Hoofs!

Another hot day! I went for the coast for the day, but Emmy got to go for a trail ride. When I got to Inavale to visit and let him graze, Anya (the sweetest 5-year old in the world) and I were grooming him and noticed that horizontal crack (I googled it!) got worse. Anyway, with help from more experienced horse people, his hoof is wrapped in vet tape and duct tape and has a bell boot on. Hopefully it will hold until tomorrow when the back-up farrier comes. Horse ownership is fun... most of the time.

Play (and Spa) Day

Too hot to ride today (at least for me). So Emmy got to play in the pasture while Zinc and Sailor got a much needed bath. Zinc had a hard time standing still, but ultimately got cleaner and learning to keep still. Sailor did really well considering he doesn't like to be washed. Thought about giving Ranger a bath, but decided to do it later this week.
Emmy loved being outside in the pasture and then played in the arena. He also got dewormed and tolerated it very well. We also tried beet pulp with carrotsfor the first time and liked that as well (especially if hand fed). It was pretty cute.
All in all we had a good day off. Tomorrow Em get to go for a trail ride with Nicole, Alf, and Nicole's mom. I'm sure he'll have a great time, especially as invisible monsters avoid horses in pairs.
I get my spa day tomorrow...

(Sort of) Cross country

A fun day at the barn... got permission to give Sailor and Zinc a bath (as Gray school horses they have earned one), got Emmy to do some great transitions, and went for trail ride with Alf and Nicole).
Emeries remember how to pick up the canter promptly with cues from the seat and was even (more) forward and round. As he did so well, we shared an apple and let him enjoy his hay.
Now for the fun part, we went for long, rambing trail ride with Nicole and Alf. Em and Alf were perfect together as Alf made Emmy walk faster and Emmy made Alf calm. We managed to walk through the water jump and should have crossed the ditch. Oh, well. We'll have more opportunities.

Emmy and his friends

1st day blogging! Hopefully, I can keep the excellent standards Kylene established. Anyway, Emmy and I worked on transitions (walk to trot, trot to canter, etc.) and picking up the canter with cues from the seat. We put in a good workout and were more successful at picking up the canter (we have time). Then we went for a short trail ride until the horse flies bothered us too much. Emmy got to graze, enjoyed a good grooming session, and was able to enjoy his run.
Now to the other horses: Ranger, Fuzzy (Cosmo), Winston, and Sailor got apples. Even Simon did when I used my berry box as a bowl (he cannot be touched due to medication sadly). Sailor got some TLC and a proper bridle path. He seems to still like me.
Finally, Cozmo got to play in the arena with his owner. He really is a sweet, smart boy.. who likes to bite sometimes. He's still a fun, but sadly sore, horse.
Anyway, trail ride tomorrow with Nicole and Alf. It will be fun to have more trail riding friends.

Jessica's Back!

Jessica is a writer on this blog now! YAY! WIN!

Day #7

Tired. Weather was poopy this afternoon, I wore a black jacket throughout my entire lesson. Ugh! However, this did not affect my lesson and Emmy and I rocked it out. We jumped and I didn't even have to hold onto the mane. Whoop whoop! Worked on keeping him round through transitions and of course keeping him forward. Getting used to Jessica's Stuben saddle and now it's going to be hard for me to use the schooling saddles again! But that one I use on Ranger is pretty comfy.

No pictures because my cell phone died while I was at school. Boooo! Ah! Emmy seems to be very accident prone, he has a small cut that's new (to me anyway) on the outside of his back left foot in the ankle area. Goof! It'll heal up soon though, it's pretty small.

Fly mask lasted 24 hours. It stayed on his head, but it ripped again on the nylon and on the side again. Today the weather was colder though, so the flies weren't as bad today, thank goodness.

Sleep needs to happen now. ZZZZZZZZ!

Day #6

I'm tired. Got up at 7:15AM to study, got to the barn at 1:30PM, then had my lesson at 2. Worked on being round, staying round, then trying to stay round through transitions, and all while being forward. I did find out that it's kind of fun to push Emmy forward into a faster canter - wheee!

Fly mask is back on and it was on when I left... hrmmm. We just have to make it work until Friday! Then Jessica will be home with a new one :D How exciting! Although this one looked handsome on him, I wish he wouldn't have ripped it.

Jumping tomorrow! Gotta keep him forward, forward, forward! And because I intend to wake up at 7:15AM again tomorrow, I'm going to have to cut this post short :( I didn't even take any pictures! I fail at life... or maybe just blogging! lol

Oh! I have permission to ride Ranger on Friday on a practice ride - whoop whoop! I'll be expecting a lot out of him though! Then he can earn his vacation :) I wonder how he feels about dressage whips...

