Day Off

 It's been a bit of a hectic few weeks. Along with volunteering for the WE show and all the work that followed that, it's hay season and of course the yard and property maintenance is also in full swing. Plus I have an office job as well. G had a surgery that means no lifting for a while yet, so the stacking and moving of hay and a lot of the more labour intensive jobs around the place are on me this year. I've been having fun with those gym apps that tell you how many steps you took and how much you lifted in units of animals - a day last weekend was a black rhino, the weekend before one day was a hippo. G's favorite was the time I moved the equivalent of 3 manatees in an hour. I should hire a strong kid, and the temptation to hire a landscaping service was strong for a few days there, but that feels like losing :D One more hay load is incoming in 2 weeks and the vegetation is slowing down so soon I can feel like I won (and be set up until 2026.)

Sophie on mowing duty

I caved to exhaustion and pushed out my work travel day to this week, then took Thursday/Friday off to make a super long weekend.

I had a lot of things to do, but I bookmarked Saturday as MY day, and made sure to avoid any outside plans. I basically hung out with the horses in the morning, then I ended up auditing a clinic in the afternoon centered around how to ride the WE obstacles correctly and a recap of all the rules. If I was better prepared and more motivated I could have participated properly, but I really needed a day off. Walking through the course on foot with an obstacle by obstacle recap of how to ride them and the rules around them was surprisingly useful. An entire new discipline as a whole seems a bit daunting, particularly one that seems like it has a million ways to be DQ'd in competition, but if you break it into little pieces it starts to feel like something that could be doable.

Can see this guy maybe wanting to be a WE horse. He's deceptively quick and maneuverable and really able to sit back and use his hind end.

After a quick social hour with horsey friends camping there, I did a walk/run home through the trails and that in itself made my day...it's been literal years since that was a pain free possibility. While I look forward to being able to jog/run the whole thing again one day, it just felt so nice to be out there and not feel like I needed G on speed dial 'just in case'.

Reggie showing off his pre grooming self. The cob genes are slightly unfair, that shine and dapples make it look like I'm out grooming him daily and that's completely not the case. At least the mane and tail tell the true story ;)

In the evening I again just spent my time outdoors with the horses, doing a minimal amount of things. Everyone got a tidy up at some point last weekend which felt nice. It's been a shamefully long time since anyone got more than a quick dust off and some fly spray.

They care not for my attempts at cleanliness though

All in all, a perfect day. I'm still me and have far too much on the go and way too many projects pending, but all of those things aren't worth doing if I can't have a day to just enjoy life :)

Never fear, consistency not required. These two obviously remember our mounting block practices a few months ago. I'm piecing together the 'over' and 'step up' part to get them to line up properly, but coming up to me/the block is a great first step! Over time with these two I've learned it benefits me greatly to let whichever one I'm not planning on doing anything with tag along and be curious if they want to be - they learn almost perfectly from copying their friend and retain everything even without their buddy there.