Brrrrr!

For the second morning in a row we've woken up to frost on the hay paddock - never had it frosty before and it makes me extra happy we decided not to fertilise last week!! It is usually a warm-ish paddock but this morning especially looks rather white. Took some pics:



It's so cold, Sunny had to find a warmer spot to snooze...


Sheryl has managed to remove her stitches so had another vet visit on Tuesday morning and came home sporting a head collar. Not very impressed! She has been giving us sad and miserable looks (talk about guilt tripping) but it's only for five days all up. Her tummy is looking a bit bruised still and there is a bit of exudate but it's not too bad.

Grown up time for Sheryl

Sheryl was speyed today, after being a bit of a hussy for the past week we thought it was getting a bit late. Meant to have her done a few weeks ago but just didn't get round to organising it. So today was the day and she is now back home, and already has jumped on the kitchen bench!! She's a bit out of sorts, fair enough! The test will be if her appetite is still as voracious as ever - the way she eats anyone would think she'd been fasting for days.

Here is the video Ben did of her and Sunny, it's very cool!

Here comes the mud...

Albeit a bit earlier than expected, we have mud. Not too bad just yet but enough for two certain uncovered horses to have a good time rolling in it. Some pics of Choc and Dee from this morning during their mid-morning nap time:

Two fat muddy ponies

About to roll....


Rollin, rollin, rollin

Bit of a sad day yesterday, Em and Bert left for new grazing, so wee Oscar spent most of the afternoon screaming and had a bit of exercise running around. Managed to placate him with food, funnily enough... he's happier today and now that Choc and Dee are in the next paddock as opposed to having an empty paddock between the three of them he is more relaxed. I'm doing his teeth tomorrow, along with Spyke's, so hope he behaves himself getting down to Ange's place (we're going to use her stables).

Tossing up whether or not to turn him out for winter - I have just clipped him and planned to keep him going over winter but have been so busy lately I'm just not sure about the reality of keeping him going. There is a series of Mini ODEs at Woodhill Sands that I was thinking of doing with him which is probably all we'd do over winter in terms of competing. Will see how the next two weeks go maybe.

Have a video of Sunny and Sheryl to post up here too but it's on the other computer. Very cute vid, Ben did it over a week or so, videoing them being cute and cuddly at home.

Have got our full complement of cattle now as well, 30 all up plus Harry (who is destined for the freezer in a year or so). Eight heifers who will be ready to go this Aug/Sept, 17 who will go Aug/Sep next year and five who'll hopefully be ready to go before Christmas. Should make a decent profit from that. Plus still got the hay to sell too. Meant to be fertilising the hay paddock this week but the rain has been a nuisance plus actually getting the contractor tied down to a date has been a bit tricky... he's also meant to be doing some pens and fencing work around the yards for us that has been dragging on for a while. Keen to get the pens sorted soon so I can put some kind of surface down before it gets tooooo muddy.

Test driving a new saddle

So it seems Oscar's saddle is no good for him now - seemed to be good when we first started out but now he needs a wider one and I can't get my current one repacked so I've had a CTD jumping saddle on trial for the past few days. The rain has held things up a bit, every chance I've had to ride lately, it's been raining. But not today! There was even some blue sky so we went down to the arena and had a play.

Very pleased with how he went, especially since I've hardly ridden him in almost 3 weeks and also he's not been ridden on his own at the arena for a good few months now. He was perfectly behaved and quite keen which was good.

So here's a wee video, shows some trot work, lengthening the trot which he does so easily, and our first real leg yield (albeit for only 2-3 strides, but still!) and popping over a couple of wee jumps at the end. Oh and some canter which just shows how much I flap my arms around when we canter, awful... arghh

Anyway upshot of it all is I think this saddle is pretty good for both of us really. Would like to have at least one more decent ride in it, weather permitting....

We have some new cattle as well, we had 5 weaners delivered yesterday and 17 last weekend, bringing our cattle herd to 30 all up. Eight will go in Aug/Sep, they are looking good right now, big beefy girls. The new lot are black and white faced heifers, plus a few murray grey heifers.

