This Is How We Roll: Turnout Blankets, Part Deux (Or Trois? Quatre?)

In case you need someone to state the obvious, it's winter.  Cold, wet, dark winter.  Unless you live in Florida.  Or the US SW.  Or the southern hemisphere.  Or...well, I don't care, it's winter here!

This leads to cold, wet ponies and our need to muddle through the excessive array of horse clothes and, with little empirical data, figure out if there is any reason we actually need to spend $400 on a freaking sheet of nylon that will be rubbed into a pile of horseshit, urine, and wet clay.

I've talked about turnouts a time or two in the past:  (1) The original November 2011 review of the Weatherbeeta Landa midweight turnout, the Rider's International rain sheet, and the beautiful ears-to-tail midweight rug from EquestrianClearance.com.  (2)  My stupid self-jinx wherein one month later Solo destroys his own blanket after 5 years of faithful service.  (3)  The April 2013 review of SmartPak's 10-year Ballistic Nylon sheet, wherein they actually do honour that guarantee! 

Lessons learned:  A 600D turnout is just fine if your horse is (a) by himself, (b) top dog, or (c) in a generally placid group that don't bite each other and don't seek out pointy things.

Also, if you DO need to fix some things, I just handsew the tears, then seal with this waterproof seam glue and, if needed or in too much of a hurry to sew, slap on a Stormshield patch.  Yes, they work!  Thank you, SSTack!

So what's on the runway this winter?  Well, things are a little simpler now that the boys are separated, thanks to Solo's decision to use Encore as his personal chew toy and getting a little bit carried away (I can't tighten a girth over raw, chewed-up skin, that's just not very nice).

Rainsheets:  Encore is shedding the wet in his second SmartPak "indestructible" sheet.  Sooo, they are not quite indestructible, and this one has a very small hole now, but the important part is that they ARE pretty tough and, even more important, SmartPak DOES back up their product.

Not Solo.  His is purple.  With green trim.  Oh yeah.

Solo is still wearing his McAlister 600D sheet.  They both had these at the beginning of last winter, I believe I got them on sale at Horseloverz, but Solo, naturally, ate Encore's.  His own is still 95% intact; the only flaw is that his big QH chest combined with cheap metal on the chest clips equaled the top clip separating from its base on the upper chest strap.  I just flipped it around so the clip goes through both the metal loop and the hole in the chest strap.  It works the same, and all the rest of the hardware is fine, so I reckon it's doing well and it still keeps the wind off and he is dry.  Not sure that brand even exists anymore, looks like Horze has moved into that price point.  

Insulated blankets:  In the aftermath of Solo's nylon-ivorous (?) rampage, I found a couple of 1200D Centaur blankets on steep sale and decided to try a new brand.  Given their low price, I've been pleasantly surprised!!

Obviously not Solo. Duh. But that plaid!

Solo has the mid-weight; nice nylon lining, evenly-distributed insulation, totally waterproof and breathable, nice, durable leg strap snaps.  The only thing missing is chest snaps, but it does have velcro and buckling straps won't kill me, I don't have to blanket 10 horses.  Naturally, in a sale, you don't really get to pick colours, so he rocks the blue and brown plaid (at least it's nicer in person).

Since Encore has been in work, usually has a higher clip, and burns calories when he blinks, he got the heavy-weight, high neck version.  I like it just as much as Solo's.  The only colour option was black (you get even fewer choices at 81"), so he looks a bit ninja, but he really seems grateful when I put it on and it has helped a lot in my constant efforts to hold his weight.  The high neck even gives His Wussiness an extra draft collar.

Encore's high neck version.  On not-Encore.

Both the Centaurs have a nice, weighty, well-made feel for them, neither have rubbed, shifted, broken, or torn and they've kept my boys protected on these 25 degree, breezy nights this week.  They don't get too sweaty if the sun comes out during the day (I can't always be there to pull blankets), so I don't have to worry about gross overheating thanks to good breathability.

I did pick up one extra in case Encore's Centaur didn't make it, as Solo did manage to rip it once before they were separated; during one of SmartPak's clearance events (I always blanket shop in June/July).  I got one of their super nice insulated blankets for something ridiculous like $60, but I'm saving it for backup, so it's nice and clean in storage.  I also still have his older (multi-repaired, but still functional) EquestrianClearance mega-warm blankie just in case too.  Hey, spares are important!

Fingers crossed, but so far, things are looking warm and uneventful in the horse clothes category this winter!

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Homesick

I miss my boys.  They haven't gone anywhere.  But between work and selling and building and maintaining and trying to be everything else, I've been elsewhere. 

The dark, the cold, the rain, they've gotten to me more than usual this year, thanks to the extra stress.  I end each workday utterly exhausted and when I can get to the farm, usually the most I can muster is hoof picking, blanket switching, and some treats.

I miss the quiet brush of bristles on hair, as a soft muzzle turns and gently touches my hip to say, "I'm here."

I miss the settling sound as I place the saddle on a blanketed back.

I miss the unmistakable jingle of girth buckles and the blunt meeting of teeth and bit.

I miss swinging my leg into place and knowing I am home, on a strong red horse who doesn't care what we do as long as it's something.

I miss the way working with the horse allows me to be focused, calm, and conscious of every part of my body in a way that escapes me everywhere else.

I miss structuring an exercise or a ride to guide the horse towards the correct answer and those first steps when he finds it.  Then connecting those steps to build a path towards a goal.

