Finals Week. We meet again.

So in the winter, I started taking college classes again. It should be noted that I graduated already a few years ago with a Bachelors degree. This time I'm at my local community college, just to get into the swing of things, potentially go back full time/part time in the fall for a different degree, you know.

 

 

I'm not full time enrolled but I'm taking a few and I work 54 hours a week. (Albeit, I'm writing this post at work right now so I usually get a few hours a night to study/watch Netflix/etc.) It is now finals week.

 

Which means this is pretty true:

 

And I'm not doing a heck of a lot of Digby riding for the week. I had originally planned to ride today and hopefully on the weekend. I was also meeting with an advisor who is in my potential future career choice. I mostly wanted to talk about 4 year colleges, career opportunities, if she had any advice for getting a job afterwards. We scheduled it for today and I thought, ok, fine, I'll just ride the hony on Thursday. After waiting 30 minutes, she never showed up. I called, emailed, nothing. Hmph. So really, I waited around and did stuff at home because I didn't have time to go to class, ride and be back for this meeting, essentially wasting a sunny, high of 78 day that I could of been riding. I don't have an indoor so I try to plan to ride any day that's nice out. Thanks for that, no-show meeting person. I drove home, took a shower, cuddled the dog in the sunshine and had a summer shandy in honor of Cinco de Drinko. I felt a lot better after that. Adult beverages and vitamin D for the win.

 

Sunday Funday

Had a lovely ride on Mr. Digby today! I've decided to bring him back into work now as he's finally gaining weight (praise hallelujah!) so we've started walking under saddle and I did a bit of long lining yesterday in the trot. 

Typical between the ears shot. (Pics or it didn't happen!!)

I did trot a bit under saddle today but a trailer came onto the property just as we started working and I knew it was either "trot it out" or "pick a fight and jig for an hour." So we did a few minutes of trotting each way until he realized his horse friend was in fact just getting ridden as well. He was forward and pretty darn awesome for the first time being ridden, minus one bareback ride, since probably December.

Good hony!

Video as promised!

A short video of some of our time spent in the round pen and then him actually going out into the field. Note wild leaps and cross cantering. Wild child Digby! He had been in for about a day and a half so I threw him out and let him leap around before actually testing any buttons out. These clips are after he bucked around for a while.

Also if Digby was a girl, the song would likely be his theme song. :)

Thursday's Must Read - "Body Image, the Show Ring & Why Something Has to Change"

I'm working on a cute video for the blog from some video clips of me letting Digby take a spin in the round pen (spoiler alert: had a SERIOUS go button, paired with some feeling good freshness made for a fun time, but we had a pretty decent whoa none the less! Good hony!) from Wednesday.

In the meantime, I'd encourage everyone to read this blog post over at horsenation.com, regardless of how old or young you are, what you compete in, or if you don't compete at all. It's a fairly short blog post and it's 100% worth it.

20 million women and 10 million men suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their life (link to scientific research plus more stats found at nationaleatingdisorder.com) and based on statsitics in 2012, 43.7 million adults were listed as having "any mental illness" in the past year the U.S. alone (link to scientific research and more stats at http://www.nimh.nih.gov/). I personally know several equestrians and non-equestrians who have battled eating disorders, anxiety, depression and I've heard comments like those that are listed in the Horse Nation article. If you are blessed to have never suffered from any of the above, I believe it's important to support those who do, and even more so, encourage friends, family and bystanders to keep an open mind.

The program (a blog and FB page... for now!) she discusses, Riders for Well-Being, seems to be new but I'm eager for more content and contributions!

Owning it.

I've been doing a lot of internet reading via blogs, Facebook and Instagram over the past few months (thanks night shift!) and a recurring theme has stuck out to me. I see a lot of "well, I mean, I'm just doing beginner novice because we're not that good" or "It's just First Level, not like I'm doing Fourth like you or anything" or "my horse has been injured so we're just coming back into work, we usually work a lot harder and look better" or "don't judge my eq, it was a bad day."

NEWS FLASH!

 

I'd like you to say the above statement out loud repeatedly until you realize you and your horse are awesome.

Done? Ok.

