The Yo-yo Effect

It is March 21, which means I haven't written in 2 weeks. This is mostly because I've A) had little to write about, and B) have been swamping with everything imaginable, personal crap, school crap, and everyone else's crap.

I did sell my saddle this weekend, the Wintec Pro Dressage that I bought for Ernie God knows how many years ago. I did an evaluation of it on Stella, and it didn't even come close to fitting. No saddle fitter would have been able to make it work on her back: it's not even remotely close to being shaped like Ernie's, so I decided it was better to sell it and put the money towards a new one. I knew I wanted another Wintec, synthetic and with the gullet change system. Since I have a growing horse who will be putting on a lot of muscle, I need a saddle that can change with her to some extent. Her daddy turned 5 and all the sudden grew wider and muscled out like a real stock horse, but she's built so slight that I have no idea what she's going to fully mature into.

This means I will actually get to start RIDING this mare. 4 years old, and she's only been sat on a small handful of times. I actually think this is good, but I can see I need to get her moving; she's losing interest in ground work, so I've been throwing all kinds of new stuff at her, including poles, cones, desensitizing noises and objects, lateral movements in hand, etc. But I know I need something new and fresh and interesting for her brain to play with. Right now she seems to be preoccupying herself with anything but me. What's worse, spring fever has hit everyone here HARD, and the horses have got the worst of it. Stella's in heat, to boot, so she's extra nutty. I think we're all sick of feeling like we're hooked to a yo-yo, constantly being thrown back and forth between spring and winter.

As for Ernie, he's gained some weight back, which is good, and is ever so slowly shedding out that Cushing's coat. He seems to be in good spirits most of the time, and hasn't gotten so irritated about the lack of grass and warm weather. It's been spitting snow all day: we've got 3-5 inches on the ground right now, which is a huge disappointment and major tease after the several days last week of full sun and 50 degree weather. Boo, Mama Nature.

So, my days right now are spent trying to figure out how to go about Stella's training, getting hairy shedding Ernie, and looking wistfully outside hoping that spring really IS here...