I miss that swinging walk on a loose rein when we can both just be.  Where I listen to the four-beat rhythm that matches my heart and we breathe in the evening together.

I am aching to return to that place and its melody of familiar notes.  In two weeks, the solstice will mark the beginning of the end of short, dark days and offer the first hints of brighter days ahead.  And none too soon, because by the end of January, I have usually run out of patience for endless grey and am more than willing to trade my soul for a leaf bud.

But that's not the most important part.  No, it's hoofbeats and the creak of leather and even the frosty cloud of air puffed from cold nostrils that I'd trade for now.  If I can just peek under the right rock, one of them, I'm sure, is hiding that train ticket back to where I belong...     

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I Promise It Will Be Over Soon!

Ok, so bringing TFS into something close to 2014 has been a teeensy bit more involved than I thought. Something akin to a first grader deciding to read Dostoyevsky. It made RSS look like "See Spot Run." *insert crossed eyes here*

Feel like this?

Truly, my deepest apologies for any confusion, broken things, and craziness you may have witnessed. For the unintentional beta-testers, I hope you will forgive a rainy weekend's nibble that turned into a choking incident.

If not, errrr, nothing to see, move along...

As a woman who hates change, it probably seems (is) insane that I jumped into it at all. I'm still not crazy about the whole thing, and there are still pieces to find, delete, tweak...once I can poke around in the alphabet soup of template code and even find which bits go together. Let's just say that "revert changes" is an excellent button.

But along with the unveiling of the new logo, all of Blogger's changes (they did it first!) and my trial-and-error revamping and embiggening of our feed and social integration (hey, it doesn't mean I have to do the latter in real life), I learned that there have been a lot of changes to blog and search world since 2008, which is when our last template code was written. So off I merrily went, messed everything up, and now am finally getting close to returning things to a semblance of working order.

The claim is that the new code-set is more widely compatible, as is the new feed, enabling even email subscriptions, more browser support, and, say, a search box that actually WORKS with Blogger's new format.

So, hopefully, I won't have to say it again, but please alert me to any issues you may have with the main tabs or article displays. Stupid floaty label boxes and things in weird places...I'm still working on it. Here's to leaping in to ideas merely half-developed...

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Want The Most Amazing T-Shirt Of All Time?

Well then, as always, my dear friends, I am here for you.

But like everything here at TFS, we can never do it alone.

This project probably started several years ago, floating around in my very strange head associated with good intentions, but it never bumped into the two necessary reagents to complete its synthesis (wow, bad organic chemistry flashback):  time and motivation.

I wandered deeper into the magical forests of Bloggerland and met new people with new ideas and as our ideas began to co-mingle, opportunity came knocking.

Is your heart pounding in your chest with suspense?  Have you caught your breath waiting for the curtain to open?  (If not, well, you need to go look up some LOLcats or something, you are taking life far too seriously.)

Without further ado, then, I bring you....

Yeah.  If you steal it, I find you in your sleep.  Just sayin'.

Yes, it IS an Official Logo, designed cooperatively with the most amazing, patient, creative, thoughtful, and professional Kate at PolarSquareDesigns.com.  You may know her better from her musings on her adorable mare and her gorgeous, hand-painted saddle pads featured on The Adventures of Lucy blog (yes, apparently she does sculpture as well, there appears to be no end to her talent).

Now I fully admit to being an OCD art snob, and as previously mentioned, I had a very definite vision.  This is most likely the definition of the designer's worst nightmare.   I had watched Kate's artwork for a while and there was an undercurrent of true talent that caught my eye (if you have not checked out her sketchbook, GO THERE).  I saw a distinct identity, but I also saw the ability to explore different media and stylistic modes and do it well, which is rare, so I decided to entrust her with my brainchild (probably much to her later chagrin). 

It gets better.  Since I was recently contacted by Beck Jordan from Allied Shirts (a sister brand to Build-A-Sign, who printed my license plate and bumper stickers, and Printcopia, who...well, now's their chance!) with an offer to print a shirt with the graphics of my choice for online review.  So, with a frantic email to Kate (who had already been working with me on the logo) after finding out I had eight days to pull together my dilly-dally-ing and order, we channeled our collective energies and out came this!

TA-DAAA!

Ummm, yeah, in my own totally valid humble opinion, it turned out amazing.  Allied had offered us a shirt from their basic line, which is printed on Gildan shirts (there are endless options, including Hanes Beefy-T's and girly little things by American Apparel).  To be honest, I expected one of those super-thin, square, shapeless things you get from cheap printing companies, you know the ones I mean! 

Supposed to be one-sided; they let me add a back tribute for Kate!

I did not realize I knew the brand until I got the shirt and saw the tag -- we have used the same brand for our field t-shirts for the state agency I work for.  Well, I can tell you, I have hiked, snorkeled (which includes dragging myself across rocks and sand on the river bottom), sweated, and rolled in those shirts; they can take some abuse.  I usually end up (a) getting outboard grease all over it, (b) staining it a remarkable shade of blotchy brown from ground in mud and rock slime, or (c) sweating in it so much it assumes its own form (hey, NC summers are even hot underwater), all well before the shirt has any structural failures!  Ours are usually grey with a black logo, but they don't fade or shrink when washed either.  Point:  this ain't a wussy shirt.    

An even awesomer surprise (and I mean this in a nice way, you never know what you are going to get online) was the quality of the printing.  The colours were perfect and saturated and the Solo-orange even has a tiny bit of a metallic bronze or something to it, really making it pop.  I don't even want to wear it because I don't want it to get dirty...

