Week 5

I don't even know where this week went. If I break it down, I got a ton of things accomplished, just not too many of the riding and horse training variety. It was one of those weeks where it kind of felt like a struggle to do all the things, and I ended up giving up a couple of mornings to just enjoying my garden and reading - for some reason my entire body was/is sore and  I needed a rest!

I did attempt to train a mane

I was feeling a bit discouraged since I had a solid plan for putting in the hours with Sophie. It's tempting to just chalk my plan up as a fail and throw it away. Strange how knowing that's a stupid and self defeating thing to do doesn't at all stop me from hitting one tough week and still being tempted to give up (or at least scale back) :)

Never fear though, inner Mean Girl isn't calling the shots around here and I will get back on track this coming week.

In the spirit of celebrating the effort and small wins (and keeping it honest), here's what I got up to this week:

Monday/Tuesday: Away working.

Wednesday: Travel home in the afternoon, arriving in time for dinner with my husband, feed horses and muck out. Sophie was a bit of a pain while I was gone and was moved back to "jail".

That time I thought I bought a cute pony but actually spent a lot of money on a drama llama

Not sure why she's so good at knocking down fence rails right now...Its not the world's best constructed fence, but she has to be either deliberately kicking the rails or leaning on them despite the fact there is electric wire too. Suspicious that the only fence line she wrecks is the one she shares with Bridget - I think she's kicking at her :(

Thursday: Work from home. Got a last minute call about some local hay, so went and got 50 bales off the field after work. It's beautiful hay, but that was a lot of work in the heat and I wasn't up for much riding or baby horse training after stacking it in the barn.

Friday: Took Sophie to the arena to do some groundwork and longe. She was a bit of a pushy and distracted monster. That's partly on me though, I don't think she's the kind of horse who is going to do well with more than a couple of days off. Took Bridget out after for a nice ride on the trail with friends, but apparently S was in a bit of a state and screaming the whole 2 hours we were gone. No idea why, because it's not like she's friends with any of the horses we took (Bridget and her are most definitely on the outs). I'm not sure, but I might put them together for a little bit...S has been very rude and sassy to B, thinking she's a grown up mare now and " all that" .B can humble her and sort out whatever's going on pretty quick.

Saturday: Our weather has been insanely hot and dry, and so the well at the barn ran dry. Spent a good part of the afternoon filling buckets at home and taking it to my horses. We are on city water at home, but the pressure is not the best and it took about 45 min to fill four muck buckets with our garden hose. Kind of crazy. We're brainstorming ideas, because this is the second summer in a row it's been an issue and it would seem climate change is a thing -the news the other night said the top 15 of the hottest summers on record here  have happened since 2001.
 Maybe a storage container at the barn? Maybe a better system to transport it from our house? Not sure.

S doing her best to stand still and look normal :)

Sunday: I've never owned a truly mare-ish mare. My luck has come to an end, because although Sophie is sweet, she is very hormonal and dramatic if not given something else to think about. Honestly, there are days where if she wasn't already mine, I wouldn't want her, lol. The saving grace for me is that I do think she's going to be pretty special and well worth the extra work. Sunday, I  kept it simple and trimmed her feet, worked at tidying up her mane a bit more, then tacked her up and just took her for a hand graze. For S, all that is challenge enough when she's feeling antsy and impatient.

Some weeks, I am especially grateful for Bridget's low maintenance self