Taylor Mountain 2.0

Since we had flown in the day before, the whole family was still on major east coast time zone vibes and we were up at 6. So I had my procrastinators/last minute inspiration surge to start working on my  waterproof riding skirt.

Spoilers, I didn't get it done, also I apparently didn't buy enough fabric either AND i need to make other modifications since my waist measurements cause issues with this particular pattern and method. YAY FATTIES. 

Anyway, I came up with a basic solution and now just need to add some final details on prototype 2 for my riding skirt. I'm excited.

 Despite all of that, I still left the house early to get everything hooked up before heading down to Taylor to meet Cortney and company. It was raining fairly heavily as I drove down and we were all gritting our teeth and making sure we were as waterproofed as possible. It rained throughout tacking up.

I think I've finally dialed in the scoot boot fit! 

 And as soon as our butts were in the saddle, the rain disappeared. Much to our pleasure. It turned out to be wonderful riding weather and we were all stripping layers as the ride continued.

Cortney and baby Reign, who finally found her 'go' button

Robin joined us, as well as a mutual K who rode Splendid

We were waiting for another rider to cross the creek since this was the widest spot and we had a huge group. He, apparently, is a fearful rider and just wanted us to go by him. 

After 10 days with the in laws, I needed this, rain and all

 We stuck to a walk and trot. Robin's gelding is coming back from an injury and only just got approval for trotting and hills so we walked all the downhills so he wouldn't reinjure himself. But when we were trotting, it was a great conditioning pace!

Cortney had to move a gate. Shhhh, don't tell.

Look! Shadows! The sun came out!

 We even got blue sky. What a reward when we were all expecting to be soaking all day.

 Gwyn got very sweaty on this ride and her face got very very itchy. She kept trying to rub her face on everyone, much to the displeasure of the horses around her, as you can see Reign telling her off. In the future I need a whip, crop or spurs AND I need to clip her face, I think.

Robin got off and walked the last mile in.

And Cortney's husband met us as he had borrowed Cortney's truck and was exchanging their other car with her so she could get home.

Scoot Boot success! My last time on the trails saw one of the boots twisting frequently enough that I just pulled it off in frustration. The rep I've been working with recommended adding a shim, which I did DIY'd by sticking a piece of EVA foam onto Gwyn's hoof before she even left her stall (so her hooves were dry)

That seems to have done the trick! These boots stuck on through mud, water and a big power trot. I'm pretty pleased! Enough so that I went ahead and ordered another pair as well as extra straps because these suckers need to have purple accents.

Sweaty mare at the end

My big takeaways are that I need some kind of encouragement, even if it's Gwyn being mindful because it's in my hand, I need it. She was a bit of a brat, and would try and surge ahead  of the group only to immediately put on the brakes. Theories thrown out were that she's in heat. So she got relegated to being in the back due to that behavior.

She's fitter than I think, and LDs should be easily achievable if I keep up with riding regularly and getting out on the trail.

We've got hoof protection dialed in and that's good given how some of the trails are out here for competition (protection is almost always required)

Otherwise, it was a great day with friends, meeting new friends, and getting rewarded for our perseverance by weather that was NOT in the weather report.

Snow?

It's endurance ride weekend! I'll be up in the north central Cascades, smack dab where there's a bunch of snow that's forecast here in the northwest portion of the U.S.  I think I'm ready. I don't have to worry about food this weekend, but I still have to finish packing my clothing and that basically means bringing everything under the sun.

Oh boy. Wish me luck and warmth!

Cold and Still Icy

After the dressage clinic I was determined to get out and try to school some basic stuff on Gwyn, just working on her reaching into the contact. I had visions of us trotting around the arena. I like to pre-visualize my rides. It helps me mentally prepare what I'm about to try and do physically.

Kaylee also wanted to ride when she saw me heading out to the barn so I waited for her to get dressed before leaving the house. It was fairly 'warm' compared to some of the recent temperatures in that it was almost at freezing and there was no wind.

Kaylee made sure to brush out all the shavings from Gwyn's tail

 Since Kaylee wanted to ride and in her saddle, I lunged first to see how Gwyn was behaving.

