Like Yoga for Horses

*Note: I am leaning forward...ARGH! But at least the horse looks good. Working on a 10 meter circle.


It never fails to make me laugh. Inevitably when someone finds out that I ride and train both English and Western horses, they ask: "do you do dressage?"

The answer is: always.

Then another statement from this new person: "I have always wanted to do dressage, I wonder if my horse could do it."

This single statement is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard (no offense to those of you who wonder...keep reading). It is like wondering if you can do yoga. Any person can do at least a little yoga, and will benefit from it. This is the same with horses. Can you drink water? should you breathe air? These are all similar questions.

Yes, your horse CAN do dressage. You can do it too, and the sooner that you start, the better your life and the life of your horse will be. Here are some reasons to do dressage:

*It will improve balance and posture in your horse

*It will improve your balance and Posture (you see, dressage is like yoga for people too)

*It will strengthen the effectiveness of horse/rider communication

*A responsive horse is more likely to find a good home if (God forbid) you should ever need to re-home it.

*Dressage increases muscle tone and overall fitness in both horse and rider.

*It will make your reining horse stronger and more efficient, and ultimately able to do a prettier pattern

*It will develop the back muscles needed in cutting and quick cow work

*It will develop all muscles needed for jumping

*It will create a pretty rounded and natural look for your western or english pleasure horse.

*or any show horse

*rhythmic exercises are soothing for high strung horses

*extension and flexion exercises are wonderful for lazy horses

*Dull horses learn to respond

*hyper-sensitive horses learn to wait for cues

*Riders learn to be patient, relax and rejoice in small victories (you would be surprised at how many small victories are in a day...it leads to a much more satisfied life)

*Dressage, unlike any other equine sport, focuses on the longevity of the horse. A lot of the Prix St Georges horses are in their late teens and early twenties and much more fit than a 10 year old show horse. Their usable life is extended and their quality of life is improved.

*Older horses tend to lose muscle tone first, creating that "ridge back" effect. Slow dressage workouts help build that muscle back and keep your horse looking well.

Here are some reasons not to do dressage:

*

*

OK, I can't think of one! There is no reason not to do it. If you have a stick horse or no horse at all, at the very least, learning dressage terminology and "riding" a pattern in your living room will improve memory and muscle memory. It feels silly, but my friends and I use to do tests on foot just to commit them to memory. Don't be ashamed!

Now, I know that not every horse is Prix St Georges material, some of them may never make it past training level, but that isn't what is important here. The "tricks" of high School dressage are amazing, but that shouldn't be your goal. When you start, your goal is to improve the life of you and your horse.

Honestly, this seems counter intuitive, but Training level and lower levels are the hardest. Do you remember how hard Kindergarten was? I do, coloring inside the lines seemed purposeless and why would I learn to read or add when mommy and daddy do it for me? But, when you get going and really start learning, school would get easier and easier. Sure, we hit roadblocks in each grade and it became hard, but kindergarten had taught us to learn, take instruction and the value and fun of knowledge.

Your horse will go through the same process. If you have never done any dressage he will question and maybe even get frustrated from time to time. you will feel like your kindergarten teacher did. It might frustrate you too, but just remember to have patience. He is upset because he doesn't know the answer. Try to find ways to make it easier for him to FIND the answer. Don't give it to him. And don't ever try to force him.

Here is a very basic dressage exercise that will help you both learn. Your horse will learn to seek the correct answer and you will learn patience. Some of you may already do this. Without knowing it, you are doing dressage!

First a few tips: I ride with my inside leg up by the girth, and my outside leg just slightly back. This helps cue my horse as to my intentions. It is a good thing to ALWAYS make your intentions clear. If I am out in a random field or on a trail and I ask for a canter or lope from the walk, they know which lead to take based on my leg position. It is OK to do this without head and neck flexion. That will come with time. Don't expect this to be perfect! Have patience and your horse will learn more quickly than you think. Also, I always start these exercises with loose-ish reins. don't try to fight for control, but don't throw the horse away either. A plain snaffle bit, or rubber mouth snaffle is perfect. But you can do this in a halter, bitless, whatever. The instructions are for riding with two hands though so I recommend a mild snaffle or bitless affair.

OK, here it goes:

You will start this exercise at the walk. A field, hill, center of the arena, any where you can do a circle. Start out on a 5 meter circle. Now don't go panicking already 5 meters is about 15 feet across. Just a moderate circle in the center of your workspace is fine. Get a good consistent walk. If all you do during the first lesson is learn how to walk on a 5 meter circle then no big deal. Small victories are big victories in the long run. If your horse is really having a hard time walking on a small circle, then spiral out until he is comfortable. We can reverse this exercise to build enough muscle to handle a 5 meter circle.

