I didn’t update quite as soon as I was hoping to, but I have gotten a few of the big things done that I need to get done to survive this winter.  First off, I moved into an apartment that will be my home for the winter.  Having a home is very important to me and this apartment is an ideal Emily home.  I have a one room apartment in a barn.  It is cozy… but lovely.  My only sink is my kitchen sink which is located about four feet from my kitchen table/desk and a bit closer to my bed which is also my couch.  Luckily I now have an actual bed to sleep in rather than the couch I slept on my first week here.  Thank you lovely, amazing landlords!! My kitchen counter has just enough room for my hot plate (a double one at that!), my George forman, my dish drainer, my newly acquired waffle iron, and the coffee pot that lives in the apartment. From the kitchen/living room/ office/ bedroom, you transition smoothly into the hallway that leads to the bathroom.  The hallway contains the microwave table/open food storage area which is across from the filing cabinet chest of drawers and the wardrobe.  The bathroom is separated from the hallway by a nice curtain. This beautiful burgundy curtain is exactly knee high when I am sitting on the loo.   The bathroom also contains the nicest shower stall I have ever seen in a barn as well as nice shelves to store everything bathroom related that I own. 

I do like to believe that I live alone in my new apartment, but that is a bit of a lie.  A few days after I moved in I saw something dark and little scurry out of the way when I walked.  My first thought was of course of roaches so I followed the critter to see what it was… as it hopped I realized that I did not have a roach problem at all, rather I had a healthy population of crickets.  I decided not to kill them, but to keep them as pets.  They remind me of the field station that I worked at through grad school.

 I briefly also had another, less welcome pet.  I was in my bathroom early one morning and I picked up my cleanest pair of jeans off of the floor to get dressed and I saw something scurry out from under my pants!  I typically do not like to see things run out from under my pants, but I held myself together to confront this critter who I assumed was a mouse.  Upon closer inspection, after I had chased it under the shelving in my bathroom, I realized that it was actually a little, adorable vole!  It was a really cold day outside, so I was going to allow the vole to stay in my bathroom for the night and catch him and turn him outside in the morning.  Sadly the vole did not agree with these terms.  When I saw him wandering into my kitchen/living room/ bedroom/ office, I decided it was time for him to leave… NOW!  So, I got a cup to catch him with.  Sadly he outwitted me in my first try to capture him, and he ran under the heavy mat just inside my front door.  I stepped onto the mat, so I could lift it up and capture him.  As I lifted the mat, I shifted my weight.  Sadly, the little vole had the bad timing of running deeper under the mat into squish zone as I shifted my weight.  In this unfortunate encounter I took three of my cricket friends and my newly acquired vole out of household drama permanently.  I was very distraught that I could acquire new pets and loose so many of them within such a short period of time through unintentional means. 

With this first big accomplishment done, next on my list was to find a job.  I filled out applications at a number of restaurants.  Lets me rephrase… I applied to a ton of restaurants, some great and some not so great, but I have yet to even get a phone call from any of them.  Luckily I also saw a position listed for a night audit position at a hotel.  I figured if I worked night a few days a week, then I could have all day every day for the rest of the week to ride horses, so with some reservations I applied.  As I filled out my application, I was scheduled for an interview because I seemed like a people person.  The day after my interview I was called back and told I was hired if I wanted the job. So, I have now been in training for two days!  After my second day of training, I was invited to the hotel’s Christmas party (or told that I should come if I like to eat… so obviously I was going to go). At the party I got to meet all of my new coworkers.  They all seem really amazing, but I wish I could speak Spanish so I could talk with some of the great girls that work there.  Anyway, after eating some amazing Mexican food, we all took part in a gift exchange provided by the management.  Somehow I left the party with a waffle iron, a turkey, a plate of leftover Mexican food, and guilt of being the new girl who somehow ended up at the Christmas party.  Apparently it is a holiday tradition there to provide all of the workers with a turkey and to give appliances or other household things for presents. 

Remember next time you hear someone answer the phone at a hotel at three in the morning… that it could be me!

The past few weeks, I have been focusing on my own riding form rather than working on training horses.  I have a few major problems that make it almost impossible for me to address the horse’s problems.  I tend to lean forward.  I tend to grip the reins when I canter.  I tend to squeeze with my legs when I canter.  Also, I do not put my feet far enough into the stirrups. I know the root of all of these problems, but knowing where the bad habits have come from will not help me overcome them.  I am doing a number of exercises to help myself.  First off, I am practicing taking my leg completely off of the horse while I am riding at any gait.  Secondly, I am trotting and cantering any horse I can get my hands on (don’t worry, boss lady won’t let me ride any extremely unsafe horses). While cantering I have to focus on holding my reins at the buckle and picking them up only when I need to correct, then giving the horse his head again.  Also, when cantering I focus on where my body is.  I want my weight on my seat and I want to be sitting back, relaxed.  These two things together are amazingly hard for me to do, but I feel like I am starting to get it.  I also have been checking where my foot is in the stirrup quite often.  It is funny, but when my foot is properly in the stirrup, I don’t lose them nearly as often as I used to.