Water pressure... hmmmm

We have a water pump :-) It might not have been as easy peasy to install as the nice people at Kumeu Plumbing suggested, but we have a pump.

Buying the thing was easy, after that there were a few trips back and forth to get the right fittings (grrr, who decided there should be male and female fittings??) and then the most startling part of it all - turning the thing on.

I flicked the switch, the pump burst into life, and.... a geyser of water at least 3 feet high spouted out of the hot water cylinder overflow. Not quite the desired result. Turns out the HWC was lacking a pressure valve, so one visit from a plumber and $337 later everything was sorted. Funny thing is it takes a bit of getting used to only having to turn a tap on a wee bit to get water out now.

Winter is creeping in and we've had a few fires now, earlier than most people I suppose but then we don't have insulation so that's a good enough excuse for me. Have had horrendous winds the past few days, surprised nothing has fallen off the house yet - or maybe I just jinxed things then...

The chooks are obviously shutting down for winter as our egg production has dwindled to an average of one a day. On the up side, we have a whole heap of pumpkins growing in the garden courtesy of the compost heap. Yum, pumpkin soup!

Oscar had a session with Rachel Phillips, an equine therapist, on Thursday and turns out he is quite stiff and tight in a few places, including his left fore which would contribute to the problems we have with left canter leads. His muscles are a bit under-developed on his left hind too, sort of at the top of his hip, so we will be doing some gymnastic exercises to help work on this. And fingers crossed by the beginning of next season we'll be cantering happily on both reins! I was planning on doing the Huapai ODE next weekend with him but have decided not to, partly because of this soreness and also because the dressage asks for canter on both reins and, er, well it's just all bit hard right now.

We also need to look at his saddle, hopefully it can be adjusted to fit him. It is a bit narrow for him and needs repacking so fingers crossed that's all we have to do and I don't get told to go out and buy the only saddle that will fit him that just happens to cost $4,000...

Oscar's first ODE

Today we went to the local pony club's ODE - One Day Event. Oscar's first one - and mine for that matter too. I went with Sarah and Bert (also their first ODE), and we just did the pre-intro course, Sarah and Bert did intro. Nice easy cruisy day for Oscar's first ODE - that was the plan!

Started off with the dressage test which was the thing I was least worried about as it was really really simple. Have to say it was probably the worst test I have ever ridden. We didn't warm up that much as I thought it was so easy, but maybe that was the mistake. Oscar started off by kicking over the A marker on the way into the arena, then doing a wobble up the centre line, followed by being tense, bending the wrong way, and not really listening at all. Bit of a bummer really as I was hoping to do a much better test than that.

Sticking his nose out, looking for home...

Walking was a wee bit better

Glad the blinkin test is over!!!

Next was show jumping, which I got really nervous about after such a horrible dressage test. We didn't have much of a break in between the two phases - probably just as well! Anyway in we went, and Oscar was just a star. Most jumps were pretty average, but had a couple of beautiful ones where he really jumped a bit higher and jumped properly. The problem with such a low height is he has figured out he doesn't need to jump properly to get over them - plus I probably wasn't riding him forward enough. He got a bit keen at jump 6 (heading towards home) so we picked up 4 faults when he zoomed left before the next jump and we had to do a handbrake turn (one rein circle) to get back in line.

Jump 1

Jump 3 - got a bit left behind, argh

Jump 6 - went a bit 'yeeha!' after this one, but did jump it rather lovely!

Jump 7 - after the, er, realignment

Happy to be finished - where's the bourbon?

Very happy overall with the SJ though and also happy with how I rode the lines. Gave me heaps of confidence for the cross country! Might also have had something to do with the bourbon a friend gave me to swig....

Out onto the xc and I just kept thinking, it's just like sj but with bigger gaps between the jumps... started off a bit rough with Oscar not wanting to leave the others and we almost had a run out at the first one but luckily it was a teeny tiny log that we pretty much just hopped over. Next was a brush which he went over no worries (even though he's never seen one before), then turn hard right down a wee hill, through a gate and jump three was a trough with plastic bins in it. He had a good look at this and really wasn't sure but he is so honest that if you just ask him, he pops over it. Had a lovely canter out of this up towards two rows of pine trees that we rode between - just like at the forest, so Oscar was fine with that and from here on it just became heaps of fun!

