Long time no post

We've moved Oliver again. He's now at another barn up the road, with a covered arena and a nice big pasture. He's settling in really nicely without any of the drama we had at the last place. The really cool part is that I have a tack closet all to myself. I should take a picture of it. Its so nice and neat.

I fell off Oliver for the first time a couple weeks ago. Hopefully we've left all that stupidness behind at the old barn!

New places

Oliver should have gotten new shoes this week. 12/7 ish?

In more interesing news, We're moving! Well, Oliver and all my horse stuff at least. We're going down the road a bit to a neat place with a new covered arena. He'll be in a paddock of his own , much smaller then what he is in now. But it has a nice covered bit and should be great in good weather. I need some sort of tack box set up and I may need kier to help alter a shed to hold the cart too.

In trainging news, we spent most of october and november learning to canter. Towards the end he was getting much more balanced. Now we are on the winter plan of driving and trail riding. We haven't hooked him up to the cart yet but he is going nicely on the long lines while pulling the drag. I don't think he'l have any problems going back in the cart, but I need to do a bit of maintanence on it and get a cover for it too.

Slow Summer -New Shoes

Just got back from Santa Fe. It rained the whole time. Well enough to make it feel like the whole time. I did a trail ride on Christine's Dad's Arabian. His trot was AWFUL my butt still hurts. His being short didn't make up for the butt bruising. I missed my large smooth Oliver.

Oliver got new shoes Monday 8/14/06 after a month of being barefoot. I also got him some hoof supplement, he's eating Biotin Plus. I was happy to find a supplement with yucca and without the crap (HF cornsyrup, sucrose, etc...)

I also got new shoes. I needed boots to ride in NM so I bought some short slip on paddocl boots, they don't look western and they don't mess with my ankle. Yeah.

I'm knitting up a storm, I'm trying to get my Christmas presents started before school starts. Finishing will be aimed for Thanksgiving, with a little bit of leeway. I'm starting on the big stuff with at least one pair of socks always on the needles. I'm going to make a list.

Here's July

I finally got a dressage saddle! Yeah! now time to earn the money to pay for it.. :) I'm signed up with a temp agency and they already found me a position for a couple weeks. They were quite impressed with my test scores (60 units post BS has to count for something right?!) and I typed 41 wpm with 1 mistake in 5 min! I surprised myself on that one. I missed the first schooling show in June, so perhaps we'll try for the july one. I really want to get Oliver out there to see what other people make of him, he's just too much fun to keep hidden away at the barn. Kelly tried out my saddle a couple days ago and had a great ride, she was even doing shoulder-in with him! SO exciting for us!

Long Lazy Days

No summer school for me. The school closed and let me know 1 week before I was to start! I'm applying for temp jobs to hold me over. I rode Oliver alone on the trail this morning, very nice but he was a little anxious about being away from his buddies. I'm headed out to San Rafael this afternoon to pick up a dressage saddle to try. Its a 17.5 so the seat may be too big butits always worth a try.

Summer is here and riding is on

I've ridden Oliver a couple sundays in a row, I keep flaking on my lessons, I'm just too busy this time of year to be on a set schedule. 2 more weeks of school! I start summer school at arrowsmith the monday after finals week. Kelly wants to take Oliver to a driving place to school this summer as well as to some local schooling shows and to a Clinic at her other barn. Should all be fun but possibly expensive. I'm about ready just to spend a couple weeks trail riding, but at the same time I'm really excited to go to some shows with him. I can't wait to see what the judges think of him.

Committees and Shoes

I got a new pair of shoes. Merrels, in pink! So did Oliver, He has lost something like 6 shoes off of 4 feet between March 23 and May 23. So Dave West (my shoer) put them on him extra tight. That may make it more difficult for his feet to expand so he may have to get new shoes sooner, but it should also help him to stop loosing them. Our latest theory is that he lays down and grabs his front right shoe (its got a bell boot to try to keep him from overreaching with a back foot and pulling it off) pulls off the shoe and tosses it over a fence into the Wente vineyards. Thats my boy!

I went to my first little commitee meeting for the LARPD arena project. I need to dig up some names and addresses of companies who may be interested in bidding on the construction or the arena.
I'm still going to use this as a place to keep track of when he gets new shoes.

****** Oliver New shoes MAY 23, 2006 *******