Sunday Spa Day

Saturday evening

I got to the yard some time between 6 and 7 on Saturday evening, with no plans bar ponies for the night so I was able to take my time fawning over them.
Yay for the pedicures the day before & guilt-free saddle time!

If I don't plait N's mane she sweats like a mofo & my hands get tangled
Note to self - carry hands away from neck

Kika started off in the walker, as she is wont to do of late as they are just the two of them on the field. Rather than leave one out on her own i bring them both in and let Kika spin on the walker as let's be honest she seriously needs to shed some of her padding!

Sunday bath time Nancy's "Am i bovvered" face

I had a lovely spin on Nancy in the main arena, despite the heat!
Gosh it was like a furnace in there despite my having waited till the evening to ride. We had some trouble with our initial right lead canter (back to my old issues - they weren't long in resurfacing!) - here's hoping starting lessons will help me gain more perspective and control as to what i am doing wrong here. However one improvement we have made is that such a niggly issue didn't derail the spin thereafter - we even got some quiet decent right (bad) side circles in trot. Trust me, this is a major positive for me as previously when things unraveled at the canter it would spillover and have a negative knock-on affect on later work.
Nancy-belle was well sweaty by the time we finished - not overworked by any means, but the heat was suffocatingly humid. I really thought we'd have thunderstorms for the evening. So she got a shower and got to hang out in an empty stable (well there was straw on the ground and i gave her some hay) while i worked Kika.
I don't like putting Nancy in the walker as it worries her needlessly, she doesn't like it and as she doesn't need it (per se) i don't see the point in stressing her without reason when she is so angelic towards me.

Lucky girl got to sunbathe while i readied Kika

Kika and i had a blast as I put on my girl pants & hopped straight on without hand-walking around the arena with her. Would you believe me if i said i was warm enough :p
Eurgh!
She was a super star, we covered the basics, walk/trot and some canter - with lots of walk breaks due to the heat and her lack of fitness. I don't want to break her. We only cantered one circle and length of the arena on each rein - really concentrating on returning to softer less choppy trot as quickly as possible. This was better Sunday than Saturday - but K is always better for more practice and bless her we have been woefully out of practice since April!
She was white on her neck & under the saddle pad when we were done, she may have been stressing a little and we did do a bit more trot work than earlier in the week - but really it was the humidity! So she too got a nice shower after our spin and for the first time in the 7 years i have owned her she sought out a facial hosing! She was priceless - if i hadn't been wielding the jet spray I'd have tried to nab some video footage or photographic evidence - instead you just get to see the drowned rat-like photo i shared of her on instagram.

Bath time #2

Sunday I decided to try & change things up a bit and put down three poles, spaced about two strides apart on the diagonal. I had hoped to be able to tackle them off both reins, but as usually my eye from the ground coordination was well off and i could only access them from one rein but both top and bottom, sorry that probably doesn't make sense - but hopefully when (if) i read back on this post I can have a flashback to what i did!

Not sure is harshness of rain captured in snapshot

Kika got to spin in the walker again while i prepped & rode Nancy. To change things up further I hosed her off prior to popping her on the walker hoping that it might help her feel better if she started out cooler it was almost unbearably hot this weekend.
Nancy & I had considerably more trouble getting our right lead strike off in canter on Sunday, I am sure this is my fault as I have been told before I am crooked as heck on that side, so my weight distribution must be all off. As we were working in the smaller arena we have less maneuverability to get things right for the strike off. I will work on this and try to sort myself out - in the mean time, a smaller circle to get her bending correctly helps immeasurably. My crookedness is probably also making it difficult for her to bend properly to the inside when we are on the right rein - I shall pay closer attention to what my body is doing & we will work through this - perhaps I will finally organise myself to see a chiro/osteo etc and get myself straightened out...

