endurance

The Year Tevis Wasn’t

/ Ashley Wingert / 4 Comments

You know it’s a strange year when Tevis cancels. In all of the years since its inception, there have only been two major disruptions to the ride’s scheduled date — the 2008 cancellation due to massive wildfires, and the 2011 date change to October due to late-season snow. But 2020 has been the first time the Tevis Board of Governors has preemptively voted to cancel the ride, and well in advance of the scheduled date.

Given that I’ve made an annual pilgrimage to Auburn every summer since 2012 (and several other intermittent times prior to then), it feels very strange to not be there this year.

(The WSTF has creatively offered a “virtual Tevis” this year — 100 miles in 100 days, based on your miles submitted from training rides, competitions, and other horsey endeavors. Liberty and I are signed up, as our first major “goal” together. It kicks off Aug 1 — what was supposed to be Ride Day — and continues through Nov 9.)

As I write this now, it is the evening on Friday of what would have been the day before Tevis.  The scenic drive across I-80 from Auburn to Truckee would have been completed, the temperatures dropping the further east we headed, the scenery changing from the Auburn foothills to the soaring alpine peaks of the Sierras. The long last stretch into Robie Park would have been made, with obligatory remarks among all in the vehicle of, “I always forget how long of a drive it is back here.” The vehicles would have received their first coating of Tevis dust.

A parking spot would have been found — most people have a “favorite” spot, and all of us are convinced that “our” spot is the “best” for various reasons.

Riders would have checked in, signed their waivers and paperwork, and picked up their rider packets. Horses would be vetted in, numbered, and gone out for a pre-ride to the start line, and perhaps the first couple miles of the trail. There was also likely some time slotted in there for perusing the vendor tents. (Pro Crew Tip: When your rider goes out for a pre-ride, that is a great time to sneak in a blitz round of shopping.)

Crew and rider will all be tending to some of the details around camp — making sure the crew bags are packed and that everything that needs to go to the Robinson Flat vet check is set aside, or packed in a secondary crew vehicle. Horses may be getting last-minute tending such as mane braiding, or making sure they’re eyeballs-deep in a bucket. Camp is being tidied up so there is minimal clean-up in the morning before leaving Robie Park. All afternoon long are chances to attend various pre-ride meetings (crew meeting, first-time rider meeting, junior rider meeting) although none of these are mandatory (unless you’re a junior rider/sponsor) until the main ride briefing later in the evening.

The ride offers the opportunity to purchase meal tickets to a pre-briefing dinner, but over the years, my core Tevis group has found that it is easier/less stressful/more predictable to put together our own meal ahead of time and eat dinner before briefing.

By 6pm, all horses will have been vetted, and ride briefing started at 6:45. For as much information as there is to be covered, much of it has been provided ahead of time via the e-packet emailed out to riders in the weeks preceding the ride, and the briefing serves to reiterate the most critical parts of that information, as well as any last-minute changes to be made. This meeting is mandatory for riders, and most crew members will also attend.

After the meeting adjourns, riders may linger for a few moments to briefly socialize, must most quickly disperse back to their trailers. Horses are taken out for a final walk for the evening. Tack is given a final once over, set-up and ready to go first thing in the morning.

Some crew leave out early in a separate crew car to spend the night back down the hill in Auburn or Foresthill, so as to be that much closer to Robinson Flat and avoid the log-jam of rush hour that is the great trailer exodus out of Robie Park in the morning.

 

The morning will roll around all too quickly, and most riders try to get to bed as early as possible. Pony noses are kissed goodnight, accompanied by a quick cuddle and gentle admonition to eat and drink well overnight, and rest up.

Finally, before bed, the full moon is glanced up at. Wishes are being made on it, and not on stars, tonight. Wishes from the riders that hope they’ll be seeing that moon again the following night, along the trail and all the way to the stadium in Auburn. Wishes from crew for a safe ride for their horse and ride, and that they’ll be watching the moon from the dark, quiet knoll next to the finish line as they wait for their rider to appear out of the darkness and sweep under the banner.

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Good night Tevis riders, and Tevis crews. May we all be gathered back together under that Rider’s Moon in 2021. Best of luck to all participating in the virtual ride this year, and I will “see” you on the virtual trail.