As of today, I have not had a chance to wash it.  I did try it on, I had ordered a small since the sizes were listed as "unisex," which us ladies know usually means "square man-sized" and I have plenty of experience with that due to work uniform orders!  It fit perfectly. 

So while I can't tell you yet how it will fare with use, I can tell you -- that plate and sticker mentioned above? -- one is on the front of my truck, the other on the back of my trailer.  They sit outside all year around and travel to multiple states.  I wash the truck maybe 4-5 times per year (not counting rain) and the trailer...never.  Both, I just observed last week, are pretty much perfect after two years of neglect.  We won't discuss the bumper it's mounted under...  The black graphics on the plate have faded just a little, but in Carolina UV/heat, I'm not sure that's avoidable!  My hope is that this printing will live up to that precedent! 

Yes, yes, I will be riding around with my horse's name plastered on everything I own.  Your point?

I have to give HUGE props to Kate for putting up with my 10 million tweaks, my nit-picky questions, and my completely unpredictable schedule followed by 'OMG WE HAVE EIGHT DAYS, GO!'  She made it happen, even when we had file-type conflicts and, errr, operator error.

And THANK YOU to Allied Shirts, for doing such a great job printing our design (fast, it was in my hands in days) and letting me say thanks to a designer who went wayyyy above and beyond!  Go try it out for yourself!  I am now pondering going forward with a related project which would create goodies for you, lucky readers... 

Most of all, thank you Kate, for capturing and bringing to life my vision of a unique way to honour my very special buddy and also, to represent our future adventures at...

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That Other Horse Trial That We Mostly Did

You may flog me.  It was almost a month ago!  But hey, on the plus side, perhaps I can actually tell the story concisely now (AHAHHAHAHA!).  I sort of vaguely remember what it feels like to ride my horse...

Huge thanks to Cabin Branch Tack Shop for sponsoring!

If you missed it, Encore & I did our last event of the season in early November at the Carolina Horse Park.  Their Cabin Branch Event Series of schooling events has really taken off & I extend a huge thanks to the organizers & course designers, Marc Donovan and Andrea St. Hilaire-Glenn.

Oh yeah, & I moved Encore up to Training level there.

*insert pause for giddiness*

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I did have the same problem I had at FenRidge in October:  our jumping time was 40 minutes after our dressage time.  Sigh.  Serious pitfall of one-day event.  But I resolved to just be as efficient as I could & this time, I was not going to short-change my horse's warmup no matter what.  I certainly couldn't have pulled it all off without the help of once-again awesome crew!

Thank cod I was able drive down the afternoon before to walk the XC course, since I was riding my dressage test at 8:30 in the morning.  I walked it twice before it got dark, decided it looked fun, with great questions, & just right for Encore.  Thank you, Andrea!!!

After a night with good friends & as much sleep time as could be managed, we made our way back to the Park & got ready for dressage.  Warmup was uneventful but not spectacular.  I'd use the same words to describe our test.  Encore got tense at entry & I tried to ride it out but he never let the tension go; his trot work was choppy & tight, but he did give me some canter that I quite liked!  Baby steps.  So our 39 was very fair.



From there it was pretty much a mad dash to change outfits & get back to SJ warmup ASAP.  I was extremely glad I decided to put his studs in before dressage.  It was a bit nervewracking hoping Encore wouldn't step on himself, even though they were only my small road studs, but he was nice enough to keep his feet away from each other & it was a lifesaver.

I kept it short & sweet in the jumping warmup as fitness was my main concern.  He really hadn't been back in work after his feet healed for much more than a month, so I was on high alert for signs of muscle fatigue.  Not that you could tell when he turned into a jump-seeking missile after entering the ring.  His own feet couldn't even keep up.

We did make that crazy time though & only demolished the first one...because I stared at the stupid jump.  Will I never learn?  It was a tight, extremely roll-back-y course that caught us both a bit off guard & Encore has not mastered that technique yet. 

That day I learned I have the most honest, try-ing-est, generous horse ever.  Even though we lost most of our impulsion in the turns & approached some jumps with me squeezing like mad & Encore at nearly a jog, he never ONCE tried to runout, refuse, & he tucked his hoofies up over each one with intense care.  By the second half of the course, he had it figured out!



I was very proud & let him take a long, slow walk to catch his breath before XC.  You can see the pro photos here, thanks to High Time Photography.

After jumping a single wide bench in warmup there, we headed out to the start box in the middle of the steeplechase track.  Encore already had his game face on & practically dragged me to the starter.  The course had a bit of everything & a LOT of terrain, so I was very interested to see what kind of ride I would get.  At the same time, I was prepared to walk off if anything felt off.

I'm very sad the photographers did not capture any of the first four jumps.  They were all single fly jumps, including a table whose width the horse did not see until they were very close & a tall bench, which I personally hate.  Aside from a very small dip, they were all on a pretty level stretch.

I can jump whatevs, mom, no worries

Fly is exactly what Encore did.  He jumped each one perfectly out of stride, rocking himself back before the jump & clearing it like child's play.  It felt amazing.

Then we went downhill to approach the little coffin at 5, which you can see in the photos.  From the elephant at the end of my reins, I gathered that his butt muscles were beginning to tire.  I did an interesting tree-maze-dance to bring him back to a trot & rebalance before turning to the first coffin element.

