Holy...

What a weekend that was!  

We went to Lawrence, KS Friday-Tuesday to find a place for the horse and a place for us.  We had a really great time exploring the town and really fell in love with Lawrence.  What a great town!  Downtown is on Massachusetts St and has everything from sushi to a great bakery to a 'hole in the wall' bar called Joe Shmoe's that I got very drunk at on Sunday night *grin*!  The campus is beautiful and is way better than OU's campus.  I think it is because there are so many hills and the buildings are not built in a linear fashion all right next to each other.  So, you can look around and see trees, it is almost like the buildings blend in to the nature.  And the trees!  I'm not sure I have seen so many trees in a city before! 

We did find a few places to board the horse and we chose what we think is the best one.  It has a barn, paddocks, and pasture board.  It also has a small indoor arena and an outdoor sand dressage arena.  It has a pretty good sized trail system, including a 'ski hill' which is supposed to be really steep.  The place is also only about 15 minutes from Clinton lake, which has good trails.  It seems to be a busy place and they have a group lesson on Saturday afternoon.  The also have a wash rack with hot water!  I think that it looks pretty much perfect and I am so excited to have designated places to ride, especially an indoor!  It has been so frustrating for the weather to dictate my riding/training schedule!  Added bonus, the barn manager has had Arabians before!

We looked at two apartments for short term rent and only the first one was any good.  We got more information from the relocation company and we will probably put a deposit down on an apartment by the end of the week.  

We also plan on having the house on the market by the end of the week.  The company offers a buy out plan after 8 weeks, so we won't have to sit on the house for a ridiculous amount of time while we are already living in Lawrence.  

So far, it is looking like we will be moving the week of the 8th.  We plan to put most of our stuff in storage and just have the essentials in the apartment.  

We did drive around town and look at about 14 houses for sale.  We are starting to know the area and it was pretty easy to see what parts of town we wanted to live in.  Pretty much the best places are east of campus and in NW Lawrence.  

So, wish me luck in the next few weeks!  Our weather is supposed to be sunny and 80* for the next week, so lots of riding time!

Focus

I'm not sure if the food switch is giving him more focus or if the lunge session yesterday took all his spunk away, but today was awesome!  

The past few days I have been working on backing him extensively.  I want his rump to muscle up.  I feel like his physique is coming along nicely but, he could stand to gain 50 pounds and his top line/rump are a little goosey.  

Yesterday I lunged him for a good half hour and worked a lot on cantering.  There was also a good sized puddle that he jumped almost every time around.  So, he got a good workout and broke a sweat.  I hosed him off and cooled him out and he was in a very good mood.  

I am gradually switching him from the Ultium/Horseman's Edge to the Omolene 500.  He was getting 8 cups=3 lbs of the Ultium mix.  The Omolene is lighter and it takes twice as many cups to equal the weight so, it would take 16 cups to equal 3lbs.  We have been making the switch for 7 days now and we are down to 5 cups Ultium/6 cups Omolene.  I think that once the Ultium has been eliminated, I would like to continue to up the Omolene until he is getting 4 pounds.  I think that will help him gain weight.  I tried upping his grain before, but the Ultium just made him too hot.  

So, today I noticed that he was much more focused and didn't try any funny business.  He still had good energy and I had to keep reminding him to walk as he was mostly interested in trotting.  I was very happy to see that he had lots of energy without being nutty.  We rode for 30 minutes and worked on rating the trot, cantering, and leg yields.  We have been working on trot speed and he is really starting to get the idea.  When I say 'easy', sit down, and squeeze the reins, he slows down to a sitting trot and I release the reins.  When I bump with me legs and start posting, he speeds up.  Very impressed with him.  The leg yields are coming along nicely and have been a great tool for us.  The safest part of the hay pasture is along the tire tracks where I drive the manure out to the compost pile.  The hay hasn't grown in along that section.  So, I have about an 8 foot wide and 300 foot long stretch that is very flat and has no holes.  I worked on leg yielding him back and forth along that and he did wonderfully.  His circles are great to the left and his left bend is very soft and correct, but to the right, he speeds up, holds his neck stiff and makes tiny circles instead of a correct bend.  I discovered today that the best way to get him into the correct bend was to leg yield left, keep on my left yield cues, and initiate a turn to the right.  He can do up to a half circle in a correct bend.  I was very happy with that discovery.  I know a half circle doesn't sound like much, but for a stiff, one sided horse- it is huge.  It also means that we are only half a circle away from a correct bend!  Canter work today went very well.  Unfortunately, we don't have a proper place to canter with safe footing.  So, we were mostly working on straight lines with the occasional turn, and circle, but no consistent cantering without breaks.  He knows his leads and relaxes into the canter very quickly.  He still rushes in to it with his head up and sometimes pins his ears, but once he gets it, he relaxes.  The canter just needs more consistent work to smooth out all of the kinks, but I am very happy with him right now.  