A New Addition

/ Ashley Wingert / 10 Comments

In the 27 years I’ve been riding, I have ridden dozens of horses. At one point, I even had a running list going, and I think I managed to remember the vast majority of them. But in all that time, only one of those horses has ever been mine. This fall will mark 24 years for me and Mimi, and what a ride it’s been. She has given me more than I could have ever asked for, is my heart and soul, and she was well-earned the right to gracefully retire, with her dignity, soundness, and spirit still intact. And as long as she still gets the first cookie handouts of the day, I don’t think she will object too strenuously over me bringing in a new pony.

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Prescott Chaparral 30, 2013; AZ Cowgirl Photography

Welcome home, Liberty.

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, she will be a recognizable face. I first rode her back in 2013, and she was another “instant click” horse I bonded with the moment my butt hit the saddle. We’ve done four limited distance endurance rides together, have the most breathtakingly unimpressive, bordering-on-laughable record together (we are 1/4 on ride completions, thanks in large part to under-preparation and a pinch of bad luck), but every single time, I’ve had fun with her. And that’s what I’m after right now — fun, and the ability to ride without feeling a low-grade sense of guilt or anxiety over “why am I still asking my aging pony to tote me around.” She’s a fabulous trail horse, and although she’s 14 now, she has done so very little in life that she has virtually no wear and tear on her.

Prescott Chaparral 30 2013
Bumble Bee 25 2014
Bumble Bee 25 2016
Wickenburg 25 2016
Groom Creek camping weekend 2016

My goal is to start small, and with low expectations. I just want to see what she does with more regular conditioning, and if it’s a positive result…go from there. I believe she has the ability to be very versatile as well, so if she doesn’t absolutely love tearing up the endurance trail, I think we can find plenty of options to amuse ourselves with as alternates. In the meantime, she’s a quasi-project — she has a solid foundation of training and decent amount of life exposure and experiences, but she’s been sitting around for the past year+, so is a bit soft and fluffy. So while she’ll need some work to get back into fitness, she’s not a training project the same way a youngster would be (the kind who need ideally need 5-6 short, frequent training sessions/week, and that’s just not going to happen in my current reality). She’s also in “pasture condition” and has lived a lifestyle of 24/7 herd turnout with lots of movement and a very simple, grass-hay diet, so she doesn’t have a bunch of extra “fat pounds” to melt off.

When the topic of horse shopping comes up, and what to look for in an endurance horse, there’s all kinds of advice given about the conformation, the brains, size, temperament, age, training how they move/travel/hold a saddle, what to look for, what to avoid…everyone has their own personal preferences. The bit of advice that has been my favorite has been from Lucy: “They should make you laugh.”

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Bumble Bee 25, 2016; AZ Cowgirl Photography

Well, this mare makes me laugh. I’ve spent time around her in ride environments, as well as a casual camping weekend. I have seen just about every mood she has. I have shoved her off the deep end on numerous occasions and she has always risen to the task. It hasn’t always been pretty, but we’ve always gotten it done, for better or for worse. I’ve ridden her a collective 7 times to date, and I trust her completely. I enjoy spending time around her, and she’s a really fun ride. She’s also really smooth, and although I suspect she has a competitive streak that is not far below the surface (she is bred for endurance, after all, with a 100-mile-proven Shagya sire and a racebred [and raced] Arabian dam), she is easy to rate, has a very soft face, and doesn’t pull. She’s opinionated, affectionate, loves attention, and isn’t afraid to throw her feed pan at you to make her point.

As far as endurance goes, she definitely has some stuff in her favor, despite our “hot mess” of a record. She travels well, she camps well, she has EDPP down to a science (she is the embodiment of “hungry, hungry hippo” and drinks like a fish — the only horse I’ve ever ridden who stops 3 miles into a ride to drink — and cheerfully evacuates it out the back end with no hesitation as she trucks down the trail), she is mostly good on manners in-hand (probably needs a refresher on that, she can be pushy), can lead or follow in a group, will ride out by herself, is not particularly spooky and really not reactive, and doesn’t seem to ever get overly worried about life. Or if she is worried, it doesn’t put her off her feed (grab a bite, chew, scream for friend, go back to eating) or disrupt her. More, she does the disrupting, because she is loud and will loudly scream for her friends…but that’s all she does. She has really good metabolics (even under-conditioned, she pulses down really fast) and absolutely eats hills for breakfast and asks for seconds. She’s been barefoot her whole life, has grown up in the brutally rocky Arizona desert, and can go flying over 10+ miles of an endurance rock completely barefoot and not even hesitate once. Fortunately, as long as the size/style is right, she wears boots really well.