He peeked, but with encouragement, he jumped through & then we picked our way down the steep hill to the GINORMOUSLY MASSIVE trakehener at 6.  I don't generally have a problem riding them & have never had an issue in competition.  At a schooling, sometimes I forget I'm supposed to use my legs, but on course, I'm generally good.  This thing was big, though.  BIG.

I  kept my eye up, applied all my aids, but Encore skidded to stop.  It didn't feel like a scared stop though, & he's jumped large ones before, it felt like an "wow, that is a really big effort & I'm not sure I've got that much in the tank" stop.  My red flag waved, but I decided to let him have one more try.  We gave it a big, positive ride, but he stopped exactly the same way.

I raised The Hand & walked off.  I was 100% certain he could do the rest of the jumps on the course without a problem; he had already shown me he had the heart & scope & we had previously practiced all the questions & then some.

But it was long & it was hilly & my game, VERY professional worker-bee of a horse told me loud & clear that his muscles were not up to it.  I may have been able to stuff him over the trakehener & continue, but to what end?  I really did not want to meet the EMT's that day, nor did I want to scare or possibly injure my horse.  They don't call me Safety Nazi for nothing.

Big picture:  I thought it was a great place to end his year.  We weren't able to meet the conditioning demands in the time we had, but that is easy to fix & a good winter project.  The skills are there, now we just finesse.  If I ever have any money to compete again!

So we'll spend our cold months in the woods, trotting up & down hills & enjoying the trails, after both our bodies & brains get a good break.  I don't know if we'll get to run any horse trials next year or not, but I still get to spend the winter with my TRAINING horse & that is, as longtime readers know, a pretty big damn deal.

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What Do I Do With That Orange Rainbow (RSS) Thingy? Tech Time-Out

Rainbow?

RSS feeds:  many of you may have heard of them, some not, but they have become a huge part of following blogs, podcasts, and other chronologically (sporadically, in my sad case) updated online media.  Now I've made that first link to the Wikipedia definition page, which is a good overview, but also in places, an eye-crosser.  So I shall, in true self fashion, elaborate excessively.

TL;DR version:  RSS for Dummies

That is a great, simple article that I wish I had found a long time ago!!  But I wanted to include a couple of details so that you will be able to fulfill your extreme desire to successfully use the TFS feed.  Heh.  Small bonus:  it will now show my blog title normally and take away the annoying code and/or right justification when it shows up on other pages, like your blogroll, if you redo the subscription.

This is what you will see in the upper right.

Having even more cruelly linked my Blogger account to Feedburner (nope, don't really understand that either), I know (because it has happened to me many, many times) that you will click the RSS button, it will take you to the feed page, and some of you will go, WTF do I do now?  Being intelligent horse people, you will probably figure it out the same way I did -- click things and see what happens.  Not to take away from your exploration, but if you'd like, I can spare you the trouble!  Note:  if you are already subscribed, you have to do... nothing, because you are already awesome.  Unless the title formatting, as mentioned above, annoys you and you want to fix it.

When you click the rainbow, you have three simple choices.

(1)  If you use one of the feed readers shown in the icons or the dropdown menu, select, click, you should be set.

(2)  If you use a reader NOT shown (as I do), click the "View Feed XML."  On the next page, at the top,  you will see yet another dropdown list, which will allow you to select or navigate to your reader.  Select the one you like, decide if you want it to be your default reader for subscriptions, then just "Subscribe Now!"

(3)  If you are a lazy person like me and don't like to click and puzzle through 20 things, most mainstream readers have an option in their settings menu to add a simple "Subscribe" button to your browser bar, so you just click it while you are reading the blog, it automatically finds the page's feed, and adds it to your subscription list.  Like so in the reader I use:

I use the top "Bookmarklet."  You literally just drag it to your bookmark bar.  That is all.

I consider myself at an intermediate level of capability when it comes to using the interwebz to do what I want.  Basic HTML coding and reading (even rudimentary tables), multimedia types, uses, and storage, linking and organizing data, using FTP, all of these are fine.  Need a simple blog header that doesn't take up 2 screens?  I got ya covered.

Do the thingz I want, stupid internetz!!

However, I haven't the first clue how to use CSS, I am not a webmaster, I can't do servers. 

But back to RSS feeds:  I basically understand what they are, but the terminology and specifics still confuse the living crap out of me.  Totally.  Which probably makes you ask, then why the heck did you just add an RSS button to your blog (that's what the orange rainbow is), dork?

Because, even without really knowing it, almost everyone who reads online uses these feeds now.  Google Reader, RIP, was an excellent and very popular example of an RSS reader, which is any piece of software which gathers all the feeds you subscribe to and remembers and organizes them for your convenient reading, bookmarking, deriding, what have you.  I have found a new one I am very happy with, although it is sometimes a bit slow to load, called InoReader.  What I like is that it looks and works very similarly to Google Reader.  I hate change, harumph.

There are hundreds of other readers out there to fit all different types of devices, systems, and user preferences, so these days, it's pretty easy to search and find the one that's right for you.

Good luck, happy reading, and again, please feel free to email or comment with any issues or questions!  Unless you are trying to use it on an iPhone.  Then, bless your heart, don't bother, I don't do Apple.

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Technology Fiddling: Warning

In an attempt to be a little more design-relevant (and ok yes, because I am a giant geek and love playing with geek things in an attempt to be as cool as BFF), you may notice small changes around the blog.

Content and feeds will remain (hopefully) unaffected, search though I may for a widget that gives me more time to write.

