It's the little things in life...

So we all know in the horseworld gossip has a life of its own. As in many worlds of-course -- but the horse world is excessive. (comeon, almost entirely women, many of whom have lots of $ and lots of free time... what else is there to do?) So I have to say today I was incredibly pleasantly surprised to discover a distinct *lack* of gossip. Here's the story -- I have a friend who, among other things, has gone way above and beyond to help me get GRS going. I went to her way-back-when when I was very upset about a situation w/ a mutual acquaintance of ours. She offered an ear, copious amounts of alcohol, and some good common-sense advice. (I took two of the three -- you can pick which two!) Fast-forward a couple years and I was chatting with another friend -- this one more of an acquaintance. She's awesome and I quite enjoy her company, but we rarely see each other and don't really know each other outside the barn. However, she is very close to friend A. She also knows all of the people involved in the original situation. So when I referenced it today I was quite surprised to realize that she didn't know anything about it. Not that I thought my little drama was particularly gossip worthy, just that living all my life in this tiny world where everybody knows everything (or else just makes it up!) the fact that FriendA didn't even tell a super-close friend who (knowing all involved) would likely have been interested -- even though I didn't expressly ask her not to, means a lot to me. A little thing. A nothing thing that I'm sure she's long since forgotten. But it made me smile to know. And while I was impressed, I was somehow not surprised. She's just that kind of person; the kind I want to be when I grow up :) Along the same trend, your good-news story for the day: Kindness of strangers -- so while the kid is an idiot for trying to run a marathon w/o training properly, I was still pleased to read about the two guys who stopped to help him... And on a completely different note: I'm going out to play :)

Climbing on the soap box...