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Exhibit A. Truly, it’s more of a bellow than scream. Lungs…she’s got ’em.

And some hills for Exhibit B.

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Rock crushing at Wickenburg after some hoofwear malfunctions. (When you work for a boot company; sometimes guinea-pig testing doesn’t always go to plan.)
AZ Cowgirl Photography

I know she’s 14…but she wasn’t started until she was 6, has lived in a large pasture turnout setting her entire life, and hasn’t had hard enough work to put a ton of wear and tear on her. So we’ll see what happens. I have big dreams…but starting with low expectations.

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Habit

/ Ashley Wingert / 4 Comments

21 days to form a habit, or so the adage goes. Newer research suggests it can be anywhere from two weeks to eight months to form a new habit.

And how quickly do we lose them?

Right now, I feel like I’ve lost some of my habits. Somewhere along the way, I’ve fallen out of the habit of many things I used to do. Running. Writing. At this point, even riding. And once you fall out of the habit of doing something, and you look back on it, it makes you wonder, “How did I do that?”

How did I run a 50k ultramarathon three years ago, and now after 1/8th of a mile down the canal path, I’m gasping for breath? Sure, I can blame hurting my ankle back in December and it still not being 100% right, but the truth is, I fell off the fitness bandwagon last summer, and have yet to find sufficient motivation to climb back on it again. I need to — I’m out of shape, feel like a squishy marshmallow, and have some extra pounds that have decided to creep up on me that really need to go. I also need to get creative, since the gyms are all still closed, and part of why I stopped going last year was to save $$$ on membership costs. I did add 1/4-mile jog to the daily dog walk routine yesterday, and ugh. It’s like starting back at the beginning. But it’s something, right?

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3 years (and about 20 pounds) ago. While I don’t have much desire to make a grab for the ultra-distances again, I did enjoy the cross-training I incorporated and want to get back to that.

General fitness work…that, I need to get creative, since gyms are closed and Amazon is currently out of stock of all free weights. I’ve started doing a “plank a day” and adding time every day…and my abs and core are laughing at me. Not for the first time do I wish people held fitness as well as horses do.

While backing up some computer files the other day, I got to browsing through and opening up some of my creative writing files. I used to creative write all the time, especially during college and my stint in court reporting school. Why write term papers when you can write creative fiction? I was in such a habit of it, I never realized how prolific I was. Of course, my major failing as a writer? I have a hard time actually finishing things. The vast majority of my writing projects are unfinished…some just need a chapter or two tacked on, others are half-started ideas. It’s always been for fun, not publication, an exercise for my creative brain cells, and often times, good therapy, since there’s no law about creating fictional representations of annoyances and subsequently beating the crap out of them on paper.

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All of my creative writing projects from 2005 onward live on this drive (and a couple of other back-up places)

But while the ideas are still there in my head, and sometimes scribbled down in one of my never-ending ideas notebooks…I don’t remember the last time I sat down to a keyboard and a blank Word doc and actually wrote. (Creative fiction, not blogging or a work article/project.) And I find myself out of the habit. Words don’t come easily. Characters who once lived in my head feel like strangers. I get caught up on the minutiae and technicalities of writing versus just letting the story come. I feel self-conscious and self-judgmental. (Why??? If I have no intention of publishing, why can’t my brain just switch off and let me write for myself?) Or I can’t be bothered to try to put words on a page, because I have a story playing out in my head, and I can’t translate what’s visually playing out in my head as cleanly into words as I would like. So I let my writing habit fall by the wayside. Although I do still find myself scribbling down random ideas…so there’s still hope…

And riding. How do you admit that you’re out of the habit of the one thing that has been a constant in your life for the past 27 years? Or that you’re losing heart for the one habit that has pretty much defined your life? Obviously in the immediate here-and-now, with rides shut down and no signs of getting back to “normal” on the horizon any time soon, it’s of little to no consequence. But the future? I don’t know what the future holds.

