2019 Discoveries

Something I thought might be fun was to do a post of things that I learned, discovered, or re-discovered over the past year.

Podcasts/Media:
There are some podcasts and other media that I discovered, love, and wanted to share.

The first is Buck Off Banter which Amanda from $900 Facebook Pony recommended at some point. It is FANTASTIC! Not only are they real horse people they are very funny. They share the bad with the good and just enough about their family and non-horse things to feel like you're talking with a friend over a cup of coffee instead of listening to a podcast. 100% recommend.

The second is the Confident Rider Podcast. I actually found this through the Olivia Towers podcast (which I also really enjoy) but while that one is still fairly young and there are a lot of topics that I just don't connect with as much, I LOVE Jane Pike. She talks a lot about anxiety and mind set stuff and I find it really helpful. I've learned more of my current skill set around mental health from her than I did from the therapist I was seeing for awhile. Even if you aren't struggling with mental health stuff at the moment this is a fantastic listen.

The Hackett Equine Youtube channel is my third item for this group. I talk a lot about how much I enjoy Youtube but I also feel like I have a pretty good handle on which channels are out there and which I enjoy. Hackette Equine was a new one for me this year and she's lovely. I definitely recommend if you enjoy equine youtube channels!

Planning:
I got a planner around black Friday and it’s been something I’ve used off and on since then. Recently I think I’ve hit my stride with using this. The main thing I’m still struggling with is how to plan for future rides with all of the variability that entails. Ultimately though it’s more important for me to be able to plan when I’ll be able to ride and for now as long as I have a main theme for my rides on any given week I can always shift around if needed based on the weather or Katai’s behavior. The main thing it’s help helpful with is being able to look ahead and identify which days in the future I won’t be able to ride. That way I don’t miss a ride that I could have made and then realize that I have plans the next evening so suddenly miss multiple days in a row. That had been a huge issue. Visually looking at my month and which days I won’t be able to ride has helped me prioritize to ride on days when I can especially on weeks where my schedule is tighter.

Consistency is Good:
Both with time at the barn and mindset around change consistency feels really positive right now. I’m so tired of being so transient. I’m tired of moving homes, states, jobs, barns, etc. Knowing for the past year that I was going to be applying for and moving to a new job was stressful and applying and interviewing is always stressful and frustrating at times. Moving into a role at a great company that I’ll likely spend at least several years, if not the rest of my career, with is a huge weight off my shoulders.

Now we have our own little house :)

I’ve talked a fair amount about moving somewhere but knew that was less likely when I met my bf. I’ve also dreamed of having my own little farm and I think that thinking about that all the time always had me with one foot out the door at boarding places since it was easy to think about how that would solve all of the little annoyances. Now that we won’t be moving forward in that way it makes it easier to be solution focused with finding a great boarding situation and just staying there. Moving to the house and having a job that I’ll be at for a while also means that I’ll be living in one place and not moving around and therefore won’t have an additional reason to move barns. To me all of this means finding solutions to things like cold winters, hot humid summers, finding a great trainer etc. That’s a good place to be and feels much more settled and relaxing than constantly feeling like I should be picking up and making a big move. Also knowing that my disposable income will increase significantly in the near future means that I’ll have additional options for problem solving. I’ve already been doing this and it’s so nice to just be figuring it out vs. constantly having that foot out the door.

Down Time:
Taking some time off of lessons has been fantastic for me. I was feeling really burnt out after weekly lessons for a year and while I’m 100% confident that’s the quickest way to make progress, at this point as a working adult amateur with a high stress professional career, a new relationship, a new home, and a puppy that’s just too much. I’m looking forward to being able to have more consistent lessons (my goal is once per month or so) but for now this is exactly what I needed. I’ve been able to get my head straight and some of the training that’s needed with Katai is not in the arena but ground work and training items like working with the hose, relaxation and patience training, and being able to get out on trails. While I’m certain that some people could do this with weekly lessons I was just not feeling like I ever had enough time to work on my “homework” much less that I had time to work on these other things.