From GRS Blog.... Read at your own risk :) So I got home last night and posted a message on my Facebook about the fact that I'm starting to believe coaches should have to be certified. Well it lead to a reasonably entertaining wall conversation so I thought I'd elaborate. (edited to add - be forewarned, this ended up being long!) Comments from everybody (coaches, non-coaches, parents, students, bystander X, etc :) all welcome. Does this matter? Do you seek out a certified coach? Why? Why not? I'll start by saying I think all coaches at the provincial level or LOWER should be certified. I do not believe this for the upper level coaches for a couple reasons. First -- they have the competitive experience to show that, while they may or may not be able to teach, at least they definitely know how to ride. And second -- they are generally teaching upper level riders. These riders have the experience to judge if their coach is worth their money. hahaha I'm at a point now where I don't care if my coaches are certified (I know 1 of the 3 is and 1 is not. No idea about the 3rd. But I've never actually asked any of them :). What I do know is that what they tell me makes sense. When I question them they do not get defensive about it -- instead they explain whatever it is I'm missing. If I were ever to ask one of them to "get on and fix it" (which I never have) I have not the slightest doubt that they'd be able to. And what they tell me greatly improves my horse's way of going. So any coach that can do that does not require a piece of paper to say so. But if I were looking for a coach for my child? Absolutely they would have to be certified. My parents are complete non-horse-people; they had no way of judging the quality of the lessons I was getting. I got lucky and ended up w/ an excellent coach, but they wouldn't've known either way. Hence why I'm starting to believe that coaches teaching NOVICE riders should be certified. Because novice riders don't know what they don't know. They don't know they're in a bad situation until they get hurt. And it's happening all too often. I absolutely agree that certification doesn't guarantee a really good coach, but I also think it does weed out the really bad ones. What inspired this little post (well among others - this was the breaking point!) was a case of the underqualified coach teaching the novice who knows no better. So said coach, not knowing what she was doing, instead of correcting and improving her student's ride over fences just kept putting the fences higher. Student in question has no leg, no control over the canter (as horse plowed downhill on the forehand), and was consistently either jumping ahead or being left way behind and thumping on the horse's back. Now fortunately for her, her horse was a saint and athletic enough to do it anyways, but someday she may get on another horse, and then she's going to be in a lot of trouble. (to say nothing of the poor horse!) The coach wasn't doing anything malicious -- she just doesn't know enough to know what was wrong. As far as she's concerned, she's a great coach who's got a great student jumping 3'3". And student's thrilled cause obviously she's an excellent rider. Neither of them have the slightest clue how scary it really is. But the coach should. If she were qualified to actually *be* coaching. Now there are actually two issues here; there's unqualified coaching, and there's letting students do more than they should. The second one can be a challenge - four times in the last month, I've had new students come to me saying they really know their stuff, can jump X height, yadedadeda. And I watch them and realize they have no two-point, and little to no balance. So we go back to basic position and poles on the ground with maybe a tiny X. And I explain why, and what's missing, and what I'd want to see before letting them *jump* and approximately how long I think it'll take them to get there (I've played that game a few times, I'm usually reasonably good at it). Now of the four, one was a previous student of mine who just hasn't ridden for a few years. Having been a student of mine she knew exactly what would happen and was entirely kewl with it. Especially as we both know she'll be jumping around again after a few weeks since it's a case of out-of-practice rather than actually doing it wrong. One of the others was thrilled. She had, somewhere along the way, ascertained that something was not-quite-right but didn't know what and wasn't about to question her coach. I'm not sure what led her to actually switch, but she seems pretty happy she did. The other two though both declared themselves far too good for that. They *know* how to jump and who was I to try and teach them any differently. They returned to their old coach who'll let them jump high and never actually teach them to ride. I just hope they don't get hurt toooooo badly when they find out the hard way. Now there's the catch -- by being either incompetent or irresponsible (arguably both), the other coach keeps the business. And conversely, by insisting the basics be solid first, I lose business. To me this is acceptable for two reasons: first, I'd rather loose the cash now than the lawsuit later, and second I'm really not interested in wasting my time, effort, and skill teaching somebody who's not interested in learning. But honestly, when business is tight there's a lot of pressure to give in to this. I've spoken to a few other coaches I know who I deeply respect and they've all confirmed facing the same issue. All have said that in the long run, it's not worth it. Most have said they'll try and find some way around it -- give the ego-student a more challenging horse to make it seem like they're jumping 2' for a reason other than their own lack of skill; this can work but only if you have exactly the right type of horse handy (ie green enough to feed the ego, sane enough not to risk injuring the rider, and confident enough not to be upset when the rider does it wrong). An option I've used in eventing is to take them out and do hill-work. Will secure their position more quickly without making it really obvious that's what you're working on. So there are a *few* ways around it. But in