Really, I'm just apologizing in advance if you try to do something and it doesn't work.  Although I do try and be thorough.

Please do let me know, though, in an email or comment if you are having an issue with any teknology-interwebz-related stuffs!!  I work almost exclusively in Firefox, so I may not realize if there is a cross-platform or just an "I tried something out of my league" mistake.

Thanks!  As a consolation that you hopefully won't need, cute horse picture!  Ok, it's from 2010, but Solo never stops being adorable.  Although that blanket did get eaten by an equine pirahna a couple years ago, sigh.

Iz spring yet?

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How To Dig A Hole

You have a tractor and a big auger that has been dying to eat some dirt, so no problem, right?  Perfect timing, because you have a mailbox to install!

But it looked really cool!!

(1) 811, call before you dig!!  No one wants to be that person dodging the neighbours' bullets because you severed their phone lines.

(2) Carefully select perfect spot for mailbox placement next to driveway and flag your point.

(3) Place tractor so your auger point is over your point.  Lower until the tip touches the ground (PTO off!), then maneuver/tug/finangle until it is reasonably straight.

(4)  Drill!!  Drill more!!  Yeah... drill...um...

(5) Realize that all you have done, despite shoveling out a pilot hole, is made a very shiny, very shallow divot.  The ground is too hard and your auger is going nowhere.

(6) Pout in disappointment and dejected gloom that your auger so cruelly failed you.

(7) Dig hole with pointy metal stick (which was surprisingly effective, worlds better than cursed posthole diggers!) and shovel.  At least it only had to be 18".

(8) You still have to put auger away.  Knowledgeable-type people have recommended drilling a hole before you disconnect it from the 3-point hitch so it can stand on its own and you can hitch by yourself next time.  Skepticism abounds.

(9)  Return to attachment storage pen and back tractor into place.  Turn on PTO and begin drilling with substantially lowered expectations.

(10)  Use your quick reflexes to hit the clutch and stop the auger before it pulls the tractor into the new well it has just dug, sinking at least 3 feet in about 15 seconds like a mole on Ecstasy.

(11) Try not to let the whole street hear your cursing.

Moral of this important lesson:  when you want to auger a hole with cool equipment, make sure it is somewhere where you don't really need a hole.  If you require a useful hole to actually place mailboxes, fenceposts, and other such useful items, abandon hope, all ye who attempt.

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I Hate Darkness

What my horses are doing right now.  Why the mud pillow?

The time change:  it's what every working horseperson dreads.  You come home from work, it's dark already and feels like the day is already gone and it takes all your willpower to layer up, saddle up, and mount up.

And I'm wishing that was the only thing I had to worry about!

I apologize for being an absentee blogger so much this fall.  It feels like someone flipped a switch in my life:  I was hanging out all summer, my horse was lame so I didn't have much to do outside of work and I had all this free time.

Now I would give my arms for a little boredom -- is there a happy medium??  It will take me considerably longer to put together the horse trial story, so will some photos of an awesome OTTB trying his heart out do?

Let's see, what else have I got:

This happened:

Yes, that is a Shed-In-A-Box full of my boys' winter supply of hay.  I ran about in a panic once we finally had time to assemble the shed on the farm (it is just a simple ShelterLogic thingy from HomeDepot, since I am poor and in a hurry) because I wanted to buy decent hay before the price rocketed to winter levels.  So if their shelter ever arrives, the boys will have a selection of either a slightly sun-faded but still quite good orchard/rye mix or a leafy green timothy/orchard mix.

We crammed my horse trailer and another small truck with as much hay as they would hold (which turns out to be 75 bales) and sprinted back to finish the shed and fill it before that evening's forecasted rain.  I already had my moisture barrier and pallets from my house construction site, so after we got the shed walls on, we started stacking.

Watching skeptics swore I would never fit it all in, but I had done very careful math (even geometry, for cod's sake) with volumes of hay bales and sheds so I held the faith.  DANGIT, IT FIT!!  Vindication feels good.  Although now I am annoyed that I forgot to turn the bottom bales on their sides, but I'm not taking it all out to fix them.  So far it's nice and cozy and dry and I'll add a few pieces later to critter proof it.

OH!  And this happened:

I am fostering BFF's tractor because she is awesome and we had a chat (she previously owned a farm, but the tractor has been mostly sitting in the woods since they sold the farm).  It took me approximately...42 seconds to become obsessed with it.

It's had a lot of time off, but still runs beautifully and it brought its good friends, Bush-hog, Harrow, Augur, and best of all, Bitey Bucket (yeah, yeah, 4-in-1, but that sounds boring).  So I am hoping I will able to beautify it again over time and will certainly be able to keep it from being bored.  I completely confess to squealing with glee when I picked up an 8' telephone pole with said bitey bucket and moved to a different location.  Bonus:  bucket can also open up and be used a box blade or light-duty dozer or backgrader.  Theoretically.  I need to practice more before I am any good at that!

What can I grab next?

Because of work and house and farm duties, I haven't been able to see the horses much, aside from quick visits.  I purposefully did not touch Encore for a week after his horse trial; he had gotten a bit work sour and cranky and was looking a tad ulcer-y.  He's getting a few weeks of ranitidine (already gets U-Guard and alfalfa pellets), but when I visited yesterday, he was already looking happier!

So the young'un gets some time off for now, then he will spend the winter getting strong on the trails and fine-tuning some skills.  He showed me he had the scope and was ready to attack Training Level, so a-schooling we shall go!