Overall, another great day.  I think his training is right where it needs to be and I can't wait to get out on more trail rides!  

Our House- For Sale

Great article from thehorse.com

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=688&src=VW

This is a very good article on feeding fat to performance horses.  Pretty much, fat stores allow the horse to work longer before the lactic acid kicks in, thus reducing and delaying fatigue.  Fat for hard working horses can be fed in amounts up to 10-15% of the daily diet by weight.  Many high quality feeds (like Ultium [12% fat] or Omolene 500 [8%fat] ) have high fat content already and don't need supplementation.  When we are looking at having an intense ride season, I will probably begin adding 1/2-1 cup of vegetable oil (100% fat) to his diet because it takes about 4-6 weeks for the body to learn how to use the fat efficiently.  In light of our impending move, our endurance season is probably going to be smaller than had been planned and Boomer will be getting plenty of fat from his Omolene 500.   

Well, what do you know...

John and I went out to work with Boomer and we had our plan all set out.   We put a horse cookie in the front of the trailer, set up two corral panels about 15 feet back, and I tried to get the horse to come in.   No dice.  So, I got out, wrapped the lead around his neck, stood to the side so that he was blocked on one side with the trailer door, behind with the panels, and one the left side by me.  I pointed into the trailer, tapped his hip with the crop and he stepped in and ate his cookie.  

I led him out, and once again, he stepped in when I tapped him.  He didn't eat his cookie that time.  Third time, I pointed and he loaded, no tapping!  I gave him a cookie.  We unloaded, closed the divider and I asked him to load into the back stall.  He was leery, but he did it with a tap on the hip.  He was nervous when we shut the door, but I wanted him to know that the back stall was just as big as the front stall.  I unloaded him and pointed and he got back in without me tapping him.  No cookies the 4th or 5th time.  

Here is what was different:

no grain bribe

closed the space behind him

I was outside of the trailer

no pressure whatsoever on the lead rope

After that we hand walked and grazed him, washed his tail, and trimmed his front feet.  All in all, it was a great day!

Also, I steam cleaned our carpets, cleaned windows, did laundry, got the study totally presentable, the bedrooms are almost ready.  Our house is almost ready to sell!  We have a meeting tomorrow with a realtor tomorrow at 4:15.  

I have also been making it a point to stay up past 11 (2 hours after John turns in) and it has really helped my sleep issues.  Last night I stayed up steam cleaning and eating Nutty Bars.  I think John thought I was crazy!

Attempted trail ride

We went without rain almost all week and the ground has really started to dry out.  There is still standing water, but it is localized to the 'flood spots'.  Even though moving is throwing a huge kink in my endurance plans, I still want to get out and trail ride as often as possible.  So, we loaded up and drove to Lake Copan.  Boomer was very good on the ride and we set up the Cart A Corral for him to check out.  I tacked him up and off we went.  The first section of trail is along the road and has lots of thorny brush and was muddy.  After about 10-15 minutes of walking, you come to an overflow ditch that you must cross and then the real trail starts, single track, winding, hills, creeks to cross, gullies, etc.  

Well, the lake was flooded.  So flooded that the trail was under water.  We couldn't even get to the overflow ditch.  We got about 10 minutes out and had to turn back.  On the way back, I led and had John follow.  

Boomer was much more alert and was looking for monsters.  He does better when he follows, but he is a good leader also.  There was a lot of mud and standing water for him to cross, which he didn't think twice about!  That is the silver lining to living on a flood plain that I had been looking for! 

At one point he stopped and put his head up, ears together.  Strangely he did the same thing at the same big rocks last time we were here.  This time, we noticed the REAL reason for his attention, a coyote den!  I bet they mark around the den and rocks and he could smell it.  

I think John and I were both pretty bummed, he was planning on doing some trail running and thought we could easily do 10-15 miles.  We had fun and it was a good training session anyway!

