What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I'm an English teacher.  More specifically, I teach writing - "composition" as those of us in the know call it.  Sometimes, I can't help but sympathize with the teacher on the classic movie A Christmas Story.  In Ralphie's dream scenario, she assigns A THEME (and states it so dramatically that it warrants the use of all caps in this case).  Ralphie sees her as she - in the midst of Ralphie's reverie - agonizes over the poor writing she has received.  She marks each theme with an F until she comes to Ralphie's.  She reads his in complete rapture, nearly singing every word.  After reading, she leaps from her desk chair and fills the chalk boards with "A +++++++++."  I understand how she feels. 

Anyway, I was thinking today of the timeless classic THEME of What I Did on My Summer Vacation.  How many of those have you written in your lifetime?  And, if you didn't write it, you were probably compelled to somehow share with your classmates on the first day of school what you had done the previous three months.  There was inevitably the classmate who did something so magnificent, so earth-shattering that your stories of going to the community pool paled horribly in comparison.  You so desperately wanted to be the cool kid who traveled or got to meet someone famous.  But, that never happened.  So, in that vein, I'm going to share what I did on my summer vacation.

I did lots and lots of weedeating.  Seriously.  And I don't mean the simple, trim-around-the-edges-of-your-freshly-mown-lawn kind of weedeating; I mean practically blazing new trails in a jungle kind of weedeating.  Here's the deal - to help pay for Obe's board (and to aggressively tackle the debt we have), I took on the weedeating at the farm for the summer.  On a horse farm that is nearly 30 acres - and is fenced and cross-fenced for pastures - and is situated on a steep hillside where a mower or bush hog can't go - that means A LOT of weedeating.  So much weedeating, in fact, that there's no way I could ever be "caught up."  Add to that the fact that we had ample rain this summer, and you've got me practically running around the farm with the weedeater trying to stay on top of it all. 

Allow me to use some visuals to help you see what I'm talking about.  First, the tools of the trade:

On the left is the trusty weedeater.  Beside it is the ear protection/mesh face mask that I wear - gasoline and Cyndi, the loppers (get it?).  The only missing tool is the small spool of weedeating string, but I had just used the last of it for this morning's jaunt. 

Now, prepare yourself for this next picture.  Seriously, small children should probably be removed from the room, because this picture is the stuff of nightmares.  I have successfully startled nearly every horse on the property in my get up.  I'm sure I look like a horseflesh-eating creature in their prey minds; some will bolt to the far side of their pastures while I work on one fenceline.  As I make my way around the pasture, they will strategically graze around the fence farthest from me.  Anyway...this is me, believe it or not:

Ear protection/mesh face mask, baseball cap, dust mask, bandana around neck, long-sleeved shirt, long pants and boots.  Every single time I did the weedeating this summer, this is what I wore.  This morning, with temps in the mid-60s, it wasn't so bad.  However, on a few of those 90-degree afternoons, it got a little brutal.  Okay, a lot brutal.  Note the flecks of eaten weeds stuck in the face protection.  At the end of a day weedeating, I would be completely covered in these flecks.  I'm not exaggerating at all to say that I had grass all over my body at one point or another while weedeating - all I can say to that is, "eeewww."  Seriously.

So, this morning, I decided to work a bit on Adora's pasture.  Adora, the special mare that she is, has her own little pasture that is basically a long, narrow run that opens up into a large square of a field.  Her pasture borders Obe's, and they've become quite good buddies.  They even travel well together, and Adora is kind of particular about who travels in "her" trailer.  The long, narrow run part of Adora's pasture was a little crazy with weeds...and I mean WEEDS.  Huge weeds...as thick as my arm and as tall as I am.  Here are a couple of before pictures.

 That's Adora on the right, looking typically aghast that I would come into her pasture at all, let alone in the get up that I showed you above.  The two greys on the other side of the short, electric fence are Spirit and Jasmine, two of the best school ponies in the world.  Anyway, that's one section of fenceline that I attacked today. 

This is Adora's little run - I like to call it her catwalk, because she's kind of a diva.  You can't even see the fenceline on the left.  It has been completely swallowed up by weeds.  It is definitely time to fight back the jungle. 

So, over the course of two and a half hours, I hacked away with Cyndi the Loppers and my trusty weedeater.  I would do one section of fence at a time (from fencepost to fencepost), digging through the weeds and lopping off the large weeds that would spell death to my weedeater string, then cranking up the weedeater and mowing down all the rest.  So...the after shots...

 This is where Adora was standing in the before shot.

