Balance

I've said many times that managing Tristan's brain is harder than managing his body. His body is not exactly easy to manage either, but his brain? Well, he had a decade of looking out for himself, four years of wild roaming and then six of nothing but unreliable or neglectful humans. Only this year have we been a team for as long as he was solo.

He'll never be a ride-every-day horse. That mostly works out for me: I don't have a ride-every-day life. There's a lot of gray in between that high-maintenance horse and a pasture puff, though, and I've struggled with finding the right balance in the moment. It keeps changing, and a lot of the changes now are directly tied to his 22 years of hard living.

pretty darn good right now

Right now, though? Knock wood, I've found a sweet spot. I'm balancing the hard 60 minute fitness rides with the 20 minute dressage intensives with the 30 minute longeing sessions with the 45 minute hacks - and the days off in between. He is really and truly a horse that's happier and goes better when he's had time to process and rest.

February was a great month for building on success in all areas, but at the end of last week I longed him and he was just not happy. So we backed off. He got two days in a row off for the first time since early January, and then he got a road hack on Sunday and his brain was already a bit better. I was on a roll with house work on Monday, so he got that off, too.

Tonight, we'll ease back in with a light longeing session, and then tomorrow back in the saddle for some trot sets & fitness work. I'm working hard to make days off and light days conscious decisions that I make based on the horse in front of me, and it's paying off in a big way.

House Post: Man Cave Progress!

So close. SOOOOO CLOOOOOSE.

Previously, we were plastering and sanding forever, and I skimcoated one wall.

My in-laws came to visit again last weekend, and huge progress was made!

So here's the before:

It looked like that for a couple of weeks, as we added & sanded layers of plaster in an agonizingly slow process.

Then: primer!

Aaaaaaaand...paint!

Not only paint, but TRIM!

Then we cleaned up all the random extra things in the space. It was glorious. The room is now mostly empty, mostly clean, and alllllmost done!

Remaining:
- paint the trim
- flooring (carpet + some tile around the door)
- one last light by the door (you can see it above M's head in the last picture)
- covers for the recessed lights
- furniture!
- longer-term: build a (dry) bar in the corner where the green wall meets the blue wall (summer)
- longer-term: work in crawlspace underneath, to include insulating the floor joists (summer)

Weekly Blog Roundup

Jumping in the fray: bits and dressage, a story of development and principle from Guinness on Tap
This is flat-out spectacular. Well-written, well-sourced, and well-argued.

Baseline gaits from A Enter Spooking
Good thinking about how a horse with bad gaits makes upper level work harder.

Endurance Essentials Web-Based Course from Endurance Introspection
This looks COOL.

Tornado from She Moved to Texas
Extraordinary and awful - I'm so glad everyone is ok. Lauren also does a nice job of putting everything in perspective, too.

When should I clip my horse? from If the Saddle Fits
This is something I've struggled with and still think about a lot.

Horsepower: Getting Energy Under Saddle, When and Where You Want It from Trafalgar Square Books

Terrific illustrations and descriptions of energy under saddle - something I've been working on a lot lately

And a non-horsey read: Handling the Long Valley, from The Simple Dollar. I read personal finance blogs & websites on a pretty regular basis, as a way to keep myself focused on my own personal finance goals and try to have a healthy relationship with money. I like The Simple Dollar, and I liked this essay in particular, about staying focused on goals even in the period of time when it feels like you aren't making great progress.

March Madness 2017 Bracket!

IT'S HERE!

The poll results are in, and we're ready to start voting next Wednesday, March 1.

In order, our seeds are:

The Pie, from National Velvet

Beauty, from Black Beauty

The Black, from Walter Farley's Black Stallion

Hidalgo, from the movie of the same name

Sleipnir, from Norse mythology

Ashleigh's Wonder, from the Thoroughbred series

Merrylegs, from Black Beauty

Artax, from The Neverending Story

Flicka, from My Friend Flicka

Brego, from Lord of the Rings

Flame, from Walter Farley's Black Stallion

Smoky the Cowhorse, from the Smoky the Cowhorse book series

Joey, from War Horse

Angus, from Brave (Disney movie)

Pegasus

The Colt from Old Regret, from The Man from Snowy River

SO, what are our next steps?

You can participate in this tournament in one of two ways.

1. Just follow along and vote and root for your favorite horse. All that means is you check back here regularly and keep voting!

2. Create your own bracket for a little skin in the game. Originally, I thought that the winner might get the cash pool but it turns out that's kind of illegal and also not easy to manage - it would mean you would all have to give me the money and I'd have to keep it and there were no easy online tools to do that.

So here's plan b: you donate an entry fee to a GoFundMe account. At the end of the tournament, all of that money is donated to the winner's equine-related charity of choice AND the winner gets a bunch of awesome prizes. Now, I don't know what those are yet, so consider this my recruitment post: do you have something you want to offer as a prize for our contest? If you donate something, then I will waive your entry donation for the tournament.

Our first prize is one that I will put up: a custom quarter sheet, made to the colors/pattern of your choice and your horse's measurements! I'll do a roundup post soon when I've collected more prizes.

If you want to create your own bracket, here are your steps.

a. Donate a sum of money (minimum $5) to our Equine Charity GoFundMe account.

b. Save the bracket image above and make your predictions; use MS paint or something else to fill in who you think will win each match, and ultimately the whole tournament

If you want to enter everything from scratch and use an easier tool, here's a bracket PDF; you can use a screenshot to save it as an image.

c. Email your completed bracket to beljoeor@gmail.com. I will then post it on our tournament page for everyone else to see that you've officially entered, and link back to your blog. I'll also double-check at that time to make sure that you've made a donation to officially enter.

Reminder: VOTE VOTE VOTE!

judgey-faced awkwardly-posing mustang

We are full on in the seeding portion of the March Madness 2017 Tournament, deciding the best fictional horse.

Make sure you get your vote in before midnight tonight!