The girls' reaction to the torrential downpour - Once N settled

In saying all that we had lovely trot work through the poles & circling, serpenting, figure of eight'ing & changing reins holding our frame & tempo - baby steps! :)
She got a well deserved bath with shampoo! I was racking my brain (poor memory alert) and i think this is the first time i have properly bathed her since she arrived. Last summer they spent the majority of the summer months on a field off-site where we went hacking in the woods, no hose out there for washing! She handled it like the pro she is and the shine off her after - it is truly amazing to me to see the differences between her coat & Kika's especially as they get the same work, diet & turnout etc!

Continuing the Derp+theme

I finally rescued poor Kika from the walker, threw the tack on her and popped Nancy in the small lunging arena to wait the 20-25minutes I'd be riding Kika as the stable I had stored her in the previous evening had been freshly cleaned and hay'd so I didn't want her scoffing something meant for someone else. Plus as Kika is very much behind Nancy in the re-fittening stakes, I am not working her for a full 30minutes yet. She was very good for the work we did do, attentive and listening - might have had something to do with the fact I started the ride in spurs, but took them off as i felt I wasn't using my aids properly for fear of dawking her - plus they had the desired effect to that point which was to remind her to listen to my leg aid the first time i asked. There was no point in my keeping them on put not applying my aids correctly - she's too sensitive for me to mess with her mindset in that way.
Her trot was better than the previous day, she settled into it smoother than the Saturday. Our first canter was a bit hot and choppy, with some front leg flailing - but I remembered to apply leg and to support her which helped immeasurably.

Kika's dapples only appear when she is wet. She is looking very yellow again :(
Is it wrong for me to hope it's sun-bleaching & not liver problems back to haunt us...
I shall get the vet out for bloods just to be sure!

The first time we went through the line of poles, I lost impulsion coming off the corner and let her fall in so we lost the run of ourselves a bit through the poles and pettered out to a walk by the time we hit the third one as i had the tempo & timing all off through the first two. She is so much more squirrely & rubber-bally than Nancy despite having more training than N - I can better guide Nancy through turns than Kika who is very sharp through the turns whereas Nancy waits for me to show her the way. The rest of the time through the poles I made sure to have her just how i wanted and we glided through them - our last time she literally floated down through them actually using her backside - mission accomplished for the day! We cooled out and she too got her shampoo shower after i rescued Nancy from the mini-arena.

In the words of MBC from insta OOSHINEY

The heavens opened for a mother & father of a storm as the girls were tied in the cross ties, Kika was a saint considering the sound but N got a bit worried - long time followers of the blog...how is that for a turn up for the books?
I did have an internal giggle and figured i should've just turned them out and the natural power hose would've cleaned them for me - but the rain was really pelting it down, wouldn't have been remotely comfortable for them out there - so i was secretly "pampering-mama" style glad I had them out of harms way...

The two girls keeping an eye on me as i cleared a few wheelbarrows of poop from their turnout.
There is deff something funky going on with K's coat again - boo!

And last but not least - i may have taken advantage of my favourite tack site's 20% promotion for Helmet Awareness week & splurged on this new protection for my noggin. I got it a size smaller than my current helmet as (a) they didn't have my size and (b) mine has always been a smidge loose - fingers crossed i haven't gotten it too small and don't give myself headaches. Although if it is really too tight i will exchange it, but i still got it on sale. Smart shopping or not...we'll have to wait and see. I had hoped to try it on for fit on the shape of my head, but the nearest CO stockist to me is almost 2 hours away in Germany - so i bit the bullet...hopefully it doesn't now bite me in the ass!

Link to website

Farrier Friday

The pair of them getting thoroughly pampered
Living up to the blogname

The girls finally got their pedicures today, despite  the flies doing their best to disrupt and the sun scorching for the day - I even had to call the yard owners to come put out a fire that started on the edge of a (thankfully cut) straw field.

