Stickin' Out Like a Sore Thumb

Apologies on the hold up for Pt. II of my article/story, folks. I'm typing rather slowly as it is, as I had a bit of an accident on Monday.

A rather long story short, I was trimming my barn owner's mare, Izzy. It had gone really well, up until the last 3 rasp strokes on her last (left hind) foot. She lost her balance slightly, and her hoof slipped off the hoof jack. Would not have been a bad incident, except that has her foot fell, it caught my gloved hand between her un-rasped hoof wall and the hardened rubber topper of the hoof jack. At the time, it just hurt like the dickens, but a minute later when I took my glove off, I was greeted by an almost entirely-skinned thumb that was bleeding freely, and piebald bruised thumbnail.

I ended up getting 5 stitches put in, and honestly, the Novocaine needle experience has proved to have a longer-term effect than the actual stitches, it left a nice bruise at the base of my thumb that actually hurts more than the injury.

So anyway--doing my best to get that second part out to you. Just know that I'm typing with my hand wrapped like in the picture below ;)

A New Year!

Hey, Folks!

Remember me? The girl who promised that she'd start blogging more consistently, did it for like two weeks, and then disappeared again? Yeah, hi. When I said that, I had forgotten that holiday season makes my family into a pack of crazy creatures that run around like chickens with our heads cut off. I'm back, I hope, for a while, now.

So, first things first. Happy New Year! I can't believe how fast 2009 flew by! A year ago tomorrow, I left for my course at the Parelli ISC. That's mind-boggling to me. Seriously, where has time gone?!

Regardless of that, 2010 is looking to be a big year. What are your goals? Do you have something you'd like to accomplish with or for your horse? With or for YOURSELF? I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to share!

Here, 2010 is looking to be the year of my dreams. I didn't blog about this earlier because I still had details to work out, but I feel pretty confident in sharing now. My parents and I have been talking, discussing, and making plans, and as of right now, I'm in the process of putting together my application and audition package for the Parelli Externship and Parelli Professional program! No idea when I'll be going yet, but there is positive motion in the right direction. I will definitely keep everyone posted. Besides this, I'm also going to try to begin the process to become a Certified Equine Podiatrist through KC La Pierre's school. That'll be another pretty hard-core commitment, so if I don't get through it this year, I won't be broken-hearted, but it's a focus point for me, anyway.

Besides all that, I have some personal goals, and goals to accomplish with my horses, as well. They are listed below:

Parelli/Equine:

*Graduate Level 4 with Prin
*Bring Crest into Level 4 in all 4 savvys
*Finish teaching LB to drive
*Buy a truck (I've got a trailer, but nothing to pull it with!)
*Earn my 1*, perhaps my 2*
*Build my business


Self:

*Grow first and foremost as a learner. 2009 was a challenging year for me as a learner. I'd like to improve my ability to handle feedback, as well as to learn and see the good in negative experiences.

*Grow as a teacher and inspiration.

*Share what has been shared with me

*Lose 10 lbs. My Wranglers should not be fitting as tightly as they are right now!

*Develop and grow as a trimmer and photographer. These are good trades and abilities to have. I'd like to continue to learn about them, and possibly add them to my list of services :)

So there is a list. I'm not going to put a timeline on myself or my horses this year, but I'm not going to forget or give up on these things, either. It's a balancing act, and I strive to be centered!

So, here's to a savvy new year, and I'll be better about blogging now that life is not so insane! Don't forget to tell me what your goals are for the year!

Savvy On!!

Where Has She BEEN?!

Some day, I swear, my life will slow down...maybe not in the foreseeable future, but ONE DAY! So...where have I been? What have I been doing? Why haven't I blogged? Where are my priorities? How are my horses? What are we playing with? All very good questions. I'll try my best to get things sorted out for ya ;)

I have been what seems like all over kingdom come and back in the past couple weeks. I got home from my travels with Farrah on the afternoon of the 23rd of June, and hit the ground running. Teaching, trimming, training, all of that good stuff. Mostly trimming, I must say though. I get home from 5 weeks off, and every single client I have has a horse with long toes, go figure. So needless to say, my hands have re-calloused, and my hoof jack feels far from neglected.

I'm in the process of tying up loose ends on the plans for another lesson...weekend with Farrah--July 11th-12th, Pepin Trailblazer's arena. I currently have 3 participant slots left, one on the 11th and two on the 12th, with several people pending. Cost is $120/90 minute lesson, auditors welcome at $10/day. PLEASE let me know if you're interested in coming, I'd love to see you there!

My horses are doing quite well, I returned home to find both Prin and LB fat and out of shape (My last 12 days with Farrah were completed with Crest). Prin had absolutely no topline, a half inch of extra hoof, and a pot belly. Okay so that whole body condition thing? It doesn't keep itself up. So, we're currently playing with..well..getting in decent condition again. I trimmed her 3 days ago, and now we've been going for long trots/canters to get the muscles moving again. We're also playing with stretching, and building more flexibility, especially in the hind end. Not that Prin's got problems, but being that she's build like a QH, and not for collection necessarily, I figure it can only help.

Yesterday a friend called just as I began my session with Prin, and so I needed something to play with that didn't involve a lot of use of my arms. I stood her up on the pedestal at first. Incidentally, standing with only the front feet on the pedestal is a great stretch and rotation that causes the shoulder apparatus to open up and lift. Great for the topline and movement ;) I had her stand for a couple minutes, and then had her hop off. She offered to sidepass over it, so I took it, wondering what I could play with from there. As we were doing it, I remembered Farrah mentioning that she had taught Caesar to sidepass over a pedestal and put one back leg on and hold it, and that it had helped the flexibility throughout his hind end, and ultimately aided in his ability to do flying lead changes.

Though Prin and I aren't nearly to the point of flying changes that Caesar and Farrah are, (don't I wish I could do 3 stride tempis in near-perfect rhythm-haha) I thought it might be a fun pattern to start building on, so that when she fully understands the concept, she'll be physically fit to do it. Neato, huh? So, with that in mind, that's what I taught her yesterday. Today she did it without question, and I'm going to slowly start building the amount of time I ask her to stand there. I've noticed small improvements already :)

Crest is learning to be a more reliable and respectful riding companion. During our time with Farrah, she caught some subtleties in Crest's behavior that have totally changed his attitude towards being with me and performing for me. He's learned (and practically mastered) a Level 4 porcupine game, that is learning to hobble. He has greatly improved his level of patience with long sits both tied and in a trailer, sees me as a provider and partner, and he's learned that I can indeed communicate with his hind quarters and dictate how fast he backs up. He's also figured out (after much hassle and giggles with a dressage whip and cookies) how to Spanish Walk, and now I have TWO Spanish-walking fools in my pasture ;) Very cool stuff, and I've really been enjoying his company.

I've also personally been playing with improving my own balance. I'm not going to sell myself short--I'm an excellent bareback rider, but beyond being able to stick to just about every antic a horse could throw at me, I'm useless. (Yes, I know, I'll stop, but this is MY goal for self-improvement, bear with me) So...what have I been doing? I've been teaching myself to Roman Ride. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm not screwing around, I'm really, genuinely, honestly learning to Roman ride. That, and I've been learning to ride standing up on one horse, too. The reactions Prin and Crest have had have been hilarious, I'm pretty sure they both think (as well as my students, and barn owner) that I'm totally insane. But they're tolerating it well, and helping me learn to balance on a new level. Oh what fun :D

So that's pretty much what I'm up to. I have an early morning tomorrow first cutting firewood with my dad then helping a friend/student film her L2 auditions, lesson at another student's place, and then 3 trimming jobs. Life is busy and insane, and I'm pretty happy :) I promise I'll be better about updating now. I can breath again :)

Savvy on, I sure have missed ya'll!

F

While I've Been Gone...

Hi all,

Okay, so it's been approximately forever since I last blogged. My apologies, but if it makes you feel any better, my parents have heard about the same amount from me as you have. Life is insane!

So what have I been doing? Playing with horses, teaching lessons, trimming feet, going to playdays, giving first rides. All kinds of crazy stuff.

So, I guess the last time I thought about blogging, but didn't, was last weekend. My darling friend Jessica came down from Mosinee to spend the weekend horsin' around with the Pepin crowd. We played ponies, trimmed feet, and all around had a great time.

Next I went out to her place for a day, where we did her horse's feet, and then I went over to Anne's, trimmed Blixen, who proceeded to prance around like the little stud muffin he is. Anne says she's never seen him trot or canter after a trim before...we got an entire rodeo show! Amazing what can happen when heels are level and bars kept in check ;)

Last week was the week of insaneness. I had lessons every day except for Thursday, with Tuesday being my craziest, with 4 in one day. I'm really enjoying teaching these days, it's getting more and more fun as my ability to see things, especially tiny little subtleties (that make all the difference) improves.

Yesterday, I went to a demo/playday with one of my students. Since my student lives a distance from me (over an hour), I didn't bring Prin, but I took her little AraAppaloosa gelding, Elvis, to play with. Elvis is s a trip, because he's basically a Mini-Crest. At any rate, everyone played, and enjoyed connecting and hanging out with other savvy folks. Pics:

Me with Elvis


Matador/Mirror games-Me on Elvis, Jenifer on Mamma


So...how good is YOUR squeeze game?


