Month: June 2020

Flash Photos

/ Ashley Wingert / 5 Comments

This past weekend, I had a chance to spend some time with my favorite Flash boy. It’s been a year since he fractured his P1, and has been given the all-clear to start light riding and slowly being legged back up.

Pretty much all of the time I’ve spent with him has been at rides, or visiting him for the couple of weeks post-injury when he was at the vet clinic so close to me. This was the first time I’ve got to hang out with him in his “natural” environment, and he’s just as entertaining in that setting as he is at a ride.

He’s also a total showoff and camera hog, and very photogenic, so I took a truly obnoxious number of pictures along the way…and will attempt to restrain myself from spamming the blog with dozens of photos and stick to just a dozen or so.

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I just love this adorable mug

I did a bodywork session on him. He was a very interesting subject to work on in terms of his releases — he’s actually very subtle, and this modality seems to really suit his personality of not liking being pressured, and backing off of pressure versus drilling down harder. Afterwards, I sat down on a pile of hay in his stall to work on my notes and paperwork, and he came over and started nibbling on his hay right next to me.

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Being beautiful and opinionated about life

He had plenty of Opinions about life, as always, especially when Claire took his BFF away for a couple of hours to go ride…but even that only amounted to the occasional circle around his pen, some head twirling, and some loudly expressed shrieks of indignation. (Gah, he’s loud.)

He’s looking really good. Topline needs to be built back up again, but considering he’s been off for a whole year…he’s looking good.
I don’t know how visible it is, but he’s actually sticking his tongue out here.

As a distraction, I took him for a walk around one of the big pastures. We zig-zagged back and forth, up and down, along the fenceline, pausing here and there to snatch a bite of grass, but mostly conversing and communing. Well, I conversed and he listened. At least at first. And then he had some things to say. Things like, “Let go. Trust me.”

See, I had been doing my usual “control and clamp down” approach to handling a horse who was just on this side of being “up,” and I should know better with this horse. My go-to when a horse is up is to keep a tight lead and keep them in check at all times. You would think I would know better by now, that doing that never seems to actually help, and instead gets them more revved and powder-keggy.

Bless this horse, though…I don’t know why he is so forgiving of me and my mistakes, but he certainly seems willing to humor me and give me a chance to regroup and reassess. And in this case, I needed to relax, let him have some rope, work on lengthening my own stride, and start incorporating my left hand into cues and signals. That was so much more effective than pulling on the lead rope (how many years have I been in horses and I still have to be reminded of this?), and he immediately got more settled, which meant I loosened my hold on the rope, and he relaxed even more. I think he teaches me something every time I’m around him.

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Obligatory roll in the fluffy dirt. He loves this so much.

Things Flash Learned: he likes watermelon
Things I Learned: Flash likes to have a hay pile just for peeing on

Garden Tour

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

It hasn’t taken me long to turn into a full-tilt succulent hoarder collector. My little plant collection grows by the week (sometimes by the day), and I’m slowly developing my niche interests and plant preferences within the succulent world. Putting some major time and research into things like growth versus dormancy cycles, what plants are compatible with each other, sunlight exposures…all of that really makes a difference. Another major component of growing success has been where I source my plants. There is a major difference between getting plants from dedicated succulent growers and sellers versus the nameless big box stores that don’t know the difference between an aeonium and echeveria.

Yes, I’ve got some what I jokingly call my “rescue plants” that I’ve salvaged from utterly clueless nurseries, mostly to try my hand at seeing if I can save them, or learning what constitutes “too far gone.” But by and large, my healthiest plants are the ones who have come from exclusive succulent sources.

My top sources for plant buying:

Cedar Creek specializes in the world of rare imports (succulent breeding and hybridizing is a huge thing) and I’ve had the best time exploring the CCF world, and the community message board chats during the live upload sales. It’s a slightly different format than typical online buying, but because most of the plants are super rare or even one-of-a-kinds, doing a live upload is a super fun, interactive, everyone-has-a-shot-at-it unique approach. And she takes custom requests if there’s a certain plant that you’re dying to have and want a guaranteed shot at it. The plants you get are amazingly gorgeous and healthy, and they are rapidly becoming some of the stars of my collection. But honestly, I have too many to play favorites. It’s more like “plant of the day” or maybe “plant of the week” around here. Feel like a peek and photo tour of the current garden offerings?

Indoor transition/water propagation station. The Cedar Creek plants come from a cold room, so they need a few days to acclimate in room temps before getting moved outdoors. his is also where I work on getting roots going on some cuttings/salvage efforts.
Hand to scale. The tiniest variegated Fred Ives. Great root system already and super healthy, but so tiny.
One of the stars of the gig. This echeveria Afterglow is huge. And in certain (morning and evening) light she looks like a purple flame.
These two on the left are echeveria Lemon Berry, and they’re slight “rehab” projects.
I love this echeveria Bluebird. She’s more muted now in her “summer” colors, but come winter, she should throw some bright pinks and blues. Look at that gorgeous, sugary farina.
This echeveria Atlantis is an overachiever. That’s her fourth bloom spike since April, with a 5th one starting.
I still don’t know what this mystery echeveria actually is. Weirdo, but I like it.
My quirky echeveria Cubic Frost. She was a nursery rescue. Her stem has this weird calloused vertical split, at one point she obviously went really stretchy, but her current rosette is tight and gorgeous and she’s starting throwing these beautiful lavender shades now that she’s outside. I could behead her, but I love her quirkiness and just want to leave her to her weird glory.
Aloe castilloniae on the far left. Really rare species from Madagascar.
Gorgeous Fred Cora cutting is finally settling in and rooting, as well as putting off some pretty colors.
Random catch-all planter. Some echeveria, some ghost plants, several different aloes and aloe-hybrids.
Echeveria alley.
My pot of “chubbies.” Moonstones, lavender pebbles, grapto-something, pachy-something.
This weirdo made me break my “no cactus” rule. Don’t remember the proper name but scientific is “ming thing.”
The “rare collection” corner. Not all of them, but most are some kind of slightly rare/exotic echeveria.
The lower pot is my pot of weirdos. SOme really funky ones in there. Upper pot is the pot of plants that I have a sketchy relationship with. Mostly crassula and aeonium, both of which I have marginal luck with.
My Inception-eque “planter within a planter.” Mostly sempervivum hens-and-chicks, and used the open spaces to tuck random tiny pots.
My hangers. The burro’s tail on the left isn’t thrilled with life. I think he probably needs a bit more sun, but I’m afraid to cook him.
Bottom’s up! This thirsty guy loves a “bottom watering” at least once every couple of weeks to get a really good drink. Very thirsty for a succulent.

We’ve had one heat wave roll through already, and so far, everything is holding its own, with just a couple of plants pulling a diva routine and threatening to keel over on me…so fingers crossed that I’m able to keep managing them.