Drama drama drama for my day off -
not news worthy terrifying but scary in the moment

We are not prone to randomly starting fires here - although talking to the farmer later in the evening. He thinks some muppet tossed a cigarette butt...scary!!! Some people are just so stupid! I cannot understand people still smoking with all the cancer research - but to toss cigarette butts when driving near stubble fields on the edge of a forest in the heat we had today = LUNACY!

Their feet were in a bad way - i be a bad mama
*blush*

With their new kicks, the girls are going to get a rude awakening as saddle time gets stepped up a gear. The only problem with increasing their workload is that mine is doubled - the girls aren't the only ones who'll be getting a butt whooping in the fitness stakes. Their not being ridden means I haven't been riding so we're all pretty unfit!

More Derpy Kika-snaps

To help in that quest, I made contact with the new trainer on the yard today and arranged to have my first lesson next Friday. I can't wait - hopefully I don't completely mortify myself with my abysmal riding.

Already shared on insta, but had to share here too.
N would be less bothered by flies if she'd keep her mask on!

New Phone - New Photo

Went to phone shop on my lunch break yesterday, hoping they could help revive my trusty Samsung SIII, which had taken to being rather inconsiderate in its attempts to continually try to turn itself on - yet never fully managing. #sadtimes
Sadly due to water damage, which was in no way related to the soaking, it & I got at a fantastically fun music festival last month; phone revival was not meant to be.

Nancy's too cool for school & Kika is Queen Derp

With my contract up for renewal in November, the shop suggested I buy out of my current contract for €60odd and sign a new one to nab the shiny new Samsung S5 for a sweet €9 (+subscription for 2 years...but that totally doesn't count as its not an upfront payment! See how my logic works? ;-) )

Derp-face

Thankfully I had managed to backup all my old phone photos on the last good moment which included all my Canada trip photos - so no major collateral damage -phew.

Showing they can look normal - sometimes

Anyways all of this to provide an excuse for more fat-horsey-photos snapped post-pampering the girls yesterday evening. Hope you don't mind my over share...

Her Royal Kika-ness

I did also ride Nancy attempting to focus on transitions while working on halt, walk and trot as it has been super warm here. Still 28°C @ 7.30pm last night. As we are both still far from fit & we need to work on her listening to me when I ask for something. Upward transitions are all pretty good, compared to the reverse - that is not to say they would be winning any dressage prizes any time soon. Our walk/halt transitions are woeful, my fault completely as I don't think I have her active enough in the walk which makes our halt stuttered. We do not practice these transitions anywhere near enough - I hope to remedy this as we start getting back into shape. Building up to square halts where her head doesn't pop up to give my nostrils some horse ears - nor allow her lean on my hands. I am so need to better sink my weight into the saddle so that she knows what I am asking for rather than relying on my hands - Terrible Habit!

Walk/trot transitions upwards & downwards are better than our w/h transitions as we have rehearsed them better having done the majority of our under saddle work in trot.
Time for me to change things up!

I love N in this photo be she totally hogged
 the spotlight by stepping forward just as I snapped

I also need to improve the walk, so that she is striding forward and carrying herself from back to front rather than heffalumping along without aim/connection from back to front - this among many other areas is where I hope lessons can help us.

Kika showing her mahoosive fatness

We did lots of changes of rein, serpentines, circles and diagonals - anything to keep changing stuff up and not get repetitive.

More derptasticness

It was by no means our best spin, but it was also not our worst - highlighted plenty of things to work on & we haven't even touched upon my dump-truck of bad habits, which is an ongoing battle in itself & well documented on this blog.

Fingers crossed for lessons being a possibility in our very near future.

Farrier tomorrow so both girls feet can get tidied up & so I can camber back aboard the ginormousness that is currently Kika! I haven't felt right about riding her with her feet in their current state - she needs front shoes to stop her feet disappearing in their tiniest - it has been super unfortunate that my need & the farrier's busy show shoeing days have overlapped.

Think i annoyed N with photo-snapping?

