Drawing of Jessie

In my horsemanship challenge group there is a lady who,s mom is a artist, she just draws for fun and she has been randomly picking a few horses she likes and she draws them.  The second one she picked was Jessie!  I was surprised and I like the pic so I asked her if I could buy it, she said sure and so all the details were figured out and I just got it in the mail.  its even nicer than I thought.  Wow I feel so lucky.  Not the picture I woulda picked but still super cool!
Here is the original, I just snapped it one day in the arena while I was videoing, actually turned out better than I expected

And her drawing of it, amazed how much it looks like the original!

I guess its always more amazing cause I can not draw worth beans, lol actually this winter I picked up a sketch pad and drawing book to try to learn, but its not going super well my coffee cup is recognizable but it don't look like the original at all.  Maybe I should stick to abstract lol.  Now I just gotta find a frame and a place to hang it.

Horsemanship Challenge Bonus

So when I joined the horsemanship challenge, she asked for all our addresses and I just thought there was a prize for completing or something but surprised to get a letter in the mail yesterday with a bracelet with the challenge written on it.  its pretty cool and totally unexpected.  I have never really worn those rubber bracelets but I will wear it now for the rest of the challenge.

Only at 19 rides and 18 hours out of the 30 rides and 40 hour challenge and was planning on riding today but weather and roads were miserable so I didnt but we still got 4 weeks so I should be able to finish on time.  I am surprised at how many are done already I got so far behind when it got cold here, those are days I need an arena or a warmer climate, oh well next year I will have a better plan.

Fun Lesson

Went for a lesson on Tuesday, been a while since I been there but I been riding again and was planning to go tot he show sat so a lesson it was.  I got there and it was a lot warmer than its been the last few times, I even didn't wear long underwear!

Jess was pretty excited, she knows whats going on when we go there :)  As I got there Doug was walking out of the arena and hands me the reins of a horse and says hold him and walks off.  I was surprised but OK, I guess there was a young horse loose in the alleyway and he went to get it, I never even seen it.  Then he put the pony away and visited with everyone while they had lunch then I got Jess ready and off we were to go.  I rode her pretty hard on Monday and also pretty warmed up before our ride cause I knew she would be fresh, and she was, lol.  I love that she gets so excited to work cows, I just wish she would still remember I am there.  Finally I got her back where we wanted after about 5 cows and a good kick in her left side and she did it awesome!  I was pretty happy with her, got a cow picked out then pulled it out of the herd and worked even when she was silly.  Its hard to explain how she acts, I wish I had a video, but I have no one to video me at a lesson.

 (been working on getting a good selfie with Jess, not it yet)

 ( a cute little Metalic Cat colt)

(and Lily was cold so she lays on Denny, lol)

She was pretty wet again so I untacked and put her cooler on and went back in to visit with whoever was there, her previous owner was and he laughed at my Eeyore cooler on her.  We got to busy visiting it was 4 before I left, oops, at least she was dry when i got home, lol.  Love the days are longer now that it is still light when I get home at 5:30.

When I got home I got a call from my Mom that she wants us to empty and clean out my Grampa's apartment on Saturday so I guess I will go to that rather than the show.  Kinda makes me sad but I was unsure of going anyways not enough practice and I woulda had to go by myself and its supposed to be miserable weather.  But all excuses, I really woulda gone anyways but I feel like I have to help clean so I will go to that.

Warmer Weather Finally

Been hauling down to Brooks to ride and the last few times its been quite busy.  I actually kinda liked it when I was riding by myself but Kali is way better when there are more riders in the arena, on Friday there was 6 in there each doing our own thing and she was totally relaxed and ready to go.  She is like a much more energetic horse since I got her teeth done, guess they needed it.  I got her trot real nice and freed up and now I am working on her lope, its a lot of work though cause she is so lazy and any touch on the reins she tries to stop.  But its been getting better, we can now make 2 laps around the arena with no trouble and I don't even have to ask hard anymore, but she still feels all sticky but I can see progress.

 (shes so cute :)

(except when her big ears are in funny places)

(And Jess, still got a big belly but I'm trying to get rid of it)

It was quite a bit warmer today than it was for a long time and I rode Kali first and was off in my own little world while trotting and she tried to stop about 4 times on a round and I was kinda annoyed at her until I looked at the clock, oops it was almost 10 minutes, haha no wonder she wanted to stop.  Probly the longest we have trotted at once all winter, she was breathing hard this time...hard to make her do.  So I let her catch her breath and we loped some both directions and called it quits.

(at home, gotta open the cooler so they can eat)

Jessie is starting to shed something terrible so took a while brushing her and then had a real nice ride, I love riding her when others are around cause she is so broke I can just do anything with her, today we worked on speeding up on the long sides and slower on the ends of the arena, at a lope.  Then we worked on trotting and moving her body sideways across the arena without going faster, she is getting so much better at that without going faster.  Then while cooling out I dropped the reins and stirrups and steered her around with my legs, was cool, been working on it for a while, but today we did the barrel pattern at a walk, that was a little harder since it gave us a specific point to turn at not just a generic turn.  Wanted a empty arena so I could video again to see the change from a month ago but so hard when so many people around.  I am at 19 rides and 17.5 hours on the horsemanship challenge, really got behind with that cold weather but still have 4 weeks left, I think I will finish.

