Fluffy Bunnies.

No, not the actual rabbits - although they are cute.  I am not a rodent person but I'd have a rabbit, outside.

Anyways, not actual rabbits. 

At this time of year, the Fat and Furry shows start happening and what a blast!!!  They are my favorite kind of show.  You bring your fuzzy ponies out of the pasture, ride em a bit at home, brush em out, clean your tack, find something fun and cute to wear and off ya go to have a blast!  For the Easter Weekend, I'm going to take one of the boys (yet to be determined which) and out I go!  I think if the sidesaddle's here by then, I'll take the old man out.  If not, the young feller could use some show miles under saddle.  Either way, a great time to be had! 

And now that we're towards the end of March, I did go to the tack sale and I'm sooo proud of myself!  I didn't go table shopping at all!  The only thing I allowed myself to buy was a set of stirrup leathers, irons and pads, which I got for $5 total!  The new location allowed for a lot more vendors this year, which also ment a lot more competition for sellers as I'm pretty sure there was the same amount of buyers this year.  I did manage to move a lot of stuff; however, I'll tell you nothing but one fly sheet went for the price I'd put on it.  It was really hard to SELL things.  Even used blankets for $10 I couldn't move!  And they were fully intact useful blankets!  Best thing I saw there was an amazing old sidesaddle built in Scottsdale (area).  The skirt and safe on this thing was one solid piece of leather, not sewn together, with amazing floral tooling all over it!  The seat was a green suede.  It looked just incredible although I don't think it would've sat me well. 

Well, I guess it's a good idea to enjoy the last of the calm before the impending storm of weekend shows that's about to come!  Weeee!!!! 

In the Middle of shhhhhh

It's early March!  It's nearly spring! 
...


...
...and NOTHING exciting is happening yet!

A bunch of good things are ABOUT to happen, but I have NOTHING exciting to report thus far.  How disappointing!  And to top it all off, I have a cold :( 

Within the month my new (circa 1915 new) Champion and Wilton sidesaddle shall be arriving from the states (thanks to Linda Flemmer from the Side Saddlery see http://www.sidesaddle.com/)  But it's not coming YET. 

This Saturday is one of my favorite days of the year.  It's the biggest social event of the year for the equestrian community west of Edmonton.  It's known as the Pony Club Tack Sale.  I know there are a whole bunch of pony club tack sales, but this one has been happening for about 156 years and EVERYBODY comes to it.  I see people there I only ever see there! 
But that's not today... it's on Saturday.

So, in leu of anymore boaring-ness without point, here's a pretty picture I found of Lacado!

Peekture day!

I'm very fortunate to have a wonderful lady, at the barn where I ride, who is quite talented with her camera.  She recently got a new lense for it and asked for a volunteer to try it out on.  Well, I love pictures of my pony so I asked if we could be her guinea pigs.  I'm so glad I did!  I spent about an hour trying to get Norton to look less like a wild pony and more like a horse who's seen the show ring on occasion (cause really he has...) and out we went! 

Big thanks again to Sabine McDonald! 

Anatomy/History Class!

I love sidesaddle riding.  I love just about all things sidesaddle related.  I love it so much I think everyone should try it once, especially if they have a horse (men included!)  I kept an eye out on e-bay to see if I could pick one up for a deal, so I could have it for that exact purpose. 
Eventually one came along.  Meet Mergatroid. 

This picture is after a good soaking of leather conditioner and the pommels I covered in vet wrap as they were very worn and not in very good repair.  Mergatroid is an old Catelogue sidesaddle, one you would've ordered from Sears and Roebuck a million years ago and would've cost about $7.25.  The tree (this is the important part) is called a RUWART tree. 

After being ridden by a number of different friends, it became evident that poor old Mergatroid could use a facelift.  So, why just stop at that?  Why not go for broke?  I'm al all or nothing kind of girl afterall! 

So, I spent an entire day stripping the poor saddle.  I removed all the leather, cotton batting (not original), horse hair (original), and applicable hardware (approximately 200 apolstery and finishing nails, 2 drywall screws and 1 deck screw).  I found that there were only 4 original pieces of leather on the saddle: the near-side flap/safe (which had beautiful floral tooling in it), the little flap that covered the stirrup hanger on the near side and the pannels on the bottom of the saddle.  This is what I had after the dissection:

From here, some very kind ladies had begun giving me advice on what to do in order to get this tree back into workable condition.  Before sanding and fiberglassing, I needed to wash, yes WASH all the red IRON paint off it!  Covering the entire tree (minus the metal strapping) was a bunch of netting under the paint.  It was like a very early and primitive form of fiberglass covering the tree.Ooooh you have no idea the mess that landed in my kitchen, but I did as I was told.  About 8 buckets of nice, warm, sudsy water and I was full of paint, the floor and table in my kitchen were full of paint, my little helper (isn't she cute?) was full of paint, even my CATS were full of paint, but the tree is quite clean.   Thankfully, the paint is water soluable, so it was easy enough to clean up.

It is really interesting to see the pieced of metal and how many pieces of wood have gone into building this old girl.  One person's vision is truly a work of art!  So, now she gets a few days to dry out really well and I'm going to attack her with a putty knife to get all the old glue off before sanding.  You see, there was a "saddler" who had gotten his mitts on this old girl before I bought her and did some "repairs" (see drywall and deck screws) which included GLUING new leather to parts of the tree.  Gak! 

To be continued...

Play Day!!!

We had the most rediculously fun play day today!  Dear friends of mine (see http://www.shantyarabians.com/) hosted a pony play day today.  Norton and I headed out to enjoy some change of scenery, great company, and great exposure!  I was so very pleased with the little feller.  I had wanted to get him up on a pedistle this year and had my heart set on getting a picture of him up on the pedistle waving.  Well....