general, the good ones all agreed that you insist on the basics and accept that you'll lose some income because of it. The other issue is unqualified coaching -- most of whom don't have a clue how scarily incompetent they are. When asked why they don't get certified they'll make up a whole variety of excuses: "it's too expensive" and "it's not fair" being the two I hear the most. Honestly, I understand the "it's too expensive" -- I figure it cost me a little over $1000 to get certified and that was *with* a whole bunch of people donating their time and services to me to get me there (ie, the level 2 coach I was working for at the time helped me get my mentoring hours w/o charging me, several different students lent me their horses at various times to get through the exams (I was horseless at the time), I did some of the rider exams for free, and a bunch of other such things that seriously helped offset the costs). But then, within a couple years the discount on my insurance paid for that. So really if you're serious about the job, it's worth the cost -- in the same way you pay for your undergrad degree to theoretically help you get a future job. You pay a lot to make sure you know what you need to know to be employable. And to make sure others know that you know :) "It's not fair" almost always comes from somebody who can't pass the riding portion -- and so would never even *get* to the coaching portion! And quite frankly, I'm glad for this. The riding requirements are not excessive -- I passed mine riding a decent school horse of average talent. All you need is a basic level dressage test and to jump around a 3' course. This is PT level eventing people. Put your horse on the bit and keep them there :) My 6yo OTTB spaz who isn't ready to event seriously, could still pass the coaching exam. And be able to jump around with reasonable form. If you can't do this, you shouldn't be teaching. End of story. And the "Instructor" exam (below the coaching, for beginner coaches) requires far less (which, btw, I think is a great addition for those who teach the occasional lesson or summer camp). But again, there are those who don't ride well enough to pass, who complain the requirements are unfair. To me, that's the entire point of the requirements. When I have a student who gets to the point where I can't get on and make their horse go better than they can, I send them to another coach (yes it's happened -- I figure I've done my job well at that point *g*). That's the way it works. And I've had coaches tell me it was time to move on too. The good ones know their limits and acknowledge when a student reaches them. But if you can't pass the instructor level exam (which I can take a teenage non-rider who's brave, athletic and dedicated and get them there in a couple years) who's left that you should be teaching? What do you have to teach them? The *sole* exception to this that I can think of is the senior rider who competed at the very top who has been injured or for some reason is unable to ride -- however, anybody at that level will have the show records etc to prove their abilities. For the horsemanship portion to be "unfair" means the person simply couldn't be bothered to study. It's broad but reasonably general -- certainly there was nothing particularly challenging in it and while they asked some unexpected questions in the stable-management they could be answered with some quick-thinking and some logic. hahaha or so I found anyways. Teaching of course is the big issue. Their emphasis is first on safety and second on coaching ability. None of these seem unrealistic or unfair to me. But of the 8 of us who took the exam together, 2 of us passed (and by a huge amount). The rest (one of whom was on her 3rd try!) weren't even close. And shouldn't've been. No crowd control, no ability to identify the student's issues (much less fix them!), confusing or conflicting instructions, etc. Now in both the horsemanship and the teaching sections there are things that they (as in Pony Club, BHS, and every other system) want done "their way" -- this can be seen as slightly unfair, but any organization that runs exams and require "their" answer. Are there other ways of doing things that are equally safe, equally effective, equally good? Yes of course. Is some of what they require excessive and not particularly practical in "real life" - yes to that too. But an exam scenario isn't real life either. There are no tricks; they are very clear about what they expect. So learn the rules and abide by them. And I have to say, in my exam I did something differently from what they were expecting and they asked me about it but they accepted my explanation as to why and gave me a great score, so they're not just sticking mindlessly to the official guide. There are also THREE examiners. So odds that all three are "unfair" or "picking on" somebody are, imho, fairly unlikely. One, yes you could have somebody having an off day or who just didn't like you, but when there's three examiners that seems less likely. Everybody who's told me they're not doing (or didn't pass!) the exam because it's unfair imo should not have passed anyways. I'm sure there's an exception (possibly several) out there somewhere -- I just haven't met them yet! And yes you can have a bad day where your horse is not cooperating and fail because of that, that's a huge pita (happened to me in my evaluation -- they told me to find a different horse for the exam!). But they do let you retake just the section you failed... Not sure how much more they can do than that? And then of course we're back to the comment of "well I've known really bad certified coaches". This one always makes me laugh, because if there are really bad certified coaches, and somebody STILL can't pass, they *definitely* shouldn't be coaching. Don't you think? And yes, it's true. Being certified doesn't necessarily mean you're good (I too know a few who are certified and I always wonder how), or that you're going to apply what you demonstrated in the exam, but it does mean that on at least one day, you weren't horrifically bad and have *some* basic idea of safety. Alright I'll get off my soap-box now. And don the flame suit on. Comments?

