Greener pastures...

Thea and I took a leap and rode in the fields out behind the race track! I had a friend there to keep an eye on us in case of trouble (and take pictures). She was so good, I'm proud of her :) We walked and trotted mostly and did a little canter up the hill. It was fun! Here are the resulting pictures... the grass looks so green!

Steady as she goes...

School work hasn't really been piling up but they've been steadily giving us more to study each day, which means we don't get much of a break with 4-5 tests a week... We had 2 presentations to do this week as well. Next week we have 2 big unit tests on the same day... and only 36 days to go til the end of classes! :)

Yesterday I sealed the envelope that may seal my fate in the world of veterinary medicine. Yes... I applied to AVC again! :) I liked my personal statement much better this year... last year's was too dry and unoriginal. Now I get to play the waiting game again til March (find out if/when we have an interview) and then wait til May sometime to have our interview, and then wait til mid June to find out if we've been accepted. I hate that its such a long process. I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of stuff between now and my interview, kind of makes the application out of date! But at least I'll have lots to talk about :)

Finally started working Thea again after her unfortunate bad luck the past couple of weeks (sor foot after being trimmed and then reaction to strangles vaccine). I'm looking forward to getting her going nicely undersaddle before the ground freezes! We're also planning on renting the indoor once or twice a week to practise in. Will be nice once the time changes and it gets dark super early.

Here are a few pics I snapped today at lunch when I went to muck out Thea's stall. She loves her buddy Dala :)

College Royal!

Thea attended her very first show last night! College Royal is a show held for the students at NSAC, where they can show their animals. This was actually only the 2nd year they've done a horse show. They're more into the cows, sheep and chickens around here LOL. We entered Advanced Showmanship. I was debating on whether to enter beginner because Thea was definately a beginner seeing as I had only worked her many 4 or 5 times in showmanship. But since I had shown (and placed) showmanship classes in AQHA breed shows... I didn't think it was fair to the other students!

We were supposed to have 5 people in our class, but it ended up only being 3 of us. I was so proud of how Thea behaved. She was listening, standing and doing everything I asked of her. I was expecting her to be spooky, jumpy, and not wanting to stand still! We had a good pattern, the judge even said so, but the onyl problem was that I forgot to back up in the pattern!! Ahhh. We got 3rd out of 3 because of me. Oh well. I was more than pleased with her though :) I have a feelign she'll be a nice showmanship horse like her sister Mascouche!

Here are a few (bad) pics. One of my lovely banding job of her mane, and the others of us before heading over to the indoor arena.

Good times in Halifax!

I had a marvelous time with my friends Liz and Michelle in Halifax this weekend. We had a party at their apartment and then went out to Pacifiko. Lots of fun :) Thanks girls!

Pictures!!

The camera batteries died unfortunately.. But here are the ones she managed to capture! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

My first thanksgiving by myslef! While I haven't been home for thanksgiving in several years, I've always celebrated with roomates/friends. This was the first time just me ( and Cody). I cooked a good meal of pot roast, mashed potatoes, veggies and gravy :) Yum.

I've been doing stuff with Thea, doing some homework, and watching the dog show that has been going on at the racetrack exhibition centre. So I've been quite happy :) Today I watched the herding group, which is of particular interest to me because I plan on getting a German Shepherd (GSD) in the not too distant future (ok a couple years)! It was nice seeing so many GSDs in one place. But I was also taken aback at how awful a few of them looked. The poor dogs were not just walking on their hind feet they were walking on their hind feet as well as almost up to their hocks!! And to watch them move was horrible... Yet another reason NOT to get an american/canadian bred dog... I have totally fallen for the German lines who have dogs that can actually trot and don't have such acute angulation (and many other weak points) and they actually have the old GSD temperment... Here are a few pictures (the awful one is the one on the right in the first picture):




Thea and I have finally begun some canter work, and she seems to have gotten (mostly) out of her reluctance to move forward. We can actually trot for more than one circle! LOL She's getting good at showmanship too, and we've only practised a couple times. She can spin well already... just have to work on setting her feet up square.

Tomorrow we are getting some pictures taken of us :) Hopefully they'll turn out well. I'll be sure to post them!

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: