The wild ones

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel, OTTB, Training
[caption id="attachment_890" align="alignleft" width="300"] Circe being good[/caption] It finally melted... the snow, it finally melted. I made plans with my trainer to ride both the girls Saturday afternoon. Sunday is our usual day but she was working down the road with a friend of mine and her horses so we switched it up. Besides it was sunny and warm and by warm i mean it was 45 degrees out. Being the first warm day in what seemed like forever and a weekend the barn was crowded. Everyone wanted to ride. 2 people were riding up the driveway, another was tacking up for the trail and the resident natural horsemanship guy at our barn had back to backs at the same time as my girls training rides. We elected to split…
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Old man winter

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
[caption id="attachment_844" align="alignleft" width="225"] That looks delicious[/caption] It snowed again the other day. About 6 inches at home stuck and about 8 inches at the barn. It has been very cold out, highs in the low 20's or teens and wind chill factors making it feel at times below zero. Which of course means that the ground's covered in snow, under the snow the ground is frozen, i can't ride, i cant have my trainer out to ride, I don't want to get out of bed, i cant get motivated to do anything, my broken hand hurts like a motherfucker, i'm a bitch to be around and i miss California.. blah, blah, blah. Yanno the usual winter complaining bullshit. I read somewhere that this is the worst winter in this…
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The good one

Barn tales, Life with Circe, OTTB
[caption id="attachment_827" align="alignleft" width="225"] The Circe Effect[/caption] It was Circe's turn to get clipped. I had done Jezebel the day before and was really happy with how successful it was. Circe is a pretty fuzzy and furry horse. The plan was to give her a little relief when it came to getting too heated up and to shorten the time frame it took to cool her down since she is in actual work (weather permitting) over this winter. Circe is supposed to be the easy one out of my two OTTB mares. Shes the one that wasn't phased by moving to a new place, she walked right into the confined scary wash-stall for a bath and stood for it with no complaints straight away. Circe has been easy to handle…
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Bird Flu, Ebola and the Plague

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
[caption id="attachment_766" align="alignleft" width="171"] Damn It Jim, I have the flu[/caption] I did get sick, even though i willed myself not to, yeah that didn't work. I think its the plague or maybe the bird flu. I've been home in bed unable to see the girls for days and really unable to do much of anything but lay in  bed in a stupor and read Facebook on my phone. Good times. I feel lucky though that i have a great farm owner and friends down at the barn to keep their eye balls on my girls. At least i don't have to worry about them while I suffer from Ebola, or rabies or whatever debilitating bug i'm suffering from is. I was laying in bed, under the covers, unable to…
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The wind chill factor

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
[caption id="attachment_750" align="alignleft" width="251"] I'm wearing ALL the clothes[/caption] When I got up it was zero degrees out. ZERO. Zero's not even funny, as a friend of mine says. One is funny but zero? Zero is nothing. With the wind-chill factor according to my weather app it felt like -17 yep, thats with a negative in front of it. My god. Around noon i got my ass going and went to the barn. It had warmed up to 6 by then with a wind chill of -5  improvement of sorts. I was bundled up as warm as i was going to get. Smartpak base layer pants, fleece lined breeches, Smartpak base layer top, t-shirt, red mid-weight Dickies hoodie, black sherpa lined Dickies hoodie, sock liners, smart wool socks, paddock boots,…
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Gooooooal!

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
This should probably be an actual page not a post. Yanno so i can look at it all the time with it starring me back in the face every time I see my site, for motivation. Not that I need a ton, im a self motivated person. I've been a freelancer for the last 12 years. When I was a fancy shmancy art director in La La land I learned right quick to hit your motherfucking deadline. Of course that means you have to manage your workload, your clients expectations and make sure you buffer in for the unexpected. Setting goals is no different. The expectations you are managing are your own, the unexpected buffers you need to build in could be injury's and changes to your time-line. This is…
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Snow day on the farm

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
[caption id="attachment_725" align="alignleft" width="300"] Snow day[/caption] When I got the the barn it was all covered in a soft white layer of fluffy snow. It looked beautiful but I know better it was cold out there. My car temperature gage read 23 degrees. Thats cold for this Southern California girl. I was prepared, I had all the clothes on. I thought maybe I'd ride Jez as Circe hasn't been ridden in a bit due to her sore hoof. Tina was working so the trail was out. She's my trail buddy and Jezebel isn't ready to hit the trail alone, we'll get there eventually but right now its just not possible. I checked out the ring and it looked usable. They snow hadn't turned to ice yet and it was all…
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The Circe effect

Life with Circe, OTTB
[caption id="attachment_690" align="alignleft" width="300"] The Circe Effect[/caption] She was lame when i pulled her from the field. Mary (Willa) was helping me catch my ponies because my trainer was going to work with them both and i was running late. (Go figure) i could see her stepping short on the right hind. Nooooo! Not the right hind! Okay this wasn't Jez but Circe, but the right hind freaks me out because i just spent be better part of 2013 re-habing Jez on the right hind. I brought her into the barn and checked out the leg. No heat, no swelling, not cuts, no scrapes, no reactions to any palpating, no nothing. When Michelle showed up she rode Jez then we turned out attention to Circe. We tacked her up and…
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The year in the rear view

Barn tales, Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel, OTTB
It's been a hard year in so many ways but also exciting and as always I did learn a little something. The beginning of the year started out great, Jez was learning to canter and not turn like a motorcycle and in mid March we started going out on the trails. It was going smashingly (even if she wouldn't cross water) and then on April 1st disaster, my worst fall to date. One ambulance ride later and I was to be laid up for months. Jezebel didn't fair any better seems I was bucked into the fence not because she was a bad girl but because she was herself injured. Right hind suspensory Poor pony! Seven long months of rehab were in order. It was a real tough 7 months.…
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Xmas Ponies

Life with Circe, Life with Jezebel
[caption id="attachment_624" align="alignleft" width="265"] Derp[/caption] Christmas was lovely. I spent Xmas Eve in the city at my favorite D.C. old school Italian restaurant, Filomena. They outlandishly decorate for every holiday which i love and the food is solid. I know southern Italian food because well I'm southern Italian (Calabria) It reminds me of my Italian grandmothers basement. Not my actual Italian grandma but the one I always wished I had. My better half and I ate (a lot)  drank (a lot) and were generally merry (a lot). We passed out at home super early after the long cab ride back to Maryland. Ha! As we discussed the next day, its really never a good idea to order that second bottle of wine but of course we did. [caption id="attachment_625" align="alignright"…
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