Pretty sure my boyfriend needs this mug

It’s been good for me and Katai’s relationship to step back, she’s getting more well-rounded, and her ulcer symptoms had completely gone away prior to the move. I contribute the improvement in her ulcers to several things but I’m also fairly convinced that the step back in arena work has helped. We will be slightly stepping this back up again to at least 2-3 days in the arena each week so it’s my goal to keep her tummy feeling just as good.

October Goals Analysis

Winter's here!

Well it's almost the end of November and I never got this posted since I was waiting on more media. I'm going to go ahead and post this anyway and should be able to post the next one at a more appropriate time :)

Also, happy Thanksgiving!

My goals for October are to get back to more consistency. I don’t really care what I accomplish but I at least want to go through the motions with the following things.

-Get to the barn 4-5 times per week
               I did pretty well with this. There was a week where I made it out a solid 5 times but there were at least two weeks were I was at the barn 4 times. I didn’t ride as much as I hoped but the goal wasn’t to ride a certainly amount of time, rather it was to just go.

-Groom better
                I did pretty well with this one. I trimmed Katai’s mane, took better care of her tail, trimmed her bridle path, and a few weeks ago I got her partially clipped!

Time to start watching Christmas movies clearly :)

-Dress like we mean it (both me and Katai)
                Katai has been looking like a million dollars with matching polos, saddle pads, and browbands. I haven’t been looking as put together partially because I’m still figuring out the whole going straight to the barn from work thing. I’ve typically been trying to wear the same top throughout the day (thank goodness for not having a dress code at work) and then I just put on breeches at the end of the day. It does mean that I’m wearing my most work appropriate tops though which don’t always go well with my breeches but oh well.

-Take two lessons
                Nope but there were scheduling difficulties on both sides and I was really glad that my coach agreed with me on not trying to take a lesson when I knew that Katai’s ulcers were bothering her.

-Have barefoot trimmer friend check my hoof improvement work (third week in October)
                Done and I got some praise on how nice Katai’s feet were looking!

-Build up to Katai wearing the BoT sheet for longer periods
                Yep!

I haven't decorated our apartment yet
but the decorations where I work are very festive.

On to November:
For November I’m hoping to get pretty much back to where we were when I left Jane’s
-Get to the barn 5+ times per week
-Make sure at least 1-2 of those times are not riding and work on other necessary things such as ground work, trailer loading(?), etc.
-Take two more lessons
-Continue with grooming better as possible with fluffy pony

Consistency!!

Yes ladies and gentlemen we have it! I've always known that if I had something regular to work towards (like lessons) that I would be able to manage some of that consistency that I was lacking (plus lets face it, the weather has been reasonable finally) but I couldn't know until I tried! Since my lesson last Thursday I've worked with her or ridden every day including tonight and she has been great! She had her hooves trimmed on Sunday and they are looking way better and less thrushy. Our biggest struggle now is in gaining some strength, both of us. She isn't blowing or sweating much at all but she doesn't want to keep trotting and I can tell by the way she moves that it is still hard work. Luckily I know what to do about that :-)

Tomorrow I'm going to work her at a trot and canter on the lunge and then she will get Thursday off since I have a riding lesson set up for that evening.

I also managed to make some progress with clipper desensitization and was able to clip some of the hair on her shoulder with my itty bitty clippers. Next step is to work with her on the big girl clippers. I've been holding off on that step because she's got a vet appointment next Saturday where she is not only going to get her spring shots, and coggins but will have her teeth floated and her wolf teeth out. That's going to make riding out of the question for a little while and a bit out of the question for a long time. I'm planning on letting her recover for awhile and then will proceed with lunging and riding her in her halter until her mouth has completely healed but I will have plenty of time to work on clipping

Honestly the timing sucks but this needs to happen and it might as well be done sooner than later. Unfortunately my previous vet had told me she didn't have wolf teeth or I would have had this taken care of earlier but luckily a vet that was out for a different horse at this barn did me a favor and looked at her teeth to see if they would need to be floated and said that she did have small wolf teeth that should be removed.

Oh well, we will get some good bitless bridle time :-)