Light and shadow

Sipping a coffee as headed out to the farm for an early morning lesson. Cloudy skies in Ottawa gave way to sweet morning sunshine as we neared Vars.

No green buckets in the sand ring this morning. Just me, Luba and Sonja and scary light and shadows. We start by going to the grove where all the scary fairy folk live. Just standing around. Head down. Relax. Go back and forth through the gate. Slowly and quietly. From light to shadow.

Soon we head back to the ring where light and shadows and water puddles are now less scary, relatively speaking. We practise bending left, right, left, right, ride small circles, halt, head down. Walk towards Sonja who moves around the ring, in and out of the light and the shadows. We have a few spooks. We have lots of nice moments. I start to figure out how to dance with her so that we unblock and direct her energy.

Uwe and Sonja have really helped me to keep things in perspective lately. Yes, Luba has her silly moments about light and shadows (and trailer loading, among other things). The trick is to pay enough attention to keep moving forward, but not so much attention that you turn it into something bigger than it really is. "Don't let it crawl up your ass."

Keep the big picture in mind. Luba and I do lots of things very very well together :)

On the way home, one of my favourite CBC Radio 2 Morning segments, Under the Covers, played a cover of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" in Portuguese. Softens the edges of my rebel child.

Luba, my Rebel Rebel, Calamity's child. Hot tramp, I love you so!

Groundhog Day

The teachings of Pema Chodron come to mind this morning.

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.” 


“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” 
― Pema Chödrön

Luba and I travelled to the Fairy Godmother's farm yesterday to ride in St. Lazare. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ride with beautiful horses and beautiful friends.

The beauty was book-ended with frustrating trailer loading experiences. Luba is no longer worried about being or staying on the trailer. Now she takes a lot of firm convincing to get on. As we were loading her to come home, I remembered 6 years ago when I came to fit Luba for a new saddle, that we had the same story. Groundhog day. Yikes.

Now, Luba has not been a terrible loader for 6 years. Sometimes she loads just fine. Since we have been practising this spring, she has been loading quite well. And I can now load her unassisted, a feat that was beyond the pale as recently as last month. She generally loads better when other horses are travelling with her. I don't blame her. I like to travel with friends too.

But none of this really matters. We travel alone a lot. We travel with others sometimes. Loading and travelling is just part of riding for us because we are distance riders. We do endurance driving and then we do endurance riding. It is like putting on the saddle.

Lynda reminded me that sometimes even horses that are dependable loaders have an off day and decide that they don't want to load.

Wendy and Sonja both pointed out to me that Luba was defying me - some rearing, some pulling back. Temper tantrums. So these are things we need to correct. Little cracks in our foundation.

I left the farm feeling a bit deflated. All that hard work seemed to have been for naught. But what is really going on here is that my ego has been popped.

There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives. 

– from Shambhala Mountain Center’sLearning to Stay,2003

Obstacles are not things that you deal with and they disappear. They come and go. They are shape shifters. What does not disappear is you ability to move through and past and around the obstacles. Again and again and again.

Pema says, “You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”

And Groundhog Day is a beautiful day for trailer loading and riding :)

Pema Chodron

Little green bucket

Head down. It works. Really.

Lynda reminded me at Aprilfest how important it is to be able to bring your horse's head right down.  Engage the parasympathetic system. No more flight response. Breathe. Focus. Be still.

Sonja reminded me of this again today at our early morning lesson.  She set up a bunch of little green buckets in the sand ring. The same buckets we use for therapy lessons, when we try to drop toys in the buckets as we walk by.

The buckets were upside down this time, masquerading as cones. Luba was very reactive this morning. I think she needs some body work. Very tight in her poll and her usual C3. Managed to get tacked and mounted up without too much drama, but boy the sand ring was a scary place. Especially the far end of the ring that borders on the grove. Horses magically teleport from the pasture to the grove just to freak us out. Sonja says Luba sees all the gnomes and fairy folk in the grove.

So Sonja asks us to work at the scary end of the ring. Is she crazy? Maybe, but there is always a method to her madness. 

So I oblige. After a couple of minutes, she directs us back to the safe end of the ring, that is even safer now that we have forced ourselves to gaze into the depths of the grove.