I had a bit of a breakthrough ride on Scotch a couple of days ago.  Scotch is the gelding that I rode on a lot of packtrips the past two summers.  He is a large bodied quarter horse with a long walk, a nice big trot, and a forward, happy canter.  I love riding this horse and I can do most anything with him, but he has a few bad habits that keep him from being a good guest horse.  When I took him out, I was told to trot and canter most of the ride and walk very little.  I am completely comfortable on this horse because we have so many miles together and have been in some strange situations with each other.  I realized, especially at the lope, that the more I relaxed and sat back and just allowed my leg to hang, the better he went for me.  We worked a little bit on our canter transition.  I push his hindquarters into the direction of the lead I want to pick up by putting my outside leg into leg position three (further back), I make sure my weight is on my outside seatbone to free up his inside, and I squeeze with both legs to transition.  Once he figured out what I was asking, the transition got easier and he got his leads.  When we were into the canter, I held my reins at the buckle and only picked up with my leg when he needed urging on.  By the end of the ride Scotch had his ears perked up and seemed happy, and I was happy because my position made me feel more balanced and in control.  When I wanted a downward transition, I asked Scotch with my seat, and he would come back to me. 

It is being drilled into my head that a horse can’t learn unless it is allowed to make mistakes.  This makes my bad habit of always keeping a short rein, a bit problem.  I am keeping my horses from leaning right and wrong on their own.  I remember back when I was in middle school and I would ride Monty, the neighbor’s old gelding, after school every day, I would always shorten my reins before we make a right turn onto my road.  I anticipated him refusing this turn, so I shortened up on him and took a tight hold on him and asked him to turn before he actually could.  By doing this, I think I set myself up for failure.  I anticipated a refusal, so he often tried to avoid that turn with me.  When my friends would ride him, they never seemed to have trouble there, because they didn’t think it would be a problem and didn’t tell him that there was something wrong there.  I am learning a lot right now, but I still have to look back and relate it to what I have learned in the past. 

I am having a little bit of trouble with myself in this learning process.  It is sometimes hard for me to admit that after fourteen or so years of riding, I still am almost at square one.  I am still a beginner in so many regards and have so much to learn.  I may have trained Abby over that summer when I was in college, but some of that was just luck that she turned out to be a decent mare.  I also need to remember that while I trust boss man and boss lady to teach me what they think is correct, that doesn’t mean that I will stick with everything they teach me.  There are hundreds of ways to train a successful, working horse and no one way is completely correct.  I will use their methods while I am training under them, but at some point I will put off the tools that they teach me in with the tools I have learned elsewhere to form my own training style. 

When I am having trouble with my ego and trouble being humble and being a student, please remind me of how much I have learned in the past couple of years.  Remind me of how an education about horses is a never ending one.  Remind me that there is always room to improve as long as I am not too stubborn about it.  Despite all of this, sometimes I still miss the days when horses were just about love and freedom for me.  Sometimes I still miss just jumping on Danar bareback and cantering as fast as we could just to get away from stress and people and myself… 

Time to begin a new chapter.. Arkssouri

I haven’t updated this blog since I came back from Australia, but thanks to winter, I have free time again.  This winter I am not adventuring in Australia, but I am living in a place almost as foreign to me… Arkansas/ Missouri.  I will be working on my horse training skills this winter and hopefully I can use this blog to record, reflect, and get feedback on my potentially amusing adventures in the Ozarks.  Today I spent the day getting reacquainted with the herds of mules and horses and meeting a few horses for the first time.  The mules are amazingly amusing animals with their childish antics and good natured personalities. Seeing the herd of geldings was great fun.  These are all horses we use in Yellowstone, so I know them well... though I was happier to see some of them more than others.  I met the babies for the first time.  They are giant for weanlings and so adorable and fuzzy.  I can’t wait to get to know them better as I help halter break them.   

I am excited to have arrived somewhere where I can be useful for the winter.  As of right now I have yet to move into my new apartment; everything I own is in my little horse trailer.  I don’t have a job yet.  I know five or six people at most in this state.  But things are definitely looking up!  I have 75 horses I get to work with this winter.  I have three great friends who are willing to help me out.  I get to fulfill a life dream of mine and live in a barn!  This should be a great winter. 

Too many girls and a few squid

It has been a busy week or so.  We had a four day ride on Monday through Thursday with 30 8^th and 9^th grade girls and three of their teachers.  We also had short rides at Camp Howqua at the same time, so we were rather low on horses.  For the four day ride our staff horses consisted of Woody, an extra long old gelding with a lump on his back, Toobie, an ex-racehorse gelding with a lump on his back (when riding either of theses horses it was important not to sit heavy on their back and try not to sit at all while going faster than a walk),   Freckles, an appy gelding who is blind in one eye and quite sensitive to light, Lawson, and Lana both horses who really really really like to more forward quickly… so as you can imagine us staff looked rather interesting on this ride.  Luckily I rode Toobie most of the ride.  Now Toobie rides exactly like Danar… riding him for a long ride reminded me of why I sold my lovely Danar.  For this ride the kids were wonderfully behaved for the most part.  One of their teachers really kept them in line.  For example she made sure they were in bed with the lights out by 8:30… we all thought that was a bit early, but… this teacher really liked to take charge.  At the beginning of camp there were a number of girls who were frightened to trot or canter.  By the last day we had every girl jumping.  It was amazing to see the transformation in the girls.  They were pushing their horses and getting them going really well over the jumps.  I was working with the beginner group and for this group I taught them a safe jumping position. One at a time I had them ride so they were lined up with the jump, pick up a trot or canter, and go over the jump.  This jump was a log that was about six or eight inches high.  Most of the horses would trot up to the jump (some needed more persuasion than others), take a tiny jump or big trot step over the jump, then trot a few strides more where my coworker Dale was on a horse to make sure the kids stopped their horses.  We had the horses pretty well blocked so if anything went wrong a staff member was there to stop the horses.  Some of the kids were amazing.  There was a little girl riding Ben, a old gray arab gelding, who on her first jump almost came off.  She asked me what she did wrong, corrected it and by the end she was with the advanced group jumping the bigger logs.  I was quite proud! 