This has been another slow, downward spiral. It started last year after Flash got hurt. I wasn’t there, I had nothing to do with it…but having my favorite horse taken out of commission really knocked the wind out of my sails. Maybe it was dumb on my part to get so attached to a catch ride horse who isn’t mine, but my heart doesn’t always obey logic, and I connected and bonded with that horse from the first moment I interacted with him. He raised the bar to a whole new level for me, where it isn’t even fair to the other horses I’ve catch ridden to try to compare. Even though I’ve ridden him fewer than a dozen times all told, he changed the face of endurance for me.

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It’s been a year since he got hurt, and was at the vet clinic only 2 miles away from me for a couple weeks as part of his recovery time. I loved my daily visits with him, and how much he loves smooches and selfies.

The inglorious end to my winter 100-mile plans struck another blow. Not only was it yet another case of plans going awry, this time I also felt like a major failure. Pretty sure part of the deal of catch-riding your friend’s pony doesn’t entail breaking your friend’s pony. :/ Was it a pre-existing situation and something he had brewing for a while? Yes, most likely. But whatever the case, it was ultimately caught up to him on my watch, which still makes me feel guilty, and I can’t help but armchair quarterback myself and wonder what I missed along the way, where I went wrong, what could I have done different. I had been feeling pretty dang good about the whole endurance thing, felt like I had finally grasped the elusive art of pacing, was getting my ducks in a row, might actually have a shot at cracking my 1,000 endurance miles milestone…ah, nope.

Since then, I’ve made no real attempts to try to ride. Excitement flared briefly after winning a raffle entry to the Barefoot in NM ride, and the offer of the ride manager’s super-experienced horse to take me through…but that ride was supposed to happen in April, which it obviously didn’t.

And finally, even almost-27-yr-old Mimi decided to get in on the “fun.” Sometime back in March, probably when I was gone at Convention, she whacked a front leg on something. Who knows what. Wouldn’t be the first time. End of March, I noticed a hard lump on the outside of her right front leg that she was flinchy to hard palpation on, and was off at the trot under saddle and in-hand.

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That wasn’t there before…

The area corresponded roughly to where the splint bones are, but I wasn’t sure if they went down quite that low. Fortunately the vet was scheduled to be out for spring shots within the following days, and she took at look at it, declared it to be a “remodeling splint” that wasn’t impinging on any ligaments or tendon area, and that it would just take time.

So I’ve done one 5-minute bareback meander on her for the past two months. Last weekend, we took a couple-mile hand walk around the barn neighborhood, where she proceeded to still be an utterly hilarious pain-in-the-butt who still thinks she can drag me around like the pipsqueak 11-yr-old I used to be. Spoiler alert: She can’t since I now have the power of height, weight, the correct application of physics and leverage, and most importantly, a rope halter, to my benefit. But it’s still funny to see her try, and her sassiness and attitude makes my heart happy. She owes me nothing, and has well-earned a life of ultimately being a happy pasture pony if that’s what she needs.

Doing walkabout around the barn neighborhood
Mini horse across the street is *fascinating*

She’s also happily trashing fly sheets, since we are two weeks into the season with this year’s sheet and it’s already looking tattered. This doesn’t bode well for its survival for the entirety of the summer. I think I will start a betting pool for how long it actually lasts…

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She’s unamused by unicorns, apparently.

Combine all of that, though, and I’m just not feeling all that motivated at the moment to seek out saddle time. Which is a bit weird when so much of my life has revolved around and been defined by horses for so many years. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling a bit burned out. Or at least tired of trying so hard and fighting so hard and feeling like I’m getting nowhere. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Horses, and endurance, are not for the faint of heart.

