunch of horsey people and gorgeous horse butts, what could be better? Well except
for watching Andreas of course.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Good times
Memories, everyone has them.
Hopefully the good memories outweigh the bad. I realized today as I was walking to the back
pasture to switch water that all of my best memories are centered around one
particular house in Washington where I grew up and spent the best years
in. Just little things. Small snippets of different days that I remember. Playing with my cousins, trying to ride the
horses, cooking with grandma, working with grandpa, or relaxing on the
porch. Some things I remember in great
detail. Other things I just remember
feelings. Tonight the memories were
brought on by a smell. There was someone
barbequing close by and it smelled like the meat was a little over done, not
charred, just….. dark. For some reason
this made memories come rushing back, and I couldn’t help but smile.
The memories of times I spent at that house come at random
times. Stacking wood in the shed. Being taught how to cut kindling. Trying to help carry horse food. Getting locked in the feed room with my
sisters, dad, and cousins. Collecting
eggs, running with a broken broom from the crazed rooster. Two of us cousins DRAGGING a western saddle
out to the corral to ride. Big family
get-togethers. Thanksgiving dinner. The tomato plants. The wallpaper in the bathroom. That really old tv. The really yummy frozen juice grandpa
drank. Making grandpa ants on a log for
his lunch the next day.
One my fondest memories was after school, the bus would drop
me off at grandma’s house, she would be waiting on the porch, I would walk up
through the gate and sit on the chair next to her on the porch. Grandma would make me a peanut butter and
honey sandwich and chocolate milk made with Hershey syrup. We would eat on the porch and talk or look
through Home and Garden magazines. After
lunch, I would play on the rope swing my grandpa hung under the bigger of the
two apple trees, and I would watch and wait for grandpa’s little Nissan to
rumble up the driveway, at which time I would run up and give him a hug.
Another one, one Sunday morning, before church, grandpa and
I went out and saddled up the little Morgan mare he had, Tootsie, and we rode
double down the road behind his property.
He loved to ride into and then back out of the irrigation ditches.
Let me see. There was
the time that we picked the big rocks out of the pasture and round pen and took
them up to the front to make a small wall along the driveway. He told me he needed a wall because every time
my mother or aunt would back up to leave they needed a barrier to hit. After working we sat on the front porch and
drank a glass of tea.
Oh! And how grandma
always kept the clear, glass, pumpkin shaped candy jar full of those assorted
Hershey candies, the one with the Mr. Goodbar, and the Krakle, and the regular
hershey’s.
And grandma’s flowers.
In the summer I would water them, but I wouldn’t wear shoes, and that
wood got freakishly hot, so I would get the wood wet stand in the puddle, and
then water the plants, then the wood, then the plants.
Then there were the
cousins. Grandma and grandpa had two big
apple trees in their backyard and one crab apple tree in the pasture. We would pick the apples from the front
trees, sit on the deck, eat them down to the seeds and then see who could throw
the core the farthest. We would also
drink grape soda, which does not taste as good now as it did then, then spit on
the ground to see whose spit was more purple. Ahh, good times!
Ha! I have so many
more memories but I’ll end on this one. My
cousin and I (the two troublemakers) were in the back of the little red Mazda. We were on our way home with grandpa in the
driving. They had a little maroon
colored broom dustpan set they kept in the back seat. I had the dustpan out the window in my hand
watching how it moved in the wind and how tilting it would change what it would
do. Grandpa looked at us in the rearview
mirror with those stern eyes and said, “Don’t you dare lose that dustpan out
the window.” Sam and I smiled, “I won’t
grandpa, I am holding on to it tight.”
No more than 45 seconds passed that the little red dustpan was ripped
from my grasp into who or whatever dared be behind us. My eyes got huge, my heart plummeted, I looked
at Sam, her eyes were huge too and I am sure her heart was at her feet. We sat forward and didn’t say anything the
rest of the drive home. Neither did
grandpa. He never said anything about
that dustpan to either of us. We are
sure he knew about it, but he never, I mean never mentioned the dustpan. And we operated off of the “don’t ask, don’t
tell” policy.
The memories of that house are wonderful and I love when I
am lucky enough to get hit with another memory of times well spent in that
house, with family and friends. In all
of the houses I have lived in, I am almost certain that the little brown , green
trimmed house will always be my favorite.
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