My instructions are to walk patterns and when we come to a green bucket, stop. We do this, and I also ask Luba to put her head down (from the saddle). Before long this has become a game. Walk to the bucket and touch it with her nose. Nibble it. Push it over. 

We calmly walk around.  We trot around. We stop and stand quietly by the bucket.  

Even at the end of the ring by the grove.

Safe by the bucket. 

Safe in a circle. 

Click to see the video from the Spiderwick Chronicles "Safe in a circle".

I think I will pack a little green bucket for our trip to Cayuse Canter this weekend. Maybe even two :)

Alone and Unafraid - the Sequel

After riding with my Fairy Godmother and Yellowhead in the 12 mile Bronze Set Speed on Saturday, Luba and I set out to ride as fast as we could in the 25 on Sunday.

Alone and Unfraid on the trail.

Quick stop to enjoy the view.

Luba and I are much bolder alone together than we were last year at the Stormont 75. We cantered as much as we could, slowing down for the up and down hills. On the second loop, Luba started dogging it a bit. On the advice of Fairy Godmother, I used the HRM. If she was dogging it at 109 bpm, I urged her on. If she was dogging it at 165, we slowed down to a trot to recover.

Smiling our way to the finish line of the 25
photo: wendywebbphotography.com

We finished strong, and Luba's heart rate 30 minutes after finishing was 38. Even though our average speed was only 7.5 mph, her great recovery earned us a Grade 1 in the Gold level Set Speed event.

Luba after over 8 hours of trailering and over 40 miles of deep sandy hilly trail. 

Luba settled quite well into the rhythm of the new ride season. I was able to point her on the trailer to travel to Lynda's.  She happily loaded onto her big stock trailer for the 7 hour trip to ridecamp. She was a bit tucked up when we arrived, but ate and drank well after a little 5 mile stretch out ride on Friday.

She was a bit excited about initial vetting on Saturday, so Lynda reminded me to ask her to bring her head down every time she started to get wound up. It works!!

I was agressive with the Perform and Win and used Equisel-Lyte, which has more magnesium, calcium, potassium than PnW and also has BCAAs. She ate and drank like a champ all weekend.

Can you spot Mama bird on her nest at the base of the tree? I think it is a Wilson's Snipe. She was alone and unafraid, even though the paddocks for the horses were set up close by. Well camouflaged with 4 eggs to keep warm.
 Are you my mother?

We arrived back at Lynda's before the horse trailer turned into a pumpkin on Sunday. I opted to stay the night and load up early next morning. Luba likes it at Fairy Godmother's farm, and did not point and load the first try. I was on my own, so I just kept asking her to put her head down and walk on.  I reminded her that we had all day to get on the trailer. After about 20 minutes she got on. So I asked her off, and loaded a couple more times before putting up the butt bar and closing the door.

Alone and Unafraid on the trailer

Happy to be at home with the herd on Monday morning.

My own Fairy Godmother

I got an email with no subject on Saturday. The body of the message said, "Do you want to go to Aprilfest?"

So after a few phone calls,  I am going to Aprilfest with my Fairy Godmother Lynda. Yellowhead will also be going, so Lia and Luba will travel together in a nice big stock trailer.

With any luck, we will get some riding in on Friday, 12 mile set speed on Saturday and 25 mile set speed on Sunday. The trail at the Dufferin Forest is pretty sandy, not too much rock or road, so we will probably ride naked. I will take my Renegade strap ons just in case.

Hoping that Luba will be in a good space for her first big road trip of the year. She has been giving us some attitude lately. A little bucking and rearing in our lessons. A little separation anxiety about being away from Mama Sera. Add her heat cycle and a nearly full moon for good measure.

Luba is more fit this spring than she was last year at this time. The 12 mile on Saturday is Bronze set speed, so we will aim for the maximum of 7mph. If all goes well, then we will put the pedal to the metal and aim for closer to 10 mph for the 25 on Sunday.  She hasn't seen much hill work lately, but we did an awful lot of plowing through knee deep snow this winter. So it will be interesting to see how things go!

We will try to be home before midnight Sunday.

Bibbity Bobbity Boo!

Biltmore Test Event

Regrettably, I am not going to Biltmore in early May for the endurance ride. But a whole bunch of my friends, including Lee, are planning to go. Lee wanted to see if her mare, Jazzy is ready for the 75,  so she decided to ride two 20-mile loops this week.