Camp was an awesome experience, but living with that many girls was tiring.  The first and last night they all stayed up at Brian’s lodge where we always live.  Our nice quite place in the bush is not nearly as quiet with all of those girls around.  We lost our happy little place briefly.  The second night we camped in tents at Camp Howqua and that was quite nice!  There were plenty of hot showers and a nice campfire. 

Saturday and Sunday I was on a two day ride with a bunch of friendly people.  I got to ride my lovely Snowy again and he was great as always!  We had all of our riders cantering by the afternoon and they all did great and I think they all had a blast.  We stayed up late with this group chatting and having a lot of fun.  On Sunday we had to switch horses around a bit.  Avoca was a bit stiff in the shoulder so we switched her rider onto our older andalusian cross, Combo.  That ride went well in the beginning, but after the second canter poor Combo was puffing really hard, so we put his rider on Snowy and Shaynee and I took turns walking Combo up the hills.  When the ride went to do a canter, silly Snowy kept walking waiting for a signal from his rider (because he is used to me riding him), so she urged him into a canter and he was a bit behind the group.  Rather than racing to catch up, my amazing gelding happily cantered at a good pace until he naturally caught up with the group.  Sadly I think my little gelding is almost ready to be a full time guest horse. 

After a nice lunch at the winery, an uneventful ride home, and untacking and washing the horses I was completely exhausted.  I fell onto the couch as soon as I got home in a smelly pile of tired. 

The past few days we recovered and rested in the best way we know… by going to the beach.  Amazing Alice took Steph and I to her beach house south of Melbourne in Blairgowry.  Of course her dog came as well.  It was an amazingly relaxing few days despite the overcast skies.  We were walking up the pier talking to fishers when a lady near us caught squid after squid.  As she pulled them out of the water, they inked everywhere.  Ink was flying in all directions almost hitting us.  It was the most exciting fishing I have ever seen.  After they were caught, she let us touch her squid.  They were beautiful animals and I wish I could have looked at them longer.  We went for a walk on one of the most beautiful wild looking beaches I have ever been to. 

 You take a path through trees and grasses, then suddenly you emerge onto rough sand with rocks everywhere. 

 The waves were crashing violently on the sand and even more violently onto the rocks.  Steph wanted to go swimming and as she waded into the water, a wave promptly knocked her over.  That was the end of swimming for all of us for the day… except for the dog Sparkie.  Sparkie went swimming, ate things, drank sea water, and inevitably threw it all up.  Lovely dog’s life. 

The other amazing thing I discovered on this little vacation are cheesie-mite scrolls.  They are like cinnamon rolls except that they have vegemite and cheese in them rather than cinnamon.  They are heaven made of bread.  YUM!  If you ever get to Australia be sure to try one!

It has been a rather busy few days.  Sadly we lost another of our lovely horses to a broken leg.  We will miss Bundy. Today we had a few rather amusing rides.  Alice, our amazing 18 year old coworker, and I worked together today.  In the morning we had a winery ride with seven guests and in the afternoon we had a two hour ride.  The guests on the winery ride were a lot of fun.  They all had at least a little riding experience so they were game for a bit of an exciting ride.  The only problem with the morning ride was that neither Alice nor I remembered exactly where the track went for the winery ride.  Luckily I was on my trusty Snowy for the ride, so I was safe and happy and Alice was on a newish quarter horse mare, Janey.  This Janey mare is annoying in the pasture, but she can really step out under saddle and seems fun to lead on.  Anyway, we headed out on the ride.  After we realized that everyone was rather balanced at the trot and had some control over their horses, we had some great canters with the whole group.  Then we took our first wrong turn.  We went up a wrong hill, but we didn’t think it would cause a problem because we could see where we should go… sadly we found that there was a fence between us and the path.  So we went off trail quite a bit trying to find a gate.  Alice got us back on track and we were headed in the direction of lunch and wine for the guests.  Then I took the lead for a bit and promptly took another wrong turn.  Somehow we got sorted out and we got to lunch on time.  We had to do a nice forward walk to get there on time, but the guests had an amazing time.  They said that this was the best trail ride they have ever been on.  Thank goodness they had no idea that we were off trail for some of it and confused for the rest of it.

 Alice and I brought six horses home from the winery and left three for Michael to bring home.  To bring horses back, I rode Star, a lovely little arab gelding while I led Snowy and Avoca.  Alice rode Will and led Jacko and we turned Pete loose.  It was actually a fun ride back trotting most of the way.  Both Avoca and Snowy trotted happily beside me on a loose lead with their heads at my knees.  Perfectly behaved animals!  Pete also trotted happily behind me for most of the ride pestering at least one of my horses. 