Day #5

Soooooo, Emmy ripped his fly mask and I think I mostly fixed it. At first I stitched it up, but then when I was checking to see how strong the stitching was, I ripped it again :( But! I bought super glue, so not all hope is lost. However, now I'm scared to test the strength... I'm sure Emmy will test it for me.

Pictures!

A perfectly innocent horse that would never want to rip their fly mask. Or is he?

The evidence of the crime.

Flawless stitching! And krazy glue...

Lets see how long the mask holds up... I say at most 3 more days?

Day #4

So, when I decided to ride at 2PM today, it was because I thought, "Emmy will be done with eating his lunch, and if it takes a long time to wash him, he certainly wouldn't miss out on dinner at 5." So I felt like that was good reasoning. But when I arrived at the barn today, it was muggy and hot and I thought I might die. Not to mention, when I took off Emmy's fly mask, there were sweat marks where it had been resting on his face. He was inside his 12x12 stall and it was not his turn to use the run. So in other words, he was basically just standing there staring outside his window and he was still sweating. But we're not sissies! So we worked on trotting :D Kelsey had a lesson going on with 3 girls, and for the most part we stayed on opposite ends, but towards the end of their lesson, the girls were taking turns jumping and I never tried to find opportunities to canter. I'm always nervous to canter next to small children! What if I run into them? What if they run into me? Ahh, I had an opportunity to canter when the girls were cantering, but I was working on being forward and round. I feel bad about not working on canter transitions. Bleh. But on the bright side, I did get Emmy round and forward at the trot!

Anyhow, we'll certainly canter tomorrow!

OH! So the best part about the lesson that was going on was that Ranger was being used! It's so fun to see someone else riding him! He's adorable. And he got to wear his boots today because his rider couldn't find matching boots for him - and they worked well! HOORAY! Then after the lesson, I helped two of the girls rinse Ranger off and I got some hilarious video of that. Emmy was to the right of Ranger and kept randomly getting sprayed, so he kept lifting his head trying to figure out where the water was coming from, and Ranger just stood there enjoying the cool water.

For these videos, you many want to turn the volume down, as my laugh is loud and therefore annoying in them :(

Then it was Emmy's turn for a bath! I tried to find the green spot remover that Jessica suggested to use, but I was looking for it in Emmy's bath tote instead of the grooming box, so I just had to scrub a bit and use Mane n Tail. When I finally found it, I felt like a bit of a dork, but I think Emmy liked it that way since he got a good scratch on his back, hindquarters, shoulders and the lower half of his neck and all the dirt and poop came out just fine :D I even have before and after pictures! Hooray! I also cleaned out his stall hoping that maybe there would be less of a chance of his rolling in his poop? I can dream. And show up at 8 tomorrow morning for the clinic, even though I don't ride until 10:15.

Picture time! YAAAAAY.

Before the bath. Emmy is sad he is sooo poopy.

After the bath! Emmy is happy and photogenic! Taadaa!

Earl napping :D Cute, cute, cute!

Day #3

Today, I woke up with the intention of giving Lily a bath, and then giving Emmy a bath, but I didn't get out to the barn until 2PM. And I was supposed to meet up with friends at the Regal at 3:50. Soooo... Lily looks so pretty!!! I even took photos and got video as evidence because I knew she would probably roll the second I took off her halter. She was nice enough to wait until I left the barn, so I like to imagine that she never rolled because she knew how good she looked.

Emmy DID get out of his stall for a little bit for a good grooming, some fly spray, a hoof cleaning, and mane and tail brushing. Tomorrow he'll get ridden and after I hope to give him a good bath.

Ah! I was so embarrassed! Olivia and Rio's mom was visiting Inavale today and I had Emmy in the cross-ties when they were walking through the barn and I was getting his grooming box! And of course, Emmy had giant pee and poo spots on him. I'm not abusing him, I promise! I hope they know that he has a knack for rolling in his poo within 24 hours of having a bath. EEEK!

Oh - so get this - when I was giving Lily a bath, the Pepsi distributor guy showed up just as I put shampoo in Lily's mane! I saw him drive up and immediately thought, "NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!" He/She is not going to be a horse person. He/She is going to be noisy, throw boxes around, and generally scare the poop out of Lily. And he delivered. *sigh* (BUT HAHA FUNNY PUN! Since he's a delivery guy kind of...) Here's how it went:

Jump out of truck - slam open doors - I hop out of the way of Lily, Lily jumps and get all 4 hooves in the air - Lily chills out a bit, but is still tense, I try to be encouraging - Pepsi guy slams open another door - Lily gets super tense, but doesn't jump, I keep shampooing mane - Pepsi guy slams open the 3rd door and Lily only tenses up a little, I tell her she's a good girl - Pepsi throws down cases of Pepsi by the machine - Lily tenses up, I start rinsing - Pepsi guy slams doors shut and then leaves - I finish rinsing mane and we both let out a sigh of relief to see him go. Then I shampooed her tail with little trouble :D It was all worth it too! SHE WAS SO PRETTY! Then after brushing her mane and tail, I put her fly mask on, put her away, and she was cool and comfortable for the rest of the day. I think.

