dressage anywhere??

I just read about THIS and think it's a wonderful idea.

You sign up online for a dressage test, video yourself riding that test in the comfort of your own arena, and submit the video for judging! There is a fee, but you also get an actual ribbon if you win.

This particular program is in the UK. I wish someone in the US would put something like this together, using the existing FEI standards, of course...!

trim notes for march 2010

B. wrote in great big letters across our trim note page this afternoon:

GREAT FROGS ON EVERYBODY!

Entirely due to Eleanor Kellon's equine nutrition classes and my daughter's hoof care. I am so happy to see hoof health improve to this point.

B. also noted that everyone's hooves were in good balance today, which means daughter's bareback riding is (we already knew this!) balanced and correct, and that the horses are moving well and soundly.

I'd been looking at Salina's topline for the past week or so, thinking to myself that she actually HAS one again, which is a great thing for a 27-year old mare with arthritic knees who isn't being ridden. But I thought maybe I was seeing it because I want to see her doing well. However, B. saw her and said "she's getting her topline back!"

She's turning out with the entire herd again and moving a lot every day. Today for her trim she was quite spirited and although well-behaved, I could feel her energy circling.

All the horses and the donkeys were in the back field when B. arrived. My daughter went out to get the pony, and I got Keil Bay, but Cody galloped in, and Salina and the donkeys came in too. Rafer let himself through the fence and came into the barn aisle where he attached himself to B., laying his head softly on B's shoulder, standing as closely as he could without getting in the way, and when it was his turn for a trim, he stood with a lead rope laying over his neck and lifted each hoof w/o being asked.

It's always a pleasure having B. here to do trimming, but today was especially nice: sunshine, a breeze, spring evident all around us, and a wonderful "report card" at the end. 

this is what writing group weekends do for me

I woke up this morning from a detailed and wonderful dream in which I was in the barn, preparing for a huge thunderstorm that was on the horizon. The horses were refusing to come in, and I decided to take the opportunity to get stalls set up for their sojourn from the coming storm.

In the process, I stumbled onto the door of a storage room that we had (in the dream) never really gone into or attempted to clean out. It was filled with junk left behind by the previous owners. For some reason, even though a storm was coming, I was drawn to open the door and step inside. A sheet of tin fell forward as I walked through the doorway, and after heaving it out of my way, decided I may as well explore for a few minutes.

There was a lot of junk and not much room to walk. I spied at least three ironing boards with irons resting on top, mop buckets, and various tools and bins. I thought to myself that there could be treasure there, and the only way to find it would be to do a thorough clearing. Which I knew would have to wait, since I had to get back to the horses.

But before turning to leave the room, I realized there was an opening at the back that looked unusual. I struggled through the junk to get to it. It was an open doorway, which led to a huge barn kitchen. There was a beautiful sink, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer and dryer, and plenty of counter space, and I was in shock - the very idea that for five years I had wished for a barn kitchen and it had been right there all along!

Then I saw that the kitchen area led to yet more space: a large den/tack room which had sofas and a big TV for viewing video, and a smaller den which had a smaller TV which was actually turned on. I marveled as I discovered the TV was on a timer, and must have come on regularly for the past five years, set by the previous owner and left behind, and somehow we had never heard it.

There were windows in the smaller den, which overlooked the back field. The storm had moved by us, and the sun was shining, which meant I didn't need to get back to the stalls.

I turned back toward the kitchen and discovered a long hallway that stretched in the other direction, back toward our house. I followed the hall to find several beautiful bedrooms, nicely appointed, and I thought how wonderful it would be to tell my writing friend D. that she could have one of them, and that if I wanted, I could actually live in the barn!

Further along the hallway there was a small set of stairs that led to our house. A secret passageway from house to barn! I was elated and still stunned that all this had been right under our noses and we had never known it.

The next door down the hallway opened into a huge sunlit room with an indoor pool. The pool was full and clean and begging for swimmers. No wonder my husband had been complaining about high electricity bills! It wasn't the barn fans, or the lights we were leaving on. It was this entire wing of the house and barn, and the swimming pool pump!

At the end of the hallway was a big wooden door with a tremendous bolt. I wondered what might lie behind it, and why it would need such reinforcement. Curious, but not afraid, I opened it. It was a doorway to what was a combination of Weymouth (the place I go to for writing retreats) and the Biltmore Estate. I had my own private entrance to the best writing retreat in the world! And it was only a few strides down the hallway from my horses and donkeys and family - so easy to slip away and come back. I took a walk through the mansion to assure myself it was real, and then headed back to tell my entire family, as well as D., that I had found an absolute treasure - via the ignored and previously avoided junk room in our barn.

I doubt anyone needs me to interpret this dream. Give me a writing weekend, my creative family, good company, magical ponies,  the real magical ponies I live with, Corgis and cats, and a slight obsession with not being able to keep my house clean, and this is what happens.

Shove your way past the junk and what do you find: a secret paradise full of dreams come true.

loving and living the questions

I love the Rilke passage below, and have been saving it for a matching photograph that illustrated the idea. This morning I noticed my camera had made its way back into my bedroom, and took a look to see what pictures might be waiting inside. My daughter spent some time yesterday photographing, and this image she captured makes me think of the mysteries we all hold and seek answers to, and like the small opening to the sun in this photograph, we must wait for the clouds to shift to see the answer.

I love the idea of loving the questions themselves, rather than fretting the not knowing. 

 Have patience with everything

 unresolved in your heart and try to

 love the questions themselves, as if they

 were locked rooms, or books

 written in a very foreign language.

 Don't search for the answers,

 which could not be given to you

 now, because you would not be

 able to live them. And the point

 is to live everything. Live the

 questions now. Perhaps then, someday

 far in the future, you will gradually,

 without even noticing it, live

 your way into the answer.
 

 ~Rainer Maria Rilke

watching the grass grow

I think that's what we're all doing on November Hill these days. The horses and donkeys are all still eating their hay, but often enough I find them investigating green stuff coming up in various places. Yesterday I found numerous piles of manure in the paddock by the gate to the front field, which is off limits until June. A clue that I need to reinforce the gate in case certain ponies decide to shove through.

It's amazing how quickly the fields are greening up. The combination of regular rain and sunshine these past weeks is obviously a potent one for pasture.

Yesterday was like a domino run of little episodes that made the day seem like a game.

I was in the barn doing chores when I heard a tapping sound from inside the feed room. I thought it was my daughter, who is fond of sneaking up on me and making little noises. At some point it went on too long to be her, and I went to check it out. A small bird was building a nest inside my riding helmet!

In the afternoon Rafer Johnson joined my daughter in the arena for her second ride of the day, and he found the dressage whip lying on the ground. My daughter called out to me that he was using the whip to draw in the arena footing. Now we have a budding equine artist on our hands!

Overall, a fun day with the animals.

They're all in good spirits, and doing lots of marching about the back field. I've got the arena gates open on both sides so they can have a complete circular route, which gives them a bit more marching room with the front field off the rotation. It also makes riding time more interesting, with lots of possibilities for adding to the arena work.

Tomorrow we're getting a load of screenings so I can resurface Cody's stall. Once I get his finished, we'll open it up and then close down Keil Bay's stall so we can work on it. Stripping the stall, closing it off to the horses, and giving it chance to air out, dry out, and me the chance to get in and do some deeper wall cleaning, is a big chore but very satisfying.

And discovering a very local quarry with amazing prices ensures that I will be working on a number of barn projects I had put off  thinking a big load would be both unwieldy and expensive.