Next week, I hope to hop on Solo and play around.  He needs something to do too this winter, so once I get tractor and fence put together, hopefully I will have earned some more weekend time to myself!

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It's A Gusher!

So this happened on Tuesday:

No, not that kind of well!!!

Yes, Flying Solo Farm has a well!


And not just a well, a 30 GALLON PER MINUTE (gpm) well!  For the uninitiated, on average, 5-10 gpm is doable to decent, up to 20 gpm is really good, over 20 gpm is spectacular.  Since this baby can tehcnically fill a 100-gallon trough in just over 3 minutes, yeah, I'm excited.  And it is only 175 ft deep (pretty shallow for this area), which means if the pump goes out (it happens), I have a relatively small amount of pipe to pull out of the ground to fix it!

Josh and his crew from Triad Drillers were fantastic to work with and yeah, I have mega truck envy.  On the front bumper were mounted about 25 different bits, each the diameter of my fist with nickle-sized carbide beads (power tool geek-out).  They also had a huge bladed one to drill through rock (which they hit 50 feet down, I was surprised they got that far rock-free in this county!). 

A Flying Solo Drilling Rig...literally!

Josh and co. clearing the way for the drill.

For those of you scratching your heads, wells are the most common source of drinking water in this part of the country if you live outside of city limits and the reach of municipal water infrastructure.  I grew up with a cistern and septic tank, so it has driven me NUTS paying a bunch of money for city water (complete with chlorine, ever looked into the long-term effects of that nasty stuff--here is an article I wrote for my older blog about why you should!) and sewer.  We always caught our water from the roof (although could buy trucked in water during droughts) and let the septic tank do its thing.  It only costs you a miniscule amount of power to run the pumps on each.

It was huge!  And those round rust-colour things on top of the front bumper are the bits.

There can be downsides.  Too many people tapped into one underground vein can use the water faster than it can refill, which means you run out temporarily and you have to wait for the well to "refill" via subsurface flow.  If you are in an area where the groundwater is contaminated by bacteria, industrial waste (this is the biggest threat from fracking for natural gas), you will have to add some sort of filter or treatment to your well (my boss, for example, has a UV system on his, read the above linked article on chlorine about that).  But most wells in the close vicinity of the farm have good, sweet-tasting water and a plentiful supply of it.

Dowsing rods

We also did a fun experiment; my new neighbour was taught dowsing by his grandmother.  So before the drillers got there (I figured they would have some fancy technological thingy), we went up there with his two coat hanger rods and he found two or three spots where they indicated water.  The driller showed up and...got out of his truck with two coat hanger rods and ended up drilling in one of the same spots!!

There is much skepticism and debate about whether it is valid or not and little to no science to back it up.  But I've watched it multiple times and even tried it and even me, Queen of the Skeptics, can't write it off as bunk.  Hey, it found my water which my farm will be dependent on and the amazing flow rate raises the value of the land considerably.  Good enough for me!

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That Other Long Event Story Before Yesterday's Long Event Story

Oh no, you don't get yesterday's story before you get the lead-in story!  I will tell you that for those of you who don't check our FB page (you don't have to be a FB member) that Sunday at CHP, nothing bad happened, I was proud of my pony, and I retired on XC simply for safety, because I knew he was tired.

Awesome, fit Solo through the trademark FenRidge lattice in 2010.

In mid-October, as you know, I took Encore over to our much beloved FenRidge Farm for what I later learned is the last horse trial that will be hosted there!  While that makes me very sad, I can only express an enormous thanks for all that Patricia has done there, as I certainly know all too well how much work and time and stress and money and people it takes to pull these things off, even at a schooling level.  I competed Solo in their first horse trial ever and those events have been unbeatable for bringing a horse along the lower levels.  I do hope that we will continue to be able to school there and I believe she will still be doing her dressage and CT shows.

I entered Encore in the T/N division, which means that you ride Training Level dressage and stadium and finish with a Novice XC course.  It makes a nice stairstep so the horses don't get everything thrown at them at once.  I also know that Patricia loves to make a tough, twisty stadium course (which I love and is always at the perfect level of challenge!), so Encore would have plenty to take in.

I may have bought the CD just for this portrait.  Now everyone knows he's #1. 

In addition, we had the challenge of about an hour between dressage and stadium in which I'd have to change tack, walk my XC course, put in studs, and warm up.  Uh huh.  There is no measure for the amount of gratitude I have that Awesome Crewer, B was there to help!!!!  All Encore photos thanks to High Time Photography!  Early morning light is tough.

His dressage warmup was lovely.  When ARE they going to start doing that judged warmup, LOL?  But I was overambitious for our 8:28 am ride time (we were #1, literally, I kept that bridle tag, hee) and he was ready to go twenty minutes early.   No problem, I'll just walk him around and stretch.  The steward informed me in a while that the judge was about ready, so I figured one more lap and then we'd trot around the outside of the arena.  Then the whistle blew.

First mistake:  I panicked, gathered up my horse, did one quick trot circle outside of A with Encore saying, "Wait, what??  Are we doing the trotty thing again?  Weren't we done?  Which part am I supposed to do now?" and I entered.  Should have trotted around the outside anyway...

Note:  on all our videos, they are shot in HD.  You can force YouTube to play them that way by clicking the little gear icon on the bottom right of the video and picking your resolution of choice.  If you use Firefox, they also have an awesome little add-on which pushes all YouTube videos to HD automatically when they open.


