Summer 10

Rhiannon, of The Horse Is Not Black, put together this great list of questions for an informal blog hop that I decided to join. At the very least it's content while I deal with stress causing my brain to ooze out my ears ;)

1. What are your summer goals? 

 All. of. the. shows! I mostly just want to get Katai exposure to trailering off property so that it's not as stressful for either of us. My main goal with her is for this to be fun for both of us and it certainly wasn't for our last show.

More of this...

Less of this :)

2. Do you have any tips or tricks for fly control? 

No, unfortunately I don't. I will say that the last two facilities I've been at have seemed to manage it pretty well so it hasn't been much of an issue. Well, other than the HORRIBLE horse flies at the last barn but I don't think there's much you can do with them.

3. How often do you bathe your horse? 

Very infrequently, I think I actually only bathed her maybe twice last year. Princess pony is a princess and mostly keeps herself pretty clean despite being white so I only wash her if I have something like a show. This year it will likely be more because, well, more shows :) 

This bathing photo is the most recent I have and it's from 2 years ago

4. Do you have any upcoming travel plans? 

Equine or otherwise? Unfortunately yes, I'm in WA now for a work trip. Other than this I'm not planning any more travel. If I won the lottery I'd go to the National Dressage Pony Cup again and would probably visit some part of Vermont and Portland. 

5. What is your favorite way to beat the heat? 

I love spending time at the beach or in the pool. Otherwise I pretty much hide at home in the air-conditioning. My body doesn't like the heat very much so I have to be pretty careful how much time I spend outside when it's over about 95* for the heat index. With our humidity unfortunately that's fairly often during the summer.

6. Do you do anything to prevent your horse from sunbleaching? 

I'm very lucky that I don't need to. Since she's white and a roany chestnut there's not much fading that can happen.

7. How hot is too hot for you to ride? 

Like I mentioned above it doesn't take much heat for me to get heatstroke/an all day migraine so anything around 90* is too hot for me to ride. Once my body gets used to the heat I can make it work as long as I can take it easy so trail rides are ok but anything that involves really riding is out at least unless I can do so in the shade.

8. How important is sun protection for you riding or just in general? 

Pretty important, however since I typically can't spend much time outside in the sun it's sort of a mute point. I really suspect that it's just because in MN we go through such a drastic change every year that my poor body can't ever get used to a temperature. The temp easily goes through a 110* difference between winter and summer so I'm pretty sure that when I move to a more temperate climate I'll *hopefully* be able to handle warmer temps easier. I do love my KastelDenmark sun shirt though and I got myself an Asmar long sleeve shirt for Christmas that I've been wearing as well.

9. Have you ever gone swimming with your horse? 

Yes! I was lucky to grow up within riding distance of the Mississippi river and a beach. When I was growing up we routinely took our horses to the beach and swam them in the river. It's pretty much the most awesome and adorable thing ever.

10. And because shopping is always on my mind, what’s on your summer wish list? 

So many things! Mainly more B Vertigo breeches because they're my favorite. The other things I've mainly picked up since they're all show things but I'll share a post on those later. I've also still sort of got a trailer on this list. I'm going to see how things go this year with K and if it's easy this will come off the list for the time being.