And this is her catwalk.  Notice that you can actually see the fencelines!  Yay!  Clear fencelines are one of my favorite things.

There you have it - what I did on my summer vacation.  Yes, school has started and I'm still weedeating, but that's because the weeds are still growing!  They don't know that summer is over.  But, I must admit that it sure feels good to look down that fenceline and see it all clear and pretty - hard work is just that, hard, but it's also very rewarding. I'd give myself an "A++++++++++."

Now, was that so hard?

I just want to open up this post by reaffirming that I believe it is wrong to abuse horses.  Clear?  Okay...moving on....

Yesterday evening, I rode Obe for the first time in a week (life got CRAZY last week with the beginning-of-the-school-year faculty meetings and going out of town to see long lost friends in Virginia).  I gave her all the benefit of the doubt I possibly could and longed her forever.  In fact, as I longed her, I let her walk for nearly 10 minutes each direction, making sure that her back was nice and stretched and warmed up.  She was all cool and calm, not even looking around in the scary corners of the arena.  I was pretty impressed, to say the least.  After all, it had been an entire week since she'd been ridden AND she had been stuck in her stall the night before because of too much rain keeping the horses from being turned out. 

After our long and leisurely longe (like that alliteration, folks?), I got on, and she struck out at fantastic walk.  It was big, stretchy, forward, swingy...all the things we love in a walk.  Now, I've learned over the past few months that if I let her warm up on the longe, I can get to work pretty quickly under saddle - nothing too collected or tough, just get her moving.  This has made life MUCH easier, and it's really changed the way she's working under saddle...for the good!  So, I went to a canter pretty quickly (easier to get a good canter first, then go back and work on trot...again, nothing too collected...just loose and moving around).  Both directions were nice, and the transitions were prompt off my leg.  So, I decided to work a little in walk. 

Now, Obe doesn't like truly working in walk.  Walk on the buckle?  Absolutely.  Medium walk and perhaps a turn on haunches or two?  Not so much.  Work on lateral work in the walk to truly confirm it?  Yeah, right.

I had her in a fantastic working walk to the left.  As I made a turn through a corner, I put my left leg on to ask....well, let me just share the conversation I had with her. 

Me:  Obe, could you move off my left calf and engage your left hind a bit?

Obe:  *humming*

Me:  Hello?  Obe?  Could you move off my left heel?

Obe:  What?  No...I can't.  I'll stop moving my feet so you quit asking me.

Me:  No, we still need forward...both heels will now ask you to move.  I may even use my spur.

Obe:  Oh yeah?  Well, what do you think of backwards?  And for good measure, I'm gonna toss my head up so you see my forehead just inches from your eyes! 

Me:  Seriously? 

Obe:  Yep.

Now, let me interject that we've had this EXACT SAME CONVERSATION about a million times over the past year and a half.  It is nearly always in the same spot in the arena, and after I address it, it goes away.  She is not in pain; she just happens to BE a pain sometimes.  This issue has pretty much disappeared since I've started letting her warm up her back on the longe, but it occasionally shows up when she decides that she doesn't want to do what I ask.  Back to the story....

So, I put both reins in my left hand, turned my dressage whip overhanded in my right hand, and cracked her across her butt.  Immediately, she took off bucking.  I kept her head up, and after a few bucks, she settled into a trot, and I released and praised the daylights out of her.  After that, we didn't have ANY issues moving off leg, whether they were asking for sideways or forward.  In fact, we got some darn nice shoulder-in left on a 20m circle, proving that the engagement of the left hind was not only possible, but quite lovely! 

Seriously, mare...I just wanted forward.  Is it really that hard? 

Calgon, take me....to the barn!

Life just gets in the way sometimes. 

I haven't ridden since this past weekend (it's Friday right now), and I'm getting ready to head out of town for the weekend.  So, when I finally do get to ride sometime next week, it will be over a week since my last ride.  Obe will be nuts.  I HATE that...I hate feeling like I'm getting somewhere and making some decent progress only to be set back by being busy.  Ugh....

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm totally excited about going out of town this weekend.  I'm seeing some dear friends that I haven't seen in ages...one I saw last year; one I haven't seen in several years; and the other I haven't seen in seven years.  I can't wait!  I love these folks like they were my own family, so I'm completely content with leaving town.

I just want it all, I guess.  I want to leave town, see my friends, and somehow be able to ride my horse!  Until that whole "teleporting" thing gets ironed out, that kind of situation is not happening.  *sigh*

The good news is that classes start on Monday, so I'll be able to fall into some sort of routine with work, lessons and riding.  Routine is good...routine gets stuff done.  Yay, routine!