Now, I am 100% guilty of doing this as well. I'm in fact very, very good at saying things like "well, we didn't have an indoor so I'm just working on getting back into shape and thus look pretty terrible" and "we've got some lameness issues so we don't work that hard." Yes, yes, all good and well but the reality is it's YOUR horse. It's YOUR goals. Regardless to what someone in the barn says, or your family says, or the internet says - some days you can do this:

 

AKA be a total badass on your SUPER cute pony with friends cheering you on!!

(Stolen from Eventingnation.com)

 

Andddd.... some days you do this.

(Stolen from pintrest.com)

 

Goals: it's all about the perspective. 

 

So I'd like to encourage all of you to OWN your accomplishments! Whether it's "complete my first four star without falling off," "walk around the outdoor twice without horse throwing a temper tantrum," or "keep pony from jump out of dressage ring." Guess what friends? My goal for tomorrow is to ensure Digby's shoe (that he lost on Sunday... Grr.) is back on and then go work in the round pen for 5-10 minutes to make sure I've got a go button and a whoa button so hopefully Thursday I can start Digby doing some long lining to slowly get back into shape. Yup, it's that exciting. I am going to look like a lumpy sack of potatoes holding two ropes with a skinny horse with zero muscle probably flailing around at the end of them. Maybe this time next year, I'll be working on some dressage tests to show over the summer.

 

 

But for now, this is our life. And it's going to be awesome.

The case for the small hole haynet

I was browsing Facebook earlier and one of my horsey friends had posted a link to an article written by Thehorse.com. It's titled "hay net design and forage consumption rates studied" so immediately my ears were pricked because 1) science and 2) food.

Long story short, the University of MN studied the length of time it would take horses to eat a certain amount of hay either from the ground, in a regular hay net, a medium hay net, or a small hole hay net. There was no difference between feeding on the ground and out of a regular hay net, but the medium and small hole hay net increased their time. Ok, cool, what does this mean for us?

As a boarder, I am constantly trying to do what's best for my horse without being the worst boarder ever and asking the BM/BO to do something they find ridiculous. In case you don't buy your own hay, it's $$$$. Feeding lots of hay makes a boarding barn costs go up quite a bit, especially when you think of all the hay that gets wasted by horses peeing on it, grinding it into their stalls, and otherwise not eating it because it's not up to snuff. It's also possible that with an air fern type (aka NOT Digby) your horse can't eat hay/grass 24/7 because it will become fat (aka me when I eat ALL THE CARBS!!!!) and that isn't good either. But it's SO important for horses to be eating as much forage as possible. So where do we balance the horse being able to "graze" as much as they'd like versus spending all the barns money on hay that the horse could waste or get too chunky from? Enter the small hole hay net.

(Yes, that is Digby trying to eat a hay net in a stall while he's turned out... Circa 2014.)

I didn't use hay nets, except for while trailering, until a few years ago. I heard they weren't that good for horses because it wasn't a natural feeding position, they're hard to fill, aren't worth it, blah blah. Digby has become a slightly harder keeper every winter and most barns aren't totally thrilled with me to be asking for free choice hay 24/7, because again, it costs a lot of money. I also learned more and more about ulcers. I started using them in 2013 and haven't looked back. I feel like the pro's outweigh the con's here. The barn gets to feed the same amount of hay, it takes Digby much longer to eat aforementioned hay, thus increasing his health and lessening my anxiety. He also doesn't waste any, where as before he regularly stomped hay into his bedding.

If the barn says, "it takes too long to fill" or "it's hard to fill", please show them this video. Problem solved. You can use a garbage can, a muck bucket, or really any large tub. It's almost as easy as throwing hay.

Full disclosure: Digby DID get his hoof caught in his small hole hay net a few weeks ago. It only happened once ever and he's used the hay net for many years with zero problems. He's the type to paw at his hay and grain when eating and does wear front shoes. I'm not sure if it was just tied too low that night in his stall or what exactly happened. Please make sure all hay nets, even small hole ones that you would think they couldn't possibly get caught in, are tied at an appropriate height. (Digby was fine, for the record. He was freed from the net right after it happened and went hay net-less for the evening just in case he thought it was fun and wanted to try again) I'm still a fan, even if my silly horse decided wrestle with his one evening.

Moral of the story: Small hole hay nets keep boarding costs low and hopefully ulcers away.

Wordless... Sunday?