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Its that funny time of year where the ground is frozen hard, ice has formed on the trail, and we don’t have enough snow cover to keep our barefoot partners safe. But I was itching to enjoy the fresh air and took my surefooted Q out on trail albeit tentatively. It was lovely. I was happier walking cautiously for half an hour on the trails than any canter circles I could do in the arena. Sometimes you just need a little sunshine, even if its cold. This week concluded the fall term. I still have to grade final exams, and tie up loose ends with my consulting projects ... but it’s the beginning of the end of the year. As many bloggers do, I will also work on my end-of-year recap as it has been pretty epic. Much travels, first full year running my own business, bareback riding, and lots of solo adventures with my buddy Q. Right now Im looking forward to two weeks in a hammock on the beach in Costa Rica, and hopefully getting lost in a new romance novel every day. Until the...

The beautiful figure eights in the ring were executed a few days ago by a lovely mare who was euthanized this morning. She was 21 years old and seemed to have suffered some stroke in the middle of the night as she was unable to move this morning when feeding time began. As she had been suffering from some unusual and chronic conditions for some time, the vet recommended she be euthanized. Her owner had only recently started riding her again and we all thought she was on the mend. She is gone and has left us with a beautiful and brief reminder of her talent. These days are signalling much in-betweens. As I entered the trails the ground was peaking through the snow. What kind of footing will we have today? Is it autumn or winter? Which trail shall we take, and does it matter? This is the last week of the fall semester and my holiday break will soon begin. It will be a few weeks of riding and then its off to sunny Costa Rica for some light reading and hammock napping. Hopefu...

Yesterday was spent at the dentist, getting stitches pulled out. Finally. It has been a long two weeks of apple sauce, yogourt and pureed soups. The dentist appointment did not go great. They tried to clean around the surgical site and it sent my nerves on high alert, with searing pain. I left sore and frustrated that I still had more slurping to do. By the time I got home I was hungry and raging, slamming doors and throwing objects into a blender. A very unusual emotional state for me to be in. And I was very thankful at that particular moment that I had NOT gone to the barn afterwards. This is an inappropriate emotion to subject my horse to. Instead I had a nap, a good gin when hubby came home, and a great night sleep. This morning I headed off to the barn to see a frightening site in the parking lot : ICE! With Q barefoot, ice and particularly slick ice like this is our nemesis. I slipped and slid my way to the barn door, and asked fellow boarders for a trail update. They ...

Boy does it make a difference to ride a few days in a row! Q was an absolute delight today, trotting and cantering on the buckle until ... until I would ask for a walk. He gave me a forward rocking canter and was hoof perfect in some of the less-than-perfect footing. I continue to be amazed at how steady he is with uneven footing. If I were ready to devote more hours I would consider doing some short distance competitive trail rides because his endurance is outstanding. Instead I will just enjoy him for myself. Today was the day before the Noreaster blows in with a “wintery mix” which means we might lose our powdery fluff to treacherous ice. As I have no plans of putting winter shoes, that means we will likely be condemned to the indoor arena for ... maybe a week or two? Fingers crossed that the weather pattern skips right over us. So we had to make the most of today, and that we did. Two hours of mostly trotting and cantering with our buddy B and his awesome TB gelding. The patt...

The snow is still here but freezing rain is on its way. I took the liberty of some bad cell phone pics to record Qs dapples which seem to really shine this winter. And the bottom of his tail is getting whiter. It was a good trail today with some nice trotting and cantering. Good thing, because this nice footing will not be with us for long. Maybe Ill get one more try tomorrow. Until then, I will enjoy the dappled view.

-12 degrees celsius. Mid November. Crazy. But the trails were beautiful with fresh powder and blue skies. I made the grave mistake of NOT inserting pocket warmers in my boots and came back after an hour with blocks of ice where my feet used to be. It makes for quite the concussion when you jump out of the saddle. I also made the grave mistake of thinking Q was chill today. Sure at a walk he was fine. But as soon as we started trotting or cantering he was full speed ahead. It didn’t help that our trail buddy was also on fire. Usually the horses settle in the winter and are not quite so antsy. But this storm hit us for a loop and we haven’t yet hit the deep freeze slump that tends to quiet even the most fractious ones. So it was amped to 11. Given my fragile physical state and energy these days, I chose to take it down a notch and just walk most of the way. Q is very fit these days and it would have required a good 20-30 minutes of hard cardio or strenuous gy...

Yesterday, I was listening to famous podcaster Ira Glass of This American Life justify his obsessive, micro-management behaviour in his quest for perfection. He spoke of the need to do something great. That good enough was not enough. That if it couldn’t be great, then why bother? Wow.  I haven’t achieved greatness or world acclaim in anything. My need for new conquests and adventures always trumps my need for excellence. I’ve never stuck with a single discipline (riding, professional, or educational) for very long, and I often tout the benefits of lateral and agnostic thinking. The need for greatness is sometime rooted in a competitive desire to be loved, admired or appreciated. Greatness can become a symbol or achievement that confirms our value and worth. It sometimes has an external validation (award, prize, achievement) or can be the personal satisfaction of a job well done. And yet the path for greatness is also about never being satisfied. Continuously striv...