The real bummer for me came when we went to load the horse into the trailer.  So far, we have been bribing him with food.  I knew all along that this isn't training or even a substitute for training.  But it worked.  The thing about Boomer is that you can not push him.  He is bigger and stronger and he knows it.  If I push him, he will pull back away from me, or just stand still with his head up, ignoring everything around him.  He doesn't get aggressive, so that is good.  Once you have pushed and he crosses the threshold into 'reactionary', he isn't coming back.  In my training with him, I have learned that he needs to think something is his idea before he will do it willingly.  You need to push him up to, but not beyond his limit.  We tried the grain option for about 15 minutes.  He had his feed pan with grain in the trailer, I was standing inside, he was standing there staring at me.  I had pressure on his lead rope, which increased if he went back, decreased if he went forward.  He thought about it pretty good and stretched for his food, but just wasn't interested in getting back in.  So, we got two panels of the portable corral and put them behind him, he thought about it, realized his space was rapidly decreasing, and got in calmly in under a minute.  

What went wrong, is obvious.  But, I want/need to focus on what went right.  No one got impatient or upset.  Boomer never panicked.  He was never pushed.  The whole process took a long time, but went smoothly.  So, I know Boomer learns in steps.  When the steps are consistent, he begins responding earlier and earlier.  I would like him to step into the trailer as I lead him to it.  That is the ideal cue.  To get to that, I know that food has worked.  So, lets go back to feeding him in the trailer.  But, this time, I am not going to bribe him with the food, it will just happen to be at the front of his stall when he loads.  Also, I want to have the corral panels out and set up a little back from the trailer.  If he doesn't get in with me leading him forward, and a few crop taps on the rump, lets move the panels closer.  Keep giving him a chance to get in on his own, keep moving those panels closer.  When he has run out of space, pick up the panels and force him in.  Hopefully, everyone will stay calm with this process.  I think that if he doesn't get the chance to reach critical mass, he will learn quickly that he always has to load into the trailer, or his personal space gets taken away.  I think this will work better than just following food.  Though, I do think it will be good to have food waiting when he does get in.  Eventually, we will wean him off of that and someday he will just get a cookie or a forehead rub.  Until that day, grain is ok.  Also, when we are doing this trailer loading practice, we need to repeat a few times in a row, not just once in and out and done.  If you think about it, he has been trailered 3 times, first two were forced in and he was in total panic mode for the whole ordeal, injuring himself both times.  The next two were great, and this last one wasn't bad, but wasn't perfect.  That gives some perspective.  John told me once that 40 days makes a habit.  I wonder if the same is true for horses.  Perhaps we should work on loading him 5 times a day for the next week.  Then keep practicing a few times a week after that.  

Soon, I will post links to the boarding facility we are looking at in Lawrence as well as houses we like!

Headed to Lawrence!!!

John and I had an email conversation that went something like this this morning:

J: You said you want to move to Kansas, right?

H: Yeah, why?

J: Well we have a problem?

H: Did you get fired?

J:  We need to find a new place to have our wedding reception!

Essentially, John is getting transferred to Lawrence in as little as 3 weeks!  ACK!  I couldn't be more excited to be leaving shitty ass Bartlesville and heading to another college town where there will be culture, and sushi, and thai food, and a pet store, and a book store, and football games, and bars that are not in double wide trailers.  

But, 3 weeks?  We have to sell our house, find a new house, figure out what to do with my school, find a place to board the horse, refigure our wedding reception, etc.  

On the up side, I will qualify for the first time homebuyer tax credit even though John is already a homeowner because we aren't married yet.  So, next tax season, I could get a check for $8000!!!  Can you say, pay off the truck and student loans???  (No, I am NOT tempted to buy another horse)

On the freakout side, what if the house doesn't sell?  What if we can't come up with a down payment?  

Pretty much, there is a lot that has to happen in a certain order with outside influences that we have no control over.  

I have felt like a deer in headlights for the whole day, but the excitement is starting to take over... 

Just yesterday I was thinking of how busy the next few months were going to be...  Hold on to your hats folks, things are really going to get crazy around here!

More rain

All I want is a day of sunshine.  Please, let that be tomorrow!!!

Today was the day I had to give Boomer his Flu/Rhino booster.  Of course it is pouring down rain.  I have given lots of IV injections, mostly of Banamine.  For some reason, IM injections freak me out and I have probably given less than 5 in my life.  I have had a number of people offer to let me inject their horses, but I have always chickened out.  I am just squeamish about how hard I will have to push to get the needle in.  So, I was a little nervous today.  I had John hold Boomer and I curried and groomed on his neck a little.  He was a little cranky from the rain and probably because he isn't as used to John.  I made my triangle (draw a line along the neck from the Altus/base of skull to the line of shoulder, draw another line along the top of the neck along the ligament, draw a line along the line of shoulder) thumped him a few times with my knuckles, tented his skin, pricked him, aspirated the needle, and plunged.  It was all over quickly and he only jumped a little at the stick.  I gave him a cookie and had John give him a cookie and we were done.  It wasn't as bad for either of us as I anticipated!