When we got back we had to get ready for a two hour ride with 16 guests on it.  Steph and Shaynee had a two day ride out with a number of guests so we were a bit short on horses so we had to bring a few of the older horses out for the day, but I think they enjoyed it.  The paddock only had the extremely retired horses in when we were done getting ready for this ride.  The ride was very enjoyable in the beginning.  It was a great group of families.  We had some very nice trots, and a beautiful canter for the more balanced/experienced riders, then the cloud cover let loose and it started raining.  By the time we got to the top of the big hill, we could hear thunder in the distance.  Every time I looked back I saw the guests faces looking more and more miserable except for the man on Pete.  This older gentleman had a hip replacement and wanted to do a five day ride.  To see if he would be able to do this, he was starting by going on a two hour ride.  If he was alright with that then he was going to try a day ride, then go for the five day ride.  He was awesome!  I loved looking back an seeing his smiling face. 

Mom!

Currently my mom is up visiting for about two weeks and it has been amazing while she is here.  Steph and I took the bus up to Melbourne on Friday the 25^th to meet her.  We had an action packed few days in the city where we went to the botanical gardens, explored china town, went to a few amazing dinners, went to a market that was amazingly fun where we had fish and chips and got brightly colored wool socks!  Steph’s mom came in on Saturday and Sunday the four of us took the bus back to Mansfield. 

Mom and I at the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne

We got to show our moms around the lodge and we explored the area with them over the next few days.  It was back to work for Steph and I on Tuesday through Thursday, then on Friday we took our mom’s out for an awesome ride.  Mom came with us to work at camp Howqua one day where she got to meet my favorite little horse, Snowy.  She also got to see us drench (deworm) all of the horses and she got some entertaining video of it. It was freezing cold when we got to work that morning and there was actually frost on the ground.  Poor mom came for cold weather…

When we went for a ride on Sunday,  I put my mom on a nice quiet horse, Jacko.  Jacko doesn’t really like to go faster than a walk, so I thought they would do well together.  Steph rode Bert, a bouncy little arab, Steph’s  mom Gabby rode TC a nice little quarter horse gelding and I rode Query a giant of an Australian stock horse.  On our ride, we had one of us in front of the moms at all times to keep them at a walk while one or two of us went a bit faster and had fun.  Mom did great on the ride!  We had a picnic and relaxed for a while in the middle of the ride and got some great pictures.



Gabby on TC; Steph on Bert; Mom on Jacko; Me on Query



I will update more later, but today is thanksgiving and I have to help with cooking…

A series of unfortunate events:

A number of days ago we had a bit of a run in of an amusing nature.  I was in the shower rather late one evening singing at the top of my lungs of course when the water started running cold.  That is typically a bad sign when your hot water tank is gas powered.  So, of course, I first check to see if Steph is doing the dishes, though it is unlikely that would be the most simple problem, but of course that is not the case.  Our gas tank has run empty.  That means that all of our pilot lights are out.  So we called our landlord and figure out how to switch gas tanks.  That was the easy part.  Next we have to relight the pilot lights on the two hot water heaters.  That was also rather easy.  It was amusing because we are looking around with flashlights because of course the battery power ran out as we were trying to relight the pilot lights.  Once we got those lit we also have to relight the pilots on the two fridges.  The older fridge lit without a problem, but we tried the new fridge for a long time before we gave up for the night.  The next morning I tried it twice and it lit easily, but this was after we had moved all of the food out of the fridge and into the other one.  Having gas powered appliances is highly amusing. 

Kids and horses

I have had a good few days at camp Howqua.  I got to ride my Snowy horse again for the past few days.  We have a school up at the camp for the week, so we are doing three sessions of rides a day.  Yesterday on the first ride we had a very nervous group and one of the girls ended up not going on the ride.  She stayed back in the arena with me and we worked on control of her horse.  By the end she had a giant smile on her face and she was walking and trotting.  I love when kids come around on horseback like that.  I love the confidence that horses give their riders. 

Today is a relaxing, amazing, wonderful day off.  I am spending today not only cleaning because Mom is coming to visit, but I am also spending today reading and napping.  Apparently I must be rather short on sleep because I have been sleeping a lot the past few days.  I just got back from a two day ride with a family from New Zealand.  They were rather nice and none of them had much riding experience so, it was a bit slower paced ride than normal; all walk trot.  The family consisted of a mom who was rather amusingly worried about her makeup and was out on this trip for her birthday gift, a dad who was rather laid back, a twelve year old boy who was not overly into riding, but was very polite and seemed to have fun, and a very energetic eight year old girl.  I couldn’t believe the energy of the kids.  After five hours of riding the first day, they got off their horses, played a game of crocket, went swimming in the pool, ran around a bit more and still had energy. The mom rode a peppy chestnut arab named Bert, the dad rode one of our classy thoroughbreds named Ox, the boy rode another thoroughbred who is a complete gentleman named Mr. T., and the girl rode a nice little mare, Bonnie.  I got to ride Lawson for the first time.  He is a giant dark horse who loves his job and has endless energy.  I led the ride and Michael was on a new-ish quarter horse mare, Janey, in the back. 

The second day of this two day ride dawned rainy and dark.  When I went out to catch the horses they didn’t even attempt to run off like they usually do.  They just took one look at me and streamed through the gate.  They were about as grumpy as I felt.  The Janey mare was completely lame.  She was very sore in her sciatic muscles from her girth and was off on one of her front feet. So, I did not ride the second day of the ride.  I ended up driving back to the stable with Sally and the kids while Michael rode Lawson on the second day of the ride, then I would ride out with another group of two day riders and meet my group at the winery. I saddles up Cole, the same black gelding I rode last week, ponied Jacko and headed out with the other ride.  Cole was a bit fresh, but his gaits are so comfortable that I love him despite some of his behavior.  I got to have a relaxing lunch at the winery with my two day group.  On the ride back to the stable, I was back on Lawson again and when I was attempting to close a gate off of him, he was being bratty (this horse knows how to close a gate). So, after a number of attempts, Michael got on him… a while later and still unable to close the gate in the proper manner, I got on Cole rather than back on Lawson and we rode the rest of the way home.  At the end of the ride we had an awesome trot.  I am starting to love Cole, though not as much as Snowy.  Snowy is my man! 