On the flip side, there is one habit I’ve apparently picked up: my succulent obsession habit. I’ve added “a few” new additions since my post on the subject last month, and I’m a wee bit obsessed with tending my plant babies right now. Which is really ironic, because succulents tend to thrive on benign neglect, so they’re probably feeling a bit suffocated with me hovering around, waiting for them to dry out and show signs of “water, please!” (Pretty sure I’ve killed my past batches with love via over-watering, so to that end, I now have a moisture probe, an the watering bottle doesn’t come out until that needle is hard-pegged on “dry” and the plants are looking wrinkly.) The biggest challenge will be getting them through the hot summer months, especially as the evenings heat up, and I have way too many of them to bring them inside the air conditioning. I may have to get creative with ice packs…

I know what I’m feeling right now is a rough patch, the culmination of things that have been building over time and finally coming to a head, in a time when everything is weird. This isn’t the first time my motivation has ebbed or that I’ve found myself frustrated and asking “why?” in regards to my equine sport of choice. I also tend to fling myself at projects, ideas, and tasks with a bit of wild abandon, putting a lot of time and energy, both physical and emotional, into them (see: “How many plants can Ashley buy in the span of three months?”), so it doesn’t entirely surprise me that eventually I would start feeling some effects of burnout along the way.

Right now, I don’t have any answers, just the thoughts that were swirling around in my head during this morning’s walk. But I do have plant seeds in the mail and on their way to me…after managing to sprout three adenium and a dozen lithops, I’ve decided to try my hand at raising echeveria from seeds. Because apparently my brain still needs a project, even if it’s not one of my “usual” habits.

2020 AERC Convention

/ Ashley Wingert / 1 Comment

Has anyone checked the receipt to see if the year 2020 is eligible for a 90-day return? Or any kind of extended warranty policy? Because if so, I’d like to get in line for that, thanks.

I’m glad that Convention happened before all of the Covid-19 stuff really hit the fan. I am already a work-from-home introvert with anti-social tendencies, so was well-set in that regard. However, I am practicing a lot of Social MEDIA Distancing, and have done a thorough “Marie Kondo’ing” of my Facebook feed in order to retain a little bit of joy, sanity, and sensibility in the current climate, and to still be talking to people on the other side of all of this. I can’t get rid of social media entirely, since that is a large part of my job, but I can take steps to protect my own mental well-being. In the meantime, I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to succulent gardening. When people annoy me, I go play with my plants.

I also haven’t felt much like blogging. Since Tonto Twist and the catastrophic implosion of my plans/goals for the endurance season, I’ve been having a hard time mustering up my fairly typical optimism and good cheer, and my endurance mojo had flat out left the building. I had been feeling sorry for myself and throwing a self pity party over my bad luck with endurance, and my seemingly constant uphill struggles to make any kind of significant achievement or progress in this sport. In addition, major drama, upheaval, conflict, and pettiness happening in the sport and in my own state left me waffling between heartsick and angry.

Leading up to Convention, I felt stressed and frazzled, second-guessing my plans and prep for my trade show display, wishing as always that I had come up with something “cleverer” or more unique, or that I was a better graphic designer, or that I had thought of some of my last-minute ideas earlier when I still had time to implement them…you get the picture. All of that added up to that basically, until my butt was actually on the airplane seat, I hadn’t been all that excited about it. However, it ended up being a really, really good time, and I actually wrapped up the weekend in way better spirits that I started.

And then all the CovidCrap hit the fan, derailed plans left and right and all around, and made me very glad that for years now, we’ve already bought our toilet paper in bulk.

Anyway, before too much time passes, I figured I had better get something posted (and still gotta keep that “post a month streak alive…”) about Convention. As I mentioned, I am really glad I had that time, and crammed in some really fun activities and good memories to sustain me with so much of life up in the air right now.

