Sharing the Love...

In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of thanking all of you for taking us into your hearts, Sugar made this for you:

As a special Valentine's day side note, Sug got her very first Valentine today (that I know of, at least).  Her admirer is Tucker, a lovely (and talented!) bay gelding owned by my blogging buddy Marissa.  You may remember Tucker and Marissa from my post about the Eric Horgan clinic.

This morning Tucker posted these on his blog.  Isn't he the sweetest thing? The bees knees? 

Awwwww.

Sug's Take On Equestrian Ryan Gosling...

The girls at the barn and I were having a good giggle/drool session over the phenomenon that is Equestrian Ryan Gosling and my blogging buddy Marissa's hysterical riff on it, Equestrian Ryan Reynolds. 

I'm guessing Sug was paying attention and thought there needed to be some eye candy/fantasy material of the equine sort, because I came home to this:

Dear Mom,

I heard what you and your friends were saying tonight, and you know, you gals aren't the only ones who dream about gorgeous studs who say the right thing at the right time.  So, here's a little something for all the mares out there...

Many thanks to Marissa for the inspiration, and to Sarah Dee and the girls from Dover Saddlery, Branchburg NJ, for the assist -- Bryn, the Jolly Ball comment is a riot!

Powerball Fantasies...

Damn.  I did not win the Powerball drawing last night.  Sigh.  I guess the silver lining here is that means the jackpot's even bigger for Saturday night's drawing, so fingers and toes are crossed.

What would I do with that kind of moolah, you ask?  Maybe not what you'd expect.

Certainly I'd quit my current job, but not to live the life of luxury.  I'd actually like to become a working student. 

No, I swear to you that I haven't been hitting the wine fridge.  If I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted and didn't have to bring home a paycheck, I'd like to apprentice myself to someone and spend my days learning how to become a true horse person.  It would have to be someone nearby, as I couldn't pull the kids out of school.  Although, since we are talking fantasies here, in the summer I'd like to be able to drag the family, the Sainted Mare and the pony, and --oh yeah, we'd need to get a horse for Noah -- go somewhere to work for/train with someone in Europe.  Think one of the Whitakers would take us on?It would be nice to either move closer to the barn or get a small farmette where we could keep the horses ourselves (not the husband's idea of fun,certainly) although the kids would squawk about leaving their friends. 

I'd also love to get a horsebox so I could drive to shows and clinics - to me they look a lot easier to drive than trailers.  I guess, since we're talking fantasy land here, we'd need a small one for local trips and then one of those gonzo people/horse Winnebagos with a bathroom/kitchen/humongo TV/hot tub (kidding) so we could chill in style when we go to away shows.

Since we tend to drop things, I'm not thinking we'll be breaking out the china and crystal in our luxury horse box. Post-show adult beverages will be served in plastic, as always. Also, the kids and the husband are slobs, so I'm thinking we'll need the Scotch guarded leather. We may be rich in this fantasy, but we remain practical.

There would, of course, have to be sizable donations to CANTER, Old Friends, and assorted equine rescues and charities.


Finally, I'd like to breed the Sainted Mare.  Since I could afford to keep her baby, I would not worry as much about contributing to the unwanted horse problem.  Who would be the perfect Sugar-Daddy for Sug?  Hmmm- is there any frozen Libero H lying around??  Numero Uno?  Lux Z?

Would we breed her (she's had 3 already) or get a surrogate as she is older now?  Aaaack --the mind positively reels with pink and blue foal fantasies.  Baby names, anyone?  If it's a girl, how about Sweetness?  Pays homage to Mama Sug and the great Chicago Bear running back Walter Payton. (I'm a big football fan, BTW.)

Probably a good thing there's no chance in Hades I'll be winning the Powerball on Saturday night.  I've clearly gone 'round the bend.

Trainer Translations...

Found this gem on Facebook today, and howled.  Just laughed until I was incontinent.  I think I've heard my trainer say most of these.

Hope you get a kick out of it!

While the Cat's Away, the Mice...Form a Drill Team???

Post-Drill Team refreshments for horse and rider

The month of February is a slow one around our barn.  Typically, our trainer heads to Florida with a few students and those of us who can't make the trip to warmer climes stay home and take it a bit easy.

This year, as our trainer prepared to head south, a few of us were chatting after a lesson one night and one of us said (the culpable will remain nameless) "Wouldn't it be fun to start a drill team?" 

If memory serves, this comment did not come entirely out of the blue.  There had been some discussion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their musical ride.  One of our members is Canadian, so she may have been the one who planted the seed.  All I know is that an "Isn't that cool?" became a "We could totally do that!" and then it completely fell apart into a "How about we practice Sundays at 10am?"  There may have been wine involved.  I'm neither confirming or denying anything.  There also may have been discussion of setting our musical ride to the dulcet tones of Def Leppard.  Again, the culpable will remain nameless.

So, on Sunday morning Sophie and I headed down to the barn, ready for Day 1 of Altea Drill Team practice.  We prepped like you would expect.  We googled a few RCMP videos on the way down to the barn, checked out a couple of "How to Start Your Own Equestrian Drill Team" sites and a few example drills and pretty much decided to wing it from there.

At this writing our team consists of Sophie on Cookie, Me on Sugar, Libby and Stratego, and Tamsin on Toby.  After we convened at the barn, we discussed basic strategy while warming up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee (Sophie abstained) and a few donuts (Sophie had 3), then decided we'd better get on and warm the horses up as well.  After some WTC (the equestrian equivalent of Jersey Shore's GTL) we commenced trying to follow each other nose-to-tail at the walk and trot. 

