Maintenance 

Saturday, May 16, 2015

We are in maintenance mode right now. As a musician and teacher, the end of May is when everything culminates in a glorious bustle of concerts, juries, final performances and of course weddings. This means I’m pretty much booked for 8-12 hours 4-5 days a week with performances or weddings on the weekends leaving me few windows to ride and most of them a little shortened.

Thankfully Faygo is in great shape because we conditioned for the OD No Frills ride and my goal is to keep her in shape as much as possible.

Khaleesi is now in conditioning mode, but for the time being we can only do what we can do, so she gets out for a ride whenever I’m able to make it work (for now I need a companion to trail ride her) and we’ve been pretty lucky with about a once a week schedule. Thanks to wonderful rider friends (Kate & Judy) I’ve been able to tag team the girls and get them both out at least once a week for a nice ride.

So for this blog, I thought I’d just do some highlights and pictures. After next week, work slows down and I look forward to spending more time getting Khaleesi in shape, strong, and mentally ready for trailering, camping, and being a “real” horse.

We’ve working on being tied up quietly while the humans work on trail maintenance.

We’ve gotten on the trailer to go ride with Nancy and Mireyah. It was basically successful though not without some adventure. We didn’t get the “back” off thing down so well as you can see. She’s supposed to be faced this way:

We had some drama at the farm and the girls took a little voluntary vacation to stay at a friends’ place for a few weeks until it gets sorted out. It’s a beautiful spot and has nice riding. We’ll probably move back home again in a week or so- that’s a whole other story, but it seems to be working itself out. It gave us a chance to practice loading and riding in a stock trailer!

Life is always full of adventures!

… and speaking of adventure we’ve been turning Khaleesi into quite the trail horse by taking on some rough terrain, scrambling over rocks and cliffs and crossing bridges.

Thankfully my friends are all good sports- Nancy and Carrington lead the way most of the time, Judy and Kate occasionally look questioning but always are game for the detour or helping us get over, under, around and through safely.

We’ve blown the last easyboot and now barefoot Khaleesi is a true renegade. We’ve got 4 dragonfire red… hey… that’s perfect really… dragonfire red for the mother of dragons (Game of Thrones reference) hoof boots for her and I love them. I love how easy they are to put on and take off, I love that they are so easy to clean, I love that they seem to stay on pretty well once you figure out how to adjust them, I love that the material SEEMS to be pretty durable for the rough riding we do here, and I love that they are red so hopefully if we DO lose one they are easier to spot than traditional black.

And best of all- even in maintenance mode, we’ve done some great riding, in beautiful places, stunning scenery, amazing views, with good friends and good dogs. May is so sweet in the mountains of Virginina, the rain brings lush greens and mild (warm) temperatures, gentle breezes and new life. Time on the trails… it helps protect my sanity through the busy times.

When the rest of the world is spinning just about out of control, and I feel overwhelmed with my to-do list, I spend as much time as I can at my computer- get things checked off my list, and I make some time to get out to the barn, I call the girls in for some breakfast (or lunch, or dinner!) and rub them and check for ticks, and look at their feet and brush them off and there is no “stressed” at the barn. They don’t do stressed. So you can’t either. Gotta leave it at the barn door. As long as there’s grass, everything is right in the pasture.