Motivation

Been watching quite a bit of the Olympics and it has been interesting to watch and learn how they react to pressure and how what they do before competing.  I really got a lot of motivation from Kurt Browning.  I remember watching him as a little girl skater and he was in Calgary so knew who he was forever and now hes at the Olympics as a figure skating analyst.  He said the biggest change for him was when he started looking at the event (competition) as the reward.  He said as long as you are having fun its so much better and less stressful.  I like the way he put that so now I am a long ways from the Olympic level but still gonna look at each cutting I go to as the reward for all my practice :)

I was talking to my friends the other day and she asked if I ever dreamed of being in the Olympics, well I was a figure skater in the 80's and the 88 Olympics were in my city well of course I did.  Sh said she never did and so I asked another friend and she said never even knew what Olympics were when she was a kid and Neil as well never even thought of it.  Weird I thought every kid dreamed of that but apparently not.  Made me kinda sad and even though I am not a very good sports person made me want to get kids out excited about sports and competition and getting out there.

Neil's favorite to watch is curling of course and were listening to brad Jacobs and he was saying was having a hard time cause they never threw rocks for 4 days, Neil laughed and I said that how I feel when i cant ride.  Guess that's why he never went super far in curling doesn't mind just playing once a week. My favorite sport to watch is either downhill skiing and cross country.  I love the Alpine Skiing would be so fun!  But Cross country looks so much easier but so much more competitive!

Time Off

So after the show it really bothered me I had so much trouble cutting a cow from the herd.  I usually have so little trouble with that I never think to work on it.  It took me all the way till Thursday to figure it out.  At practice all the cows are in the center of the arena and we work them outside. In straight lines back and forth like a show but on any side.  And I think that's where my trouble lays.  I have trouble push to the side and they separate...but at a show its always to the front.  Got to work on that in practice.

Have taken a couple weeks off since then cause the weather was pretty miserable.  Since I have to haul to ride unless I ride out which its too cold and icy now for that, and I wont haul if below -20*C.  And hasn't been above that.  Brrr.  And then my Grampa passed away and while still sad was not completly unexpected and he will be happier now he is with my Gramma.

On Monday the ponies got their teeth done and so Tuesday was a day of in case of sore mouths and Tuesday back riding. Rode Jess first and she was full of beans what a character she is lol.  Had a good ride even though a odd lady was there doing I dunno what with her horse.  But we worked around her and had a good time.  Sure felt good to be back in the saddle again.

I also brought Kali and had her ready to go but as I put her bridle on she was acting weird and sure enough her mouth was still sore so she just come along for the ride I guess.  Then today was a day of shopping and back at it tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday...and hope a lesson Monday :)

Show Results--Jan 25

Dunno why it told me so long to write a post again.  I was at first waiting for the video my friend took on her phone, she tried to message me it but had to split it in half and I did get it but its super tiny and I don't have any way that I know of to get it from my messages to anywhere else.  So I guess I will just say how it went.

We got there early and had a bite to eat and watched a bit then I got my pony and started warming up.  She was pretty energetic and wanting to move out, but had grouchy ears at all the other horses, so we just worked harder and pretty soon she didn't care about the others out there just what I was asking her, which is what I want.  We watched a few then warmed up more, then it was our turn.  I was last in the class of 9 which I knew since I was late entering.  But I was just wanting more practice and be in control.  I was feeling good and then I had trouble cutting out the first cow.  But I got her and worked her good, picked up my hand a couple times like planned and then as I was standing almost neck to neck to the turnback horse the cow squished between us!  Grr, but not much I coulda done about it so went back and got a second cow.  This cow was a bit easier to cut out but still not as easy as it was in practice.  Had a good few turns on her and picked up when she didn't stop, and even went all the way to the sides a few times.  Was a good cow, only a few seconds left and got the third cow cut just as the buzzer rang so did one good stop on her and quit there.  I was so much happier with that run.  Really makes me think that these lessons are paying off.  I got a 61 which makes me happy (even though its almost as low as I can get, lol)  But lost 5 points for losing the cow and lost a point every time I picked up my hand.  Somehow never looked at the scoresheet, which I always do, so not sure how many times they got me for that but still a decent score and it felt much better (and Doug was happier with it too) so its all worth it.

Temps were fantastic down there for January in Alberta.  +13 and so warm there was mud between the trailer parking and the arena.  There was a show last Saturday but it was sooo cold (-39) so it was cancelled and moved to this Saturday but I am not going till next weekend hopefully.

PS.  If anyone has ideas on how to transfer a video let me know, I asked her to upload to youtube but that's a new thing for her so I dunno and I think might be to big to email but I am still gonna try and get it.