Yikes, as always this has gotten so much longer than I had intended to write! Hopefully the photos help counter balance the word-vomit *blush*

Wordless Wednesday - Outtakes

I loved this idea from a fellow blogger - sadly my memory needs an upgrade/reboot & i cannot remember whose idea this type of post was - please comment & i will edit to give credit where credit is due!

No more words now as I share some blooper shots from yesterday...

I hope these help someone get over the #midweekhump, they do me - but then again i am completely biased :)

Horses or Hippos?

You guys be the judges...

The poor starving creatures come when they see may on the off chance i might feed them
- Sorry Zephyrs...no such luck!

I finally got out of work at a reasonable hour today, so i zipped home, changed and legged it up to the yard, to play with the tanks - yep, you'll see from the unedited photos accompanying this post that the pair of my girls are the sizes of houses.

The flies & their sticking to the gate made body shots to show the full horror of the FAT difficult

I have managed to put three rides on Nancy since getting back to the, excluding the spin through the woods to get both girls back - yep life has been just that crazy busy - sad times!
She has been a sweetheart for all three of those spins, the first one we worked for a grand total of 20minutes I'd say & I didn't push the boat out further than walk-trot.
Second spin, we had one small canter on each rein for a circle and down the long side of the large indoor arena.

Cray-cray eye - spooky N ;)

Today i pushed the boat out a little further, we did a bit more work in walk, lots of diagonal changes of rein, figures of 8 & serpentines before doing some very nice trot work again fleshing out the same movements as we'd done in the walk before getting some very nice bursts of canter work on each rein. She got tired pretty quickly bless her as it was hot, so we kept it simple.

Post ride & flash - hence shiney shiney

Kika who is by far the heavier of the two, or at least Nancy is bigger boned so potentially carries the extra pounds better than Kika who is doing a wonderful imitation of a blimp ready to sprout triplets!
K has had three spins in the walker while I rode & looked after N (K spun for a good hour each time), I lunged her for 30 minutes on Saturday, 10 minutes of which was in the pessoa - other 20 were warming up and cooling down...bear in mind she had spent an hour in the walker beforehand also. I finally sat on her this evening and we covered the basics in walk and trot to re-engage the brain while not over-taxing the limbs which are carrier a hella weight! (as you can see from the photos).

Shiney McBright-Penney

Not only has work been keeping me uber-busy and out of the saddle, although thankfully not away from the girls now that they are closer to home - poo-picking & fencing counts as pony-bonding time right?!
But both girls badly need pedicures - K pulled her shoes while i was in Canada and as she wasn't doing much (I think she's been ridden a grand total of 10 times since May) I wasn't in a particular rush to call out the farrier to put shoes on when she was just trudging around a field and taking the odd spin into the woods. However since i moved them both back closer to the yard at the start of July - i have been trying to coordinate with the blacksmith to come sort them out as the are now way overdue & i am mortified by how bad i have let their feet get.
*shame-faced*

Fatty McHugerson

Appointment has been finally secured for friday evening, when both girls & I are hopefully going to be going into serious boot-camp/re-fitness mode.

I am actually going to set myself a goal for the rest of the month of July ... to RIDE MY HORSES & hopefully get us all back into shape! Yep - groundbreaking stuff here guys...here's hoping saying it "out-loud" by posting it on my blog accounts to some sort of accountability right?

If i can coordinate with the "new" trainer at my yard, I am hoping to start taking lessons with her. Hopefully one a week - alternating the girls if i can...The Guru has been the most wonderful help to me for the last 3-4years, but sadly our timetables no longer mesh like they used to and i am worried that if i spend too much time working on my own unsupervised i am going to end up boring myself and the horses while simultaneously ingraining all my even bad habits further!
Fingers crossed for things working out with this new trainer!!!!

RtR-BH: Support Group

Jodi over @RacingToRide has come up with what i think is a fab blog hop, a commemoration of those who support us in our unending quest for all things equine!