Yes, that is someone apparently clicker training in the background.  I always see something new!  Despite the "pop quiz," Encore was obedient and tried hard.  I was not so good at that!  I never did get him in front of my leg and there was this argument between my brain and my body:

I tried, mom.  I had my moments.

Brain: MORON, let go of his face and GO!

Body:  meh.

Brain:  LET GO!!

Body:  Nah, I'll just stay all tense in my arms, it's what I do, man.

Argh!!  Despite all of that nonsense, Encore walked out with a 36.6 on his first Training test ever that, erm, we may never have practiced in full.  The judge did not penalize him for tripping at the end of his "lengthened" right lead canter in the corner, gave him an 8 on his medium walk (WOOT!), and a 7 on his second trot lengthening (yeah, we don't really have lengthenings yet, but I don't worry about it, dressage is always a project) with a "good effort!"  I even (thank you, ever-so-generous and helpful COTH critique crew!) managed to bump my rider score up a point from our CT a month earlier!

Stretchy circle efforts!

This, my friends, is a lateral canter.  He is very good at stepping under himself without truly engaging!

No probs, mom, blue matches my outfit anyway.

B was able to hand walk Encore while I walked XC and then retacked and studded my horse for both jumping phases.  I am glad that I know that land well -- it had rained most of the week and there is a fair amount of clay out there, so it gets slick in a hurry.  We had a beautiful day to ride on and Patricia works hard to make the footing the best it can be, but mud is mud.  So Encore got to wear his big mud studs (I'm not taking any chances with Sir Slips-A-Lot-When-Excited-About-Jumps) for the first time ever, which takes some getting used to.  Which left us with about 60 seconds of jump warmup time.  Awesome.

Second mistake:  I should have put my foot down and refused to go in the ring until we were a bit readier.  Not that it would have been very long since there were only three people in our division, but still.  We were able to do two warm up jumps while Encore got used to the soccer cleats.  The rest is all OTTB heart and try.  And yes, this silly rider needs to get her leg strength back -- we both lost muscle during the Hoof Bruise Debacle.



Both rails were my fault.  I did not have my leg on yet at the first jump.  The second was a result of my not getting a big enough half halt and rebalance coming down off the mound.  I also circled purposefully before the third jump, a big oxer on a sharp bending line of about 3-4 strides, because Encore was unbalanced and rushy on landing and it was going to be a bad approach with a potential crash.  I want good experiences!!!!

A big, focused effort over that third oxer. 

I am particularly proud of the mound jump.  It's a really great rider question that is used there often.  She sets a narrower vertical on top of that mound and for Training, the standards are moved apart so the pole is barrreely resting on the edge of the cup.  If you touch it, it will fall.  The question asks if you can keep your horse's hind end impulsion engaged while the uphill tries to suck it away.  I have learned a lot from that mound and we did it!!

Don't touch my hoofies, weird flower thing!

Another important focus, especially on this tight, twisty course, was making sure my horse's poll was UP (with leg on, yeah, sometimes I forget I have legs) in front of the jump, so he had the correct balance and didn't hurl his shoulders at it.  David is always reminding us of this and I wish I'd had the helmet cam turned on for this course, as you'd hear me before every jump saying, "Poll up, poll UP!"

Video cap (JJ Abrams style) of POLL UP as we prepare for the flower jump above.

Then it was a Novice XC course, that had some fun new elements added.  Typically, I forgot to turn my helmet cam on until after jump 6 (but hey, I remembered it yesterday before the start box!!) and somehow the lens alignment got knocked out of whack so just tilt your head left.  And I swear, I do not stare down at jumps, I just had the camera angled too far down.  Sigh.  Doug Payne, how do you do it????

I apologize if you have quality issues here.  I have some software that has communication issues with other software that has issues with YouTube, they need to work that crap out.  The clicky clack is just the plastic safety clip on the camera hitting my helmet.


I'm sad I missed 4-5-6.  You galloped down a little trail in the woods, hopped over a deeeep square ditch with water running through, took four to five strides to a big pile of branches, then three to four to a fallen tree which had propped itself way up in the air.  FUN!

5...4...3...2...1...Have a great ride!

I did take it very slow (you hear "whoa" a lot, heh).  There were some squishy spots and my goal was to school and prep to go full-on Training at CHP in November.  I never understood when pros said, oh, I'm not going for time, we're just going to jump and whatever...until now.  So we had plenty of time faults, but excellent jumping despite some rider baboon moments (throwing self at horse's ears = no).

Apple stand table second from last.

Last jump on course and oh so fitting...

Encore was a wonderful pony, stepped up to the plate even with 10 seconds of warning and, clever little brain spinning like mad, got it all done and then some.  He definitely has learned his job, the only thing I have to do is make sure he locks on to the RIGHT fences (How about this one, mom?  No?  That one!  No?  Oooo, this one?  Ohhhh, that one, ok!!) but this is a good problem.

We had a beautiful (albeit with its stressfull time crunch moments) day, a great, safe learning school, and both Encore and I felt confident and ready to tackle what Training had in store for us.  A huuuuge thanks to B, we couldn't have done it without you, and of course THANK YOU, THANK YOU, to Patricia and all the crew and volunteers not only for this event, but for each one.  I have a lot of wonderful memories (ok, and some crazy ones!) and large parts of both my horses' careers that are captioned "FenRidge Farm."  I hope we will get to make more!

A great finish for any day.

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Buy It! Sell It! Ride It! Show It! Oh Yeah...SHOW UP AT WORK!