On another note, I have had a few minor changes going on in  my life.  I have always had sleep issues and after months of tossing and turning for hours before sleeping, John and I decided that I should stay up after he goes to bed and study until I am tired.  For the last two nights it seems to be working, except that I sleep in later and I am tired all day.  I slept until 10am this morning and then took a nap from 12:30-2pm.  I only stayed up about 1-2 hours later than usual, so that issue is still working its self out.  

Another new thing is taking baths.  I have always been a germaphobe when it comes to bath tubs.  It gives me the heebie jeebies to think of all of the feet that have been where I am soaking.  Plus, dirty bath water... How is that not just gross to everyone?  John has solved my bath issue by being an excellent cleaner and introducing the idea of sitting down while the shower is going without plugging the tub!  So, now I take 45 minute steaming hot sitting showers.  

So, I sleep 14 hours a day and spend almost an hour in the shower.  No wonder I feel like I can't get anything done, I only have 9 available hours in my day!

Our local WamaLart is pretty spotty about carrying goat cheese, a weekly staple for me.  So, last week I bought two 6oz packages for the following two weeks in anticipation of the invariable outage the next week.  Though, I didn't plan for my habit doubling in consumption this week.  The stuff is like crack to me!  I can't stop.  I am in no way complaining.  I love goat cheese.  I love all cheese really, but goat cheese tops the list.  Monterrey Jack with Jalepenos (Fire Jack) is close second.  MMM... Goat cheese on rosemary and olive oil Triscuits.  I recently saw goat cheese flavored with ash.  The Homieland carries a few flavored goat cheeses, but they are twice as expensive as WamaLart so we usually don't buy.  But, this ash has me curious.  What kind of ash is it?  Volcanic? Cigarette? Cremation? Bonfire?  Generally, I like my goat cheese bold and unflavored.  This ash has me stuck though.  I want to try it, but I am afraid I need to know where the ash came from first.  

How the Mac has changed my life

Yup, I'm a Mac convert!  I was trying to decide between a Mac and Dell, and though Dell is more affordable- I really didn't want Vista.  John thinks that Mac builds a better machine, and I like the way they work.  So, we got a Mac Mini processor, keyboard, and mouse, and a Dell 20" HD LED widescreen monitor.  I couldn't be happier about the setup!  The dell screen was less than $200 while the cheapest Mac option was $899.  By mixing components, we made the purchase really very affordable!  

I love the new computer.  Mac is so easy to use and it is very involved.  Every aspect of the Mac programs want to be personalized to what I like and want.  There are so many helpful options, but nothing is cluttered.  Everything is well organized and easy to find.  iPhoto makes editing photos really easy!

After 10 straight days of rain, bringing the April rainfall total to over 6 inches, We had a day of little to no rain followed by a day that tried to have sunshine with no rain.  That was yesterday, so I rode the horse.  Let me start by giving you  few hints, then I'll let you fill in the blanks about how the ride went.  Almost two weeks without exercise, 10 days of mud=no running, the cows got weaned the night before, the farmers were driving around with dogs and cows following their trucks.  It was all I had in me to keep him at a walk.  He was jigging and prancing, which he has never done before, though his jig is very easy to sit and helped keep me very deep in the saddle, which I needed!  Occasionally, he would decided that where I pointed him was not where he wanted to go and he would just stop, head up, on his toes.  When I kept insisting that he go forward he started this weird head toss/pull that really got my goat.  So, pretty much the 30 minute ride was us circling the pasture at a walk on a tight rein with occasional power struggles that I always won, if just barely.  I have to say, he wasn't bad.  He didn't bolt, rear, or buck.  He always did what I asked, eventually.  He had a lot working against him.  I mean, have you ever heard a herd of cows who just had their babies taken away?  I wasn't upset with the ride, and really, that first ride had to come sometime.

After I got off, I lunged him for 20 minutes at the trot.  He was an angel, of course and didn't break a sweat.  So, weather pending, I want to start lunging him every day and I want to ride at least twice this week.  I would also like to go camping this weekend.  There is an endurance ride in Missouri on the 23 that I would like to enter.  The conditions are that I want to ride the horse a minimum of 3 times a week and camp over night at least once before then.  If those things don't happen, we will just have to wait until the end of June.  

Phantom limb

My computer died.

John's computer just isn't the same!

His calculator isn't where it should be and I can't remember my passwords!

I'm having a little phantom computer pain.

That computer got me through my undergrad work, plus this past year of gradwork/prevet stuff.

Is it weird to be this sad and lost over a computer?

On the upside, I'm thinking Mac!