Since there was no lightening, I tacked Ro up and we rode anyway.

You can guess how happy she was about that.

Coming out of the barn, she spooked at some steps she has walked past dozens of times, doing the snorty ‘Make one move, buster, and I’ll kick your head in” thing.

You go, girl, Make those wooden stairs shake right down to their cold, concrete foundation hearts!

After a discussion about standing at the mounting block (yes, we can), I started off with our normal walk warmup. Usually, even when she comes out bouncing off the walls, she settles after ten minutes of walking or so. And I use those ten minutes to shake off work and adjust mentally to riding. Also physically, as I shift from slouching slob to less slouching hunter rider to, eventually, something approximating a dressage rider. Or so I like to tell myself.

Ro never did settle at the walk, so I decided to just go to work and settle her through work.

And work.

And work.

About the time she came to the party, someone shut a car door and she thought about spooking.

So more work.

And work.

She came to the party again, so I figured we would finish up with some canter work now that she was doing less Pepe Le Pew trot and more… wait, is that really the only cartoon character I can think of? A skunk? What a sad state of affairs for me. Anyway, she was moving more like a real horse and had let go of a lot of tension and was staying fairly straight most of the time. If we wait until everything is absolutely perfect to canter, we’ll never canter. But cantering from a Pepe Le Pew trot gets me a pogo stick canter. And while pogo sticks are fun and all, they aren’t that fun.

Anyway. So there we were, trotting a circle while I debated how to ask her for the canter. Our transitions suck, so we need a plan.

Finally, I settled on leg yielding in to the quarter line, canter, 15 meter circle.

I thought I ought to test the leg yield first, and for that I like an exercise introduced to me earlier this year—if you are going left, for example, leg yield from the corner to X, circle right 10 meters, ending back at X, circle left ten meters, ending back at X, then leg yield back to the rail. Basically, you’re just adding a figure eight to a standard leg yield in to X/back to the rail exercise, but it tells you a lot about your horse’s straightness and whether they are really on your aids (if they aren’t, the circles are uggggly—ask me how I know).

Ro started blowing through the bend in the circles, as she does, so I decided to forget the canter and focus on fixing that. She’s so out of shape right now that I knew we couldn’t do both.

After a couple run throughs we were seeing some improvement—at least she wasn’t free-wheeling around the circles like a skateboarder on crack.

Then the right leg yield/circle were ok, but not great, the left circle was almost there, and the left leg yield—spot on. Straight, even, and powerful. One of our best leg yields, ever.

So we did it again, with the same result.

I hopped off immediately and called it a day. She gave me a look to see if this was for real or if I was hopping back on (I do, sometimes), then rubbed her muddy green foamy mouth all over my shoulder.

Note to self: no more molasses-based treats while tacking up.

But other than that, a good end to the ride.

Sunday morning, I’m at home playing Minesweeper planning out all the things I need to get done when I get a text: Dexter is having a ball!

That’s great, I think. Then I wonder… Ro went to her new barn on Saturday, and Dexter is turned out alone in his paddock until we get him rotated back in with the barn owner’s horses. He’s a social little critter. I have a hard time seeing him tearing it up in his paddock all alone. So maybe someone put him out on the grass with the barn manager’s horses? That would be kind of cool.

I text back to find out.

A minute later, my phone rings. He’s out with the barn manager’s horses. They thought I put him out there, although they did think it was kind of weird that I’ve leave him out there all night.

Ah. I see.

Dexter is an escape artist.

There’s a weak spot in his paddock fence, and while he hasn’t challenged it before, apparently being turned out alone while his buddies were out on the grass was too much for him. I’m assuming he wiggled out through the weak spot.

They put him back in his paddock and tossed him some hay to keep him entertained, since he was galloping all over and distracting lesson people. When I went out later in the morning, he looked very pleased with himself. He’s a little scraped up, and his fly mask was in another horse’s paddock for reasons I don’t even want to know, but he had obviously been having fun and felt it was horribly unfair that he’d been tossed back in solitary.

He was going back into the group turnout last night, so hopefully that will keep him entertained enough not to try escaping again.

I should have known from the first time he went out in the group turnout, when the mares put him in his place and he retreated to a back corner… but was obviously plotting his next moves and not wallowing in remorse for overstepping the boundaries.