Sometimes PlanB works out!

Taken from GRS Blog: So last month I was supposed to take Sienna and a student w/ her horse to David's clinic @ Cedar Run. And she went off. So I cancelled, and while I intended to bring student anyways, she kindly offered to wait and go to the next one. And David, being the super-kewl person he is, let us transfer our entry fees to this one. So the second clinic was on Saturday -- but Sienna's grounded till she gets pads on. I *really* didn't think it'd be good form to cancel again, and seriously not kewl to the other rider, so PlanB it is -- I borrowed a horse from an awesome student of mine and off I went. Now I've ridden this horse but never jumped him before. Since I teach lessons on him all the time, I was reasonably certain he's of the "point-and-shoot" model *g* Which I don't often get to ride, so I was sort of amused at that idea. That being said, I could count on one hand the number of times he's been ridden outside of a ring and have fingers left over. So somewhere along the long drive up, student asks "are you going to ride with my group?" And to be honest, I didn't get it at first. I thought she meant ride along while they had their clinic (just walking around) and then do mine. Which I might've done with the ridiculously fit Sienna, but would not be fair to ask of my borrowed mount. And then I clued in she meant INSTEAD. ummmm brilliant! I was a little concerned about taking him PT w/ no XC experience and little experience over height (although I honestly don't think it would've been an issue). But E was a much more fair level for him. So when we got there I tacked up as though I were in the group and figured if David said no I'd just untack again :) No problem. Last time we took this horse out, he was anxious on the trailer -- sweaty and stressed when we got there. So I was a little concerned until I opened the door to check on him and he gave me this look like "you expect me to work? I'm in the middle of breakfast" -- sure enough, a solid half-way through his exceptionally full haynet. hahaha Oh so calmly backs off the trailer and lets me tack him up. Not quite as well trained a car horse as Sienna or B but then, he's never been asked to be either. Hop on, walk around a bit, realize I forgot flyspray. Hop off, spray horse, remount. Rolling eyes @ myself all the way. But me being me we were super-early so lots of time for that sort of silliness. Well that and I tack up reasonably quickly *g* So I'm back on waiting for the other rider to finish getting ready and all of a sudden the beginner-friendly, might-as-well-be-a-stuffed-animal horse comes to LIFE. hahaha he starts doing the passagy/prancy "something exciting is happening" sideways trot. ummmm ok :) So I let him trot, but tell him which direction he has to go. Well no, he wants to go the other way and if I won't let him he's going to canter. But you see the thing is, I can ride as fast as he can run. And we were in a huge, nicely mowed, show-ready field. Canter away my dear. hahaha that lasted less than half a lap before he decided it was way too much work. After that I schooled around our big parking field for a bit, walk/trot as others meandered their way over and joined my warmup. He was awesome -- had this big, floaty, on-the-bit/on-a-mission trot. Bending both ways. A tiny bit ADD of course, but on the grand scale of things not enough to comment on. Our fearless leader appears over the crest of the hill, so I trotted over to ask permission to switch groups, which was granted :) And of course run into somebody I know in the group finishing so chat with her for a bit while he does basic introductions. I've known him for years now and brought multiple horses to him and had already met everybody in warmup, so didn't feel too bad about being on the sidelines of that conversation. I did join in long enough to give PlanB's history: "lazy but willing, possibly the most honest horse I've ever met, almost never ridden outside the ring before. I just want to get him out and do some confidence building." So we left that topic as he asked me about Si and we chatted a bit about her as we headed up to XC. So we get to big field # 2 up on top of the hill which includes the start-box and the first fence on course (PE-T). Wanting to see how everybody's doing and get a feel for everybody's riding and horse before we start jumping, David has us continue our warmup in this field -- any direction etc. Walk/trot to begin. No problem. Mr. PlanB is being an absolute star. Trotting around like a little (well not so little -- at least not compared to Si!) dressage horse. Not paying any attention to anybody or anything. N by this point I'm totally chilled. Chatting with David, randomly riding around watching some of the other riders to find out who knows what in this group. At E level you tend to get novice riders on pro horses or pro riders on novice horses. It's only scary when both are green *g* And it's usually clear w/in a few seconds who belongs in which category. So I was in this kind of inattentive riding style when we were asked to canter. Remember, we cantered already earlier. This is not new or exciting. So I didn't think anything of it. Well I don't know what it was that triggered the fuse but Mr. PlanB did about the most dramatic transition ever and then followed with a series of reasonably impressive bucks. hahaha now I rode him on the flat one day and he started "bucking" that had me giggling like I'd been smoking something I shouldn't've once I figured out what it was he was trying to do. Bucking is an interpretive movement in his world -- more like a slightly ambitious canter. Yeah not so much this time. He just about got me. Seriously. I think @ least partially cause he caught me by surprise though *g*. But I was way high and off