I'm on the left on my mother's old horse & my sister is on the right

I have shown in previous Friday Flashback posts [#1, #2, #3  & #4 - i really do mean to revive this feature!] that my mother was probably the chief instigator and her family were the happy enablers as they welcomed, with open arms, myself and my two sisters annually for the summer - to the family farm and let us play with the ponies.

My mother really only has herself to blame

My parents have been super supportive of my dream to own horses by helping me to purchase Kika as my 21st birthday present and later allowing me to move back in with them in 2010 when I got offered work in Luxembourg & brought Kika over from Ireland with me (and later Nancy). 

Nancy minding my Mama

My mam has even made a return to the saddle since Nancy arrived in Lux and has joined me to hack in the woods a couple of times. She is also a great help to me in keeping an eye on the girls when I am away traveling and/or caught in work. 

Family holiday in the South of France early '90s (I'm on the far right)

 My dad takes more of a passive interest in my passion, he allows me watch equine events on the TV and even calls me to tell me they are on if i haven't noticed and asks after the girls, visits sometimes with my mother but can't really distinguish them from other horses. He knows which is their field and which are their stables, but if other horses happen to be in those places I don't think he would realise they are not mine...if that makes sense ;-)

Baby Sister

My sisters are also super supportive, they listen to me prattle on about whatever adventures we have been up to and even hopping up for spins when they are around. They have both ridden both girls, but after Kika's less-than-stellar-behaviour phase, they both prefer to ride Nancy & I rather they do too. Although Baby Sister is brave and likes to ride Kika in the arenas, whereas I am more strict with who rides K out hacking on the trails - namely me or the Guru.

Sister closest to me in age is on Nancy -
taken summer 2013 before she moved to Canada

As I mentioned my mother's family have been longstanding supporters of my obsession, my aunt/ godmother bred my lovely Nancy and helped me buy and train Kika before we left Ireland. Her daughters also ride and in fact her oldest girl is now working with a show jumper in Ireland who buys and sells horses internationally. She spent a few months in Antwerp (Belgium) this spring with him & I got to see her when I went to the opening leg of the Global Champions Tour there.

Another gratuitous baby Nancy pic

My dad's side of the family are also supportive and inquisitive when it comes to the horses, but like him they are "townies" and none of them have actually met either girl as they do not live in the same place in Ireland as my mother's family so they didn't cross paths before I moved the horses' over here.
I talk to my grandmother one a week on the phone and she always asks after "Hamburger" & "Spain" - when Kika first moved here my dad told my gran that Hamburger had arrived safely & they don't see me any more - since then my gran calls K "Hamburger" whenever we talk - it's cute!
And well Nancy, is called "Spain" because of a song - i think...Is Nancy Spain part of a song?
Either-way another one of my dad's jokes to his poor mother that has stuck as the pair of them try to wind me up - joke is on them though; as it's a sure fire way to allow me talk freely about the ponios as they bring up the subject...not me! :p

The daughter of one of my colleagues riding Nancy for a hack last summer

 My friends and colleagues are all supportive in their own ways, some ask to come see the girls, others have had spins.
One of my good uni friends, who has also moved to work in Luxembourg (despite not having grown up here...guess what connection introduced her to Lux - sorry OTT) used to ride and owned a pony as a youngster - so she takes a pretty big interest & listens to me moan all the time.
My "city" school friends take an interest much like my dad's family and ask after the girls, but don't visit very often as we all know barns aren't always the warmest or nicest smelling places to hang out ;-)

My uni friend playing with Kika Summer 2012

Thanks so much to Jodi for this wonderful blog hop idea!
I have two posts in my drafts since last week to share with you all, but sadly I have been unable to wrangle the photos off my "old-school" phone to compliment the posts and now my laptop has also died, so I can really only access t'internet at work which as always is super busy :(
I am trying to keep an eye on your blogs - and really hope to get either the smartphone & laptop 
fixed or i shall be splurging on stuff i hadn't planned to buy this summer - either ay I hope to be back in technology'land real soon!