Right now the blackberries are ripe, so last night after an amazing tea of fish and chips that Brian made for us, we had pancakes, icecream, and blackberries for desert.  YUM!  Also, we found yet another plum tree that we can have all the fruit we can eat off of.  It is amazing the amount of food that we can forage for out here. 

Sideways cantering

We had a three day ride over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and it was a busy three days.  It was a three day ride for people who were impacted by one of the fires so it was a mixed lot of people with very different riding experience. On Saturday morning, we brought the horses in and started getting them ready.  My job was to tack up certain horses, then make sure they were either sound or were not going to explode or try anything.  I was spoiled and got to ride while everyone else saddled. We had twenty-some riders so it was a good number of horses to get going. I rode Cole, a beautiful black gelding with very smooth gaits.  He has been off for 12 months due to injuries, but he seemed rather sound while I was on him.  Because there were a lot of nervous people in this group, I ended up staying back with the people who wanted to walk.  They grasped their saddles in fright while I led them at a steady walk.  Well, at least their horses were walking.  Cole was doing a bit of prancing and sideways cantering, but he was smooth enough that I didn’t care. 

The guests stayed at the hideout (a beautiful camp/cabin/whatnot setup), but they decided that I should entertain two people who were coming in that evening for a two day ride.  So, I stayed at the River House and got a bedroom to myself!  This was the first time I have had a room to myself since I left home. It was rather refreshing.  When I got there Michael had made dinner for the guests and myself.  I had a relaxing evening taking the guests, who were an awesome couple from Oklahoma, on a kangaroo walk, then I got to have some alone time.  Of course in the morning I had to make the guests breakfast, then I was told I would be taking Michael’s ute back, but I ended up having to drive the ute with a float and two horses back.  EEEP!  I survived floating (trailering) horses while I was driving on the left side of the road.  EEEP!  Luckily the horses also survived! 

The view from Micheal and Sally's house

The second and third day of the three day ride, I rode my Snowy again.  The more I ride that horse the more I love him.  He is energetic, but super responsive and not overly explosive. I started off riding with the trotters and I even got one canter in over the next two days, but I spent most of my time back with the walkers.  Snowy got himself all worked up being in the back, so we spent a lot of the ride jigging or prancing in place, but he was still not acting badly at all. 

Big Spider!

On Monday the ride ended at Camp Howqua and of course, that afternoon we had the first session for another school group at camp.  I got to do the riding demonstration on Snowy and he was amazing.  The kids were being rather rowdy, there were alpacas in the field next to us (and we all know alpacas eat horsers), there were kids running upriver with tubes, then floating downriver, and the waterslide was going and kids were screaming.  What a good pony!  I was quite proud of him. Thank goodness Snowy was being good, because this group of kids were a mess.  They were frightened and annoying.  Just plain annoying, but by the end of the ride they seemed to have a lot of fun and that is the important thing!  I led the ride on Snowy and he was fantastic. 

Today, Tuesday, our landlord, Brian, took us on a four wheel drive tour he was taking out.  We got to see Mount Bouler, Craigs Hut from the movie, Mount Sterling, and a rather pretty waterfall.  We drove on some rather frightening roads, but the awesome vehicle we were in handled it amazingly.  Overall it was an awesome day and we have an awesome landlord. 

I left my camera at the barn on Monday, so I won’t be able to put up recent pictures for a few days. 

I really like the new dress I got in Melbourne

Life after vacation

Today we finally had enough free time to catch up with writing again. The last few days have been rather amazing, but chaotic. Shaynee ran out of petro last night and her tank at home was empty, so we were rather late for work this morning.  We got the horses in, caught, and got them tacked up in just over a half hour of scrambling in thick mud.  I forgot to mention, of course it was steadily raining all morning.  Our rides at the camp typically cross the river or go up a steep hill.  The trail through the river is easier on the horses and riders, so we wanted to go that way today, but we were worried about the crossings with all the rain. So Steph and I went for a fast paced ride to see how muddy an alternate track was.  We did a bit of a muddy race on two of the well behaved sports car of ponies and I made sure the river was crossable on ponyback.  I was worried about getting my feet wet while crossing, so I put my legs up behind the saddle, but it started pouring down rain as soon as I got away from the stable, so the effort was redundant.

After the kid’s ride, we did a staff ride to get horses back for long rides over the weekend. We had to get quite a few horses back, so we each rode one and led two.  I was on Babe (a sweet standardbred with a head like a dinosaur… she has a great trot, pace, and canter) and I led Optus and Will.  Once we got into paddocks we let the led horses go and the herd continued to go in a single file line.  At points riderless horses were leading the ride.  I felt unneeded in the mix, the horses could have easily gotten home without us. They probably would have done a better job without us. It was moderately unnerving when I would look up as we rode through a cloud and just see a string of riderless horses. It was an uneventful, but frustrating ride home because I always had to urge one of my horses forward because they were holding back, or Babe would pin her ears and try to kick one of the boys, or one of the boys would rush forward and I would have to hold him back… horses.