I popped some pills, made an extra large batch of Apple Pie Smoothie and headed west to spend some quality time with Q. I was feeling pretty good and thought a little walk in the woods would do me some good, as long as I didn’t fall. I forgot how social my barn is, so it was real hard not to answer everyone’s questions. I would end up squeaking “jaw surgery” and break out a lop-sided chipmunk smile, and I would get a hug in return. I doused my saddle with some baby powder and tacked up pretty fast thanks to my Tiger Tongue grooming tool. This thing is a marvel and cuts down grooming time by 75%, even in these muddy conditions. Packed some peppermints and away we went. Ten minutes in the woods and I realized we had a problem. Soft snow and mild temperatures makes for snowbombs falling from tree crests 50 feet high. Whenever the wind picked up, I cringed. The bombs fell in front of me, beside me, and behind me. But somehow they managed to avoid Q’s big bum. Go Team Unicorn! 🦄 I ...

These last few days have been quite the blender adventure. After my success with “Apple Pie Smoothie”, I became quite adventurous. Being strapped to the house also made me restless, so I hit the kitchen at the crack of dawn to battle the stove. Roasting grass-fed beef bones and vegetables for some pressure-cooker broth, roasting acorn and butternut squash for soups and purees, and blending more smoothies. Fail: “ Squash Smoothie”, with roasted acorn squash, almond milk, ice cubes, maple syrup, cinnamon. It tasted like drinking pumpkin pie. Not a keeper. Success: “Leek and Acorn Squash Soup”, with homemade beef broth, acorn squash, leeks, and aleppo pepper. Yummy! Had two big bowls until my belly was full. And because it was in a purée form, it was super easy to slurp. Fail: “Pulled Pork Paprikash”, with pork shoulder, onions, Hungarian spicy paprika. I threw this in the blender to avoid chewing and it just made me think of dog food. I threw it out and ate ice crea...

Necessity is the mother of invention. After a rough dental surgery today, I am now on a liquid diet and tied to my sofa to binge netflix for at least 2 days. Last night I had nightmares of my teeth being ripped out (usually sounds like strong velcro). Before the appointment I took a wonderful sedative prescribed by the dentist, and despite my anxieties and worries, it all went well. And no velcro sounds. More like a ratchet. The short story is that the bone around two molar dental implants had been breeding a serious infection and the bone loss was severe, threatening the nearby real teeth. They popped the crowns on Monday, extracted the implants and set in the bone graft this morning. I have dozens of stitches on my left side, and am on a steady cocktail of antibiotics, antiimflammatories, steroids along with hourly ice packs and two page list of instructions. Since I never have smoothies (too much sugar), I was looking forward to this part of the diet. Drinkable ice cream here ...

Cold winter days are often bright and sunny. When I woke up to bright sunshine, it was an omen. I finished grading my mid-term papers early to hurry to the barn and finally get in a good ride. “Be careful, your horse is going to be fresh in this cold weather” says my wise husband as I leave for the long commute (2 hour round trip). Sure enough, when I got to the paddock my Q was literally bouncing in place like a ball. As all the horses in the other paddocks. An omen. The barn was quiet and the arena empty. So I pulled out the lungeline and some poles and got to work. Popped over a few jumps, trotted over some cavaletti, practiced trot-canter transitions until Q was happy to drop down to a trot. 20 minutes later he was soft and compliant. Bouncing ball no more. I brushed him and put him away for his lunch, while I had my own during the daily chitchat with the crew. Then I tacked up and got on the trail. It was fabulous. The cold weather had no impact once we got trott...

It is yucky outside. One of those days where you are grateful to have an empty indoor arena to play. I was planning on practicing our long reining but Q was just not having it. BO was cleaning out her pond and it made funny squishy noises that would just disrupt Q every time we would pass the arena door. Turns out that control with long reins can be dubious when the horse is spooking and bolting. Anyways, he is usually so good that I let it slide, and tried to practice something else instead. I started with a long whip and practiced his haunches in while walking backwards at his head. Yep, both sides were so good and he gave them quickly. After a few strides on each side, repeated 2-3 times, I needed to find something new. So I figured I would tap his feet and see if he could lift them on command. The first tapping went on forever. He was like "what do you want?'" And of course it wasn't painful, just slightly annoying. So he figured he would just ignore me. So...

I feel like I am in good company when I say that life and work has taken me away from riding these last few weeks. I finally made it back to the barn during an epic windstorm with over 1,000,000 homes without power. No surprise that I didnt ride that day. I did make it out to the woods yesterday for my first time in two weeks and boy has the scenery changed. From golden colors to barren trees, from sandy trails to muddy bogs, from blue skies to hail storms. It’s time to be well dressed, with jackets, gloves, and good socks. I have been dutifully practicing the long reins every day for 15 minutes, and Q is a quick study. We now do nice transitions between collected walk to collected trot, and during one of our teardrop turns Q offered me a leg yield to my squeal and delight. He stopped and raised his head to me, saying that if I was going to squeal that much he deserved a mint. I obliged. He also taught me a lesson today. Yesterday, I was doing our standard trick at the fri...