Alberta Equest

Last week my fantastic saddle fitter was back up with 4 saddles to try - 2 of which were ones I tried the first time she came up and 2 new ones.  Once again, the weather leading up to the appointment was garbage which left me limited to one tiny, uneven spot of long grass suited only to about a 10-15 meter circle of walk, but I have a pretty good idea of what bothers my back the second I sit in it so while it would have been ideal to put a 'full ride' on in them, i'm content with the limited riding I was able to do.. plus, this has been in the works since about March and I want to get my hands on a new saddle sooner rather than later. I wanted to ride in all the saddles back to back including the ones I tried the few weeks before and i'm glad I did.  What was interesting, was the saddle I liked less last time, I liked more and the one I liked more last time, I liked less this time.   The first saddle I tried (#1), was one of the ones I was waiting for last ...

One of my distant colleagues is currently in training to be an Animal Communicator and was seeking animals for case studies so I offered Kidd to her, which turned out rather interesting.  I consider myself to be fairly spiritual and intuitive, but I don't know how much stock I put into this.  Regardless, it was free and helps her get her case studies in so I figured what the heck. Following Kidd's reading, I also offered for her to use Sierra. When we first chatted about Sierra, it was well over a month ago but she has been very busy lately so we lost touch over the past few weeks and finally got to sit down today to go over the results.  When you meet with her, she wants next to no information - she kept cutting me off saying "I don't need to know that", as she doesn't want to sway her brain and jeopardize a connection.  It's all a little hippy dippy for me, but the results were staggeringly accurate; even moreso with Sierra than Kidds, though the commun...

For as long as I can remember, I've been extremely goal-orientated.  Goals are the center of my universe and keep things in balance, ensuring I am always surging forward toward the finish line.  It's not uncommon for me to have several goals in play at once, looking toward the next set of achievements before others are done.  While this may be considered commendable, it often results in unrealistic goal setting and excessive room for disappointment when things aren't achieved. On the contrary, when goals make up the balance of your life it is easy to set goals without thinking them through, and this is something I tend to do often.  It's simple to be caught up in what you feel you 'should' be doing without paying much attention.  I hear it often from friends and those around my circle that they feel their horse 'should' be at a certain level or height, or 'should' be capable of something due to their age/how often they ride/etc, and much...

It's an XL Coffee kinda day The clouds have parted the past few days and it's allowed for some pony time and with the clear skies, comes a clear brain.  Showing is always at the back of my mind, but I'd be lying if I said HTS I didn't leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.  While we sort-of redeemed ourselves at HTS II and came away with some reds, it still left Sierra and I in a bad spot that we spent months recovering from.  Riding high on the continuous, steady improvement in the tack had me reverting back to #ShowGoals as you may have noticed in my June Goals post.  Contrary to the stretch goal of doing a few flat classes at the end of the month, my riding has taken a different path this past week. My arena is still really wet due to the onslaught of steady, copious amounts of rain so I have taken to riding in the field.  Our farm is situated on 160 acres and we are in the process of obtaining our Organic certification which means instead...

I called this post Saddle Sitting rather than Saddle Fitting, because that's literally all I did - it was Demo Day!! It's been a long time in the making but my Fitter and I were finally able to align our schedules to allow her to bring out some Demo saddles to try. With her help, we sold my Zaldi last month and between that and selling Kidd, I have decided to bite the bullet and go full custom.  I have back problems and therefor am quite specific in the seat and twist that I 'like' and feel comfortable in, and Sierra is a sensitive flower who requires absolute perfection, so it was really important to me to try a few on before committing to one just based off pictures and reviews. I had three saddles "Short Listed" and a fourth on the radar as well, but unfortunately only two of four arrived in time for our appointment, but regardless we decided to proceed with trying out the two that arrived.  My "top choice" was unfortunately one of the ones t...

This one might have been in May... #SorryNotSorry I pick myself flowers weekly. Funnily enough if I don't have time, Hubby often picks them for me without being prompted Hubby & Banks at a show in a nearby town earlier in June Box 1 of very expensive swimmers that didn't have an egg to swim to.... don't ask. Everyone is studying how to become a farrier One of many daily storms rolling in Basically my second office Spaghetti Beeb Frands The sleepiest noodle Hubby and his dude at the same show Kidd and his new lady at the schooling show we throw them into They wound up being Reserve Champion in all 3 of their divisions over the weekend That time I thought I could sneak in a trail ride before the next storm hits... Spoiler Alert: We did not beat the storm and we wound up galloping half way back to the house while being pelted with pea-sized hail and sudden 60km winds. ...