Jenifer and Mamma


About to backflip off. I landed on my knees, because El is so small, (14.2ish) it doesn't allow for much time for my feet to unfold--I'm used to Prin, who's 16.1-lol


This guy gave a Reining Demo and talk


And he wonders why his horse is on the forehand?




Spinning--I had to chuckle, he was struggling to get a good plant in the hind, but kept leaning forward as the horse spun.


My personal favorite.


Standing.





Other than that, I've been at home, improving myself and my horses. I'm in the process of doing some intensive fluidity/saddle fit study, that I'll report on when I finish up.

Last night I had an...erm...interesting...session with both my girls. I took them out to start playing with some double stuff with them (the entire reason I got LB in the first place), only to find that number one, Prin is not thrilled about playing side by side with something 1/4 her size, number 2, Prin can sense "tired and cranky" a mile away, number 3, so can LB, and number 4, that DOES NOT END WELL! Hehehe. But, I did get some pictures, none-the-less.

First with Prin, Liberty in the big field (My mom's timing was about as awake as I was-lol):

Playing the Cutting game


About to do a spin, actually.


Not entirely sure...by the looks of what my legs are doing, sideways?


Both of us on our HQ...cute.

And Now LB, in the Round pen, showing off her stuff-hehe


If it were any other horse, there'd be panic...


Lying down :)


Sit! Farrah has seen this now, too, so I am officially a member of the Sitting Horse Tribe--yay!


She's learned to roll over and do this on command...SO FUNNY


And...a kiss?

This week is shaping up to be about as crazy as last week, too. I have a lesson today, a couple tomorrow, at least 3, maybe 4 or 5 on Tuesday (schedule pending), one on Wednesday, and then on Thursday, Prin and I leave with Farrah again. We'll be with Farrah for about 5 weeks, and we'll be "touring the upper mid-west" so to speak. She's got clinics in IA, MN, and WI, as well as the Madison celebration and The Horse First grand opening, and I'll be tagging along in the role of assistant, which is always a grand time, a fantastic learning experience, and overall lotsa fun!

So, that's all for now, I'm not sure when I'll update again. Could be this week, or it could be into June. I'll be in touch, though!

I CANNOT Believe...

...the difference ONE TRIM can make in a horse.

WARNING: VERY roundabout post ahead!

For those of you who have been following me for more of an extended period of time, you'll recall that Crest has had some very annoying, border-line serious bio-mechanical issues going on in his body that were caused by a nasty accident we had a couple years ago. Results of these issues are things like a block in his ribcage on the right, a stiff stifle on his right, and a tight hip on his right.

About a year ago, after viewing some of our issues, Linda saw how largely Crest's uneven body played a role in his reactions, and suggested that maybe I look into having him shod using Jim Crew's method, a method that focuses largely on lateral balance and causing the horse's body to be symmetrical through shimming and padding of shoes. Instead of jumping on the shoes (I won't even get into that), I decided I wanted to do some research on bio-mechanics to better understand what was or wasn't happening in my horse's body. Since, I've done about a 180 in knowledge on the subject, and have developed a pretty keen eye for it.

Anyway, for the past 6 years (the first 4, inadvertently), I've been playing with Natural Barefoot trimming. I say the first 4 years inadvertently simply because I just trimmed by what looked like needed trimming, and hoped it worked. For the past two years, I've been seriously researching and playing with methods, most effectively being that of Pete Ramey, and more recently, KC La Pierre. I'd put some of these trims to the test on Crest. A lot of times, I'd see a little effect, but nothing dramatic or helpful, and it would gradually go away over the course of the next trim cycle.

Now, obviously I just got done spending 2 weeks with Farrah, who is also very interested and playing with Natural Barefoot. This time around, I needed to do Prin's feet, anyway, and so asked if Farrah would be interested in watching and giving me some feedback. A long story short, Farrah had been investigating La Pierre's stuff, introduced me to it, and we did his HPT (High Performance Trim) on her this time. The results were PHENOMENAL. We discussed it afterward, and she gave me her thoughts on Crest's feet, as well, and what might help him, too.

The high performance trim is based upon the principle of lateral balance, and subtle changes in the angles and planes of the hoof. Most of the trim is done on the file side (the fine-toothed side) of the rasp. It's all in the subtle changes, and overall balancing. I won't go into the serious details here, but let's just say the subtleties were just what Crest's feet needed.

