Tack Room Tour: OCD Much?

As mentioned before I watch a lot of YouTube. In fact at this point it’s almost completely replaced any other form of tv such as Hulu or Netflix (I don’t have cable). I LOVE watching vlogs, it’s totally a guilty pleasure for me and I love seeing people doing mundane things. I’m a very visual person so seeing how other people do things is interesting to me and it makes me feel like we’re ultimately all so similar. We all have our own strengths and our own struggles. It’s easy to read something and add meaning that wasn’t ever meant to be there or to write something with a positive or negative spin on it that someone else might not have felt but with videos you can see more of the real truth.

  I watch a lot of vegan videos, tiny house building videos, and recently have started watching Casey Neistat’s vlogs which are spectacular. However, some of my favorite videos to watch are done by other riders. I enjoy watching barn vlogs because, as mentioned previously, it’s fun to see how other people interact with their horses, seeing their successes and being able to cheer them on, and how they struggle the same way I do sometimes. Last night one of the people I’m subscribed to (an eventer in Australia) did a tack room tour and it made me think of doing this post. I know that people blog about this as well but her set up specifically made me curious about what others do and I decided to share mine.

Part of my space, saddle with tack cleaning rag hanging, helmet hanging in the back over a container that holds Katai's boots. Coat spray and grooming tote in front.

I tend to be very neat at the barn however, that's not the case at home. My space at home ranges from slightly messy to nuclear disaster and although I clean it every week or two I have no issue with tossing stuff on the floor to be dealt with later. I’m the same way in the kitchen and thankfully I have patient roommates because I tend to pile dishes until I have a chance to clean them and then I clean and scrub the whole kitchen. My car is also normally a disaster and I regularly leave dirty horse blankets in there with the windows closed in spring (speaking of that I had an interesting day where I offered someone a ride and I thought they were going to pass out from dirty horse blanket smell while I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice) However, with my horse(s) I’ve always been extremely neat. I bring all of my leather tack home every month and do a thorough cleaning. I enjoy tack cleaning so much that I’d probably have it home every week if I didn’t know that was bad for the leather. I also wipe it down with a damp cloth after every ride, which is a fairly recent addition to my process.

Mine's on the left with the pink polkadot tote, Bridle is lower row with the bundled up cream colored lunge line hanging. All the way to the right is a refrigerator specifically for the horses with is amazing :-)

I just LOVE the feeling of soft, buttery, clean tack and really dislike that stiff, caky, cracked leather feel that bridles in particular get if they aren’t cleaned on a regular basis. I also wash saddle pads every few rides during the summer when they get nasty and sweaty quickly and at least every couple of weeks during the winter when they just don’t get as dirty. I’ve got a “horse laundry” bin in my basement at home that fills up pretty quickly with tack rags, sweaty saddle pads, coolers, grooming rags, polos or boots, and I wash my saddle cover every few months. I love all of it, it’s like therapy for me and bringing a neat clean pile of folded horse laundry back to the barn feels amazing. My fellow boarders don't seem to feel the same way though and I'd say that most of the leather goods at my barn are not treated the same as mine.

This YouTube vlogger had a similar setup to my fellow boarders’ with a packed cabinet in complete disarray. She had gloves in two separate places, blankets piled on the ground (which was dirt), strap goods in tangled piles etc. I guess it just made me wonder if I’m an OCD horse person or if other’s are bothered as much as I am by dirty tack and yet couldn’t care less about a messy house?

Youtube Playlist Favorites:

Hannah Lucy - Australian Eventer
equine.emma1996 - Another Australian Eventer
Carter Sulivan - Canadian Dressage rider
Hot for Food - My favorite vegan food blog - GREAT recipes!

The Challenge of Goals

Tell me about a challenge you set for yourself and accomplished, or set yourself a new challenge and keep us updated!

