Beavers

Long time no post. Last week I went down to Florida and went on a cruise with my parents. It works out for everyone. My mom gets me to herself for a week, and it's about the best birthday/Christmas present that I can get. It was 85, and sunny all week. I don't need to go into details, but it was amazing.

One thing I don't like about vacation is the fact that I'm so far away and if something happens I'm useless. Luckily nothing happened to Ms. Mare. I did send a text to the barn owner the moment our ship pulled into shore. She was fine. She has started back up her nasty, nasty habit of chewing on EVERYTHING. The barn owner (aka: my hero) called her a termite. She said it was fine, and it didn't bother her. The thing that worries me is her teeth. I don't want her to ruin them. I saw a horse who did this and had to have fillings put in. I've tried the stuff you spray on and paint on....it just makes her more dedicated to her chewing. I saw that SmartPak has something called "Quitt" that I thought of trying. Has anyone tried it?

While on the cruise I made the mistake of opening my e-mail. I saw a message from my friend that we were on SmartPak's facebook and blog. Here's the link. I thought it was fitting since it was posted on Denali's 8th birthday. I went to their facebook and started to read through the comments on the post. They were all really nice, but there was one that made me so mad. I don't remember exactly what it said, but essentially it was "We don't need to supplement our horses, there is obviously a huge issue here." My blood started to boil and I'm not sure why I got so upset. It's fine for me to say bad things about myself, but no one else. I didn't have Denali on any calming things when I was riding her off the track with no training. I only put her on them once she started breaking so that she wouldn't kill herself. I spent about two days being my anxious self over a comment.

Anyway, March 1st I start with my lease of the big guy. We'll see how it goes. I still have yet to ride him, lol, but I've seen him go undersaddle and I hope it's fine. I'm not paying (my trainer is paying his lease for me :) ) since I work for her so that's great. I go out Saturday to watch and Sunday he's all mine. GULP!

Happy Birthday!

(She's going to be SOO pissed that this didn't post last week....SOO pissed!!) Well, better late than never.

I am currently in the middle of the Carribean (or at least I am suppose to be, I posted this last Wednesday to auto post.)

Happy 8th birthday to my sweet, sweet mare. I can't believe that she is 8 years old. I can't believe that I've owned her for almost half her life! Wow.

So, on this day I wish Denali the best birthday ever!!! Love you mare!!

Zephyr's Garden

Just thought I'd plug this here. As most of you know I help fun a non-profit. This weekend 10% of sales from Zephyr's Garden will be donated to us! Also, for each new "like" they get on Facebook they will donate us .25 cents. Not a lot, but it all ads up!

Also, I will be out of town for a week. I am going to go use my birthday/Christmas gift....I'm going to the Eastern Caribbean. :) Hope that all is going well!

Also, if you haven't seen yet, send happy thoughts to Ella, Olivia and Ashley over at "A Process of Learning." Olivia is doing "ok" but could use all of the good thoughts that they can get!

Visit Day!

Saturday was our trip to see the girls! (Ophelia lives there now too.) This time Ophie's Mom's Boyfriend came with us to see the girls. Our first stop was to my friend's Polo Lesson. It's fun to watch, but I still think I should focus on staying on a horse before I try a new sport. My friend is a MUCH better rider than the other two guys who are in her lesson, but I still don't need to embarrass myself.

When we got to the barn Ophelia and Denali were side by side in their pasture/run. They haven't taken the temporary fence down yet, but I don't think there will be a problem. Denali was a good girl. We took her blanket off and de-mudded her. She was so gross. She seems to have pony dandruff? After taking her blanket off she kept kicking her belly. Turns out she was pointing to where she wanted a good grooming. At one point she lifted her hind leg like a dog and held it while I scratched behind it, and under her stifle. It was pretty funny. She even kept her brain attached to her body for the most part.

Her feet are still looking really good (for what I know about feet.) I was going to ask my friend to take a picture for you to judge, but I forgot. :-/ Next time. I know the wet ground is making her frog a bit squishy, but the rest of her sole felt hard. Her feet have changed so much since going barefoot 2 years ago. I bet that she has gone up a shoe size.

Now for some photos! (Most of Ophie since her momma now lives in San Diego and hasn't seen her in two weeks.)

Please read what the 'Big Kids' get. I laughed so hard. The 'Big Kids' are her personal horses. Of course they get fed. :)

So itchy!! SOO SOO Itchy!!

Ophie with her make-up. She was so upset that we took it off.

I love this mare...

Oh Mare-Face. You look so ugly when you are being nasty-mare-face.

This is Denali's Right Hind in 2009. The Lump has never gone away, and it was always pretty swollen.

Same leg yesterday. The lump is almost gone!! Yay. Not that it will make her magically rideable, but one less thing to worry about.

Ponies, Ponies, Ponies

Still working out the details with the big man, but I will try to get some photos of him this weekend. I sort of feel weird taking pictures of him without his owner knowing that he is now on the Internet. Tuesday I went out to the barn that Denali use to live at prior to the whole almost dying thing. A friend of mine moved her mare there at the start of the month and I wanted to visit her.

One of the lesson horses was just finishing up, and the trainer offered me to take her for a spin. I haven't ridden since I started my crazy work out routine (aka, not working out ever to 4 days a week, 2 with a personal trainer). I could tell right away that "wow, this is much easier with muscles." I didn't feel like I was 'amazing' but could focus more on what I was doing since I felt pretty stable.

I think I mentioned before that my doctor wouldn't give me anti-anxiety meds for my fears post-trailer accident. She thought I had PTSD and made me go talk to someone. It actually is something I sort of have a hard time talking about on here so I don't mention it a lot. I guess I'm embarrassed? The doctor grew up with horses too. My "homework" is to tell stories of good things that happened to me in the past, or times that I felt really confident. She thinks that this will help me since so many of my memories in the past year and so were so negative or traumatic. SO, what does that mean? You will have to listen to me ramble some. I figured I'd write them on here.

Well...

After a lot of thought yesterday I went out to the GWB to resign. I have a lot of trade saved up, and haven't used any of it.....instead I have a horse now. Opps. Okay, well, he's not "my" horse, but I am leasing him. He's a beautiful 18 year old school master who was imported from Germany and competed up through 4th level. I think he's 16.3/17.0 hh. He's a big boy is all I know. The lease starts March 1st, and I am going to have a few lessons on him before that...

So much for quiting. I'll get some pictures of him and post them soon. Gulp.

Happy Friday!