to the side and my brain is going "you are NOT going to fall off *this* horse in the first 5 minutes of the clinic. Get back in the middle and sit up!" And fortunately my body listened. Clinician watching this comments to the rest of the group "so for those of you who don't know Lauren, she has amazing balance and ability to stick." hahahaha You see, he knew Zel in her baby year *g* Got quite a few comments on that from those around me later. So of course after this game I canter PlanB around for a bit and then repeat the transition. This time he canters off like a normal horse *g* "Lauren that was a much better transition!" "You think?" hahahah couldn't've been much worse *g* So then it comes time to jump. We start w/ the PE log that they could literally walk over (as it should be given that it's the first fence on the PE course). Except that I got back in the game with the canter transition and was fully expecting it when Mr. BombProof PlanB landed and took off bucking. Not a problem - leg on, ride forward, and it ended after only a few strides. Rinse and repeat a few times and eventually he decided it wasn't worth the effort. Meanwhile student is totally showing me up having fun w/ her very enthusiastic TB :) One of the girls had mentioned having start-box issues, so it was decided that we'd do start-box schooling. Two options there: either the horse gets so reved that it tries to bolt, or incredibly nappy and won't move. She had option two. But PlanB has never seen a start-box in his life, so of course he couldn't care less. We walk in, halt, lots of pats. Go jump fence. "Any fence" we'd been told, so I figured I'd skip PE and jump the E fence -- which was a non-issue. B, right behind me, made the same choice :) So we repeated this a few times till the other girl's horse learned to behave itself and PlanB just moved up a level every time. Never looking at anything. Never overjumping. Just behaving like an old pro. PE - T in one day! We had one discussion after the first fence that there would be no spinning and ducking back to the herd, and after that, perfect. Boring really *g* But sometimes boring is a relaxing change. Next few few fences were pretty straight-forward PE/E type jumps. We jumped them each once, every time he was great. The others were doing each of these fences multiple times, but he was good and I didn't want to use up his fitness level, so he mostly grazed while others jumped around. I figure it was good for him to see others come towards him and gallop away without him and remain chilled. The only one I did twice was a brush fence cause he wanted to get in deep to it and it took me a second try to convince him to do it properly :) But we got there. There was a log to a hogsback combo that was incredibly simple *except* for the giant drilling machine right beside the middle! Person welding so sparks flying and the huge machinery rattling with every pound. *I* didn't want to go by it so I entirely understood his concerns! hahaha I'll tell ya, we *flew* over the second fence as by that point we were going away from the scary machine at all possible speed. He lead the way over the tiny run through the trees (4 little logs, each in a tree line, each a few strides apart from one another). I opted out of schooling the bank with him -- figured exciting XC stuff can wait till next time :) Although I did get one other rider's horse some experience for her :) So PlanB got quite a long break there, where his primary job was being the horse "over there" that the others would ride towards. hahaha. We did a few mini-courses -- each of which I added an extra fence or two. Which usually caused those behind me to follow my plan, and those ahead to regret not having gotten to do it *g* hahaha PlanB was awesome the whole way around, and really starting to have fun with it. I actually needed a reasonably strong half-halt at one point. But he came back to me w/o much of a fight so I was pretty happy with him. So eventually we make our way to the water. Big square eventing water (as opposed to natural river, which is also on the property). Well he wanted nothing to do with this. "It's *muddy*" -- I could almost feel his disgust. And having spent the last hour teaching him *not* to get upset when everybody else left him, he didn't really care that all the cool kids were doing it. I did eventually get a lead from another horse and PlanB bravely tiptoed in. And then walked back through the other way. And then trotted. "Hey! This is sort of fun." And then the canter. And he got splashed. So he tried to jump it. And got splashed bigger. Hahaha we were flying by the time we got out of the water that time. Well shortly after that he decided this was about the best game *ever* and got thoroughly annoyed when I told him he could stop and graze for a bit... "but the others are still getting to play in the water!!!" he bounced his way sideways down the hill in an attempt to join them. Super animated. So much for me worrying about him being tired! Last line was to splash through the water and pick whichever end fence you wanted. I chose the PT one -- just in case he *was* tired and just didn't know it yet I didn't think we should do T, but he was way beyond E level by this point. And I have to say, at that very last fence, he got it! Gallop (well hand-gallop realistically) sit up, balance, jump, land and gallop forward again in a straight line (the forward in a straight-line was the most challenging thing for him all day). Text-book perfect. I was pretty proud of him :) So it turns out my student has a much nicer horse than I thought at first *g* And I told her as much :) I was really quite impressed with how he behaved himself and the best part is, he seemed to have a ton of fun doing it! Always good :) And, of course, so did I :)

