Surviving

In my last post, I set the goal of surviving the weekend. Done! I'm a rock star. I don't know exactly why but I'm feeling really 'meh' about everything horsey at the moment, so please bear with me while I go through the motions. I know from experience that this will pass, but in the meantime I've scaled back a few goals and planned outings and will likely be even more boring than usual.


Disclaimer aside, I travelled home and had a great time at the Backcountry Horsemen campout this past weekend. I even won a $20 gift certificate to our local tack shop. Yay! I was sad to not be able to ride, but full board on two horses in a pricey area means the budget doesn't currently stretch to non essential ferry rides for Bridget ponies. A little box of ciders and an Adirondack chair borrowed from home were my only accessories, and I was content enough with that. After all, I was surrounded by lots of long term horsey friends, familiar horse faces, and great food. It's not all bad :)

Plus I saw this face. Love her, and I think she's rocking the long mane look rather well :)

Sunday morning, I had a lesson on Ginger. It went about as well as can be expected. She really needs a regular routine to thrive, so spooky pony with way too much energy was the order of the day. I rode a bit, but when S arrived I asked her to hop on. I'm getting a complex again thinking all the wrongs of the pony world are due to my riding, so it was nice to see someone else get on and I was (guiltily) happy to see Ginger was exactly the same for her as me. Oh well, no miracles to be had that day! Ginger is a sweetheart, so obviously it wasn't anything scary or nasty, just a pony who thinks her entire world is her pasture and herdmates and finds it quite exciting to have her busy life interrupted.

Bad screen grabs of her ride, sorry, but at least it's a text break?

S is going to take Ginny home for some boot camp just to get her back on a regular schedule, and in the meantime I'm going to see if I can find a spot with a trainer closer to the city who can market her for me. Now that I've had the time to really think it over, I know it's the only decision. Logistically, I just can't get there often enough to keep her sane, and financially I can't afford to board her long term at Bridget's barn. I'm glad I stuck it out and got back to the point where I am confident riding her, but I just don't find it as fun as I used to and am more easily frustrated. It's not even  her, she's the same as she's ever been, it's more my constant feeling of never having enough time to deal with all the things causing me to feel guilty and frustrated. Bridget is just a better fit for my current life, since I can roll into the barn, and hop on and ride regardless of when or where or how and still fit in a job and other commitments. I'm trying quite hard not to feel like it's failure to admit that, particularly as I always said Ginny was here for life and would retire on our property. Serves me right for having a 25+ year plan, particularly with horses involved lol.

text break

In other news, Bridget and I have an invitation to go barrel racing in a couple of weeks. Since I'm pretty sure that's not her thing I'm on the fence about taking her. It's just a fun charity thing, but again, the whole spending non essential $ thing comes into play (cross country schooling is ON though!). I may have to go though, because the trails stink and I've officially decided we can't do drill team and we have to do SOMETHING fun for Ms Bridget. Drill team? It looks fun, but then I saw the outfits. Just no. I can't. You laugh, but seriously that's my reason. I don't do spandex, and I don't do sequins :) So I'm at least going to go volunteer at the barrel racing, and check out the outfits. Fingers crossed the incidence of sparkles is slightly less.