Dancing in the Rain

I have one quote at my work desk that says “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Unknown

This has felt like it’s embodied what’s going on with my life over the past year and thankfully I have been learning how to dance in the rain. 0/10 do not recommend all of the life changing things happening at once (even if they’re positive) but I am so so so lucky to have so many amazing things going on in my life.

Not a great photo but I went to a helmet trade in day and finally got a long oval 1K in rose gold.
I <3 it

The new job is awesome, I’m really enjoying being here. It has been a little tough to face the change in work, even though other change has quieted down. I enjoy learning and taking on new things but when everything in my life feels new and I have more questions than answers it’s tough to hold on to my self-confidence.

The house savings is also going well. We’re still on track to be able to afford the friend’s house next spring/summer and we’re both cautiously optimistic and starting to plan for being there next year. I’m continuing to really stick to my budget and money things feel better than ever. Of course getting a job where I’m making more certainly helps but even with that I haven’t splurged or really changed my spending habits and almost all of the additional money is going towards the house.

Other things in my life have been more stable and things with me and my bf continue to be awesome. He’s an amazing person and so supportive of me including challenging me when he thinks he should which I SO appreciate. The most recent thing has been with my current barn. I’ve felt like I’m doing ok but I must be complaining/expressing more than I thought because he started to slowly and gently push me to look at other options. What was in my mind was to wait until we have the house and then move Katai but when I went to a friend’s barn and spoke positively about it he asked about it and then when I actually started to consider moving there he encouraged me to at least really consider it. Sure enough I’m moving and I’m so thrilled and can’t wait.

Doing DnD prep at the cabin a few weeks back.

The new barn is heated and has a heated indoor connected to the barn. Unfortunately I can’t take on any additional cost right now so while the stalls in that barn are amazingly affordable and beautiful (I’m seriously considering just staying here and trailering to the waitlist barn for lessons) I needed to move to pasture for now. I’ll be saving a small amount of money a month but will have to figure out how to get Katai her supplements on a regular basis. Since we’re moving there early September the pastures shouldn’t be overly rich so that will be ok diet wise. Then by next summer when the grass is starting to come up my hope is to move her into a stall. If for some reason I can’t get her a stall because of budget things she’ll just get a grazing muzzle until I can.

Living by this recently

After a few recent “incidents” at the current barn that left me fuming (which is unusual for me) it’s definitely time to leave. I’m also really glad that I’ll have heat this winter since I feel like I especially struggled with not being able to ride consistently during the winter because of the cold this past year. The current barn is just no longer my sanctuary and looking at moving has made me realize how long I’ve felt like I’m walking on egg shells there. At all of my past barns I’ve been excited when I’ve seen other vehicles in the parking lot and know that there’s someone else to ride with. At this barn if there’s a car in the parking lot I start to feel anxious and consider just leaving and coming back another day. That’s not ok.

What I know about the new barn:
-Katai will be on pasture board with other mares
-They do not feed supplements to pasture horses so I’ll have to figure that out. I think I’ll be ok as long as I can go out 5 days a week but will be figuring out a backup plan if I can’t or if I’m out of town or something.
-The barn that I’ll have my tack and equipment in and where I’ll groom and tack up is heated and connected to the heated indoor
-The barn is adorable and has several stalls. It’s fairly small and really nice. My hope is to get a stall in this barn next year.
-The indoor is fairly small but bigger than what I have now (I think it is at the very least wider but it’s tough to tell without measuring it) at around 60-130 feet so just under regulation small dressage size. It sounds like the footing is slightly deep but based on what I saw I wasn’t worried about it
-There is a much larger outdoor that’s in an awesome and beautiful location. Apparently the footing there is even nicer than the indoor.
-L (the trainer I worked with before Jane) teaches my friend at this barn so will be available for lessons. With my current budget and how out of shape Katai and I are I likely won’t take many lessons at first but it will be AWESOME to have a trainer again.
-My awesome friend boards here (of course since that’s how I found it ) and is the one who took the really nice pictures of Katai and me at the shows we’ve attended. She also rides dressage, takes lessons from L, and shows occasionally. Plus she trail rides a ton so will be a good trail buddy.
-The barn is directly across from a large park system with lots of horse trails so I’ll have trails very available to me. I’m looking forward to getting Katai more exposure in that environment

Experimentation

Let me out or feed me treats!
Jane and partner spent the past few weekends installing new
bars on the stall doors in the main barn and they look soooo good!

A while ago, before I was derailed by farrier drama and sending my saddle away, I was going to share a bit about a supplement update. In the meantime I’ve had something else come up so I figured I could share both now.

Back when I “self” diagnosed Katai with Ulcers I did a round of treatment with UlcerGuard and started Katai on G.U.T. for maintenance. After the treatment with UlcerGuard all of Katai’s ulcer-like symptoms went away and stayed away but I wasn’t sure if they stayed away because of or despite the G.U.T. since I started that at the same time. My plan in the first place with starting her on the maintenance supplement was to wean her off going into winter (when I felt like there would be less stress) and then put her back on in the spring.

 

Little tough to tell past the cute pony tongue
but this is what they looked like before.

So, the supplement ran out and I didn’t immediately replace it despite it still sort of being summer. I figured I’d experiment and see if her symptoms came back or stayed away. Like a lot of those things they sort of crept back slowly so I wasn’t aware right away but just prior to the show Katai was back to being girthy, sensitive to touch, and just seemed less like her normal self. Once I realized the pattern (when she almost nipped me as I fastened her girth) I felt so bad! Here I’d found something that worked and then took her off it just to see if it stopped working which made poor Katai uncomfortable.

The good thing is that I know now that I need to keep her on it. I just felt bad that I’d given her the chance to feel icky in the meantime.

The other thing I’ve been experimenting with is my lunging set up.

For a long time I’d used just plain side reins with a stretchy insert. After moving to my previous barn I started to experiment with a neck stretcher since everyone there used one. With normal side reins Katai would always get above the contact and get hollow. She was also clearly tight just in front of the withers and the neck stretcher did WONDERS for that. However, once I started working with Jane she was very against the neck stretcher (and I don’t disagree) so I started looking for something that would provide similar benefit and stumbled upon Vienna reins. They’re said to be really good for horses, like Katai, that get tight in front of their withers. Plus, it didn’t have the poll pressure that Jane disliked.

I loved how they worked with Katai and have used them exclusively for lunging for almost the past year. Just about two months ago I decided to try out side reins again and it didn’t work. Katai went right back to getting above the contact and got really hollow through her back. I put them away and went back to the Vienna reins.

Not sure if I've shown this before but this magnet lives on Katai's stall :)

 Then, fast forward to a couple of weekends ago. Since I don’t have a saddle I decided to lunge. Recently (as many of you have probably noticed) Katai has started to duck slightly behind the contact a bit in tense situations. She isn’t doing this at home but the lack of forward combined with the extra tension at a show or when I'm at the neighbor's arena causes her to go btv which we're actively working to "fix". In the Vienna reins she can go behind the vertical because of the way the action works, however, she really hasn't done that at all. It's something I've watched for because I knew it was a risk but so far she hadn't ever gone btv when I lunged. However, with her tendency to do so under saddle recently increasing I wanted to cut out any chance of that happening when I lunge so I went back to the side reins. 

Low and behold they worked! She was PERFECT and never got tight or above the side reins. She also pushed forward into them, unless I let her get lazy, and just worked so so so well. Really, it's just crazy how quickly they can change and learn things after years of having pretty consistent behaviors.

Practice

"There's no such thing as bad practice. Only skillful and unskillful. The only way for practice to be unskillful is if the intention is not on compassion."

Les Kiger