Lee was cool with me and Luba joining her for the first loop, so I took the day off work. I wanted to see how Luba would do on her first long ride of the season. With 6 weeks of LSD under our belts, it was time to open up a bit.  Aprilfest is a bust for us, so we have now set our sights on the 50 at Cayuse Canter on the May long weekend with a 6 mile ride n tie as a warm-up.

Wednesday was glorious. Sunny day with high of 12 C. Luba self-loaded and we arrived in Berwick with lots of time to get settled and tacked up. Christina/Keira joined us as well.

The trails were too soft, so we stuck to the roads and the old railway bed. Good company and good horses made short miles. I even managed to push Luba's heart rate into anaerobic zone at least once.

Around 17 miles, Luba seemed to prefer cantering to trotting, so I got worried about tie up and tried to keep her under wraps most of last few miles home. Turns out she was just fine. Lemonade pee back at the trailer. Still had gas in the tank and was none too happy to be left behind when Lee/Jazzy and Dessia/Parker set out for the second loop. She recovered to 64 within about 3 minutes and was at 44 when I checked her after the other horses were back on trail. All A's. Here are Lee's GPS tracks.

Luba ate and drank a bit on trail and when we got back, but not as much as I would have like to have seen at a vet check. About 45 minutes after arrival, she had a couple of big drinks and started tucking into her hay. So if this had been a real ride with only a 30 minute hold, maybe it would have been a good idea to stick around a bit longer until she started eating and drinking in earnest?

I experimented with an electrolyte from Omega Alpha called Equisel-Lyte. Luba got 25 cc of PnW in her breakfast as well as 60 cc of Ulcer Therapy Plus. She got three 50 cc scoops of Equisel-Lyte on trail and another 60 cc of Ulcer Therapy Plus, 25 cc of PnW and a dose of homemade BCAA at the end.

We hung out in the sunshine until the girls got back. All the horses looked great! The Friendly Neighbourhood Trimmer came by to buff up Luba's feet and it was time to go home.

No point and load on the way home. But after moving the partition off to the side and leading her on a couple of times, I was able to put the partition back and point her on for the trip home.

There's no place like home.

Oh yeah, and always wear sunscreen. I got a sunburn that makes it look like I am down a quart.

to load or not to load

Spring is here. Really. It is.

Especially if the amount of horse hair in my car is any indication.

We spent the month of March putting in as many long slow miles as we could. 74 to be exact. All of this on the same 2 miles of road and driveway, the half mile paddock track and the trails in the bush when the footing was good. And sometimes even when it was not so good. We are itching for some new scenery.

So I decided that it is time to tackle my bad karma for loading Luba in the trailer. I enlisted the some on-line help from Parelli trainee Kellie Sybersma. After about 2 weeks of almost daily practising without actually going anywhere, Luba is self-loading like a pro. I tried to take some video evidence of this last week, and she got on so fast, I barely had time to start the video :)

Today, my friend Andrea invited me to go to St. Lazare to ride the trails. Andrea has a lovely two-horse straight load Sundowner with a ramp. I figured with all the loading practice lately, that this would be a piece of cake.

However, Luba was of a different opinion. She would get her front feet on the ramp, but was worried about going all the way in.  I kept my cool and we kept trying for about a half an hour before Uwe came to help us out.

His firm no-nonsense approach and some encouragement from me and my carrot stick behind got Luba convinced to load up into that metal cave on wheels. Backing out was a bit exciting, as she is not accustomed to a ramp.  She kept expecting the big drop off. We loaded her 4 times and each time was less exciting.

The trip was uneventful. Both horses calmly unloaded and stood quietly tied to the trailer while we tacked up.  Luba boldly led most of the way on the slushy, icy trails. The sun even made an appearance!

For the return trip, Luba let me lead her on the trailer without fuss. But Skye was not so keen. Luba stood quietly on the trailer while we all took turns trying to convince Skye to hop on. After a while, we unloaded Luba. This seemed to work, as Skye loaded, and then I again led Luba on.

What I learned today is that is it good to load your horse on as many different trailers as you can. Sometimes on the right stall. Sometimes on the left stall. Step-ups. Ramp loads. Slant loads. Rear facing. By themselves. With another horse. First to load. Second to load.

Ay, there's the rub...

...But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?