Crap, I have to go to the Bay Area tomorrow, that sucks. But that's not what I'm writing about. First, I'd like to apologize to our many readers (five, I think I read somewhere). I really wanted to blog just about every night, but Susan flat insisted that I.. ok, that's not true, I'm just a lazy lazy man.

Anyway, so the big news around the farm here was the Big Dig, Rough and Ready style. Our pond, such as it was, well, it was a little icky (yes, I know, it looks worse when it's drained). So, we brought in some fellas to start digging and digging.

But digging wouldn't be enough, oh no. Because it wouldn't cost nearly enough without adding the lining. It takes a lot of rocks to hold that much expensive black stuff down. The fellas worked really hard; they placed all those cobbles by hand, one by one, since you couldn't drive on the lining without tearing it. Finally, the rocks were in place and the spigot was on. Here's another look at it in its nude state. So now it's full. I promise a better shot of it soon.

One day, a group of peafowl dropped by to visit. I'm not sure who was curious more about whom.

Another project I've been working on was the south wall of the barn (just for the record, you shouldn't be able to see all that light through a solid wall). So, armed with supplies, I'm off. Actually, the open look is kinda nice. I got all the way to the last board before finding the absolutely most warped one of the bunch. I got it dialed in reasonably well, though, later, I decided I was less than pleased with the result and asked Mr. SuperHandyman-who-built-half-the-houses-in-the-neighborhood Gary to help get it just right. I'll post a new picture soon.
- posted by Colin @ 8:21 PM

 
So we heard from one of our fans - I think we're up to five now - that we've been slacking too much in our blogging. Actually Colin has been slacking too much but I've got lots to share, so here I am.

Bear with me this evening, as I'm multi-tasking by watching the Emmys and blogging at the same time. I am talented, indeed.

So what have you missed this summer? Hmmm....

Paddy and I have been to four shows this year. At three out of four shows we finished in second place. In the other show we finished seventh. The last two shows were "recognized events" so they count towards points on our official show record.

In August we went to the horse trials at The Horsepark at Woodside. I'll give just a brief rundown. I brought both Miles and Paddy - Miles so that he could get out and get the feel for being at a horse show, and Paddy to compete. The first day was Friday - dressage. We did ok and finished with a 34 and tied for fourth place (scores are noted as "penalty points" and the person with the fewest penalty points is the winner). On Saturday we did stadium jumping. Paddy was very rideable and we had our best round ever, although we did pull a rail (my fault) which left us with four more penalties. So we then moved down to seventh place with a score of 38. Sunday was cross country day (XC). I was very nervous because the course was tough - varied terrain, two water complexes, a ditch, and an up-bank. My goal was to go clean with no time penalties (for going too slow) or jump penalties (for refusing). We did it! It was so awesome and so much fun and I had a big shit-eating grin on my face when we crossed the finish line (anyone wonder where that phrase comes from? I mean if you eat shit, you wouldn't really be grinning, would you?!)! You can get the most penalties for refusals on XC, so there's a big chance that the standings will change afterwards. Which they did. Riders who were placed first through fifth all had either refusals or got eliminated. So I moved up to second place!!! We finished with 38 penalty points and the person who finished first had 37.5 penalty points. We won a lovely leather halter with engraved nameplate that reads "Horse Trials at Woodside" or something of the sort. It was such a fun weekend and great confidence builder.

And I must take a moment to thank Colin who was my groom all weekend. He was such a tremendous help by feeding, watering, walking, un-tacking the horses, and also he kept me great company and cheered me on the whole time.

We also had a party at my parents' house on Saturday night and that was a lot of fun (although cleaning up sucked...lest I forget why caterers are such a great idea).

The most recent show update comes from just last weekend. Jackie (my riding coach) told me at Woodside "no more beginner novice for you!", so we moved up a division to novice (fence height at 2'11"). We went to Rancho Murieta last weekend and I was so nervous! The dressage test was the same that we've been doing all summer, so I was used to it and not nervous about it anymore. I felt like it was the best test I've put in, in terms of being able to think and execute on my plan, and keep Paddy light and going forward. Our score after Friday was 31.5...which put us in...drumroll please...FOURTH PLACE!!! (I'm always fourth after dressage!) I was pleased with our score and spent the rest of the day worrying about XC the next day. I walked my course four times before it was my time to compete, and I had a plan. 1) DON'T LOOK AT THE JUMPS! (they looked so big if I really paid attention to them) 2) pick a focus point to keep my eye up 3) keep my leg on 4) ride according to my plan. And my plan worked!! I was able to really think about what I needed to do, where I needed to go, and how I was going to get there. Paddy was a champ and we crossed the finish line without any penalties!!! What a feeling! After XC we were in 2nd place. Now all I could think about was going clean on Sunday for stadium jumping. I didn't care how we placed, I just wanted to jump all the fences and leave them all up. Sunday I walked my course a few times so again I had a plan. After watching lots of other rounds ahead of me, I realized the time was tight, and a lot of horses were stopping at the last fence. So I had to put in a strong ride. And I did! We had no penalties on the stadium course. We kept our placing of second and finished on our dressage score of 31.5! Amazing!

So that's it for the show season. I've done everything I wanted to do and more (moving up to Novice - thought that would be next year), and Paddy deserves some time to chill now. We'll spend some time going for nice long trail rides while Miles now steps up in the program with more lessons.

Colin has been riding a lot, but I'll let him tell you about that.

We've got lots of projects to complete before it starts raining, so we're working like crazy to get them done.

Oh! And we got a new kitten from the shelter. We named him "Ollie" because he is "All Talk". When we first got him, he'd hiss at us when he saw us. But then when we'd pick him up, he'd start purring like a madman. Now he's over the hissy part and he just meows and purrs all the time. He's turned out to be quite cuddly. He has big feet and I think has doubled in size since we got him. Barley and Kenya are psycho obsessed dogs and won't leave him alone so again we have to keep them separated. Iggy also doesn't like him and hisses at him if he gets too close. But she's getting better. I don't know if the day will ever come when all four of our house pets can be in the same room together. Sigh.
- posted by Susan @ 8:51 PM