Tonight we went to pick up our laundry from Sally who is a legend after we picked up lunch stuff from the Dugan, and we stayed at the house for a few hours.  Max was running around dancing without any pants with his singing Spiderman, we were watching Australian football which is much more amazing than American, and relaxing and looking through pictures with Becky.  I feel like part of the family. Because it was late and we had laundry with us, Michael let us drive his Ute back home… awesome boss!  I love it here… I love it here… I love it here. 

Yesterday, Thursday, we had a long day at camp.  We had to bring the horses in by 7am and then had four sessions of rides.  The rides on the same trails that many times a day should be monotonous and frustrating, but rather those rides make me realize just rewarding the job is.  We do a riding demonstration, a short lesson, and then a short trail ride where almost all of the kids trot and a few canter. Our horses for camp are complete saints and put up with most anything. We have kids come in who don’t want to ride at all and are afraid of the horses.  We have them get on just for the lesson and they figure out how to control the horses.  They usually get excited to go out for the ride.  After the trail ride most of them don’t want to get off of their horses.  Once they get off they hug their horses and are more than happy to wash them down or feed them for us.  It is so rewarding to see this change in the kids. 

After the long day Steph and I were exhausted and just wanted to go home and sleep, but we had to stop by the River House first to meet up with the two day ride guests.  We stopped at Michael and Sally’s house to pick up the blue machine to get home, but of course Sally kept us for dinner.  Then we had to drive out to pick up Michael from the River House.  I got to drive the car at night!  Both Steph and I survived. It was a dark, cloudy night and Michael, Steph and I did a bit of a walk in a pasture to close a gate… thank goodness I am blind or I would have fallen a few times.  It was lovely out there… overcast, with the sound of the river, the sound of horses, and the wind in the grass.  A great ending to a day.

I seem to have very little recollection of Wednesday other than being hung over and moderately grumpy at work and having a yummy lunch with the camp staff. (See next two paragraphs to understand why).

Tuesday was our last day of vacation before heading back to work.  Shaynee took us out to her friend Charlie’s place for a ride and it was amazing to go for a ride for fun. He does a lot of training and works mostly with quarter horses.  He was amazingly patient with his horses and he had an amazing seat.  His horses were responsive and quiet. I was on a bay gelding named Bazzle who was a complete sweetheart.  It was nice being on a horse that picks up leads when you ask him to for a change.  We went on a nice trail ride and did a good bit of trotting and cantering.  For the first time in a long time I didn’t have to look behind me to make sure my riders were doing alright.  I could just relax on my horse, enjoy his gaits, and marvel at the flocks of butterflies that were coming off of every surface.  After our trail ride, Charlie taught us how to crack a stock whip on a cantering horse.  I put a video on facebook… and it was awesome to learn to do.  I feel bad for whatever horse I get next.  It will be rather abused I am afraid; I will teach it to have a whip cracked off of its back.  I did not hit more than my horse’s tail while learning to do this, but when I was on the ground practicing I somehow ended up with the whip wrapped around my face.  Also, I think I was covered in welts from hitting myself with it.

Charlie made us yummy hamburgers for lunch (with a ton of veggies on them… I love how they make them here) then we headed out to the local pub.  It was 4 in the afternoon, but we took a beer along because we could all use the refreshment. A few pubs and quite a few new friends later, we made it back to our nice house on the hill. 

Melbourne again!

We made it to Melbourne with growling stomachs throughout our flight and flybus ride.  We somehow managed to not eat lunch, so we ravenously tour into a feast at the bus station as soon as we got there while we searched for a cheap hostel.  I was miserable due to sunburn on my upper legs and in the outline of my bathing suit.  It hurt to move.  I put on lots of sunscreen, but apparently not often enough.  We found a hostel with beds for $24 per night.  Cheap!  Our room had 10 bunk beds up against the walls.  There were a great group and people staying in our room.  I felt like I was back in college with a nice long walk up the hallway to the communal bathroom and tons of people walking around in towels… home, or at least home for a few days! I did feel bad because most of our roommates were having a lot of trouble finding work and were rapidly running out of money. L

We met up with a few of our awesome friends from a two day ride, Dave and Kat.  They took us to their friends’ apartment and we got to meet Dave’s housemate, a Swiss guy, and a few French girls who were all great.  We went out dancing at a karoke bar.  I did not sing, but I smoked my first cigar.  Strangely I didn’t mind it at all.  It was great as long as I didn’t inhale.  I am not sure if I would ever want to try it again, but it wasn’t a bad adventure. It was great to get to know that group of people.  The girls were great and forced me to dance and I had some great conversations with everyone.  It was another awesome night.  One great thing about this night was the number of accents in our group.  We of course had Texas and Pennsylvania (boring), but Dave and Kat are from the UK and have awesome accents, the French girls had very strong accents, as did the Swiss guy, and Dave’s housemate could switch accents whenever he wanted.  Awesome!  For the first time in my life I was with a diverse group. 

The next morning we decided to stay in the city for another night.  We did a bit of shopping and exploring through the day.  Steph found a quite amazing dress and shoes for going out.  I found a much more conservative dress and shoes for wearing at any time of the day or night.  Lovely outfit (and cheap!).  Also, I dragged Steph into a book store.  I can’t pass one without getting tempted.  Yum, books!  After a fun day of exploring and an awesome dinner of Oriental food, we took the train out to meet up with our friends again.  As you can probably tell, it was awesome to spend some time with someone other than Steph.  I love the girl to death, but we spend way too much time together.