 

 

I’ve honestly been avoiding this blog hop like the plague. I have issues setting goals, not that I don’t do it or won’t do it but that I’ve learned that I can’t and although that frustrates my type A personality it’s just better this way. I’m a perfectionist and have some OCD tendencies. When I set a goal I do anything to meet it and in the past that has included things like ruining friendships or hurting myself. Because of that I’ve learned to not set big, specific goals. When I was a cellist I pushed myself so hard that at one point I was having up to 3 stress headaches/migraines per week and I developed tendonitis and a shoulder injury, both of which still bother me. It took me almost a year to let that go. Then when I was looking for my current job I had set a goal about when I needed to find something (I beat it by a few months) and again, multiple stress headaches/migraines, two colds, and some weight loss but I met my goal. Riding Dressage is what I do for fun, it’s what I do to get away from the world and to escape some of my perfectionism. I come from a long line of obsessive people, I have multiple relatives (including my mom and sister) that have struggled with eating disorders. I have a different sister who is a professional musician (already successful at a young age in an incredibly competitive career) that has so many injuries that I don’t know how she’s going to be able to continue to retirement. It’s a daily struggle for me to not bring that to my riding.

It is really tough for me not to be able to set goals and succeed but I’ve figured out a workaround. My yearly goals are a good example of this. I set small goals that will slowly work me towards a bigger goal but I don’t get down to specifics and I don’t set dates. Both are extremely important for most goals but so far I have been circling my big goal (and sort of stalking it :-) ). My goal is to keep wearing it down and eventually go in for the kill when I’m pretty much there so that my risk of hurting something/ruining something/breaking myself is at a minimum.

My big goal right now is a Bronze Medal on my pony.

My even bigger goal that I’ve never even mentioned on this blog is to get that accomplished early enough in Katai’s life that we could actually take the next step and start on a Silver Medal but that’s getting ahead of myself.

Regarding the Bronze I obviously haven’t talked about it much on this blog and I haven’t, and won’t set any specific goals or dates about it since based on past events I know that the likelihood of hurting Katai or myself or ruining our relationship over it is just too high. However I have, and will continue, to set small goals that head me in the correct direction.

Things like finding transportation to shows, showing in at least one clinic still this year, continuing to improve me and Katai’s relationship, and continuing to take weekly dressage lessons. They’re small, maybe insignificant seeming, goals but since I’m still aware of where I’d like to be they’ve been working to head me in the right direction over the past couple of years. I mean we went from this

To this

To this

In almost exactly three years which I feel like is a huge success especially without a consistent trainer and on a disaster (said with love) of a pony that I trained myself. So far, in that time frame, I’ve checked off the following list.

Find a good dressage instructor, get Katai used to clippers, get Katai used to trailering, get Katai to go forward off aids, get Katai to accept saddle and bridle, get Katai to accept cross ties, get Katai to pick up all four feet, be able to lead said pony, condition pony, get rid of underneck muscle, teach pony to lunge, get pony out on trail rides, find a place to board with dressage instructor, make sure you can blanket pony, make sure I can fly spray pony, teach pony to wear a fly mask, teach pony to tie to trailer, get pony to stop running me over, get pony used to stall, teach pony to stand still at mounting block, teach pony to wear bit, teach pony to steer, teach pony about leg cues, teach pony about contact, teach pony to stop, teach pony to stop off seat, teach pony about indoor arenas, teach pony to accept treats nicely, get pony to stand for farrier, get pony to stand for vet, teach pony about hoses, teach pony about wash stalls, teach pony about ground poles, teach pony about bridges, teach pony to ride, make sure other people can handle pony, teach pony to not freak out when friend leaves, improve relationship, teach pony to be caught, teach pony not to pull back when tied, teach pony not to rear, teach pony to walk, teach pony to trot, teach pony to canter, teach pony not to counter bend, teach pony to slow down (still in progress :-) ) and of course many more that I can’t think of right now.

So I think that my goal, for this blog hop, is actually to continue down the path I’m on and not set any one big specific goal but to continue to keep riding fun and relaxed and build that relationship with my wonderful pony :-)

‘Know thyself" - Socrates