Early AM flight. Consciousness brought to you courtesy of a honey-lavender latte.
Lovely view from the hotel parking garage.
View from the hotel room. Jacksonville is a really cool city with some beautiful old architecture.
After setting up my trade show booth and running some errands Thursday morning, Lancette and I drove down to St Augustine fro a beach day.
This site. <3 It's been a decade since I had last been to the beach, and I could have stayed there for far longer than the several hours spent.
Had tons of fun with Lancette as a roommate this year. We’ve been working a lot together on getting the AZ endurance club up and running, so it was a good chance to delve deeper into some club ideas, and stay up way too late solving all the endurance problems in the world.
Don’t ask me how many pictures of the beach I took. Jsut say lots and leave it at that.
View from up at the dune-side restaurant for lunch.
Adorable beach-side place for lunch.
Don’t mind if I do. Also, I need this sign, due to living with a couple of landshark terriers.
Delicious shrimp roll…had to get my seafood fix.
Practically obligatory beachside margarita.
The St Augustine lighthouse
219 stairs to the top…
And the view from the top!
I might be a desert rat, but the ocean is definitely a happy place for me.
Evening shenanigans back at the hotel, joined by AnnMaree from PerformaRide. She and I were booth neighbors for the weekend, and her flights in and out of the airport happened to coincide roughly with the times Lancette and I were flying in and out as well, so we promptly adopted her for the weekend. I met her at Tevis this past summer, and her sister Trish at convention last year.
The hotel was fabulous, and super-accommodating, including creating a cusotm drink for the weekend: the Endurance Mule (ginger beer, vodka, lime, splash of Red Bull, and a carrot curl garnish!)
The trade show booth all set up and ready to go!
Lovely new shirts, courtesy of Flik Creative & Equestrian.
Entry lobby area to Convention.
“Trail markers” — follow the ribbons to the various rooms/locations for different convention happenings.
Enjoying the Jacksonville Riverwalk on Sunday morning.
Cool statue near the hotel.
Cheers to a fun weekend, great friends, and lots of laughter and good times!
Some of my shopping haul. Because, hi, have you met me?!? I also won some raffle goodies, including the collapsible bucket, a Riding Warehouse gift card, and a ride entry to the Barefoot in NM ride.)

Anyway, that wraps things up for now…hope everyone stays healthy, stays safe…and if anyone finds out anything on a refund for 2020, let me know.

Gardens and Seahorses

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

With two days left to go in the month, I was thisclose to breaking my “at least one post a month” streak that I’ve had going since August 2011. It was tempting. My blog content is decidedly ‘endurance lite’ right now, at least as far as the actual riding part. I’m still managing to stay involved with endurance, via the AZ Endurance Riders Club activities (and running the website and social media), and I’ll be volunteering at the Wickenburg ride this weekend.

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Getting more and more official all the time: We have club shirts now.

But there’s an aspect there that is a bit of a dual-edged sword. It’s great to have ways to stay involved and active…but it also stings to be involved, but not on the riding front. I keep reminding myself that this is nothing new for me — I don’t think “consistency” can be applied in any way, shape, form, or definition to describing my endurance “career,” such as it is, over the years.

So right now, I’m just not thinking about endurance a ton.

Earlier in the month, I went up to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. It’s been an almost-annual tradition ever since I was little, and it made an early impression on me in terms of the beauty and spirit of Arabians. It also left a lingering dream and desire to some day show at Scottsdale. Never mind I don’t have an Arabian. But being up there this year really re-ignited that particular dream, and I realized I actually miss showing. I miss the fuss and the bother, the ritual and routine. I don’t miss my tall English field boots, though.

But my dime store psychology, combined with some peanut butter whiskey, netted me the epiphany that I think what I really miss is being that good at something, that successful. Mimi and I put in the work, and there’s boxes of trophies and ribbons stacked up in my closet to prove it.

Right now, endurance just has me feeling a bit defeated.

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Watching the Western Dressage classes. This handsome guy is VA Ralvon Crusader. I’ve followed him with some interest on Facebook for a while now, and it was delightful to meet him in person. He is sweet, kind, and has knock-your-socks-off good conformation. Wouldn’t mind owning one of his offspring.

So I spent a couple days at the Arab Show, admiring the sleek and shiny show ponies…and then I got to go groom my yak.

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Seriously. The shedding. It’s epic.

No worries about this one retaining her coat or anything like that…she might have grown an impressive coat this year, but she’s dumping it by the handful and can’t get rid of it fast enough. (My pony is a better forecaster than some old groundhog…I believe her and her shedding patterns as to if we have an early spring or not.)

Last weekend, Saturday featured some major rain.

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Spoiler Alert: It was not delicate.

Despite what my snarky weather app tried to convince me of, it was neither “light” nor “delicate.” Instead, the end result was enough water to leave the arena at the barn almost entirely under standing water.

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“I am NOT a seahorse.”