What a good kid!  And yes, I told you, I love that toque! 

In addition to having a very successful introduction to a pedistle, Norton also got to work with Alana and myself with yoga balls (omg) and tarps (OMG!!)  and is now quite calm and accepting of both! 

Alana and Norton on the right, myself on her boy Willy, Kat on Sonny and Katelyn on Firefly (pintabian stallion).  What else do girls do on the weekend?

I would've liked to have put on a face for this pic, maybe a hat too, but I really do love this picture.  Norton's truly such a good boy!  I'm so very proud of how far he's come and how he continues to grow.  Next up, lesson next weekend with Wendy!!! Woo hoo!

Weekend out!

Just got back from a fantastic long weekend with two of my favorite equine ladies.  We attended the Horse Owner's and Breeder's Conference held in Red Deer, AB. 

Weather heading down was quite cooperative; we left early on Friday and were checked into the hotel by noon.  We had some time to relax and find our way to the Sheraton Hotel - Capri Centre.  I had won an eaerly-bird door prize kindly donated by the Alberta Veterinary Association.  I was presented with my prize at their opening activities Friday evening.  Lovely facility, nice, small trade show (would be nice if it were about 3 x the size) but the "Open" bar was quite expensive, in my opinion, costing $16.25 for three flutes of wine. 

Anyways, a jacuzzi big enough to fit 3 is always welcome, as are bottles of wine and good  company - so Friday was a hit all the way around.  Another of my favorite people (my sidesaddle enabler) came up to spend some time and visit, what a treat! 

Saturday morning found us out at the conference bright and early (10 am, we missed the first lectures as we weren't horribly interested in the early topics) and I attended Dr. "Andy" Anderson's lecture on trailering.  What a fantastic character!  Dr. Anderson is from Oklahoma and it sure is evident from his accent and vocabulary.  But what was equally amusing, were his stories!  I went back the following morning (8:30 this time) for his second speach on ground manners, something I feel is HUGELY important!  Picked up a couple of new things I'm looking forward to trying in the future too. 
My comrades took in various lectures as well, and came back with raving reviews!  The one I found most interesting was on breeding.  I think that a lot of the information would've gone right over the average horse person's head, but, since I have a biology background, I was able to follow along.  The gentleman who spoke was a self-proclaimed advocate for the stallion.  At one time I had to ask if he was a father... he was not... 
Also got to meet up with some friends and favored people I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing for a while.  Got to love big horse-related events for that! 

By Sunday, the weather had turned so we headed out early and missed the SPCA's talk.  It was cold cooold and I was sure glad for heated leather seats on the drive home.

The attendance did seem fairly low, unfortunately, but I would highly recommend anyone involved (to any degree) in the horse industry go next year!  I am planning on it!

Oooo faux-pas!!

I like blogs.  I'm not very good at it, but I sure enjoy other people's.  I have a couple of very good friends who do blogs here on blogspot.com, and some I've never met but sure enjoy the read.  Then there's the big one, fuglyblog!  It's recently gone through 3 sets of hands and all have been unique in style and opinion.  The ladies who currently have it are doing a great job and I can relate to their point of view much better as they have H/J and dressage background.  Today's topic: Confirmation messes in WARMBLOODS!  (dun dun duuuun!)  And not only are they picking on (and apart) WARMBLOODS, specifically American and CANADIAN WARMBLOODS!!! 

Now, I had researched warmblood registries quite a bit before I took Ritchie out and had him inspected and registered with a specific verband.  I had thought long and hard about simply going Canadian Warmblood with him, but something in the back of my head kept saying "look elsewhere" and I'm really glad I did.  Now, I have a LOT of respect for Chris Gould and the other executives who have worked tirelessly to make the CWB grow and flourish but my feeling is also that they let a bunch of junk in that really won't "benefit the breed".  That's just my opinion.  There is also quite a feel of Eliteism that seems to follow the CWB (again, my opinion).  I had decided finally to go with the Rheinland Pfalz Saar International (Zweibrucker) for my own animals.  They are under direct management of their parent organization the PRPS in Germany.  My horse is inspected by the same inspector as in Germany, and is branded, as in Germany, and has German registration papers.  Since things from Germany seem, for some reason, to have better international standing in the dressage/equine sport world, that's what I wanted to do for my horses.  And not just for the German line, but the organization has always made me feel like a welcome member, even just being on the ground level.  No question was silly, they have time to answer my questions and explain how things work and, most importantly, they really like my colt!  They also offer annual tours for members to go to Germany to be a part of the German stallion inspection and gala evening with auction.  Imagine that, offering to give a chance for your members to be further EDUCATED!  For me, I really think it was the best choice.  And following that, I will get back to my origional point. 

In my own opinion, a lot of CWB horses that have been turned out are CRAP.  It talked a lot about T-bred influince on fuglyblog's post today, but I won't agree with that totally.  I've seen some lovely T-bred mares, likewise I've seen some FANTASTIC Standardbred mares (but Standardbred mares are poo-pooed by the CWB - although not by the RPSI!) but truly you need a balance of nice horses on both sides to produce more nice and nicer horses!  Blood lines alone just don't do it!  

Fuglyblog today got really close to home.  They posted pictures of a couple of local horses, one of whom I believe to be bred by one of the CWB executives, a prize horse.  The girls called a spade a spade and I do applaude them!  I never understood how people could have a whole field of 2 or 3 year old colts and point to any one of those NOT halter-broke, nearly untouchable horses and tell you no less than $15,000!  I don't care who its parents are, or what it COULD do, I buy a horse on what it looks like and what it CAN do right now.  If I can't walk up and put a halter on it, it's worth as much as what old Ives at the auction mart will pick it up for.   

Anyways, that just me and my opinions...  Have a great new year!