It was a rather rainy day with some hard rain before our train left.  When we got close to the stop they were going to meet us at, the train ground to a halt.  The train was halted due to an unsafe amount of water on the tracks.  Typical to my luck, we were stuck at a train station in the middle of an area that we were completely unfamiliar with.  Luckily our friends are amazing and picked us up at the train station we were stuck at. We were worried that we would need snorkels to get back to their place, but the flooding wasn’t too bad. We had a fun evening with them yet again.  Yay for good friends, good drinks, and entertaining fiascos involving public transportation and weather.

Saturday we had our last day in the city before taking the bus home.  We went out to an awesome breakfast and checked out of our hostel. At breakfast Steph and I shared a meal and didn’t even bother getting a spare plate, we just shared one.  Life is absurd. We had a lazy rainy day watching movies with the guys then it was back to Mansfield for us. 

Getting home felt great.  I had received a few letters from mom that contained family pictures in them!  I was unbelievably excited!  I also had a letter from Grammie which made me very happy!  Steph and I had a package from our bosses in Yellowstone.  They sent brochures for us to hand out to anyone who is interested… but they also sent little stuffed ponies and a variety of cookies.  What awesome bosses! 

Vacation was lovely, but I am happy to be back home at the lodge in the hills.  I like to visit cities, but I am a country girl through and through. 

Sydney Beach

Wednesday was our beach day.  We got a bit later start then we planned on, but still it was great.  We walked up to Sydney harbor again and from there took a ferry to Manly where we were told to go to the beach… and thank goodness we went there.  The beach was beautiful and the waves were amazing.  I have been to the ocean many times before, but never anywhere like this.  It was hot outside, but the water was cool and refreshing in a clear turquoise blue.  The waves were violent and strong and giant.  This made Myrtle beach look like a child’s play-land. The beach was crowded, but we had a bit of space to spread out.  I felt very classy there with my nice hotel towel.  Only a small part of the beach was open to swimmers and I was confused as to why until I went into the water in an area not marked for swimming… the sand quickly dropped away and the current was aggressive.  There were surfers everywhere.  Seeing them really made me want to learn to surf.  I will either coerce my friends in Melbourne to teach me or I will take lessons while we are on vacation at the end of the trip.

We did a bit of tanning and a lot of swimming.  I learned a few big lessons at this beach.  First off, I learned that you should be careful what bathing suit you wear to a beach with waves like this.  My bottom was old and stretched out and my top was new and not tied tightly enough, but despite the wardrobe malfuncations I still had a great time.  I can still ride the waves like I used to.  The wind blew a swarm of jellyfish into the beach so we each got stung a few times.  Luckily these blue bottle (I think) jellies were not poisonous.  They only hurt for 20 minutes to an hour.  Not nearly as bad as wasp stings. 

We made friends with a guy from Kansas city by running him over while body surfing.  I literally ran into him.  He ended up sticking with us for the rest of the day.  When we were in the ocean, as each wave passed Steph and I would always look for each other.  Once he joined us, all three of us automatically looked for each other.  Thank goodness for group survival tendencies. The waves were so strong that a lot of time you had to dive under them or get washed 10-15 feet towards shore.

We did dinner outside again.  We went to a fish and chips place and it was terrific, then we had baskin and robins ice cream while walking up the beach.  Yum.  Near dusk we walked over to the dock to take the ferry back, but there was a musician playing guitar on the street.  We decided to listen to him while we waited for the next ferry and we ended up skipping a few ferry runs and instead continued to listen to him.  He was amazing (both looking and at playing).  We stayed to listen to him for so long, that by the end he was playing just for us… playing things he thought we would like.  He was from New Zealand and could play so many different styles.  It was hard to leave… Our ferry ride back to town was lovely. The lights shining over the water was great. 

Thursday morning I brought muffins back for both of us so we could eat breakfast while packing up the room.  Once we were packed we headed out to a local café to get a cuppa.  We relaxed there and read for a while.  We took a shuttle to the airport and got there in plenty of time for our flight which of course was delayed.  Of course.

Sydney II

We had quite a few more fun days. Tuesday morning we got up and watched the news.  There was a quite strong tropical cyclone coming in to Kerns.  There has been a crazy diversity of bad weather since we have been here; now tropical storms are added to the diversity of fires, floods, and droughts.  Crazy!  Anyway, we spent Tuesday exploring Sydney since we had little time to explore the night before.  We picked up a map and took off walking.  We started out toward the bridge and opera house; the most touristy parts of the city.  It was stiflingly hot outside and humid, so we wore little tank tops and shorts… perhaps I should have brought more than one pair of shorts with me… oh well.  I bought sunscreen to protect my already burnt shoulders. Soon after we left we got to an art museum which had free admission, so of course we had to walk in.  There was a great diversity of works there and we spent a lot of time there.  My favorite piece was of course a painting of a knight with his horse saving a damsel in distress.  I was hoping to find a knight of my own in this trip, but I guess seeing a picture of one was almost as good. There was also a sculpture of a man fighting a giant snake… awkward.