He’s cute. With a pony brain.

Lord help me. I’m going to need it.

It turned out she broke all her toes on that foot (likely she was bitten by a dog or caught in a trap), but I can only keep her until she is healed up. I’m at my limit for cats per my lease. I’m trying to find her a home (hint, hint, Houston people) but so far no takers. But she purrs non-stop, practically jumps in my arms to get attention, and basically just loves her life right now. She didn’t love her splint so much, so she took it off (and looked rather proud of herself, too), but the vet was not concerned about that as long as she stays confined for another couple weeks.

Meanwhile, Mica, the kitten I picked up in October, was suddenly becoming super sweet. I was suspicious of that, but not suspicious enough, and sure enough—she came in heat.

Let’s just say I will never procrastinate on getting a cat spayed. Ever. Again.

And she IS spayed now. I took her to a spay/neuter clinic. When I went to pick her up, the technician gave me the hairy eyeball and said—in a very disapproving tone—“The next time you bring in a feral cat…”

Feral? Ok, granted, I call her the demon child—but feral?!

I guess she is channeling Pookie and will be one of those cats that is sweet and friendly(ish) to me but tries to disembowel everyone else.

The good news is that she seems to be staying a little sweeter and friendlier since being in heat and getting spayed. I’m not sure why, but I’m not going to argue with it.

And in the middle of all this, Ro got sick, too—went off her appetite and started acting lethargic and a little colicky. It took about two weeks for her to completely recover, but she is back to normal now.

As she proved yesterday. I picked up a load of hay and turned Aiden out on the grass to graze while I unloaded. Some other horses were already out, so I couldn’t put Ro out as well (Aiden gets along with everyone. Ro… not so much). She spent the next several hours hollering at me, in case I didn’t realize I’d forgotten to turn her out. So—definitely feeling better.

But my hay stall is clean and organized (and full of hay!) and I got a few other things organized a bit at the barn, so it was a productive afternoon anyway.

And Aiden, meanwhile, is doing just fine. I am going to rename him, because Aiden just doesn’t really suit him. Current front-runners (suggested by other people, since I pick out horrible names) are Dexter or Rubicon/Reuben. I’m waiting to see if either of these stick.

But with all that going on, you can see why I haven’t posted much. It’s been exhausting. Hopefully things are settling down now, though, and we’ll get back to something approaching normal.

Ro moves to a new barn at the end of the month, so that we’ll have a real dressage arena to work in. I’m very excited about that.

I think everyone finds a way to make their life easier. Mine was to stick the haynet in a bucket:

Please excuse the colors in the images, by the way. My hay does not actually resemble bleached straw, but it was night and the barn lighting + flash conspired against me.

The bucket works well enough for occasional hay stuffing—at least I can get it half full before I have to go back to trying to hold the net open and stuff hay into it at the same time. But still—there is stuffing. And swearing. And a general dislike of haynets. Or filling haynets, rather.

So when I had an opportunity to do a product review for Schneiders Saddlery, including the chance to list out horse tack that I thought would be interesting to my readers, I jumped on the Stable Hand.

I’d seen it advertised and I was curious about it, but I was never curious enough to actually buy it. After all, I had my bucket sitting right in my hay room. It worked well enough, and lord knows Ro can think up plenty of other things for me to spend my money on.

So Schneiders sent me the Stable Hand, and I took it out to the barn, opened it, stuck it in my haynet, and voila:

Total failure.

I stared at it for a moment, trying to understand. It’s a sheet of plastic. How complicated could it be? Surely I did not need to go find an instruction manual? I mean, I am a great tester at work because I can break anything, but this was a bit much, even for me.

After a moment, I decided it had just been so tightly rolled during shipping that it was maintaining its shape, and if I turned it around, it would unfold. Or something like that.

Now is the time to admit that I am not a handyman, by any stretch of the imagination. I manipulate words; I hire people to manipulate tools and stuff.

So, a little unrolling and re-rolling in the opposite direction later, I had the Stable Hand in the net, and it was sort of holding up the net:

At this point, I figured it would probably work at least as well as my bucket—I could get it half full and then would have to stuff the rest while holding the net open.

