Happy Halloween!

We celebrated by going to a friend’s amazing Halloween party extravaganza- we had a fabulous time! Enjoy some photos

Turns out I love wearing other people’s costumes! haha

Halloween fun part 2!

Barn party time! And I had already forewarned one of the organizers that 10 a.m. was likely too early for me to show up lol as I was going to be at a party and PROBABLY hungover. Wow, how right was I? Too right, unfortunately 😦

Aren’t they adorable? Hairy Potter 😉

We got home from the party around 2 a.m., YIKES. So..yeah the morning wasn’t really working for me. To add to the fun I was caught in a nasty cough- puke cycle thanks to my terrible cough from the race the day earlier…Fun times. So I got up around 9 a.m.-ish and spent a few hours puking before my kind husband bought into my madness and determination and agreed to drive me to the barn to participate.

Duff man was good at bobbing for apples!

I made it to the barn without puking so I figured I was getting closer to getting better! But tacking up was …a challenge. Every time I bent down I felt like I was going to puke again, so Ian had to help out and pick out hooves, etc. But hey were there and trying to make it! Sheesh.

I mounted (and everyone was glad to see me make it, ha) and wobbled around nauseously for a bit, thank god Oats is basically a saint pony because I was NOT riding, more like just existing at that point. Bit by bit I felt better slowly, not good enough to eat but ok to try and drink, because I was dying of thirst.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oKeLYceOXyM

The barn organizers kindly waited for me for the trail class and we got to do that first! 🙂

And then it was games time- we started with egg and spoon and it was HARD hahahah and I think it was a tie or something. Next was musical stalls and we lost lol, and then pole bending and Oats and I beat our lesson mates 😉 and finally it was time for ride-a-buck, where we dithered if we were going to do it full bareback and guess what? We all DID?!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SlGkHWo0nVM

Now that was the last thing I’d figure I’d be doing, hungover as hell, but hell we did it! Oats was a total star and we only won because my lesson partner had to forfeit- she couldn’t get her very recalcitrant pony to canter. Oats and I were doing lap after lap with me clinging on, feeling like mayyyyyyybe it’s time to gently slide off and die.

Ian got the prize money ($30?) for being a good sport for the day!

And then it was time for clean up and a bonfire with weenies. I couldn’t eat any but Ian got one, and I got a mini cupcake that I ate much later, lol.

A fun time was had by all!

Happy Halloween!

So in typical me fashion, I very much overscheduled Ian and I for the Halloween weekend, it was nuts! Great, but nuttsss!

Shorts were a bad choice…

On Saturday we were doing a 5k fun run in a town nearby, as a fundraiser for the food bank. I signed us up on a whim, and when we got there I didn’t realize …it was FREEZING out. Like, 3-4 deg freezing. Wow, what a shock! So we weren’t really prepared to be that cold and we had to do a lot of waiting around at the start as it was a very small scale fun run. My muscles tightened up so much that when we started, my arms physically hurt from being so cold. I kept my toque on even?! I felt like I wasn’t wearing anything on my bottom half because my legs were so cold I couldn’t feel my shorts.

My sweet prize!

So we ran, and it was pretty brutal, ha. My lungs were DYING. It wasn’t very flat, I will say that lol and the turnaround had a lot of confusion there (ah, fun runs) but we made it to…4k and finished? So I guess we paid very little $$ and we get a 4k not five hahah. That’s more than fine with me, I was pretty much dying!!

On Friday we carved our pumpkins and of course, Tucker had to try mine…

When we finished (Ian was ahead of me, but there weren’t any other women near me) I was drooling incessantly and felt like my lungs were going to burst out of my chest- they hurt so much, wowza. That set us up for a nice strong emphysema coughing fit for the next two days, ickkk just what you want in a pandemic amirite?

I picked up my prize (which was really nice!) for being the first woman finisher 🙂 and we were off to task #2- ride Oats! I had a pretty ok ride, he was a touch resistant about doing shoulder-fore and I couldn’t quite capture the magic of our lesson, but that’s always the case, isn’t it??

Then we were home again for our next event: Beer tasting/tour with Hoyne Brewery, hosted by UVIC alumni society. It was a blast! I learned so much and Sean was the best storyteller ever. Plus the beer was good too, yessss!

Really nice to listen to!

And then it was time to get our costumes on and take the bus to our friend’s place- they bought a historical mansion and had the most AMAZING Halloween party at it. It was phenomenal!!!!!! Creepy coloured lights, pumpkins, snacks, candies, a great treasure hunt (one of the clues had an infrared camera?!!) that basically stymied us for the whole night, lol, and get this: Dry ice cocktails?!!! OMG. I was in heaven!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xr9cJNTy2WAhttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/xr9cJNTy2WA

A dry ice cocktail with champagne and absinthe!

