All The Changes

 At the end of the month I someone how managed to make it so I was moving myself and Karma all in the same week and because I am an idiot, I didn't take time off of work. I didn't even really try to get help because the only thing I couldn't move by myself was the base of my treadmill. Once that was the only thing left I begged someone to come help me load it on the flatbed. It was the easiest move ever (also the only one where I wasn't moving 8+ hours so that might factor into it).

While I adored my old barn Karma and I had out grown it a bit. The ring was perfectly fine for baby horse that was learning to steer and was only being ridden for 20 minutes or so, but it was really too small for cantering or doing much dressage work. And looking at another winter of no indoor was quite depressing. Not to mention it was a super quiet barn and I very rarely saw another person much less had the opportunity to get her used to being ridden with other horses.

More cows to torture her with

The new barn has a large outdoor and a small indoor. The horses stay out the majority of the time and Karma is in a small paddock with one other mare. Originally she was in with two other mares, but Karma decided she was the bossy bitch and got booted after about a week. She is settling in quite well. There are places to get shorter milage in outside the ring (that don't involve a pig farm). I actually see people and they are quite friendly and Karma is getting exposed to more things.

Before she got the boot

Overall, I think all the changes have suited us well, even if my place still looks like it has been ransacked. Apparently, actually putting things away has been very low on my list. I am unpacking the kitchen stuff as I need it, and I really like to use the same three things so most of it is still sitting on the floor. I am great at adulting.

I have wanted a screened in porch for so long and now I finally have one

Obsessed

 It probably comes as no surprise that I am completely and totally obsessed with my trailer. The obsession with this brand started a few years ago, after I happened to stumble across their page trying to get a feel for "dream trailers."

I did not have purple on the dream trailer but I absolutely love it

As some of you recall, for the life of this blog (I don't know how it has happened but I have been blogging since April of 2015) I either haven't had a trailer or was using the 20+ year old stock trailer affectionately known as trusty rusty or rusty bucket. It was still solid but you could hear it coming from miles away (especially when Stinker was standing on two legs and banging on it with the other two) and it lacked some amenities (like tack storage, smooth ride for the horse, etc).

From our field trip to the vet for bodywork

So me being me spent a lot of time poking around on the internet to a) try to figure out how much I needed to budget and b) what options were available. Most trailer sites SUCK. They don't tell you what options are available, don't give you prices, and generally make it hard to find all the information I wanted. This is when I stumbled across Double D Trailers. They let you configure things, see prices for the additions, and lots of fun options (fair warning you will get sticker shock).

Oh look another terrible picture of both the trailer and Karma 😂

I quickly realized that new was not going to be in my budget for a very very very long time and also quickly realized that these do not get advertised for sale very often. But they have an excellent reputation and I saw an older model in the state park one day when I was riding (so sorry to the owner if you saw me repeatedly circling your trailer I am just a creeper not a thief) and it was in great condition despite the age.

"Where did you take me" - Karma probably

The other thing that really hooked me on the brand was the safe tack. There are two things I have never liked about slant loads. The first being trying to squeeze around the tack room and the second being hassle of bribing reluctant loaders past the narrow openings. With the Double D trailers all of the rear tack is attached to the door and swings outwards so there is a very nice big opening.

I love how open it becomes

So far I absolutely adore this trailer. There are a couple of little quirks because of how the previous owner designed it, but I can easily deal with them considering the price I paid for it. And the best part is Karma seems to like it too. Both trips she has had so far, she has come off the trailer sweaty so I was worried about nerves, but she promptly loads back up and doesn't rush to get off either.

Roomy rear tack

Eventually, I think I will get her to self load, but for now I am totally content with her walking quietly onto the trailer and backing off politely. It is much better than Stinker (who had to wear a bumper because he would back to the edge and then FLY and throw up his head) or Cowboy who would load and unload reliably 95% of the time (but that other 5% would be 30-45 minutes of him having a meltdown that I could never figure out a trigger for).

Adventure ready

Hopefully there will be a lot more adventures to come. I am still trying to get it registered, because the earliest appointment I could schedule with the DMV wasn't until the end of October. Once I get my life more lined out in September, I will start stalking the DMV website and try to score one of the same day appointments that get released. I am looking forward to fall trail rides and other fun adventures!

Oops I Did It Again

This story requires a bit of back story. Back in 2019 when I was funployed I stumbled across an adorable little mare. Of course I did the responsible thing and sent this message

Well despite the professed love, Megan did not act and I couldn't get the little mare out of my head. Of course I talked to Aimee about it and since she was between me and the horse this happened

Which of course was the road trip that led me to getting Karma.

Well a couple of weeks ago I was poking around on the internet trying to get a feel for trailer prices and I stumbled across this gem. I mean it is a purple trimmed trailer, so of course I did this.

Which led to

And then left me with the problem of I now owned a gooseneck trailer and a truck in Nevada.

At first I was going to ship the truck out, but I couldn't get the companies with decent ratings to call me back and the ones with shitty ratings wouldn't stop calling me (I used the house phone not my cell phone, but my mom was not happy with me #whoops #sorrynotsorry).

Which led to the next impulsive decision. A one way flight and a long weekend to cover over 2000 miles and 8 states in a very basic manual diesel.

It started off with an email saying my first flight had been delayed. And it wasn’t a oh a few minutes delayed. It was like we can’t be bothered so it’s now three hours later which of course meant that my two connecting flights weren’t happening. And the “rebook” options had me flying all over the freaking country and getting in at 10:30 pm. Which is not conducive to start drive at 6 am the next day especially with the time changes.

