OTTB Charm

Here's the post about my main man, Charmer, from the weekend with my trainer!! I'll go ahead and spoil the ending right now - he is perfect and I don't deserve him.  After where I left off with V (end of yesterday's post) I felt really disheartened when I climbed into the tack on Charmer. He's not exactly known for being the easiest  ride on XC and I sort of mentally was beating myself into a pulp for no good reason. After a good number of comments regarding my leg/balance on V, I was just really feeling like I sucked and had no business being out there. It didn't help that this year has been a complete crapshoot for me and XC and this was only my third time out on Charmer all year.  I halfheartedly warmed him up while thinking we might just not even jump anything. He came out his good ol' dragon self and I was thinking "I don't even have the energy to manage him right now, and I don't deserve to be here anyways". It wasn't a great head...

I'm pretty much the world's worst blogger, and I'm just owning it at this point, but I've had media from our outing with my trainer that was 3 weeks ago and didn't get around to posting it. Oops. I really intended to, but my dad, husband and I went on a week long trip right after my clinic. It was so fun, incredibly healing, and a great respite from life. Then I got back and went into full swing on my "new" job. I've off and on been working for my vet for nearly a year, but of course with all the things that had happened with my mom, I couldn't be 100% there. Now, I'm working with them more regularly and getting trained on the phone system which has been a big learning curve but an awesome experience. So anyways, blog got backburned again (big shock) but I do have some fun stuff to write about, even if its a little late.  Today's post is for my lil chestnut lady, and tomorrow we will follow up with Charm's weekend as well. Two posts in ...

Well over the weekend we did a couple of exciting things that I had mentioned were coming up! V & I had a lovely jump school at home on Saturday morning, before a horrendous windstorm blew in. Charms & I also flatted, but no media from that and it was a pretty boring ride overall, so this is mostly about V's adventures. And on Sunday Verge & I had our first "real" cross country school together! V is starting to feel really  confident with the 2'/2'3" stuff, which is super exciting. Of course there are still sticky moments and bumps in the road, but her natural ability and steadily increasing confidence are so much fun. She's typically not much of an over-jumper, which I actually don't mind since it means she's not typically super phased or scared of the fences, but it has made it difficult to actually determine how much scope she really has! Pretty safe to say that she's got some springs in there I think. The oxers definitely can b...

I'm definitely still in a bit of a weird headspace, and obviously still not getting back to real consistency on the blog just yet, but hey, some posts are better than none, right? I'm not exaggerating when I say this canter is an actual dream to ride. All 3 ponies got chiropractic work from my vet a week and a half ago, and she confirmed a fear for me regarding Banner - his lovely Devoucoux saddle doesn't fit. Awesome. Its hitting his scapula, and even with quite a few weeks out of the saddle recently, he still had a lot of residual soreness along his scapula. Luckily I haven't been able to ride 3 ponies lately anyways, so he was on the backburner regardless so it doesn't change much in our immediate plans, but its never fun to know you have to sell a saddle/change plans.  My CWD on V (usually using a half pad, but was testing the fit without) I've got a few different ideas on what I plan to do with selling his current saddle/what I plan to replace it with. I...

It was really cool to see on my last post that some people do in fact still tune into this blog, despite my extra long hiatus. I did not really intend to take a 3 week break following that post as well, but here we are. Unfortunately the reason for this break in schedule was that my mom passed away on the morning of August 17th, just a few days after I made that "I'm back" post. Thankfully, she passed very peacefully and my dad and I were able to be with her.  The last few weeks have been filled with a lot of preparation for her memorial service (tomorrow) and figuring out what my new normal looks like. It is a strange shift of life when you are caring for someone on a daily basis to no longer having them in your life anymore. It can be hard to remember how to do the things you love, and we got into a routine where I basically needed 7-10 business days to try and make plans (although as an introvert, I still naturally prefer 3-5 business days to prepare for plans haha) bu...

I'm not sure many people followed this blog before, and I'm sure after a year+ hiatus, there is almost no one who will be reading it now. But I've always enjoyed keeping up on Instagram or blogging as my own personal diary to look back on over time anyways, and I think now is a good time to get back into it. That being said, who knows if I'll be able to keep up on it this time, but I really hope I do. Things are different in almost every possible way since I last wrote on this blog.  In early 2020, Banner was still my main mount, Charmer was just barely coming back into work, and covid was just beginning. Early that year, I lost my long time trainer and good friend when she moved back home to Oregon. I still am lucky enough to see her intermittently since then, but seeing her once every few months is definitely vastly different than weekly lessons.  An early XC school in 2021 with Charmer (Training Rolltop) I'm a little mad at myself for not blogging the last half o...