Unpeaceful

Funny how you can have such a good ride one day and then such a horrible ride the next! I was looking forward to my Friday night ride but when I got on, nothing felt right. About half way through the ride, I realized what was happening. It dawned on me that I was experiencing symptoms associated with that thing that comes around about once month for ladies (TMI!)!  So I just stopped riding. No progress was going to be made! I turned Will out to the pasture after my ride and he was just as agitated too! Usually he gorges himself on grass but instead he walked around and seemed distracted.

So we tried again today and I’m happy to report that things went much better! I really worked keeping him active when I picked up the inside rein. Before he was yielding but slowing down behind. Activity, activity, activity is the name of our game!

Peaceful Ride

Work has been stressful lately with Maker Faire around the corner and on top of it, I’ve been working on an all consuming project that hit a big bump in the road today. I was pretty disappointed and stressed about the situation all day. I walked in to the barn feeling grumpy but luckily I walked out feeling peaceful and refreshed!

For the past three weeks I’ve been working on keeping Willoughby soft and loose. His tendency is to come up in the neck and to get tight in the back so I’ve been focusing on the “falling down neck” feel and keeping him yielding through turns so he stays soft and under.  Whenever I pick up the inside rein, I want his inside leg to move more underneath him, without slowing down.

Mr. Will had two days off this week because I was at our office in Sebastopol. I was expecting him to be a little hot and was planning to work on the basics today. But he felt incredible! He was so soft and fluid when I changed directions, asked for shoulder in, and even half pass. He did flying changes in the snaffle without launching me to Mars. And then to top it off, we did a trail ride by ourselves around the farm property (don’t laugh Western riders!)!  The ride was effortless.  It’s a ride like the one I had tonight that keeps you coming back for more.

Heavy Boots

My brother’s friend just passed away today in a tragic surfing accident. I’m sad for my brother who was there, sad for his family and friends, and sad for the surf community. The only piece of the equation that makes sense to me is his passion for surfing. I’m thankful he was living his dream. It’s a reminder to live my dream, to be passionate about things that matter, and to always let my family and friends know how much I love them everyday.

I’m in need of some good equine therapy this weekend.

P.S. Heavy Boots is a phrase used for indicating heavy feelings by a character in a book I’m reading – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Foer.

Maker Faire is around the corner!

Maker Faire is an event that our company produces in the spring in the Bay Area. Our Bay Area event is on May 22nd & 23rd at the San Mateo Expo Center. Maker Faire is family friendly festival celebrating the Do It Yourself movement. It can best be described as a family friendly burning man, meets county fair, meets farmers market, meets science fair. This will be our 5th annual Faire and we’re expecting over 95,000 attendees. Once I get through this show I can focus on the next horse show, scheduled for June in Paso Robles!