This was easier said than done, as we had one GINORMOUS warmblood with a GIGUNDA stride (Stratego), a very large Thoroughbred with a pretty darn big stride, a mostly lazy warmblood mare with a medium stride, and a feisty pony that might have been born with short legs but has the personality of a horse that was born to lead and who was mightily peeved that she wasn't.  I couldn't stop giggling, because while we may have been trying for the RCMP,  I think we looked more like Colonel Hathi and the Elephants on Parade from the Jungle Book.

So we walked nose-to-tail, and trotted nose to tail, following each other in circles and on straight lines, down quarter lines, and across the diagonal, with Tamsin, our leader, exhorting us to "stay in line" or "turn sooner" or "bend to the right!"  Most of it went pretty well, until we started to get fancy.  Then it went to hell in a hand basket pretty quickly so we retrenched and went back to the basics.

You know, this drill team thing is really quite applicable to jumping (what we normally do).  You have to regulate your pace and rhythm. Your horse needs to go forward and come back as soon as you ask it to, and you need be able to turn right and left and ride on a specific line so that you arrive at a specific place under the right set of circumstances.  Who knew, right?  Here's hoping all this fun has a positive effect on my ability to see a distance!

We had a BLAST!  The horses had a blast as well.  It was a change of pace for them and they got to play with their friends.  They also got rewarded with small bits of donut afterwards (Sugar LOVES sharing Mom's Boston Cremes).

Sophie and I have been doing some research, and we think we may ask the others if we can try this pattern next week...

Friday Funnies, Cause Sometimes You Just Need Them...

I'm totally ripping this concept off from my blogging buddy Marissa, Tucker the Wunderkind's Mom.  I don't think she'll mind, though.  She's a pretty understanding sort and well, knows that sometimes you have to do what you ave to do to get by.

It's been one of those weeks, and ya know what?  I am going to celebrate the end of it with a few laughs, so here goes:

If you're a horsperson and you don't laugh at this, I can only surmise that you are seriously humor deprived or having a worse week than I am, in which case, my thoughts are with you.  Or, you're Steffen Peters (sigh) and have been sitting the trot perfectly since birth.

This one is because I am in the dairy industry, and because I am an angst-ridden over-thinker, and, well, because who doesn't like cows?  Thanks to PartiallyClips for the assist.

And, finally, because I am a girl who loves her chocolate, and because I am an only child who finds it hard to share her chocolate...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Crazy Week With A Few Smiles Thrown In...

The Soccer Phenom in action in an approved setting



It's been one of those weeks.  You know the kind I'm speaking of -- the kind when a few hours into Monday you're already wishing Friday would hurry up and get here.



Started off with the Girl (aka Soccer Phenom) breaking the TV.  Apparently "How many times have I told you we don't play ball in the house?" really IS a rhetorical question.  Best part about the story is that it happened while we had friends over for dinner.  I heard the thumping while I was cooking, poked my head into the basement doorway and saw the Child with ball in hand. 

"Sophie, how many times have I told you we don't play ball in the house?"  Yep, I really did say that.

"Mom, watch, I can bounce it off my butt!" Do you love it?  The kid totally has a future in sales.  Objection?  What objection?  I don't hear any stinking objection...

Anyway, the ball got put away, but not soon enough.  Half an hour later the kids decided to play the Wii, and came up to tell us the TV was not working.  How we didn't make the connection, I don't know. (Wine, maybe?)  How the 3 boys who were here managed to keep mum about the guilty party's activities is also beyond my ken.  It wasn't until my husband checked on the TV the next morning and the Boy commented, "Wow, I didn't think Sophie had hit it THAT hard with the soccer ball," that all become clear to us.  OK, so good thing the folks at NCIS don't depend on us to crack cases...

On the GOOD side of the ledger this week, my entry was chosen for HillBilly Farms' parody of George Morris' Jumping Clinic.  Sidesplittingly funny!

Also, I was nominated, not once, but TWICE, for the Liebster award! (Thank you, lovely blogging buddies LWilliams at Viva Carlos and  EQUESTRIANATHART!) 

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. Here are the rules:

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award

3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.

4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs!

So, I'm passing along the love, and here are my nominees (in no particular order):

1) I Pick Crazy:  I love Emme, the author, and am devastated we don't live near each other, because as I read her blog I can see we'd get up to all kinds of shenanigans together.  Tell me you don't ADORE the picture of her mare, the one with the forelock up in the air.

2) Bob the Equestrian : Bob's accounts of his lessons leave me laughing like a loon and gasping for breath.  Oh, and also wondering where he finds those funny t-shirts. 

3) Tucker the Wunderkind: Marissa was my very first blogging buddy, and I am so thankful I am lucky enough to live by her, so we CAN get up to all kinds of shenanigans.  Reading about her adventures with Tucker, truly the sweetest bay boy imaginable, makes my day.

4) Confessions of an AA Event Rider and Convicted Overthinker: OK, if the title itself didn't drag me in (A fellow overthinker? I'm IN!) the fact that she's got a mare named Sugar would have.  Oh yeah, and the great writing keeps me coming back for more...

5) The Road Apple:  Am a HUGE fan of HillBilly Farms (LOVE their grooming tote!) and expect more hilarity from their blog.  If you are a fan of The Onion, this is the equine version. Plus, my Pop Pop used to call horse poop road apples, so I just love the name.
Heaven knows I could go on, because there are so many blogs I read and enjoy, but the rules say five and it's getting perilously close to work time and I have yet to shower, we'll have to leave it at that.