Me and T

I FINALLY got some riding pictures of me and Thea!! Don't we look cute?? :) She was good today, with only the occassional indication that she did not want to move forward. And it only took a bit of persuasion on my part to convince her that yes, we do have to walk. LOL Still no canter... she's not willing to move forward enough at this point. Not sure if I should use my dressage whip or spurs? Would rather not go to those if I can help it. I'll give her a few more rides before I take further action :P






I also got a few cute pictures of her out in the paddock earlier in the day.





I have got to tame that mane of hers... it looks so wild and unkept! Speaking of wild and unkept, she was acting like an "airhead" (Angela's words :P) when I took her into the indoor arena for a walk around. The NSAC Equestrain Team tryouts were this afternoon, and after they were done we got a few minutes to go into the ring. She thought everything was so spooky, even the other horses. But the scariest thing was hearing the people walk across the grandstand (echo-y). You'd think she'd never had been in an indoor! Haha. When she in fact had only ever been ridden in an indoor before she came here :) What a silly girl. It was good for her to see the new sights and sounds though. She got quieter toward the end of our walk and wasn't trotting around at the end of the leadrope.

I hope to ride again tomorrow... if I haven't been wiped out by the kennel duties at 6 AM and 12 PM. haha. Last day though! And we only have 2 more weeks this semester where we have to do kennel duty. Thats all for now... I should probably start studying for my 5 tests next week... haha

Another busy week almost to an end! Above is a picture of Thea (far right) and her two pasture buddies (Dala and Whisper)! She's getting along very well with them, which is great because she had been by herself since her accident when she was a weanling.

I have gotten back a few tests this week, and am pleased to say they are all 90+!! I could get used to this... :)I wrote 5 tests this week. The certainly aren't giving us much of a break! Three of them were today, so after the last one I was raring to go out for a ride! Thea was so good. It was her second ride with the bit, and is getting better at steering and going forward. We didn't have any of the "disagreements" like we had before :) Her trot was much better too. Still have yet to canter... but by the look of things it won't be much longer!!

It feels like a friday night, I guess because all I have tomorrow is a morning of clinic... which is more fun than work. We're actually going to do some stuff this week. Hehe. I'm ready to get my hands dirty!

Keeping Busy!

It has been quite a week here in Truro. We had 4 tests in the span of two days. And I've been keeping myself out of trouble by working with Thea :)

I rode her for the first time on Monday. She was so good! We just walked around the ring and did lots of turns, stops and circles. I rode her again on Thursday (after all the tests!). We trotted around a little bit, and besides my mistake of tightening the girth while on her, we had a marvelous time ;) Actually nothing really happened she just was not impressed with me and didn't want to move forward after I tightened it. I should have realized this before I did it because I was worned she could be a bit cinchy... I just assumed it was just when the saddle was put on... hahaha. Now I know better!

We got to order our scrubs for school this week too. But the "Uniform Lady" was a royal pain in the ass and screwed my order up at least 4 times. I think I'm going to end up with 3 pants and one shirt instead of two pants and two shirts... *sigh* So Jen and I went up to the mall today and sorted through some scrubs at Marks Work Warehouse. I got a couple of scrub tops, which were cheaper and probably nicer than hers... LOL So I should be ok.

What else is new... I'm going to watch a Sue Fraser clinic tomorrow at the MacMillan Show Arena (Sue is a well-known riding coach in the maritimes). I had thoughts of entering, but money and better judgement prevailed! Hopefully there will be at least one green horse there that I can get some insight from.

I'll leave this post with a bunch of new Thea pictures :) Can you tell I like her??

Pre-haircut:




Post-haircut:

Thea has arrived!!

After much anticipation, the little (ha!) filly arrived last night. She is settling in well and getting a wide exposure to all the sights and sounds at the racetrack! I lunged her today and she was pretty good. Tomorrow I'll try the saddle and bridle while lunging, and if she's quiet maybe hop on Monday. :) Just taking it slow as there is no rush and she is still young... so no need to stress her growing body too much!

Here are a few pictures I snapped while she was turned out in the paddock. It was starting to get dark, that's why the pictures are a bit blurry. I'll be sure to get better ones tomorrow ;)

First Feeding

This morning was my first day feeding the ponies... well, it would've been if my partner wasn't crazy and had been there since 7:30 LOL He had given them all grain, trucked the hay to the paddocks and was just bringing the first ones out by the time I got there. Oops.

But we don't have a set time for feeding, so technically it wasn't my fault LOL I will be much earlier on weekdays though to make it back in time for a shower and getting ready for class. I got to take out a few of them to the pasture. The last one, Zipper, is quite tall and I went to take his halter off and he flipped his head up out of reach and acted like I was the boogie man. I tried scratching his neck, his head, eating hay (the horse that is), etc. but whenever my hand touched the crown piece of the halter his head flew up. So rather than risk any accidents he had his halter left on LOL. I will have to find out the trick to getting it off from his owner, as my barn buddy had already left by this point.

The new place

I'm finally settled into the new apartment. I think everything is situated how I want, but I may have to do something about a table to eat on (coffee table is fine for now)... Here are the pictures!

The bedroom:




Spare Room:


Bathroom:


Living Room:



Kitchen:

Vacation !

I had a great week in Ontario! We just arrived back in St. Andrews after 14 hours of driving. Poor Cody seemed lonely, and I'm sure he's glad to have his mother back :) I missed him too of course!

We got to see all the family on my mom's side, except my Uncle who couldn't come from Spain to visit because he had to take care of the house and dogs (guard dogs who won't let anyone else take care of them!). But my Aunt and cousins from Spain were able to make it for a visit after 7 years :) We had lots of good food and conversation. We relaxed quite a bit but it also seemed like we didn't have enough time to do everything.

Everyone:


The "kids" of the family:


We went to the Mono Cliffs outside of Orangeville for some hiking. We had a great time navigating the trails, and the scenery and nature was beautiful!






On another day we took a trip to the African Lion Safari near Hamilton. This is where you get to drive your vehicle through the "reserve" and see the animals. A very cool experience. I love it everytime we go there :)








And finally yesterday we visited the Toronto Zoo ( in Toronto of course). We managed to see everything except the Canadian exhibit (we see that in real life anyway!). I got a lot of great pictures this week, and I'll share a few of them. But for more you can visit my webshots page!