As it turned out, though, as I put hay into the net, I could pull the net up and the Stable Hand still kept it all open. So it was much easier to fill than my bucket method, and in no time at all I had a full net:

My next question was whether the edges of the plastic would catch on the holes when I pulled it out, but that turned out not to be an issue.

My net (ha ha—I kill myself) impression?

Assuming you get it set up right (I imagine I am the only one who could fail that part), it is easier to use than my bucket method. It is definitely easier to use than no method at all. You may have to play with the way it is rolled/how tightly it is rolled to get it to hold the net (or bag, or whatever else you are filling) open, but the plastic seems pretty flexible and like it will hold up to use over time. The edges are a little rough, but that wasn’t a problem with the hay net and wouldn’t be a problem with something like a feed bag. It might be an issue with a light-duty plastic bag, but probably not a heavy-duty bag (e.g. if you were using to help bag up trash or leaves or something).

Would I buy one? Should you buy one? If you stuff a lot of haynets, I would say yes. It really does what it says. I thought my bucket stuffing method worked ok, but the Stable Hand was definitely better than the bucket. If you don’t stuff a lot of haynets, then you might not get enough use out of it to justify the purchase price. However, I would definitely consider this as a gift for the horse person who has everything (or as a White Elephant/Chinese Gift Exchange gift)—I think it’s one of those things people may not be able to justify to themselves, but would happily use if they had their hands on it.

And you can get your hands on one for free!

While I would definitely use this Stable Hand if I kept it around, I never keep sample/review items—too much like receiving payment for the review.

And that means I am giving it away to one of you!

Simply leave a comment explaining why you need the Stable Hand. Make it funny. Make it poignant. Link to a picture of yourself covered in hay, holding an empty net—whatever floats your boat. The most convincing response will receive the Stable Hand. (Note: please make sure you put in a valid email when submitting your comment. I will need it to contact you if you are the winner—and it will be used ONLY for that purpose. It will not be passed on to Schneiders or any other third party.)

Comments can be left through Friday, April 13, and I will announce the winner on Sunday, April 15.

And into the ring! And we got scores!

(For those not following along, I’ve been trying to get Ro to a show for a year now. Every. Single. Show. something happened and we wouldn’t make it. I was ready to open a betting pool on what would happen to keep us from this show.)

I decided to go alone, without anyone along for support. I figured if my show nerves exploded (or imploded) my brain, it would be easier for me to deal with it on my own than to have company.

This meant Ro had to spend a little time on the trailer or tied to the trailer while I was running some errands (picking up my number, picking up scores, etc), but Ro handled that pretty well for a horse that has the patience of a gnat.

Our warmup wasn’t great. I just couldn’t really relax, and Ro picked up on that and wanted to be tense and hollow. I could get her connected for brief periods, but there was no consistency.

I decided to go into the first test and just focus on trying to be accurate and consistent. And by that I mean—if we were tense and hollow? We’d be the same degree of tense and hollow throughout the test.

I hadn’t been in the show ring in about three years, and I completely froze up last time. Ro has never been in the show ring. On the balance, I thought low expectations were an awesome idea.

Overall, that worked out ok for us. I was tense and Ro was consequently hollow, but the test itself was fairly accurate and I felt like I was riding the test, not just a series of unconnected movements. We ended up with a 60%, but I think the judge was a little generous on the numbers side. The comments were accurate and unsurprising—we need more connection, etc.

The second test I decided to focus on more relaxation and connection. It was kind of a weird test, because we were more relaxed, but I was also a little less mentally focused and the accuracy in the test suffered. I felt better about the test, because there were moments where we really started to come together and I could tell that we have the capability for putting together a very respectable test. But in terms of how things get scored, we did much worse. We ended up with a 57%—again, probably generous—and the judge’s comments were pretty much the same as the first test.

But I think the judge saw something of what I was feeling about those moments in the test, because our collective scores went up. Like I said, it was just kind of odd—I’ve just never had a test where the individual movement scores went down and the collective marks went up, but I think that swing is a pretty accurate reflection of how the test went for us.

Next show I can raise my expectations for us both. We had our show where I kind of skated through like a deer in the headlights, but as it turns out, there wasn’t nearly as much of a “ZOMG freeze!” tendency as I expected. So enough of that—next show we need to be relaxed and accurate, all in the same test.