Most Amazing Surprise Vacation EVER!!!!

So the more exciting portions of our adventures are up w/ pics :) Enjoy! First Impressions are pretty impressive. White Water Adventures the only thing I've found that comes anywhere close to XC. There just *might've* been skating in hell today... aka - Mum rides a horse! And disobeys a sign. My world is no longer as I've known it *g* No vacancy in Paradise - a depressing start to the day. But the rest of the day spent in Lake Louise was thoroughly incredible. Sunday was spent visiting the very civilized hot spa (water temp - 39C!) and exploring the Banff shops. But I haven't typed that blog yet :)

4-Bar Challenge

Reposted from GRS Blog

Got this from Jael :) Next time you're competing in a 4-bar, consider going without your horse! >;-P

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

"Sweet and achingly true" -- fav comment of the wk :) On my Facebook Friends story... Not nearly *as* sore today as I'd expected to be. Definite twinges of course, but yesterday was worse. Had a flat lesson this am -- it went really well all things considered (all things being that in a month off, my horse has forgotten six months of training). Tried an interesting experiment today -- undecided as to the safety factor of it but it was sort of interesting. My coach had me do up the reins behind my back (so the buckle was in the small of my back) and ride that way (just halt/walk). Mostly practicing transitions. The idea being that way she's connected to back/core/seat muscles rather than hands. Was sort of entertaining. Of course Si goes pretty much entirely from my seat anyways (really can't ride an OTTB from the hand - rarely works out well! hahaha) but even still was a good reminder of how it's supposed to work *g* Si is grounded till we get pads on her (no jumping, no leaving the sandring) -- which definitely outs XC, so I'm taking a client's horse to Cedar Run tomorrow instead. He's schooled PE xc exactly twice in his life, clearly PT should be no problem *g* hahaha actually it's not as bad as that sounds -- he can jump and is incredibly honest, he's just never done XC (a hunter convert). Was in PE for the rider's abilities not his. We shall see. So Gary posted this vid on Facebook and I was thoroughly impressed so figured I'd post it here. This doesn't even *look* easy hahaha particularly when I remember that I can't even hop my bike up a curb anymore! Sheesh. The first 30-45 seconds is kinda blah, but after it gets very impressive. I love the looks on some of the bystander's faces *g* Enjoy :)

#FridayFlash 45: Facebook Friends

Yeah new "Truly Intelligent People"! I'm so excited :) Welcome! Today's story is a work of fiction. Any resembulance to actual peoples or occurances is purely coincidence. >;-P Anybody have any Facebook Friends experiences to share? ------ Facebook Friends She saw him on Facebook. The boy she'd once loved. She did a double-check when his name appeared as a "people you might know" suggestion. Might know indeed. Facebook -- the ultimate highschool reunion. And as she looked at his photo, she realized he'd gotten old. And she didn't want to click because, well, what if he took one look at her photo and thought the same thing? And then she felt foolish because why should it matter? She hadn't even seen him in fifteen years. She was an adult. A successful one at that. Or so it seemed on the outside. On the inside she was still a kid trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life. She hit refresh and his picture went away -- but the memories stayed. The night of her 18th birthday. Their cave, lit by dozens of candles. The sound of the ocean in the background. She was excited. Intoxicated on love and life as much as the wine she'd had earlier. It was the last night of her childhood and he'd done everything he could to make it special. And special it was. That night and the weeks following it seemed as though time stood still for them. Surely it would last forever. But as for so many, forever was just a momentary blip in time. Soon enough they were at different schools on different sides of the country. And life went on. When they met again the next summer, he had changed. He'd grown up. Become a man. While in her heart, she remained the girl who'd loved a boy. Although were she honest, she could see that time had changed her in his eyes too. And so they drifted. Friends with benefits. Then just friends. Then not even that. She heard, at one point, that he'd gotten married. And had convinced herself she was happy for him. And wondered, when she married, if he ever thought of her. And life went on. She got caught up on all the news: Carol was doing laundry, Jason's team had won the football game, Marissa was avoiding reality. And when she'd wasted half an hour learning absolutely nothing of interest she gave in and searched his name. "Send friend request." How pathetic was it to request somebody's friendship? But she clicked the button. She spent a few minutes updating her profile. Not because he might be looking, but because it was time. Relationship: "It's complicated." No it's not, she thought bitterly to herself. Her husband cheated on her with his gorgeous blond secretary. She was living a very bad cliche. Nothing complicated about it. And she felt closure as she changed it to "Single". Facebook was much cheaper than therapy. Deciding she'd had enough of the past, she shut down the machine and went out for the evening. But when she got home she broke her self-imposed rule and signed into Facebook for the second time that day to check for updates. "Friend request accepted." And life went on.

Lauren - 0, Inanimate Objects - 3.

