Mr. Oats, myself, Gidget and Ian wish everyone a happy holiday from last year! I hope to take another fun photo this year just like this. Maybe some snow will make an appearance?
Month: November 2013
Crafty crafts!
Had a lovely craft day on Friday with a colleague and her adorable black pug ‘Pearl’. Giget was a bit put out by the sudden appearance of Pearl, but no matter!
We made bath bombs in a variety of shapes (snowflakes, shells, leaf, small animals) in lavender scent (blue dye) and cucumber scent (green dye). It was a lot tougher than I remember. The salts kept cracking when I forced them out of the mold and we over-spritzed the mix to prevent this from happening–and then couldn’t get them out of the molds. I was hammering at them like crazy!
Haha, it was a lot easier when I made them years ago with my mom and sister. Oh well, we had some wine and dogs and a good time.
Then, Ian and I made up hot-chocolate mixes as gifts (something to eat instead of something to keep is the key to this Xmas!). I bought all my mixes and chips at Bulk Barn–love that place!
We did up a whole bunch of baggies of hot chocolate. Flavours included:
- Silent Night Cider- cider mix with butterscotch chips
- White Christmas Peppermint Hot Chocolate- peppermint hot chocolate with holiday coloured chips (red/white/green)
- Feliz Navidad Aztec Spicy Hot Chocolate- spicy hot chocolate with greek yogurt chips
Yum yum yum!
I am also planning on making Christmas pretzels.
Triumphant in the flat!
Our highest placing in the flat- mostly because we tend to be excused early on…Good Oats! He was very not impressed with the ribbon though, and shook it onto the mud very quickly!
One more o/f
Coming down the line…crookedly…
QMS – Winter Cowichan Series o/f
And here we are, making it look easy even though it really wasn’t!
Horse show #9- Not so triumphant
So, Sunday we trailered back up to QMS for a hunter show that marks the beginning of the Cowichan Winter Series. And how did it go? Well…
We warmed up pretty well, and then went into the indoor for a brief warm-up over the fences. Indoors is much tighter, twisty and the jumps come up a lot faster. We had a pretty ok warm-up, with some disunited canter and a bungled last jump in the line.
My courses were pretty easy, and I was feeling ok until…I went in for my course and got a refusal at the second fence–an oxer on the diagonal. They were pretty oxer-happy!
Picked up my canter and re-did it fine, then continued on course with 1 or two ugly fences. The next course went alright but it wasn’t fabulous. Then it was time for the equitation course, and I was freaking NAILING it! Until…I got the old ‘slam on the brakes and pop over from a standstill’ from Oats, and then we demolished the fence. And then proceeded to next diagonal oxer and performed the same awkward maneuver- and I jumped off, because I was SO not into having him leap over it from a standstill AGAIN.
WTF? So….What the heck?! Why do I fall off at horse shows? My show nerves clearly got the best of me, and all I could focus on was finishing the course. UGH. That means racing through it as fast as I possibly could.
We had entered the flat class and I was kind of not looking forward to it. To my ultimate surprise Oats was so good! He was honest, he was kind and he was so chilled out about it, I was shocked. This was the pony who had been excused from EVERY flat class I had entered him in due to bad behaviour- bucking, rearing, running backwards, everything.
He was a perfect gentleman. We placed third out of a fairly large field of 15 or so. So, our 9th show wasn’t really a triumph for jumping (man, I haven’t done that poorly at a show, ever?) but he really surprised me and was great for our flat class. Funny eh? The thing I’m better at (jumping) is kind of a disaster and the thing I’m afraid of (flat class) was perfect. How odd!
Ohh well, you win some, you lose some.
Honey Bunches of Oats does dressage- W/T
Oats and I at our second dressage show (we have now done three!!) and it went super well. The show was at the Metchosin ring, offered by the lovely folks at the Sooke Saddle Club. They offer two ride-a-test days, which are excellent value.