11 weeks and No Updates...

Hello gang!

My life of insanity has definitely taken over my blogging time, but when I peeked at my blog the other day, I realized that it had been over 11 weeks since I last updated. Sorry!!!!

Just a brief "catch you up to speed on Fran's Parelli adventure"; I'm now heading into week 9 of my Externship. I'm on campus in Reddick, FL, and learning an amazing amount of information! This has turned out to be exactly what I expected and more, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity.

In reflecting on the past 9 weeks, I cannot begin to decide what I want to blog about. There's SO much to this experience, it's hard to pick just one thing. Not to mention, as with every time a person spends time here, it's not just what you do and learn in the moment, it's the days, weeks, and months of learning afterward that is even more worthwhile to share. (Stay tuned for multiple BFO-themed blogs in January/February/March etc, I'm sure-ha!)

So I've decided to open that decision up to my readers. What would YOU like to read about? The entire event is far too much for a single entry, so I'd challenge you to come up with something specific for me. But I'd love to share the experience, and I want to hear what you're interested in knowing.

Let me know in a comment or an email: savvyup@yahoo.com and I'll start writing something up.

An Update Just For Petra

As I was doing my evening chores last night, one of my blog followers (and new friend!) Petra came up and teased me about needing to update my blogs more often, that a month without writing was simple unacceptable. So, especially for Petra, here I am, updating my blog ;)

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently in Pagosa Springs, CO as a working student at the Parelli Ranch. I've been here since September 7th, am in Pagosa until October 7th, and then I'll leave for Florida. I plan on being with Parelli until January of 2011 at least, hoping to start as an Extern on the 15th of October.

It's been a really wonderful adventure thus far. There are people here from all over the world for the Fast-Track Course, as Externs, Working Students, and Mastery students, and it's been a wonderful opportunity to make new friends, as well as a chance to spend some time with familiar faces.

I currently have Crest on site and Prin will join us in a few days from her current location at a ranch about 10 minutes north of the Parelli Center. It's been a wonderful opportunity to have my horses in such a beautiful place and with like-minded energy. We've had lots of fun playing with all kinds of things, and life is good.

I'm also totally in love with the town of Pagosa Springs itself. At home, I live in a pretty small town, so this isn't culture shock, and I love the home-y feeling. I'm already on a first-name basis with the gals that work at the local coffee shop, and they know my usual order.

So that's what's up for now. Updates on here will be time-permitting, and right now, computer time is pretty limited. But for daily updates, add me as a friend on Facebook!

Savvy on!

What a Week!

Life went from "busy" to "insane" this week, and since I've been eluding to some new opportunities on Facebook, I just wanted to share what I can about them :)

First of all, my externship audition package is off! I sent it out in the middle of the week last week. So begins the game of waiting. Usually I'd be nervous and unable to get it off my mind, but with all the stuff that's going on around here, I'm actually having to use that as a positive reminder to myself to get my mind off the STUFF I've to be doing! I'll keep you posted, hopefully I'll hear back on that in a couple weeks.

Secondly, I am relocating to South Dakota sometime in the near future! (I'd be more specific, but my coordinator is being a little vague with me about timing) Farrah called me a couple weeks ago and made a pretty interesting proposal. Apparently Farrah was asked to take up the position of barn manager at her current facility. Trouble is, she's taking that as well as instructing full time, and playing with their young horses, and even though Farrah is the queen of getting way more than I could get done in a 24 hour day, that's still just too much. So she asked if I'd be interested in coming out, taking up some of the management responsibilities, as well as finishing the young horses she's started. I'll be bringing Prin and Crest with me, and in exchange for my work, Farrah's offered me a series of lessons. I'll use that to finish up my L4 and get Crest going, I think. Talk about an awesome opportunity and more experience, which I'm so excited for.

Finally, slightly less for the positive, Prin has been sick. I'm still not entirely certain what's wrong, whether it's an upper-respiratory infection brought on by moldy hay, COPD coming on from the moldy hay, or some other kind of allergic reaction. In any case, she's been snotty and coughing some, right now I've got her on antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory, antihistamic, and soothing herbs. Poor little lady. I have lots of faith that she'll be okay, but it's just sad to see them when they're not alright.

So that's what's going on here. As I find out more of what's going on, I'll keep you posted.

Extern Audition Video

Hey All,

Just wanted to share this--in addition to the compulsories, I put together some "Just for fun" clips with my horses to go with my Externship Audition film. I felt like even though our compulsories looked really good, I wanted to showcase some of the things I'd been playing with my herd beyond that.

Check it out, and I'd love to hear your feedback!

Lemons to Lemonade

Hi Folks,

Gonna get a series of short blogs here over the next couple of days. The weather for the most part, is beautiful, but I've been kind of caught up in my head, so writing is essential. Anyway, today's topic is going to revolve around a segment of the January Savvy Club DVD with Dr. Robert Miller, entitled "Lemons to Lemonade".