We had such a nice time I didn’t want the night to end 😦

Until the next morning, when I was in hell….And had to get up for the barn’s Halloween fun show, that I promised I was going to do…Good lord why do I do this to myself?

to be continued…

Happy Halloween!

 

We carved it last night! 

 

Workplace fun! 

Oktoberfest!

This Saturday we finally attended the annual Oktoberfest celebration at the Edelweiss. We are right near it, so I’m almost ashamed to say that we never went! It was well time this year to check it out.

Spooky decorations at work. I love them! 

And how did it go? It was a lot of fun, but to be honest, this is the second ‘Oktoberfest-style’ event I have gone to (the other one is at the Public Market), and while I enjoyed myself, it was CRAZY EXPENSIVE to attend. So…that’s kind of a naturally self-limiting thing for me. We do too many events, horse shows, races, travels, weekends away to really fork out what came to close to $200 for one night.

The tickets themselves are $45 for non-members (general public), and the bratwurst dinners were $19/ea, the schnitzel dinners were $23/ea, a pretzel was $3.50 (when last weekend in Kelowna, we bought pretzels at a brewery for $2…)…A pitcher of beer (not good beer) was $23/ea, apple strudel was $3.50…You get the idea. It was nuts expensive.

So between the two of us, we were at $90 before we stepped foot in the door. Kind of rich for my blood? And we definitely wanted to do the full-meal deal right, you don’t just go for the dancing and entertainment (and it WAS GREAT!).

So, aside from my griping about the crazy expense, it was a really fun night and people were so friendly and entertaining! We got to watch the Edelweiss dancers, and then got to dance ourselves. 🙂 I missed that. My friend was telling me that Oktoberfest was originally to celebrate a wedding, in it’s origin, which I can totally get- it was like a more-fun wedding!

I didn’t have a late night, because I had…a race! The next day! Ooooh. And how did that one go? Well, we will have to wait until I have some photos for a race recap.

Saved

Things are going well in my world this week! The weather has been mild, I had a very enjoyable couple of rides on old Oats as well as a fun lesson yesterday and I have been running to and from work happily and successfully!

I still kind of miss the summer though… 

This weekend is a busy one- I am celebrating my husband’s birthday today (35! where does the time go??) and we have an Oktoberfest celebration on Saturday night. Should be a fun one! I am also working at the barn (raking party to handle the new sand/sawdust for the outdoor and indoor), and I hope the weather cooperates for that. We currently have a wind warning on, and in true ‘Wizard of Oz’ style, I see leaves blowing up against the windows of my office building…

Plus one of our bosses brought doughnuts today. A win! yeah!! 

Tonight we’re off to a movie, Oats gets the night off (he got worked 3 days in a row this week, so his day off is well-deserved).

I am looking forward to riding tomorrow!

Shockwave

Therapy, that is. Ugh. I am still very much injured (current diagnosis is a muscle tear in my abdomen wall, near some particularly spirited ligaments that pull horribly on my pubic nerves…). 😦

Photo thanks to my friend Katie! All snuggles for Mr. Oats.

I injured it three weeks ago, and it’s been on and off painful since. The only things that really aggravate it are running, and riding, natch! Which I do every day? Dammit. I am still trying to ride and run but the running is so painful that I definitely have been toning it wayyyyy back. I even downgraded a half marathon that I was supposed to do to a 5k, which was still VERY painful to run. Man.

At least my pony loves me! Photo thanks to Katie H. 

Riding this week was pretty good, had a dressage lesson on Friday that was quite humbling…Like after an hour of lesson, this is what my warm-ups should be? Yiikes..We are not there yet, but we are getting there. Otherwise have been enjoying some flatwork, rides with friends, Halloween candy and Halloween parties!!

Happy Halloween! From a friend’s party this weekend, one of TWO parties I went to! 

I had a shockwave therapy appointment yesterday morning and jesus it hurts~ It is no joke, I didn’t realize it was going to be so painful. And they say that it’s not even on a bone, which is more painful. Yikes. I have another session on Thursday to try and speed up the healing for my muscle…Can’t say I am looking forward to it. I felt beat up yesterday and in a fair amount of pain.

Still with some significant nerve pain today, oh joy. At least my muscle isn’t hurting?

I am drowning my sorrows in chocolate and wine! 

Heartstruck: Riding/jump updates!

My Halloween wreath went up. I love it!!

This week hasn’t been overly busy with rides, on Monday I had an equine counselling session, in which we recapped life events (great!!) and worked a bit on my increasingly iffy two-point. Why the windmill leg? Tipping forward? And why does it get highlighted so much in the indoor? All good questions…So I lengthened my stirrups 1 hole (gasp!) and am going to proceed with that for awhile.

Tuesday I just hacked Oats around, playing with counter-canter positioning. Bad- me leaning forward to get it. Good- him actually trying!

Poor Gidget waiting wistfully for us to get back to the car at the barn.

Thursday was our jump lesson and man, I miss jumping in the outdoor! Oats was a bit balky/stuck behind my leg, so I had a few ‘reminders’ via my crop behind my leg. I found that when he sucks back around the corners- and there are a lot of them in the indoor- I want to tip forward, sending my leg swinging back. Interesting. This was also highlighted in the video my trainer took last week too.

So, all good things to work on. We focused primarily on small jumps, with related distances (forward -3 or quieter 4, I obviously went for the 4 each time, b/c Oats was Not. Having. It. for forward yesterday). I was actually pretty happy, even though we definitely biffed a few lines/jumps. Ha.

We did have to go re-do a line b/c he should have been picking up the right lead (he was doing it correctly ALL lesson, he never ever used to voluntarily pick up the right lead, even if we were circling a jump on the right. Yeah!! And so when we re-did the bending line, I focused harder on trying to land right (didn’t happen) but he did try to get a flying lead in 3 strides (didn’t- was disunited) but we landed and he DID pick up the right lead. Progress!

So, not better than ever but butter than we used to be. And that is ok! The weather has been fabulous, and I am feeling better this week for sure. 🙂

A Halloween riding lesson

The horse knows when you know, and knows when you don’t know. Ray Hunt.

And boy, ain’t it the truth!

So much candy…Aftermath

Last night was our semi-private dressage lesson with Karen Brain, and we worked on a VERY deceptively challenging exercise- a diamond pattern, using the dressage letters in the ring as a guide for the diamond.

The goal: Straightness to each letter, horse forehead lands on the letter, and then a mild pivot – front legs only- to the next letter in the diamond shape.

The reality? A muddle of lateral movement, extreme wiggling, fussy behaviour, sucking back behind the leg, throwing hips around, front legs move too laterally again…Oh it went on!

Also the reality: Riding lessons during Halloween night= nonstop fireworks. Constantly! UGH it felt like we were riding during some sort of war. The horses were as good as gold though and saved our butts. I think it also helped that the exercise was very technically challenging and required a lot of focus, so not a lot of ‘fluffing around’ time for them to start getting silly.

The exercise was at the walk, and then we’d go walk- canter-walk from each letter in the diamond shape. It became QUITE evident that the pieces would fall apart quickly here- and we, as riders, didn’t really know what we were doing…And the horses picked up on it fast.

Oats expressed his concern at the exercise by ‘dolphin-leaping’ instead of say, picking up a nice canter. HA. He did it a few times and luckily I didn’t get unseated, but I sure did lose my reins and had to collect them up in a hurry!

We got say, 2-3 nice transitions out of oh..100. And that is progress! It was a very tough and technical lesson, but everytime I got frustrated or annoyed, Karen was like this is hard, it’s hard for the horses and hard for you so just keep trying and something will work out. It did!

Lots of learning last night for sure.

All is too much: Weekend recap

Funny, for a not-busy weekend it sure ended up being busy!

The weather was horrendous for most of the weekend. Winds of up to 90km/hr at my house, sideways rain, just so shitty. I went for a run in the AM on Saturday and after 2km of getting blasted backwards and sideways, I gave up after something hit my ear and hurt! I ran more interior routes and then headed home.

Friday we were lucky enough to do some fun Halloween-y activities, like pumpkin carving and making candy apples- the candy apples didn’t quite turn out like I thought (the candy slides off them and puddles on the tray…) Wouldn’t make it again but nice to try once.

We were going to do the big corn maze on Saturday after riding, but the weather was so awful that I ran horse errands instead (hay nets, grain, MSM for Oats). We are rescheduling for next Saturday as the weather has improved significantly this week. Oats was fun to ride on Saturday, can’t even really remember what we were working on (transitions? Probably transitions. It’s always transitions now.). Saturday night was board game night at the Board Game Cafe with the barn girls. Always a great time! 🙂

Sunday Ian helped me move jumps at the barn, a quick ride for Oats focusing on straightness at the canter with ‘small’ canter and ‘big’ canter, and going across the diagonal STRAIGHT (again, a big weakness). We were then off to Cobble Hill to Mile End Farm for his birthday lunch with his parents and a hike and a hot tub.

A nice end to a nice weekend. Couldn’t ask for more.