Turned left out of that, popped over a log heading slightly downhill and cantered out lovely from that. Then a spar with a slightly lower landing side but he was all good with that one too. Then the bogey that wasn't even a fence! We had to ride between two walls of tyres with toi toi branches stuck in them, so it was all about 10 feet high and a narrow lane way. Oscar had a wee look and started to drift left but again was great going through it when I pushed him on.

Through a gate and up towards the three banks/steps. We only had to go up the first one and then go left out of it - although we jumped out on an angle as this seemed the better line to me, which confused the wee man because we've jumped all three banks before and he seemed to wonder why we weren't doing that this time.

Then over the coop, round the corner and over a wee log. He jumped those two really nicely but got a bit keen after the log - heading for home. So ended up overshooting the gate out of that paddock and loop back through it which settled him a bit. No worries going through the gate (which has previously been a bit scary) and over a lovely log to finish.

Before XC - looking just a wee bit nervous

With a couple of other nervous oldies (Dan and Douglas, Anne and Lucy), lol

In the start box

Last jump, went over this one really nicely

Overall, a fantastic day, heaps of fun and am glad we have both got one ODE under our belts. And to top it all off, we came first in the pre-intro over 16s! Granted it was a small class but there was more than just me and Oscar in it at least :-)

Sarah and Bert also did well, came fifth overall in the intro over 16s and Bert behaved himself really well. Jumped a beautiful show jumping round and happily tootled around the xc course - his first complete xc course. He just lurves jumping... Sarah was a bit disappointed in his dressage as I was with Oscar, hmm perhaps we both need to work on that part a bit?! Just a problem as I have discovered I really, really like jumping. Oops.

There is another ODE in a month or so, same level and quite close to home so I think we'll head out to that one as well.

Great day!

Big catch up

Well since the last post the hay has been cut and we've spent a few weeks on holiday in France and London.

The hay got cut just before we went away, in the last week of February. We were very lucky with the weather and got the last of it into the shed just as the rain was starting to fall, literally. The guys we hired to stack it in the shed were not the greatest, was very painful watching them load up their truck, taking over an hour to get 50 bales from the paddock to the shed. In the end a couple of mates, Ellie and Nic came round to save our bacon and Ben drove my truck with our teeny tiny trailer on the back and we got 80 bales into the shed in an hour, not bad really. The hay contractor also came back and helped out with his massive trailer and tractor. Really good of him to do so as he didn't have to at all but I think he realised there was no way the hay would be in before the rain otherwise.

We didn't get as much as last year, no surprises there though. Will be fertilising the paddock soon, that should bump up next year's crop!

We headed off on holidays in the first week of March, to spend 2 1/2 weeks travelling in France and heading over to London for a few days to see Ben's sisters. Had a fab time, drank lots of yummy wine and champagne, ate lots and spent waaaay too much. Blimmin rubbish Euro exchange rate made things even more expensive!

Back into it now though, and we're about to get the vege garden ready for winter and hopefully buy some weaners soon. Although given that we spent too much on holiday I'm not sure how that's quite going to happen, lol

Me and Oscar are doing our first ODE on Saturday too, which I am a bit nervous about. He loves jumping and is not too bad at it for a green horse but just worried he will be a bit silly about going away from his buddy Bert who will be there with Sarah. Ah well it will all be good for my riding I suppose! The goal of the day is just to finish it all - in one piece... I am not expecting anything other than that and going by his freak out at jumping over a log next to a really scary water trough last night at adult ride we may have a few stops. Three refusals and it's elimination but you can usually carry on and complete the course. At least the dressage test is dead easy!

We had a great jumping lesson before I went away, got up to jumping 65cm which is huuuuge for me. He was jumping really nicely too, made it really easy for me. Have another lesson today and then a day off for both of us before the ODE.

Will hopefully have ODE pics to post later, if I can con someone into being team photographer on Saturday!