After a bit, Steph and I decided that we should leave the museum to explore the city more. A block or two after we left, we got to the royal botanical gardens which were amazing.  We went to a café in the garden and I bought the most amazing iced chocolate drink (these yummy creations are made of a few scoops of ice cream floating in milk with chocolate syrup added and whipped cream on top.  The whipped cream here is not like our processed sugared stuff… it is cream that is whipped, so it is rich and creamy and a true dairy product, but not sweet.  So, when it is added to a drink, you mix it in and it makes the flavor so super rich.)  We found a nice spot in the gardens to have our lunch and drinks; we were under a giant tree with a great view of the ocean and beautiful trees.  It was probably the most romantic picnic spot I have ever been to… if only I were there with an attractive man rather than Steph… if only I were eating a great lunch rather than a pb+j and fruit, but I won’t complain… Steph is a great travel companion and pb+j’s are cheap and yummy.

We explored the gardens for a bit longer and I made some friends with some friendly trees (and some intimidating ones). 

Cute friendly tree... right?

WRONG: angry killing tree!

We then made our way to the opera house and got to explore the tourist part of the city.  We were close to the lovely harbor bridge.  We wanted to walk across the bridge, so we made our way to the foot of it… apparently it is quite difficult to find the foot of such a large bridge.  We ended up wandering for quite a long while before we found the stairs up to the bridge.  We did find some interesting shopping areas and got to explore quite a bit. The view from the bridge was great!  The guard rails on the pedestrian walkway on the bridge were entertaining… wire mesh going rather far up that curved up above our heads with barbed wire at the top… a completely un-jumpable bridge. 

We had a bit of time to kill before dinner and we were both hot, thirsty, and rather exhausted, so we went back into the gardens in search for water bubblers (not fountains here apparently) and after we filled our bottles, we found a nice looking tree with nice thick grass beneath it and decided to lay down for a bit.  About an hour later lovely low flying cockatoos woke us up.  Those birds make such lovely squawking. That being said… that was the best nap of my life.  At least the best public nap of my life.  I wanted to give that tree a hug after such an amazing nap. 

We went to dinner at the foot of the opera house.  We ate outside next to the harbor at a higher class (probably low class for the area, but higher class than anything I have been to before) Chinese place.   After they took our orders and brought our drinks.. a waitress came over and put our napkins on our laps.  I found this experience rather frightening.  I like good service at a restaurant, but I prefer to do little things myself.  While eating with my chopsticks I was very careful not to get any food on my shirt or face for fear that the waitress would come back over and wipe it off for me. Thank goodness I was able to get all of the food from my plate to mouth without mishap.

That night we went out to an Irish pub.  It was the only bar in the area that looked laid back but still had people in it.  While there we made friends with a group of men who were in the city for a conference (they all worked for footy teams).  The group was made up of one guy about our age who was rather nice, a 30 something guy who was awesome, some older men, and one older guy who none of us could understand.  He talked out of the side of his mouth and had a very heavy accent and a very deep voice… all factors that made communication impossible in a loud bar with a live band. When he spoke I heard something like, “Shavawka, gla-waa fla makka vla”. Conversations were amazing and they taught us a new game of darts.  It was a great night. 

Sydney... we made it there!

We got to Sydney two days ago.  Getting here was a bit hectic, but being here has been amazing. Monday morning, we took a bus from Mansfield to Melbourne.  The bus ride was nice and relaxing after not nearly enough sleep.  In Melbourne we promptly put our luggage in a locker then went exploring.  We took a free shuttle around the city and got off at stops that entertained us.  Of course we first got off at the botanical gardens and spent hours exploring there.  The plants were lovely and friendly, the iced chocolate drink that I had was amazing, the weather was hot and sunny (and of course I started my weekly trend of getting sunburnt).  After a shockingly long time to stare at trees, Steph and I got back on the free shuttle and rode further into town. 

We got off at the theatre and art district. The theatre was having a free exhibit on the history of women in Australian rock music.  It was rather entertaining and the costumes they had on display were quite funny. We were quite surprised that the art museum was free to get into, so we also spent a long time in there looking at art.  Yay art! We got back on the free trolley only to realize that we would be late for our airport shuttle if we took the bus, so we got off at the next stop and walked to the bus station.  From then on we did a lot of walking.  The nice little flybus took us to the airport and we flew with the sketchiest airline ever.  They were in a little terminal quite a ways off from the main ones.  When I went through security they asked for my ticket but never asked for any time of id.  It was rather strange coming from America.  I brought a few things that would have had me searched in the US (a plastic butter knife, my liquids in a bag inside my luggage…) and no one around us was searched.  Our flight was delayed and when we finally got to Sydney we found a shuttle that would take us directly to our hotel.  Of course the shuttle driver was driving rather quickly… I think we got air over speed bumps.  I was shocked that our suitcases in the trailer behind us survived the trip.  Heck, I am surprised we survived the trip.  After getting lost and having to back down some sketchy alleyways (with a trailer; impressive driving Mr. shuttle driver) we made it to our hotel.  We were told that our hotel was in the red light district, but that was the most tame red light district I have ever been in.  I think Edinboro has a worse part of town than that red light district.  The only “trouble” we had the whole time we were there was a guy working at a strip club trying to get us to go in.  Scary…  Anyway our hotel room was rather entertaining.  Our room had a tiny tv, two bunk beds with just enough room to walk between them, and a frightening white stain on the carpet. The bathroom had a toilette, sink, shower head, drain in the floor, and shower curtain that went almost around the part of the floor that showering was to take place in.  Nice open floor plan bathroom.  It was an adventure.  In this picture I was backed up against the room door and almost in the bathroom… nice “cozy” room for four.  Thank goodness there were only two of us and we are used to being in close quarters to one another.

That first night we went out and bought a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, and fruit.  Everything we need to happily survive. We were good to go.