miscellanea

5 Years!

/ Ashley Wingert / 12 Comments

Happy blogiversary to me…it’s five years now that I’ve been able to keep this going, and considering we’re only a quarter of the way through the year and I’m already at my second-highest number of blog posts/year, I might have finally figured out this whole “regular posting” thing.

Ironically, it’s during a time when I’m not riding competing, and should in theory have nothing to write about.

I originally started the blog for my own purposes of remembering stuff that happened and keeping myself on track.  I’ve always loved to write, have been fascinated by others’ ride stories, and figured this would be a good place for me to store my own thoughts and memories of rides I’ve done.

What I didn’t anticipate was how this blogging thing would spiral off in unexpected directions.  It’s been invaluable in forming a network and introducing me to great new friends.  It’s given me an outlet for writing.  And writing was an integral part of how I got my job with Renegade.

So I owe a lot to the blog…and THANK YOU, my readers/subscribers/followers, whether you’re new here, or been following me since the beginning.  I value your input, your contributions, and your friendship.  I still haven’t met most of you in person…but thanks to blogging, I feel like I know you and can call you my friends.

This sort of snuck up on me…I just happened to be looking at older posts when I realized, “Hey, the anniversary of my first post is coming up.”

And I’m actually writing this post a couple days ahead of time and scheduling it to post on the day, since I figured I would probably forget on the actual day.

But next year, I’ll plan better and come up with some kind of blog-party or something.

the back-end product of horse ownership

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

You’ll pardon the really bad pun up there.  Been entrenched in all kinds of marketing language for the past few weeks and I couldn’t help myself once I read this article:

Norco’s Can-Do Proposal: Turning Horse Manure Into Energy

Now that’s a “green” movement I can get behind.  (Sorry.  More bad puns.  It’s been a good morning and my brain is feeling just a little bit mischievous.)

I hope it’s something that ends up working out, both logistically and financially, because that would be good for areas all around the country that have a decent-sized horse population.  Imagine…your hobby (for most of us out there), providing part of your power.  Which means, in a way, the horses are sort of paying for themselves/earning their keep.  Sort of makes the prospect of shoveling that back-end product a little more appealing.

crunch, crunch

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

A year ago, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at jumping in the saddle and riding 50 miles.  Sure, my legs might be a little crunchy, but nothing I couldn’t walk off within a couple of days.


30 minutes in the saddle this morning, and my legs are grumbling at me.


Hmmmm.


Someone’s a bit out of shape, methinks.


Yes, I admit it: I’ve spent most of the summer hibernating indoors, venturing over to the barn enough to maintain Mimi’s feet and make sure she has plenty of her flax/beet pulp mix she gets.  But riding?  Eh, not so much.  One four-mile trail ride a couple months ago.  A couple rides around the neighborhood, maybe a miles’ worth of distance.  A handful of arena sessions.


All of this adds up to one out-of-shape rider.  Not that I’m completely out of shape.  I’ve spent a good portion of the summer helping my father with some of the larger carpet cleaning jobs…not exactly a low-impact activity.  Add to that the frequent petsitting jobs and the walking of said pets, and my cardio isn’t doing too bad.  It’s just the riding muscles that are suffering.


I’d like to say that fall is just around the corner, and nicer weather will be more incentive to ride, but we’re nowhere close to being out of the woods yet.  In fact, I think my rearview mirror thermometer in my truck just might have gotten busted today, since it refused to actually register a temperature for outside on the drive home.  Its poor, overwhelmed little brain was giving me an Ice warning.  Hah!


I’m now hugging the a/c back home and downing an iced coffee.  When I left Pony, she was employing the do-it-yourself swamp cooler method: standing herself, still wet from the shower I gave her, in front of her stall-mounted fan.  And nibbling on a cool, salty, bran-and-beet pulp sloppy I gave her.  Not a bad life.


But it’s this time of year that fish pond in the backyard starts looking real attractive.  That, or I contemplate why my parents though a fish pond over a swimming pool was a good idea.


As a final random aside: I know my last number of posts have been completely picture destitute, and as a result, probably kind of boring.  I’m working on changing that.  I have pictures, i just need to get them uploaded/sorted/edited.  But as a preview, Happy!Pony:

That was from our ride out at Estrella Mtn Park in March…still a lil’ fuzzy from winter, but looking so chipper and happy.