So in my annoyance with much searching I found a second ticket that I could take the first leg of my original flight, then skip covering all corners of the country and get in at 6:15 pm. Not as nice as my noon arrival I originally had but a lot better than 10:30.

Thankfully, the drive went much smoother. The first day I did 13 hours, the second day 14 hours, and then it was another 5 by the time I went picked up the trailer. It got dropped to get new tires (it still had the original 2012 tires on it and they had lots of tread but I wasn't going risk running on almost 10 year old tires. Now I have five brand new tires and a trailer!

And that is the story of how I try to get Megan to buy things and then I buy them. Also known as the story of how I spent a good chunk of the money I saved for a downpayment on a house on a trailer.

Adventures

 Because I don't actually have pictures, I am going to be the worst tease. I made a mumble mumble mumble dollar impulse purchase and that led to an impulse road trip. And because I was so exhausted from said road trip, I didn't actually take pictures. Which I am sure Leah will STILL be giving me crap about when we are old and grey. But there are going to be some very fun adventures in the future.

I'm In Love

One of my biggest frustrations has been my inability to take lessons. Last year it was only mildly frustrating because Karma was just getting started and most people weren't really doing outside lessons anyway. This year Karma is to the point where I am creating problems and I know my riding is slipping. I tried taking some lessons at a hunter barn, but the just weren't working for a variety of reasons.

I am recycling old images because I am terrible at remembering media

So, after much pondering and getting my ducks in a row. I FINALLY got a virtual lesson scheduled with Trainer J. I do appreciate the Pivo and the fact that the pandemic has increased the popularity of virtual lessons, because otherwise I would still be floundering.

I had never ridden with J, but I had met her in person and I had briefly seen her teaching style and I was pretty sure that my brain would click with her instruction. But you never truly know until you try it. We chatted for a few minutes so she could get a better feel for where I am at and where Karma is at and what we are hoping to achieve.

We started trotting a few circles and I have been feeling inconsistencies that I have been chalking up to green horse, balance issues, contact issues, and out of shape rider. Trainer J immediately identified that Karma was stepping short and stabbing behind. So I hopped off, pulled the saddle, checked along her spine for any soreness. Then we methodically started testing things for the cause. There was a tiny bit of soreness at the end of the panels (which are out of balance and my new ones arrive tomorrow).

J asked if I had a lunge, I was worried I would lose audio if I ran up to my car to grab it so I went with the short answer of no, but I can make one. And proceeded to use a combo of the lead rope and reins to make myself a lunge #keepingitclassyfortheGPtrainer. Thankfully Karma trotted lovely both directions which pretty much ruled out stifles and SI (thank god. I would cry if I had another young horse prone to SI issues).

When I put the saddle back on, she was a tiny bit short traveling to the left. Then J started looking at her butt and sure enough the left side isn't quite as developed as the right. The conclusion we both felt comfortable with is that Karma needs some body work, but in the mean time I can work on balancing her out and keep forcing her to push with that left hind.

By thinking haunches to the left and alternating diagonals we able to get her trotting much more consistently by the end. It felt so good to have a lesson again. And as an added bonus I got to hear someone else say how darling Karma is.

Karma's Very Bad Day

 Poor Karma had a very bad day awhile ago. I have been getting her out more for longer walks to help her start building a bit of fitness. She has been doing really well handing traffic, motorcycles, mailboxes, screaming children, screaming children on motorized vehicles. But we managed to find her one true fear.

We were probably about 30 minutes from home and there is a place that looks like a junk yard. It started with her stopping to stare. I asked her to move on and she got a bit balky. Sadly this attracted the attention of some very scary dairy calves. They are at the terribly curious age, so when we caught their eye, they raced up to the fence line.

I quickly discovered her fear of cows is very much still there despite being ok with the cows around the barn. I am honestly not entirely sure what all happened, but there was spinning, jumping, trying to fall down when we went off the road into the drainage ditch, and a small rear. Thankfully, I was still firmly in the saddle, but I did decide I really didn't want to be there.  I got her paused enough for me to hop off and she immediately tried to bolt for home. 

I pulled her up and she then tried the other direction. When that didn't work either she did her best saddlebred impression. I decided that there was not going to be any learning in the moment and our best option was to continue on down the road and wait for the brain to turn back on. Needless to say a couple of minutes later she was walking like nothing happened.

I wasn't feeling ballsy so I waited to get back on until after we turned around and walked back past the calves. Walking back she was much better event hough I made her pause and waited until they came wandering back up to the fence line. I am hopeful that a few more trips and some positive reinforcement will help her to learn that calves will not murder her.

June Things

 I had these grand plans about blogs to write because I actually did things. But I haven't gotten around to actually doing it. And I can't even do the tease of just dumping photos because I uhhhh didn't take pictures.

First up, over the long weekend at the end of May I drove to Leah's and stole Cinna for a couple of trail rides. It was a fabulous time and I only horrified her husband a few times. Like when I calmly told him I only fell off five times. I didn't but he had been very worried about me riding Cinna and I couldn't resist the chance to tease in the moment.

Another weekend Jen was showing and I drove over and got to meet Connor. I had a very enjoyable afternoon hanging with them. I think I redeemed my lack of pictures by taking video for her.

I've been riding Karma on a more regular schedule the last couple of weeks. It is a toss up on who hates the heat and humidity more. Most of our rides are pretty short, but I have been trying to get her out for longer walks to help build up some baseline fitness. I miss my trails so much on those days.