Lazy. And while the arena was no longer a full sheet of ice, it was basically like concrete (edit: Eric informs me that that IS a type of concrete -.- ) with pockets of ice and snow. Pretty much the sand was waterlogged and it had frozen. Ugh. No trotting. And definitely not even a forward walk.

 Kaylee at least had a blast and Gwyn was in the "this footing is terrible, I'd rather not move" frame of mind so we really had a chill time.

 An instagram friend was selling one of those awesome rainbow metalled bits in a size and style that fit Gwyn and I jumped on the chance to buy it because pretty.  So we tested that out today.

Favorite View

 Kaylee opted to go inside once she was done. I switched everything over to my tack that I intend to take to the dressage show. All that's missing from this set up is a sparkly brown browband with purple/rainbow accents to match my bridle. I'm also using my nice cushy reins that I got at WEG.

Mom, do we HAVE to practice connection?

 I kept things to a walk and my big goal was to not have giraffe moments and to keep a semblance of bend to the inside without her dropping her shoulder. It all went pretty well. My new portable speaker worked great. I got to ride to music which kept the monotony of just walking bearable.

Gwyn tried to shut the gate on Saffron

 Then Saffron pushed open the gate and I thought, why not ride the hill in the pasture. So we did that too.

The hill is not icy, but the ground has no give to it. I do wonder if the front pasture might be better cushioned if it has more grass. Or if the farm fields are better.

Mare nuzzles <3

Then Gwyn voluntarily walked back into the pasture and we just hung out for a bit. I hopped off so I could bring in my mobile mounting block (my 3 step ladder is frozen into the sand) 

And I officially signed up to ride Intro A and B at a schooling show on February 24. I just want to be able to school some trotting before then and I need to strategize how I'll accomplish that.

Also, should I braid for this? When I talked to the show organizer I got the impression that when they've held this in the past, the adults have gone all out to practice everything, while the kids stick with a nice winter type shirt (no show coat).  Gwyn's mane is in this in between crud from her roach and I legit have never braided short mane before.

I plan to wear my white breeches, tall boots and then I'm torn on wearing a coat or just a nice sweater or a long sleeve wool shirt with a vest. I don't have a legit riding coat, just half of a suit coat from job interviews that could pass. Any advice there?

Ovation Winter Riding Mitten Review

Video Review here! Taken deep into the freeze.

Long story short, they are a good purchase at a great price and handled negative Fahrenheit temperatures quite well. I was not compensated in anyway for making this.

It's the Little Things

 Like flowing water when it's -5 F and the real feel is something like -20.

A brilliantly lit snow scape, looking toward the barn as the full moon rises

"Mom, let me eat"

And a happy mare in the morning who still has hay left from overnight and just got MORE for breakfast (rarity, I do not do breakfast)

And of course I make the doofus face when she actually has decent ears, lol

Discuss: How do your hands survive winter?

While some parts of the country (and continent) are well into their deep winter phase, especially with that snowstorm in the mid-Atlantic!, here in Michigan while we aren't deep into snow here (I can't speak for the UP) we are about to drop into sub-freezing temperatures.

So far my glove strategy has been wearing summer schooling gloves or my back on track liners and just making to sure do enough work that I get blood flow to my fingers to keep me warm.

I don't think that will last for long though.

Nothing I'm seeing in actual riding glove options are looking like the solution however. So I went looking at legit outdoor gear companies. A friend from livejournal days recommended the company Outdoor Research and from there my mind was just blown.

Did you know such a thing exists as a waterproof/windproof mitten shell with no insulation? I knew I could get fingerless gloves/mitten convertibles, but this was new to me. I'm pretty sure it's going to be my answer.

I put together a set of thinner gloves plus the shell at Outdoor research and grumbled at being $9 away from free shipping.

Then I checked amazon, because I'm a good drone with a prime account. They didn't have exactly what I was hoping to find and I wasn't sure how best to search for a shell with no insulation of its own but then I remembered REI.