Dr. Miller is a world-renowned veterinarian, writer, public speaker, the developer of foal imprinting, promoter of natural horsemanship, and also a long-time friend of Pat Parelli. (Click HERE to visit his website) This segment was filmed at a 4-week Masterclass course this summer in Pagosa Springs, where Dr. Miller was invited to give a talk, and told some stories about Pat to the class. He centers his talk around Pat's ability to take difficult situations, and turn them around and work them to his advantage (Hence Lemons to Lemonade). Some of the examples he gives are just befuddling--I knew Pat was good at that, but I didn't realize he was such a master at it. It got me thinking, that is for SURE.

The past couple days here have been kind of chock full of disappointments. In addition to several financial explosions, and bad experiences, I was supposed to be at Kristi Smith's today through Monday at a weekend set of workshops. The weather is looking rather unpredictable, so Kristi had to make a very difficult decision, and cancel the event, and reschedule for April. Yesterday was a very emotional day for the both of us--she more-so than I, probably, though I certainly did my fair share of crying.

In all of my frustration last night, that segment of the DVD kept haunting the back corner of my mind. I finally gave in to temptation and pulled it up on the Savvy Club Vault and watched it again. If nothing else, the lesson to learn from it is exactly the title of the segment. In hearing some of the situations that Pat managed to make good (And from another person's perspective--not his own!), I was reminded and inspired to do just that.

So--even though I'm very disappointed not to spend the weekend with Kristi, you know what? It's 27 degrees, sunny, and not windy. Our driveway is plowed and I started teaching both my horses some neat things yesterday--what a shame it would be to not finish what I started! So this weekend, my goals are to help Crest find rhythm and relaxation for two laps of canter, both directions at liberty, and to teach him to find connection better doing stick-to-me to the right. With Prin, I'm going to finish my externship audition tape, and develop more connection and energy in our large-area liberty.

Savvy on, folks!

Road Trip!

Okay, I'm seriously REALLY BAD at updating this bad-boy. I think I might be the last person to actually accept that fact, but hey. I try. I really do!

Anyway, Prin and I had a little adventure over the past couple of days! As I had mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals currently is to head to Florida to do an Externship at Pat's barn. There is an application process to this, and one of the things that they ask for is an audition video. It's a pretty basic thing, the requirements are online, liberty, and freestyle, show saddling and bridling, ride some bareback, and some patterns under-saddle. All pretty easy stuff to do, provided you've got the footing to do it in the winter, which we certainly don't, right now.

So, on Thursday, despite freezing rain warnings, Prin and I loaded up and hauled to The Horse First Farm in Brooklyn (just south of Madison), WI, to film my tape with my friend and 2* Parelli Professional, Michelle Manshardt. This was my first solo haul, and it was a bit stressful--Firstly being that I was driving a borrowed rig, of course carrying my baby inside, and with the weather. Fortunately, it went fine, and I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to drive with a trailer. (Previously I'd only driven a couple small rigs locally is all) So that's a new arrow in my quiver of "stuff I can do within the horse world".

Thursday was pretty much my warm-up day. I still have a tendency to get a little paralyzed and forget how to use my brain in front of a camera, so the better a plan I can have ahead of time for what i need to show, the better I do. Prin was pretty much the happiest I've seen her in weeks, and after some tips and suggestions from Michelle, we had improved several aspects of our relationship (including our much-struggled-with large area liberty) substantially. My horse now sticks with me in the 100x200 arena (with a couple other horses in the arena at one point) without thought of leaving--too cool!

We finished out the evening at Sr. Peppers (local Mexican restaurant, one of my favs!) and had some nice chat time.

Yesterday was filming day...ahhhh! I'm not going to lie, I totally clammed up. Michelle was very patient with me, and although I'm sure it was really hard for her to watch, she was wonderful, and was able to play enough friendly-game with me and the camera, that after starting over several times, everything flowed. We got everything but three tasks filmed (freestyle patterns on a casual rein), simply because we were so crushed for time, my camera battery died, and Prin was HOT (talk about totally NOT being in condition to be moving for an hour and a half straight). But I feel REALLY good about what we got filmed, which doesn't happen very often. Though it's really kind of a glorified L2 tape (7 games on a 22' line, and at liberty, some bareback riding, saddle and bridle, mount, etc), everything looks SO quality and flowing, I feel very confident that it's exactly what they're looking for. I've got a few more tidbits to film before I send anything in, but I really do feel good about it!

So...that's what we've been up to. The time spent between my last few posts has pretty much been spent keeping my horses alive and getting other aspects of this application package put together. Oh, and I had a lesson with Kristi Smith in there a couple weeks ago too, on a gigantic, fancy Warmblood mare, who had a lot to teach me about emotions and fluidity. But that, my friends, is another story all together. So until next time, savvy on!