The Absentee Blogger

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

Not promising anything regular by way of posting, but just a quick note…yes, I’m still around.  I’ve become a very good ‘net lurker these days, and a pretty bad blogger overall.  Several reasons:

– I haven’t had much to blog about that is interesting and positive.  I went through some major upheaval and changes in my life when we sold Beamer and the trailer several months ago.  Long story short:

Dear Economy,
You suck,
No Love,
Ash

Beamer went to what we feel is a great home where he will be able to continue his endurance career in a way we currently aren’t able to do.  Horse and trailer actually went to the same place, so Beamer gets a little bit of home and familiarity with him.

– Consequently, I’ve been in a sulking funk most of the summer, and have ridden Mimi maybe half a dozen times, and only one of those times on a proper trail ride.  I hate not having a trailer, and I really hate bumming rides off people, because then I feel obligated to ride with them in a style that is very much not my own.  I’m a control freak with a healthy dose of Slavic guilt complex.  Means I’m sort of a pain to deal with in these kind of situations.  So I feel somewhat like a neglectful pony mom…but I’m still going down to the barn and keeping up on her feet (ironically, they look the best they’ve ever looked now…I have all of the flare completely gone), she still gets her regular supplements, and she’s turned out with the herd in the 3+ acre big pasture for close to 14 hours a day.

– I don’t like whining too much on my blog.  I tend to approach much of my “public” life with a “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it” mentality.  I figure that most people have enough of their own problems, concerns, and drama to deal with.  They don’t necessarily need to be hearing all of mine heaped on them as well.  Couple that with the fact I try to be an optimist (boy, is that getting put to the test this summer), and I just haven’t felt a whole lot like blogging this summer.  Each post would have essentially looked the same: “Went to the barn.  Trimmed feet.  *insert photos here*  Rode around the arena.  Wilted in the heat.  Gave pony a bath.  Went home and hugged air conditioning.”  Lather, rinse, repeat.

And just a quick life update:

– I took the summer off of school.  I needed the break, mentally.  And I noticed that I suffered fewer nervous breakdowns and stress headaches over the last few months.  And I still have plenty to be stressed about.  That lead me to the conclusion that, when the fall semester starts up this coming Monday, I don’t believe I will be sitting in that classroom.  At this point in my life, I don’t know if court reporting is for me.  Yes, I put a lot of time and effort into it…yes, it seems a shame to quit now.  But I don’t feel like incurring further student loans debts while I figure out whether I want to continue this or not.  Maybe I’ll come back to it.  Maybe I’ll figure out something to do within the field that isn’t the level of a certified reporter.  There are options, so the past four years isn’t a total waste.  But right now, mentally, I don’t have it in me to throw more of myself into that program.  If it hasn’t happened by now, I don’t know if it ever really will.  And I don’t want to give up more of my life trying to figure that out.

– I did find a new hobby/time-occupier over the summer: I’m learning to play the guitar.  At the moment, I’m self taught, since lessons take money.  But there are a lot of videos on youtube that are fabulous resources, and I’m slowly learning.  Turns out I do have an ear for music, after years of wondering if I was tone-deaf.  Not tone-deaf…just untrained.  I still don’t know what I’m doing, but I know when something sounds right or not.  And I’m definitely leaning towards a more countryish flavor with some of the tunes I’m managing to pick out.  Not like that’s a surprise with a guitar, but whatever.  I’ve sort of come full circle with music…growing up around barns and horses, I was always a country girl.  Expanded my music listening repertoire in high school and especially college, but have recently re-embraced the country thing, especially some of the newer, up-and-coming artists that are more than just traditional country.  (My new favorite artist of pretty much any music genre is Christian Kane — he does a great blend of rock and country with a ton of energy, great vocals, and he writes most of his own material.)

– It’s summer in Arizona.  It’s hot.  That mitigates some of my lack-of-riding guilt factor.  And makes it really easy to, while giving Pony a bath, turn the hose around on myself.  Long hair holds water for the next couple of hours and keeps your head cool. 

So, anyway…if you stuck with me for this long, my hat’s off to you.  I can’t promise regular updates, but I will say this: At least I have an interest in blogging again, and reading other’s blogs.  For a couple of months, I was completely incommunicado and not even looking at blogs.  So this is a step in the right direction.

The Times, They Are A’Changing

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

It’s certainly not what I wanted, and was never part of my “Five-Year Plan.”  But I know it’s the right thing to do.  Barring a sudden miracle age-reversal process, it’s time for Mimi to retire from competition.

I had already made the decision to retire her from 50s earlier this year.  In a way, that was the toughest decision to make.  Giving up 50s meant giving up on even bigger dreams…Tevis, 1000 mile medallion, multi-day rides.

But for her sake, I think that retirement, even from 25s, is the right decision.  I’ve always said, albeit jokingly, that I have to be the sensible one of the two of us.  She will just goGoGO until she drops, and doesn’t quite have the good sense to know when she should slow down and take it easy.  So the voice of reason has to step in a say, “No, you’re done.”  That voice of reason would be me.

She is still a phenomenal trail horse and riding companion.  I’d like to keep her that way.  I know my rides are numbered…I’m getting down to the last stretch for school, and once that is over with and all my certifications are passed, Real Life is going to take over for quite a while as I start working, and hopefully relocate.  (105* at the end of September?  Relocation can’t come fast enough.)  I know there’s not going to be a lot of time to condition an endurance horse, let alone go to rides, while I’m doing all of that.

But I’ll need the escape therapy that riding provides.  Rule Number One for court reporters: Have an outlet.  We get to hear about the dregs of society, and it’ll turn a person bitter and cynical very fast, unless there is some kind of a mental release/escapism available.  For me, that’s riding.  Even if it means just jumping on the pony and riding out for a few miles.

And that’s what I want her to still be around for.  She’s a safe, trustworthy trail horse that can sit around for a few weeks (provided she gets turnout), and not do anything stupid when I climb on her back again.  Saving her now means I will hopefully have a lot more casual trail miles left in her for years to come.

Easing the sting of all this is my father’s very generous offer to start riding his horse Beamer with greater frequency, and taking him to rides.  It works well, really.  A lot of Dad’s time is being taken up with work, and Beamer has been sitting around, not getting used all that often.  He’s a working performance horse, and needs a job to do.  So he’s without a rider half the time, and I’m now without a competition horse.  Seems to be a good match…

So we’re going to start instituting a “horse-sharing” plan.  I’ll still ride Mimi, primarily, but on the days Dad isn’t available, I’ll take Beamer out.  And we’ll share Beamer for rides.  This works particularly well for multi-day 50s, when we can each ride him for at least one day.  One-day 50s…well, we might have to flip a coin.  ;)

Beamer and I are going to do our first ride together at the end of October, at the AHAA Halloween Ride at McDowell Mountain Park.  We’re going to do the 25, for several reasons: 1) Beamer has had most of the summer off.  Granted, he’s an Arab and keeps his conditioning, but there’s no sense in pushing it.  2) Need to make sure my saddle really does fit him for distance.  It appears to work, at least in the arena, as long as I have the proper saddle pad set-up.  But the distance is what will be really telling.  3) Need to make sure Beamer and I get along for at least 25 miles.

Despite the fact we’ve owned Beamer for almost six years now (!), I’ve spent very little time on his back.  I put about 60 days total on him when we first got him, then handed him off to Dad.  I’ve spent a lot of time working with him on the ground, and more recently, with his hoof care and tending his various injuries acquired over the summer.  But I haven’t ridden him all that much.

All I can say is, this should be Interesting.

I’ve got a lot of catch up on, blogging-wise.  Friend Kaity came out for a week, and we had a grand time visiting and riding.  A lot of pictures from our ride, including a day trip to Payson, and my first ride on Beamer on trail in about four years.  Look for those to go up, as well as grand tales for the telling.  (Blogging off my laptop at school at the moment, so don’t have access to all my pictures.)

Also to come is a new blog.  I can’t very well talk about Beamer antics on Mimi’s blog, so I will have a secondary blog that covers Beamer, and some more general aspects of my life.  I’ll still keep this one going for reporting Pony antics.  This, too, should prove Interesting, as we all know the trouble I sometimes have with just maintaining the one blog.

Once I have that up and going, I will post a link to it here.