Not only did REI have the original gloves I wanted from Outdoor Research (just not the color) that were sold out, they also had a slightly different version of the mitten shell in their brand. The gloves were cheaper, the shell was more expensive and the threshold for free shipping was far less and I came out to less than my original plan at Outdoor Research.

Instead of a $55 glove, I am getting the Outdoor Research Melody Sensor Glove which is much more reasonable at $35. 

And then the Minimalist Goretex Mittens REI branded. They can be adjusted at the wrist and should be good for my waterproof/windproof needs. I can change my layering underneath fairly easily to adjust for temperatures plummeting but I suspect just by creating the mitten effect it will be far more insulatory than just a liner alone. 

Now none of these are really riding appropriate, but for my needs at the moment, I don't need a high performance winter riding glove and I do have my  Ovation thinsulate gloves that I HATE getting in and out of because it doesn't stretch enough at the wrist to accommodate my hand width and I end up feeling claustrophobic and stuck, especially if my hands start to sweat.

I picked those things because I see a dual purpose use for them with outdoor barn chores, snow shoveling and skiing but also using for running as a windbreak. Someone else suggested the reusable snap heat packs like these:

They can be recharged by boiling for 10 minutes and you just snap to activate the chemicals and they heat up. I've added those to a wish list for now. I don't want to go too crazy. I'm just hoping my current solutions will work.

What do you do? What temperatures would you rate your gloves to work down to keeping your fingers warm? 

Winter Thoughts

On Saturday, with one kid refusing to come outside and the other intent on 'hleping' (intended typo there...) the SO and I went out to deep clean the runs.

Full disclosure, I am a lazy horse owner and clean outside the barn the way I clean in the house, leaving little things until they're big things and then doing a major deep cleaning. The stalls stay good and the pasture stays good, it's just the dry lot that gets looking bad...

The runs needed a deep cleaning and this was the second day in a row of above freezing temperatures, so thawing manure had to go.

Gwyn and Saffron were taken to the spring pasture, much to their delight.

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I hooked up my trailer to the ATV and just tackled the giant pile of poop with the gates wide open to facilitate moving things around.

My 'hleper'

I managed to get all of the not too frozen poop out of the run, and boy was it a HUGE improvement.

My 'helper'

Meanwhile, Eric determined that we needed a new manure pile spot because he apparently has something against using the trash service to haul away manure. So he raked in the old straw from the original manure pile that was there when we bought the property and then made a barrier using the T-posts and some of the pallets we had lying around.

After that, he fixed the stall liner that was coming off the wall for me and then helped me take down the electrobraid that gives me three runs so that the animals could have one giant dry lot. It's just Gwyn and Saffron so I don't really see a need to have three separate runs. It'll make replacing the footing, which needs to happen at some point, easier if it's one big space.

So now my dry run is much nicer and cleaner. And so every night since I've been making sure to pick up what new poo has acccumulated and you know what?

My fingers don't go numb when I do this.

This may sound like a strange revelation, but I have some poor circulation issues, a combination of Reynaud's and cold urticaria. Most nights in winter even the thickest gloves would leave my fingers like ice, and super painful.

If I do a brief poo sweep, and fill my manure bucket, not even the full wheelbarrow, all I need are my Back on Track liners and I come in with hot hands. Just adding that little bit of activity is enough to push me into blood moving versus normal barn chores and it's been lovely.  My barn is cleaner and my hands are happier each night when I go back inside.

I've also now used the Magic Brush twice in a row. I love how mud just disappears and how soft it leaves Gwyn's coat. Tonight I tried it on Saffron. If Gwyn is a sappy, loves any kind of attention that could be semi-related to grooming kind of horse, Saffron is the opposite. She is standoffish, she is not affectionate and she tolerates me grooming her (she'll stand still for the kids for hours though)

I think she likes the Magic Brush. Which means it's definitely magic. And bonus, Donkey winter coat is super wiry and thick. Normal horse brushes really don't work well on it unless they're super stiff and yet the Magic Brush cut through and lifted dirt off of her. I couldn't believe it.

So now I need to get Saffron her own. Maybe two for Saffron so the girls can brush her at the same time.