That's the TL;DR version of my life right now!

I want to tell our FenRidge T/N (Training dressage and stadium/Novice XC) horse trial story, but have not yet had time to type it out.  There are a few sneak preview videos on our Facebook and YouTube pages but it was a crazy day so I have more fun pictures and stories.  Hey, maybe I will post them sometime...

The farmhouse is...almost a house!

Well, almost....

It still needs the front porch.  And the rest of the shutters.  And the foundation finish (will match roof).  And gutters.  But you know, it has a roof and you can walk inside!  And I have to say, I am REALLY impressed by the quality of foundation and structural work (hey, I'm a science geek and an engineer's kid, I notice).  One of, if not the, top priorities of this whole building is for it to be structurally sound and stay there a long time without me having to do anything or think about it.  So thank you so far, Carolina Custom Homes (especially for the hurricane straps!) for going the extra mile on the things that matter (I don't give a crap what colour the ceiling is), with an extra shout-out to Susan for being the most awesome, patient, kind rep of all time.

Ummm, yes, porch definitely needed!  I am 5'9" (and as you can see, always the fashionista, don't be jelly) and standing on my tippy-toes in that picture.  Access denied...

But it's coming together.  I ordered a run-in shed (ok, fine, it's a carport, but that's what the horses live in now, I think it's a Carolina thing) once I found a company who met my high bar -- it had to be engineer-certified with 12-gauge heavy duty galvanized steel and wind-rated over 100 mph.  Hey, I am serious about things staying put and only buying them once!  The super-helpful folks at HorseGuard are sending me some bipolar fencing tape to line the previously-existing wire.

Oh, did I mention that I will never be able to compete or travel or eat ever again?

Working on selling my current house in town, but we have had showings in the first week, so please send us good karma (I scrubbed the baseboard behind the toilet, dammit, people, what more do you want?).

And to top it all off, because I was bored, you know, and had soooo much free time, Encore and I will be competing at the Carolina Horse Park's schooling trials.  I had already paid for the entry so we have to go now!  Our dressage time is at 9:30 am on Sunday, so I am very glad we are able to go down Saturday afternoon and stay with an awesome friend.  We should be done jumping both in the ring and XC by 10:45 (choked laughter of time panic), so at least we can come home and pass out?

Ride times here.  A big thanks to organizer and SJ course designer Marc Donovan, XC course designer Andrea St. Hilaire-Glenn, and secretary Suda McNeill for the hard work putting it all together.

Look, you can even stalk us real-time! Live scoring to make sure your friends (and me) stay in proper vertical order!  Thanks, EventEntries!

Oh and by the way, we are entered at Training Level...

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A Flying Farmhouse!

They were ready to "go" on October 22nd!

I do have horse trial stories, pictures and videos to share with you, but being 10 people at once is HARD and exhausting!  So instead I am going to give you the picture and video dump from today when...they put the Flying Solo FarmHouse on its foundation!

I decided to go with a simple modular house for several reasons.  (1) Duh, it's cheaper than any quality site-builders (note use of the word quality, I was also very careful researching modular builders and focused on structural integrity and energy efficiency).  My house will be EnergyStar certified, have a sealed, insulated crawl space, and an extra layer of heat blocker under the roof.  (2) Since they have to travel over the road, they are actually built using more lumber than a site-built house and in storms such as hurricanes, such as Sandy, who ran up to the NE last year, are proving to be the ones that survive (hey, I'd rather not get blown away).  (3)  Since they are mostly assembled in the factory on a line, not only are corners actually square, but none of the materials of the framing, subfloors, walls, or roofing are ever exposed to any elements (the house is shipped wrapped up in plastic.  I don't know about you but I always cringe when I drive by a half built house and see all that plywood and lumber soaking wet.  (4) They happen FAST, once the final spec sheets are signed.  I believe I signed my papers maybe 3-4 weeks ago.  Footers were poured last week, foundation was ready on Monday, house was set today!

It's nothing fancy (add-ons like decks and fancy roofs are expensive!!!!).  I'm all about practical and I will be outside with the horses anyway.  But I hope it will at least stay put, keep me warm and dry with the kitties, and generally, I don't want to have to think about it.  

Now....who wants to buy an AWESOME house in Creedmoor?  Like, tomorrow?

Remember that portapotty?  It didn't move.  I drove up to this!

Foundation (not sealed or coated yet) and hi there, front door!

Who needs an extension ladder?  You can see my lovely dining room atrium door -- but don't use it because you will fall out until I can afford to build a deck...in like ten years.  This is the back of the house.  Always wanted a yellow house with a red roof...

Then it was time to actually move the thing.  The roof  was still lying flat (I hung around for about an hour to meet onsite boss) but will be stood up once it is all set on the foundation.  The front porch and back steps (the county inspector said stacks of cinder blocks don't count, sigh) will be built on site.  Then they drill the well, dig the septic, hook up the power...

Yeah, pretty much, when I see someone these days, I just say, "Who should I make the check out too?  And hey, don't cash that for a week."

This operator must have nerves of steel...

Then they settled it in straight and I had to run to do 10 other things, boo..

It will be worth it in the long run, but there are not enough hours in the day to do it all right now! Where's the cash fairy when you need her???? But one day, hopefully soon...

My horses can graze in the 3-acre creek pasture if they want,

SuperNeighbour bushhogged it for me last week!  That's right, my awesome photoshop merge skillz, ha!

And this will be the view from the front porch:

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