I'm definitely losing the battle with inanimate objects today. The first was my alarm clock. Now my old alarm clock, which was perfect, died a couple weeks ago after about 10 years. So I had to go on a quest for a new one. You wouldn't think this would be such a challenge. Or at least I didn't. I had two must have features and one nice to have. Dual alarms and a nap button were must haves. Gradually getting louder alarm a nice to have. Yeah well apparently that's an impossible combination. I did (w/ help from Mum) eventually find the dual alarms with nap button. Ok, good to go. Except the first time I go to use it I aim for 40 mins. Nope. 10, 20, 30, 60. Really? How hard would it have been to put the other numbers in? Sheesh. But ok, such is life. @ least it works -- I can do 30 and then hit snooze once. Nope, no snooze on nap. I don't understand why not -- makes sense to me that when you hit the snooze button it should function the same whichever way set off the alarm, but evidently not so much. So such is life, just accept that naps are going to be a little more restricted than I'm used to. But then the alarm itself doesn't actually get louder. I can sleep through this one no problem. My alarm goes off @ 5:20. I usually hit snooze twice then get up and ready and am downstairs to feed critters around 6 and out by 6:15. Today I finally woke up about 6:10. Was out of the house in 10 mins (a skill born of early horse-show mornings) but didn't appreciate the need for it. So that was Inanimate Object 1. Inanimate Object 2 was my computer. Now we all know they weild special powers, so it's entirely possible it doesn't really fit in this category, but *technically* it does. I had half the vacation blog typed and then lost it. Even the saved file. Am not amused :( Boooo. So now it will def be the weekend before those stories/photos are up -- I hope you'll read them anyways *g* Inanimate object 3. Now this is where my pride (not to mention the rest of me!) took a serious beating. I was literally *thrown* from my horse... No she did nothing wrong. Inanimate object remember? Yes I was thrown from my horse by a jump standard. *sigh* So on the plus side, Superpony was sound and feeling pretty full of herself. hahaha all good. Serious lack of muscle strength *sigh* but that'll come back. So this is now the third time she's been ridden after a month off and she was both high and ADD, as was to be expected. AND she seems to have forgotten almost everything I've taught her in the last year. Now I only had a short time to ride today as I had a surprise party to get to, so I chose not to pick a battle with her. This meant no dressage. Now if I have a student whose horse is not bending, not moving off the leg, and generally unresponsive to all requests they have a better chance of the Leafs winning in Hell than being allowed to jump. One of these days I'll learn to play by my own rules. *sigh* So yeah, I wanted to see how she'd do over fences (soundness wise). And honestly, these were not jumps so much as speed bumps. The MAX was all of 2'6" -- most were at a grand total of 2'. So I start out a little tentatively, trotting over a random one and carefully evaluating the landing and every step after. She's fine. And having fun. Ok no problem. Canter around and jump her over the course. She looks at a couple of the new ones (the entire course has been redone in the time she's been off and are all based off "problem fences" that have been encountered by various riders this season). But she jumps them all quite happily -- throwing in the odd buck for good luck (her bucks are not *real* bucks by any stretch of the imagination, but she tries hard :) Problem is, 2' is really boring when my horse is happy and jumping well and evidently sound. However, I *really* didn't want to push the soundness issue, so I refrained from getting off and raising them. (see I *can* be responsible -- at least when it's my horse's welfare at stake). So instead I decided to make it a little more technical. There's a nice bending line on the course - an easy 3. BUT if you ride it straight and angle both fences it makes for a forward 2. And remember, 2' -- even with the worst spot in the world, it's not a problem. And from the very beginning she's been taught to hold her line. Uh huh. Remember the start of this story? The part where I said our flat work was horrendous? The not moving off my leg? So my horse has a serious left drift that gets worse when she's tired (muscle sore) or excited (brain sore). She was both. It's *really* important when jumping related distances on angles that you hold your line. Landing 6' left of your line is NOT a good thing. No problem, we can still salvage this. Superpony is focused on the second speedbump and eager for her job, all good. Except that when she jumped, she was so close to the left standard that my leg got caught IN it (think rectangular frame w/ one wooden beam on an angle holding it all together. The saddle brushed the side of the standard while my leg went in the space between the vertical piece and the angle piece. This would be Inanimate Object 3. *sigh* I was moving with some speed at this point and basic physics says that much energy won't just stop, it'll be redirected. So my leg wrapped around the standard, which stopped me for long enough to wrench the left side of me back and throw me off the right side of my horse -- who was frantically trying to get away from the rather huge standard chasing her and the planks (that she didn't even touch!) clattering to the ground around her. Yeah I hung on for all of about 3 strides before hitting the ground. Hard. Hard enough that when I changed out of my breeches later there was arena dirt all down the inside as well. Never good. And Si went for a little gallop around the ring (yeah running martingale keeping the reins out of the way! I knew it had a use >;-P) I got up and went to close the gate before she discovered that it was open and brushed myself off before catching her and remounting. Discovered I couldn't turn my head left. Who needs to turn left? *sigh* Jumped the course a few more times -- she was quite frazzled and concerned after that one so it took a bit to get her confidence back, but we got there. And then finally got to finish. Cool her out, bathe her, and put her away. And there are some people who were supposed to leave for a show when I started riding, still trying to load a horse. So we have the coach who's good and knows how to deal w/ this. The novice owner, who while a decent rider, has very little practical experience. And her father who is about the most dedicated dad ever and clearly loves the horse, but has absolutely no horsemanship skills whatsoever. So I wander by and mention to the coach if she wants a hand, let me know, and then get out of there (I know better than to butt in :). So a few minutes later she comes and asks for said hand. I watch for a second to evaluate. The father is standing in the trailer, facing the horse, and pulling. Yeah, prey animals always respond well to that. Daughter is trying valiantly to push (rather large) horse in. Horse, who is showing no signs of fear whatsoever, flatly says no. hmmmm fun game. So I took the horse and we had a little discussion about when I say go, you go. When I say stop, you stop. Backing up is not allowed and if you try it you'll *really* have to back up. And basically do as you're told. (all leading -- walk, trot, halt, trot, turn, etc. Real basics). And then we tried again. Got a bit farther, but not much. Played this game for a while and eventually, all of 2 mins before my critical "must be out of here time" and with the aid of a third knowledgeable person we were able to put a lungeline behind him (they had tried this earlier but with the novice people involved which I guess didn't go so well -- I didn't see it, but can well imagine) and convince him that the only way to get away from the scary rope was to go inside. Which he did. And stood there quiet as could be. Clearly not the least bit stressed by any of this. Gotta love it. Esp after just hitting the dirt -- was not a game I *really* wanted to be playing *sigh*. So raced home and did, in fact, have time to shower, change, and get to the surprise before the surprise *g* I suspect I'm going to be fairly sore tomorrow! And on a completely random note: Netfirms -- worst customer service ever. Just as a heads up. Took them 3 days with me sitting on hold for more than 4h to resolve an issue that when somebody actually bothered to fix it took him all of about two minutes. I spent the time on hold researching other service providers. hahaha just thought I'd share :)