Here's Emmy's video for today! The flies were giving him a hard time, so after I was done playing with him, his fly mask went on for the rest of the day :)

AHHH a lot of today's blog was devoted to Lily, but Emeries' Blog can have guests, right?

Day #2

Today was my first lesson with Emmy and it was weird. I'm supposed to be riding Ranger! Cantering is supposed to be mildly hard to sit through! But Emmy didn't make everything easy. Today, I made good friends with the dressage whip.

When we started trotting, it went about like this:

Drag, drag, drag the feet, AH I got kicked to go forward! Medium-slow trot for two strides, drag, drag, drag.

Then when I got him to be collected and after doing some serpentine from the wall to the quarter-line, it was time to canter. First we started to the right and I asked and immediately I received! Hooray! Kelsey's hard work yesterday payed off. And we cantered for a while too! Drifter is a slow poke, so we kept catching up, mwahahahaha. So cantering to the right went well!

Then we switched directions.

Where did my well balanced horse go? Ahh! All the times I've previously cantered Emmy, I must have started with going to the left and then went right because I had never really noticed before that his canter to the left was weird. However, it's something to work on! Maybe it will be fixed before Jessica gets home? I can dream.

Then we got to jump! WOOHOO! Thank goodness for the mane on Emmy's neck. It saved my butt the first couple of times we went over! First we started with ground rails, and initially Emmy wanted to drag his feet over those. But! I didn't give up on him and eventually he started to pick up his feet :D Then Kelsey moved the cavelleti to the medium height and we trotted over that too just fine. Then it was moved to the largest height. And then Emmy jumped. OMGEEEEE! Ranger does not feel like that when he jumps. Here's why I say that: When Emmy and I trotted to it, I was hesitant and so the length of his stride was short and we were not where we were supposed to be after the first ground rail. But! Emmy is smart and thought, "I'm supposed to jump after the ground rail! Even if I'm not quite in front of the jump! Here I go!" So he leaps, and I say OMGEEEEEEE! If the same thing were to happen to Ranger, he would say, "But if I jump it now, that's so much work. I will trip over it instead. And now that I think about it, I have to pee." Thankfully, I got more confident, got Emmy to lengthen his stride and the jump was much easier to handle, and almost... dare I say it... fun?

Pictures! HOORAY!

Emmy did not want to be still for the photos. Munch munch munch!

Food! YUM!

Ah-oh, Emmy's mouth is empty.

FOOOOOOOD!

Kylene-auntie!!! Yesterday, I gave him peppermint treats, and he was pretty keen about those. :D

Finally, a semi-decent photo. I don't think I'll be winning any awards for my photography skillz yet.

And finally, the kitties! Hooray! Callie-cat is front and center (well... center at least) and Earl is the grey lump cleaning himself on the left. What pretty kitties!

Ahhh! I also went on a trail ride with Kelsey after the lesson! Emmy walks too slow compared to PJ, but Emmy was a good, calm buddy for PJ when PJ started freaking out on the way to the barn. In PJ's defense, if he were good at everything, he would be boring and would have no friends. I bet no one would even pet him, and that would not be great. So win-win for Emmy and PJ! YAY!

Day #1

Yesterday was Emmy's first day away from Jessica D: And his first tune-up day with Kelsey! All went well, however, as Jessica and I know, he does not like to be forward and he put up a bit of a fuss and then was good about being forward and collected :D

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing, "crap! This blog is a good idea in theory, but I'm not a good writer! My stories always segway and it takes at least 15 minutes for me to get to the point of the story!" Jeeeeesica! I'm not a good writer. Here are some pictures of your horse.

Wait... how do you post videos? OH! OH! I see the button... haha. Well, what do you think, Jessica? Emmy looks pretty good, right?

Haha, funny, right? Ranger is doing well too :D

So as for your horse...

He stayed still for a picture! And it shows off his pink nose! You will later see that it is harder to get him to stay still for a picture when he's eating. UGH. AND SURPRISE... Here's a video!

Hopefully it's playable? We will see. First posts aren't supposed to be great, right???