I started out on his back feet, picked them up, cleaned them out, and now knowing what I know, realized just how unbalanced his feet were. He had worn the insides of his feet down, but the outsides were high. The hoof wall was worn practically to the white line on the inside, and was nearly 1/2 an inch thick on the outside. The plane of his hoof was literally tilted inward. There were thick, angular flares on his heels and quarters on the outsides, and the insides were practically vertical. Wow...how did I miss that?! I should mention, this was all developed since last trim, done sometime in March.

I immediately set to work. Please note that these are not in order, nor are they the correct order of steps in the HPT, I'm just listing what I found. I exfoliated the frog, trimmed it back, and found a ton of bruising. Yikes. I exfoliated the sole. Same thing. Yikes again. I took his bars back, (That was a CHORE!). I took a great deal of time balancing the wall to itself (Heels to themselves, heels to quarters, heels to toe, etc), and made sure it was all even. I took his outer wall back so it was relatively uniform. I used a guillotine stroke to address the outer wall flare, and then rolled only slightly.

After I finished, I only had a short time to play before I had to leave for a meeting. I had a great deal I wanted to examine and observe--I wanted to see how Crest stood, how he tracked at the walk and trot, if he could pick up his bad lead (right) at the canter without cross-firing, if he could do a flying change without a slip in the back. Wow...okay. First thing I did was tie him so I could go get my 45' line. He stood quietly...and square...Wait...square?! Yes. Crest's hind legs were solidly under him, and he stood evenly. Wow...there's a change. I grabbed my 45' line and snapped him up. I yo-yo'd him back, and sent him out on a circle at a medium trot.

Not that Crest has ever had a problem tracking up (he's got a pretty big stride), but the track in his trot was unbelievable. He was actually OVER-TRACKING in his medium trot, and all with his head low and using his back! Usually when he gets moving, his back hollows and head comes up. Next, I asked him to canter out on his tough lead...and...IMMEDIATELY he got it. There was no hesitation, no break in stride, he got it IMMEDIATELY, and maintained it, on a hill, for a lap and a half, before doing a snotty change of direction, squeal, buck, and lead change on his own.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled. Not only did I see a little bit of improvement, I saw 2 years of issues melt away before my eyes! I'm totally sold on this trim. Totally sold. I cannot wait to see how Crest's body and posture changes as I keep this up. He's always been a hunka horse, can you imagine how he'll look one his body is totally correct?

I'll post pictures, for sure.

That's all for now, but if you're at all curious about anything, want more description, photos, explanation, anything, please let me know, I'll be happy to share.

Savvy on, and leave me a comment :)

F

Oh Cresty...

I say this in the most loving, adoring possible way, by my GOD he is FAT AND OUT OF SHAPE! Of course, lying almost completely dormant for 6 weeks *might* have something to do with it, but seriously-lol.

So, that being said, it's probably obvious I played with da boy today. It's the first time since my being home that I've done anything with him other than feed him cookies and give him kisses. Anyway, he's totally obese and out of shape. He's got a huge hay belly, and virtually no topline. His neck is short and bunchy, and he's tight in his stifles and HQ, surprise, surprise. Seeing this, I decided that I'd be nice and not ask him for anything vigorous at all, but opted for lazy-boy hill therapy to at least get his body loosened up and hind-quarters going again. I headed out for our hill, which is a very lovely sloping corn field. For those who have been to my place, it's the one out behind the West Paddock/Driveway that runs parallel to the road. It's a pretty steep hill, but it's a good walking/trotting hill therapy hill, and fun for a good gallop on Prin occasionally.

Anyway, I headed out there with Crest on the 22' line (45'? are you kidding, he'd die!) asked him out on a circle. What I got from him was the most embarrassing thing I have EVER seen. He sent out at the trot, and within 10 seconds, was panting. He offered a downward transition, which was fine, I didn't want to push. He walked several laps before giving me this "Can I PLEASE come in?! I'm DYING out here!" look. I let him come in, gave him a cookie, and sent him out the other direction. Same thing. We repeated this for 15 minutes, and by then,I was seeing a bit of change, his walk stride (that is SO embarrassing) was lengthening and he started to show signs of his handsomeness again. But I'm not going to delude myself, this is going to be one heck of a journey to get him back in shape. Cavaletti and more hills tomorrow, Cresty. I'm not riding him again until he's got some muscle. Oy...

I also trimmed Clue's feet. He's got nice, hard, well shaped feet, I did some minor adjustments (His bars were a little long) and gave them a nip and rasped them down and they look pretty nice :) Have to do Cadence's tomorrow, and I should probably do Crest and Silver too. One thing at a time though.

I'm off to finish my dishes now.

Savvy on,
F