Alberta Equest

As usual, I suck at the 'wordless' part of Wordless Wednesdays, but here's some photos that sum up my life from the passed few days.  I'm working from home (as is everyone from my work), Sierra is injured and i'm trying to find this new level of 'normal'. My days consist of balancing work life and home life.  I'm tasking myself with at least 1 'oddball chore' per day in addition to my expected workload as a means of staying busy and productive in these uncertain times.  Sierra is home now (and injured), so I haven't been riding but it's nice having her right outside my door again for the first time in months! Saturday - Upon Discovery that something wasn't right given the swelling...  Tiny puncture .... Or so we thought? She had several scrapes and one puncture, which has been the main source of our issue.  An infection was imminent and obviously brewing, so I started her on antibiotics on Monday Clear...

Well Q1 is coming to a close, and it's been a bit of a 'different' quarter given that Sierra was gone for the majority of it, however it was exciting none-the-less.  Shortly after we rang in 2020, Sierra ventured south to my trainers for an undetermined amount of time due to poor weather.  Eventually, my funds limited the adventure and Sierra came home at the beginning of March. While Sierra was away, I spent most of my time living through the woes of the first trimester of pregnancy.  I was very nauseous (but rarely puking, which I honestly think may have been worse) and exhausted.  I've struggled in the front row of the body image adjustments as my body changed in ways I couldn't control.  Towards the end, my hips began to loosen which felt really weird, and the headaches have been incapacitating at times.  Luckily, that is * mostly * behind me now, and Sierra is home and we are getting back into the swing of things!  The headaches and congestio...

Are we sick of COVID-19 yet?  Lets be real - because IT is, despite the nay-saying tin-foil-hattists out there who say it's all a ploy.  COVID-19 has ruled my life for the past week or 10 days.  I work in a college, and all of our students have been sent home. My department works primarily with Apprenticeship students, and it was just announced last night that all Apprenticeship classes are cancelled until the following academic year (which starts at the end of August 2020).  The Government of Alberta is recommending closing any venues with more than 50 people, and our companies solution while they figured out how to uncover loop holes in contracts, was to remove some chairs in the common areas, and later we were told to isolate to our private offices and only conduct business with colleagues (who are in the same building) through e-mail, telephone or video chat... but don't worry, IF and WHEN you show symptoms, you can go home... By then, it's too late folks, c'mon...

In light of my recent post, I ended it with alluding to how much Sierra has changed since being down in training with CA - especially in the sense of her movement.  She feels so different to ride.  I could speak to this for pages upon pages, but instead I put some visual comparisons together and I was really surprised to see the changes!  We are far from perfect and the March 2020 footage is taken within a week of Sierra returning home from training where I haven't ridden in over 2 months and we are still figuring each other out again - but the changes are quite surprising! Fall 2019 Fall 2019 March 2020 March 2020 Fall 2019 Fall 2019 March 2020

This passed weekend, CA traveled north for her first clinic of the season. Sierra had been home since Sunday night, so I had 4 rides on her leading up to the clinic.  While I would have liked a few more rides on her, it was still a fantastic opportunity to get some direction after she spent two months with Sierra, as I didn't have the opportunity to go down and pick her up and do some lessons prior to heading home due to weather. I had scheduled myself to be the first lesson of the day on both Saturday and Sunday, and CA arrived roughly 30 minutes before my lesson on Saturday (Day 1 of the clinic).  I had spoke to her previously and advised her that I am extremely out of shape and have a harder time with breathing due to pregnancy squishing things, and that I had only been riding about 25 minutes from start to finish, so there was no way I could survive a 45 minute private lesson.  We had chatted about her popping on Sierra as well, but that we would play it by ear. ...

If you missed my last post , Sierra arrived home from spending 2 months with my trainer on Sunday evening, and after not schooling a horse for nearly 10 weeks - I dragged my pregnant-butt aboard and have ridden every day this week (Mon - Wed).  Ask me how i'm feeling.... As if that wasn't enough, we have a clinic this weekend with my trainer but luckily, she loves my horse and appreciates my current state (pregnant potato) and instead of making me suffer through two 45 min private lessons, she is going to pop on Sierra for 10-20 minutes each day.  We didn't get the opportunity to catch up while Sierra was down south so she could show me in person what she'd been working on, so this is the next best thing. In my last post, I alluded to a few things that I didn't particularly love about Sierra - these were in * no way * a reflection on CA - She did a fabulous job with my girl as far as i'm concerned.  Some things are just really important to me like w...

On Sunday, March 8th Sierra finally arrived home.  She had been gone since January 13th with my trainer CA, and it was quite an adventure to get her home.  Last weekend, my hubby and I set out to pick her up however unfortunately the treacherous roads forced us to turn back only an hour and a half away from home.  Luckily for me, there was a shipper coming through the following week so I hired them to bring Sierra.  Initially I thought she was arriving on Friday because I looked at the wrong calendar - then discovered it was actually scheduled for Saturday.  Friday and Saturday a huge storm rocked the area yet again, and they pushed the trip to Sunday.  Sierra was loaded around 1:30 PM and expected to arrive by 8:00 PM, however due to various pick-ups and drop-offs and a naughty horse who, funnily enough refused to get OFF the trailer she didn't arrive until 11:30 PM.   It made for a late night, but Sierra unloaded well despite 10 hours ridin...

After our disappointing attempted trip down south at the end of Week 7, Sierra wound up staying an additional week as I was able to find a professional shipping company that was able to take Sierra door-to-door on Saturday, March 7th weather pending.  Initially I looked at the wrong calendar and I spent most of the week expecting her arrival on Friday so I was once again disappointed to realize she wasn't due to arrive until Saturday.... but then the weather once again ruined our plans and the shippers have pushed the trip to Sunday.  After half a week from hell it felt like just another nail in the coffin, but i'm proud to say I managed to claw myself out of that deep, dark corner of my mind and push on and I can't wait for Sierra to get home! This week I chose not to do a ride-by-ride break down, because lets be real - they were getting repetitive.  Sierra had one ride that was another one of those 2-hour hash-out sessions that occurred from time to time, but for t...