Once the horse has a very consistent cadence, not quite plodding, but not rushing either, increase the pressure from the inside leg at the girth. HEELS DOWN!!!! Just use the side of your calf to press against the area just behind the girth. At the same time release pressure from your outside leg. If your horse is confused, take your outside leg completely off of him...point it out, whatever. What you are doing is asking him to move sideways and forward at the same time. Your hands/reins do not change and your seat does not change. If he is still having trouble, increase the weight on your inside seat bone, but don't lean. Think of it as closing the door for any inside movement and opening the outside door. When the horse takes ONE STEP in the direction (sideways and still forward) RELEASE!

The release is the most important part. This is the reward for the horse. If he does it and you keep asking, he thinks he has given the wrong answer. So, when he even makes the slightest try at first release to let him know he is doing well. You will be surprised at how quickly he learns. Pet him, tell him how good he is and try again. The next time, if your release was correct, he will respond much more quickly. Once he responds well, add steps. Keep increasing the size of your circle until you can't anymore or until you feel that he is doing well on that side.

DO NOT QUIT HERE. It is vitally important that you train both the left and right sides of your horse. Do this exercise in both directions. If you are only working on a good circle, do it in both directions. Always, always, always work both directions!

Another very important thing to keep in mind is not to overdo it. This can be as bad as expecting too much, and is very closely related to that. This may seem so simple and easy, but it is building muscle, and thought in you and your horse. When you first start only work a maximum of 15 minutes in each direction. Work your way up to longer sessions, then add trot and canter (or jog and lope for you western gurus) when you are ready. More importantly don't add these before the horse is ready. He will get sore, and become less and less compliant and maybe even bored. I am not saying to limit your entire ride to 30 minutes total, but the gymnastic dressage sessions should start out with that. Remember, dedicate equal time to both sides. One side may need more work than the other but you will find that out when you start. that's OK. As long as the horse learns the same exercise on both sides you are golden.

Don't forget to warm up and cool down. a nice walk and trot on loose reins to start, and a good walk after you are done. This should be one where you aren't trying to teach him something. Let him walk and think. Prepare and cool down from each lesson. It is good for you too; I promise!

I know that this may sound so hard for those of you just starting out. The key is to have patience. With yourself as well as your horse. It is hard for a lot of people to learn to separate their leg movements, but you can learn how. After all, you learned how to walk, and it was hard, but you did it. You can do this too. Sometimes it helps to explain the goals and process to someone who does not ride and ask them to critique you. I get so frustrated sometimes when my non-horsey boyfriend tells me to sit up straight, but then I have to remember, he is looking at me with only the knowledge that I have given him. The correct way to do it, and he can process that and recognize that I am not being correct. It helps that he doesn't know what I am doing. Even when I am bunched up trying to get a colt to understand my legs and an experienced horse person might overlook that and not mention it, DB just sees me not sitting up straight and calls me on it.

Presents for co-workers (another tutorial...Woot!)

I am so excited about this method! I found the original idea here. I have to say on a side note that I am totally addicted to Tip Junkie. There are lots of great ideas over there!

Anyhow, I work with horsey people (lucky me) so I found some horse head cookie cutters in which to make the fudge. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 Cups Semisweet chocolate chips
1 Cup Peanut Butter Chips
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbs butter or margarine
1 tsp Vanilla extract

The original recipe says to mix the chips and milk and butter and microwave for 2 minutes stirring every 30 seconds.

YOu can do that if you want, but I think that the microwave was meant to be a time saver...so if I have to babysit it I don't want to play; I may as well cook over the stove. Which is what I did.

I set up my pyrex bowl on a shallow pot with water in it. Insta-double boiler.



I mixed the chips, milk and softened butter together and turned it on. You do have to stir it to make sure it heats evenly, but it smells so yummy, and the results are worth the time spent in front of the stove.



While the chips were melting I prepared the cookie cutters. I placed each one on a square of foil and wrapped. I had to get creative in the tight corners, but I figured out a system. Then I sprayed each one with cooking spray. I would take regular breaks throughout this process to stir my chips.




With all six cookie cutters prepared and my chips really starting to melt, I concentrated on stirring at this point. When the mixture was almost all the way melted and combined I mixed in the vanilla. Then let it get pretty melty. Once it was at a loose fudge consistency, I scooped it into each cookie cutter. I used a big table spoon (like really, a table spoon used at the table...)and I got about 3 scoops into each cookie cutter. I smoothed the mixture out as much as possible, then I covered the whole cookie sheet and put it out to chill. I have a handy dandy front room/porch thing that works as a cold room during the winter. Great for when I am doing Holiday baking.

While the cutters were cooling, I put a tub of leftover royal icing that I had from assembling my gingerbread house into the still hot but not boiling water in the pan. Then I cleaned up a little. Made some dip for the office party. Played with the dogs. Washed my hands.