Fan Mail Response

Ok so I have to admit I wish I had this problem to deal with :) Regardless, this amused me. A fan-mail response from sci-fi writer Heinlein in the days before email... Found here with background story. hahaha have to love the part about students' grades shouldn't depend on the kindness of strangers. Enjoy!

Back to reality

So my autoresponder at work won't turn off. Got through two levels of tech-support and they still haven't figured it out. I think the only solution is for me to go back on vacation! My surprise vacation was to Banff and was *such* an amazing trip. Wow. And I can't say I'm even the slightest bit interested in being home again. *sigh* Clearly not long enough :) Is it a bad sign that I miss critters more than people? hmmmm but then, I got to see lots of people while I was there, not so many critters. Very exciting welcome back -- Si's sound! hahaha If she stays that way tomorrow we're good to go. Gotta say, city traffic isn't nearly as much fun as mountain traffic. Blah >;-P Took a mountain of photos which will prob be up this wknd (no time to play till then :) And while the blog is written, it's not yet typed! hahaha will get those up prob about the same time as the pics. The weather was absolutely perfect for what we wanted to do on any given day. The first day was sunny just right for wandering around exploring. The second day was hot (well about 30deg) -- which is great when one decides to go to BC and get in some white-water rafting on a glacial river. hahaha The following day was slightly cooler but still nice and warm. Perfect for a day of gondola riding, hiking, and horseback riding :) Next day was slightly cooler, which was appreciated as we went to Lake Louise and climbed a mountain... hahaha oh the things we do for the perfect cup of tea *g*. The following morning was downright chilly! About 7 deg. So we went to the hot springs. Perfect! Then it warmed up for the afternoon of shopping :) And when it came time to come home? Raining. Nature crying at the thought of our departure >;-P hahaha The flight attendant doing the safety briefing on the way home was somewhat entertaining. I was quite happily in my own planet ignoring him when he caught my attention with "For those of you who haven't been in an automobile since 1912, this is how a seatbelt works..." hahaha And at the end of the flight it was "For those of you who live in Toronto, lucky you. Welcome home." Which made me smile despite not being ready to come home :)