All in all, it was a good day. I went into the ring with very simple plans, and I achieved my goals. Ro went along with everything (although she did have a bit of an “are you kidding me?” moment over the judge’s booth) and any issues she had were a reflection of my riding and not, say, a horse having problems with the show atmosphere.

We’ll go up from here (one hopes…), but as beginnings go? This is a good one.

Like all cats, you say? Of course.

She also hates hair ties. She thinks they need to die. She has made eradicating them her mission in life. I am not sure why she wants them gone, or if I should worry about it, but there you have it. Hair ties are evil, and she will save the whole world from them.

This means that if I drop a hair tie into a tub full of water, she experiences an existential crisis. She must kill the hair tie, but she has to touch the water to get the hair tie. Hair tie. Water. Hair tie. Water.

For the record, so far she’s figured out that she can’t drink all the water out of the tub and the water is still wet no matter what paw she uses. She has not figured out how to get the hair tie.

The water is winning right now. She is not amused, partly because she really wants the hair tie, and partly because she really hates water.

Which makes yesterday the most awesome episode of self-inflicted torture I have ever seen.

I’d tossed a hair tie in the tub after my bath to amuse her (or me, whatever). She was sitting on the edge of the tub and turned around to yell at me. The water is my fault. She’s sure of that.

She didn’t notice that her tail fell in the tub.

It got soaked.

Eventually, she gave up yelling at me and jumped on the floor.

She immediately froze in place.

There was water on her. Water!

She tried to walk, and the water followed her.

She tried to spin around to find out where the water was coming from, and the water not only followed her, it also suddenly hit her back and head as her tail whipped around and sprayed droplets everywhere. She slowed down, taking one cautious step after another until she completed a full circle.

Source of the water: unknown.

Attempt to walk forward: water dripping on her feet!

Slow motion spin: source of the water still unknown.

Attempt to walk forward: water dripping on her feet!

It took her five minutes to get out of the bathroom. She collapsed in the living room and thumped her tail once, which just got more water on her. She tried to bolt off, realized that wouldn’t work, and went back to step - circle - step - circle.

She spent all night yelling at me, but it was worth it. She bit her tail at one point. That didn’t work out so well for her, either.

It was absolutely worth dealing with her yelling.

Hardly any, really.

But we have a family get-together coming up, and I was told to bring pictures of Aiden.

“What pictures?” I asked. Meaning: Why are people who are related to me, and who theoretically know me best, acting like I would have pictures?

After a day or two, I realized I was being told in a round-about way to go take pictures. Which I could then bring.

I may be slow, but I get there eventually.

So I went and took pictures of Aiden. They look like this:

This is not a flattering picture. This is not flattering because 1) I can’t take pictures of anything that moves faster than a rock; 2) as far as I’m concerned, there are two types of lighting: off and on, and neither is relevant to picture-taking (cameras have flashes in case the lighting is off, right?); and 3) Aiden is not photogenic.

I mean, sure, that’s Aiden. But that’s not Aiden. That picture makes him look… dull.

Fine, I thought. I’ll go take video.

I put Aiden out in the arena. He went and splashed in some puddles, and then stared at me. Muddy arenas are boring? There is grass? I could be eating?

No problem. I went and got Ro and tossed her in the arena, too. Ro went Wheeee! and Aiden went Wheee—aaaait for me! I can’t run that faaaa… you’re not going to wait? I’ll just stand here until you come around again and… wheeeee—aaaait…!

This is Aiden, as he comes alive in video:

Although I’ll admit that one of my fellow boarders couldn’t believe that was Aiden. She’s more familiar with the da-dum-de-dum laid back, droopy lip Aiden. The one who does things like wander over and try to eat barrels:

If I had tried to actually take these pictures, instead of relying on video, they would have been even worse. I know it’s hard to believe, but I refer you to example #1 above, where I had a non-moving horse to work with and still couldn’t figure out what I was doing.

Ah, well. These are good enough for government work. Or, more relevant to my situation, for family gatherings.

If you’re interested, video snippets of Ro and Aiden playing in the arena:

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The real reason everyone likes blingy markings is because it’s easier to pick horses out in the dark, right?