Mimi was not amused by my “water aerobics” exercise session. Princess is not a seahorse, and Princess does not like getting wet or splashed, so doing trot sets through several inches of water was not her idea of fun.

She was also feeling good enough to crowhop under saddle, which she hasn’t done since she was about…I don’t know, maybe 10? Glad that at almost-27, she’s still feeling that sassy. Took me totally by surprise, and all I could do was laugh. By the time I gathered my wits about me enough to realize, “uh, my pony is crowhopping, I should probably address that…” she had desisted her shenanigans on her own, but it still shocked me. It’s no wonder that some of the Arabs I’ve ridden don’t really faze me…at some point, there’s probably been some Pony-equivalent behavior I’ve already survived.

I also spring-cleaned down at the barn, organizing both my tack trunk and my storage cabinet. Everything got sorted, old stuff got tossed, cobwebs got swept out, several black widows got relocated to another plane of existence, shelves got fixed, and I have some semblance of organization happening again.

I’m also very proud of my leg-wrap storage system, set up to allow wraps to hang to dry, as well as have their own storage space that doesn’t involve them being tossed unceremoniously on top of my grooming tote.

Hought roo-laced endurance reins
True Grit pommel packs

I also did a bit of retail therapy. Because what else do you do when you’re beyond frustrated with endurance but buy more endurance gear? (I already know I’m impossible, you don’t have to tell me.)

I have a fondness for laced English reins, due to years of showing huntseat…but leather + endurance don’t mix. Plus, I like cleaning leather saddles…I hate cleaning leather bridles & reins. My plastic tack has me spoiled. But a query to Hought Tack, on whether they could do their beta English reins that were laced with ‘roo leather as endurance reins (snaps on the ends, no center buckle) netted me this gorgeous pair. They look cool, and they feel really good, too. And the ‘roo leather is super durable and holds up to all the sweat and dirt. Yay, best of both worlds.

I’ve also been on a non-stop quest to find the perfect saddle packs, and I just may have found them. Longer review to follow, but after two short rides, I am in love with these True Grit saddle packs. The maker of them doesn’t have a website yet, but I can put you in touch with her if you’re curious. They truly don’t bounce, and attach and sit on the saddle in such a way they sit above the horse’s shoulder.

And finally, I’ve been throwing some of my focus on the backyard at home. 20-something years ago, my parents transformed our suburban postage stamp backyard into a tropical paradise, complete with fishpond for exotic goldfish, and dozens of varieties of different plants. This was before horses totally and completely ruled my life, so most weekends were spent going around to various and sundry plant nurseries around the Valley. I loved getting involved with the fish pond part of things, especially picking out the fish, but my pre-teen self only had so much (very marginal) interest in the gardening part of things. I appreciate how it looked, but tending plants was not my cup of tea, aside from giving benign neglect to the little pot of succulents I decided to grow. (Incidentally, two of which are still alive, and one of which has propagated like crazy and I’m running out of room to stick all of its offspring.)

Well, fast-forward a couple decades later, and I think I’m starting to uncover my latent green thumb. Or at least attempting to. Over the last few years, I’ve started taking more of an interest in some of the garden stuff, like growing our own nasturtiums (and harvesting the seeds, saving them, and planting them the following year), and last year, really got more into it again with another pot of succulents, and helping tend to the veggies Mom planted.

And this year, I’m having a hard time staying out of the yard. I’ve gone a bit succulent crazy, two mail orders of little succulents on their way to me as I type this, in addition to the few new ones I’ve already added.

Last year’s survivors on the left. New donkey tail (Valentine’s Day gift from parents) on the upper right, and “string of dolphins” on the lower right.
Close-up of the string of dolphins on the left, and an Australian finger lime tree on the right. Because quirky, exotic cirtus is jsut as good as succulents.

Playing in the yard is a really good mental distraction, it gives me something to do, and it makes me feel productive. There’s also a combination of instant and delayed gratification at work. Instant gratification that comes from cleaning up a spot that needed work, or the satisfaction of tearing down and pruning things. Delayed gratification in seeing plants grow, and thrive, and the enjoyment of being able to harvest some fresh veggies and fruit.

Keeping my fingers crossed, but it looks like that gardening gene I was skeptical about inheriting actually may not have skipped a generation.