I had no idea just how much of an advantage white markings give you until I started turning Aiden out and realized he disappears as effectively as a ninja in the jungle.

For Aiden, this means establishing a routine.

When the barn owner gets round bales again, Aiden will be out in the group turnout 24/7. Until then, he’ll be out with the group during the day and out with Ro at night, so I can feed them both extra hay.

Since the arena dried out more quickly than the paddocks, Aiden and Ro have already been turned out together and get along fine as far as that goes.

They are still adjusting to night turnout a little.

Ro believes all the hay is hers, even though it’s spread out in half a dozen piles across the entire paddock.

Aiden thinks hay is hay, and he’d be happy to cede any pile to her that she wants, but he’d appreciate it if she would make up her mind instead of chasing him off every pile he stops at.

They are figuring it out. Ro is chasing him off fewer piles before she settles down and starts eating. I honestly think that half the problem here is that Ro desperately wants to be the boss, and Aiden could care less who the boss is. He’s not challenging her, but he doesn’t seem entirely convinced that she’s as bad-ass as she thinks she is.

Meanwhile, Aiden was also introduced to the group turnout on Saturday.

He’s been out in the arena with the most likely bully, and they got along fine together. He’s met most of the horses over the fence.

And on Saturday, all but one of the horses were out being ridden. I put him out with the remaining horse. She is aptly nicknamed Goldfish, due to her total lack of an attention span.

They checked each other out and Aiden ambled around, and that was about it. I was hoping to see them play a little more—I’ve seen Goldfish play tag with the goat before, so I know she’s in to games—but they pretty much ignored each other.

Then the other horses were turned back out.

It was like a switch flipped on in Aiden, and he started cantering circles through the group, trying to get them to play. Goldfish obliged this time, but after a few minutes, the boss mare had had enough and chased Aiden off.

He retreated to a far corner of the turnout and stood there thinking.

This was not a defeated, outcast pony.

This was the class clown, sitting in the corner of the room, trying to decide just how mad the teacher was and whether or not he could risk flying a paper airplane across the room.

Nothing very exciting happened while I was watching, but I heard that later on he managed to get everyone cantering around with him.

I am thrilled to see a little bit of a trouble maker coming out in him.

He has been a total pocket pony, soaking up any attention people want to send his way. But he’s also sort of just… watched and waited. Sweet but reserved? Something like that.

It’s good to know he’s coming out of his shell, and I think the group turnout will give him plenty of chances to play—and plenty of lessons in herd dynamics from the mares.

And Ro. Poor Ro. I’ve seen her with Aiden when she thinks no one is looking, and she’s not nearly as witchy as she wants everyone to think she is. I suspect that she’s remembering that having a turnout buddy is more fun than not having one.

Of course, he could care less about it. I left it in the group turnout because Goldfish seems to think it’s fun. At least someone is getting my money’s worth out of it.

Meanwhile, Aiden was trimmed again yesterday, this time by my regular trimmer. I gave him the rundown, and he put Aiden last on the schedule so we would have plenty of time to deal with him.

In the event, he was really pretty good. I could feel him tensing like he was going to barge forward once, but he stayed put. I think in another trim or two, he’s going to be pretty solid.

And as much as I hate to say it, he behaved better than Ro was. This was not one of her better days.

Of course, I haven’t been working with her much this week. I hurt my knee in December, reinjured it a couple weeks ago, and pulled it again last week. The couple times I tried to ride this week, I had no lateral stability or strength in that leg, so the rides were pretty useless.

But I hopped on again after the trimmer was gone, and things went a little better. I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish, so we basically hacked—just looking for an even, steady tempo and a lot of stretching down. I remembered the sit two/post two exercise from my H/J days and used that, which helped both of us relax and unlock. The trot was nice enough that I asked for a couple canter departs, and they were ok. Given our recent FUBAR canter work, ok is a dramatic improvement and I ended with that.

We’ll probably stick to light, steady hacks for a couple days until I’m sure my knee is stable enough to start asking for more.

Show season is coming up, after all.

I mean, sure, if you go by last year, our odds of getting to a show are exactly 0, but what fun would it be if we didn’t try?

If nothing else, we can explore new and exciting reasons to miss shows this year.