After about a half hour, the royal icing was soft enough to use so I packed it into an icing bag with a medium small tip. I am sorry that I can't be more specific but I got a set of decorating tips and there is a tiny one, a medium small one and a bigger one...I used the one that was most medium. I put manes anf forelocks on all of the horses. Peter thought that they should have smiles but I didn't want to get too cheesey so I just added mouths. I think they turned out really cute!



And a close up. What a pretty chocolate palomino...har har.



I covered them and put them back out into the cold room to chill overnight. Then I headed upstairs and set up Crikey (that is the name of my Cricut machine for those of you just tuning in). I loaded my Winter Woodland Cartridge and selected the card feature, then the horse. I set it at 1 1/2 inches and cut. I used contrasting paper and shift+card+horse to get the background.



This morning I peeled the tinfoil off of each cutter, and wiped away the excess cooking spray. Then I put them into individual baggies and tied the gift tags to them.



So cute! I love the way they turned out, and I think that this would work with any cookie cutter. I tested one of them and the fudge would slide out easily, even though the cookie cutters I used were somewhat complicated. I think I am going to do a lot more of these. I got the cutters off of ebay in a big lot (9 total)so I might get more of different varieties to send friends and family. These are small so they would be cheap to ship and still let everyone know that you are thinking of them.

A word of warning, each fudge piece is about 700 calories. Not to put a damper on your excitement, but I thought that I should be up front about the drawbacks. I don't think that I could even eat a whole one though...the fudge is very rich as I found out from licking the spoon after I had finished filling the cutters.

I did it! (my first tutorial...sort of)

I finally cut fabric with my cricut using the freezer paper method. The last time I tried it was an epic fail. Fabric didn't want to stick to paper, then the blade just messed it up (as in frayed the fabric). So I canned the idea. There aren't really any tutorials out there for this method anyway...maybe it can't be done.

Au Contraire mon fraire!

Last night, for some reason, I just decided to do it. I took some zoo fabric that I have had for years because I don't know what to do with it (pretty standard cheap quilting cotton) and I ironed it to freezer paper. Basically you match the shiney side of the paper to the wrong side of the fabric and iron with a very hot, dry iron. I ironed the crap out of it and made sure that the fabric was indeed stuck down. It didn't stick very well around the edges, and the freezer paper peels off easily so I just made sure that a good portion of it was reasonably fused.

For this cut, my storybook cartridge was already loaded. The most simple design on that cartridge is the flower shadow (shift+shadow+I)so I decided to use that one. I loaded the mat and moved the blade to the point where the fabric and paper were really fused. Here is the technical stuff:

Blade pressure: 5

Size: 3 inches (personal choice...but I think too small or too detailed would fail)

Speed: Min (this is really important!

Multi-cut: I didn't actually use multi cut for this project, but I am going to try next time. there was one spot I had to finish cutting by hand.

Once it was cut out, I just peeled the paper off of the fabric and it is a clean, plain piece of fabric.

And here it is:



Sort of a modest little flower. but she has a special place right now as my first fabric piece cut from cricut.

Are you waiting for the irony? I can't remember why it was so important for me to learn to cut fabric this way. I have seen the multitudes of heat and bond success and every project I can think of (quilts, applique, etc) would be appropriate for that method. I do remember having a strong desire to learn to cut fabric with cricut sans anything permanent on the back...

Whatever. I can do it, and it is done. As soon as I remember why this was important, I will know that I can.

This has also bred a desire for adventure. I have so many ideas: felt story board, fleece. but I didin't know where to start. Last night I fused a small piece of fleece in between two pieces of freezer paper. I couldn't find my deep cut blade but as soon as I do I will try it. Hopefully it will work and I can share it with you here!

Gingerbread house

Well, On Monday, I rolled cut and baked my sugar cookies. Then I tackled the gingerbread. I rolled some of it fairly thick and used my gingerbread house cookie cutters to cut out walls and a roof. I didn't let the dough rest long enough though. It was really cold and pretty flaky. But it worked out well and I got those in the oven. Then I rolled it out thinner and cut some cookies for decorations around the house. Gingerbread men, christmas trees, santa, Frosty and some angels. As I worked with the dough more it became easier, more pliable and smoother. Then I used the leftover dough to make a base. I lined my smallest cookie sheet (I think it is 9x12) with parchment paper, then rolled the dough out onto it. Basically making a big rectangular pan cookie.

After everything was out of the oven, I moved them to cooling racks (except for the base which will stay in the pan for the life of the house) and left them overnight. In the morning I put the fully cooled cookies into ziplock bags. Now for the wait...

I waited until 6:00 for Peter to get off of work last night. I called him. I mean I tried to get a hold of him. Since he was unavailable and clearly not coming home at a decent hour, I had an idea.

The gingerbread house needs to be put together and then left alone to set up, right? And that isn't technically decorating without Peter's help...is it?

I decided that it wasn't and made some royal icing. Then I put my little house together and used some handy kitchen items to hold it together.



Here is a better look of what I used. Namely a couple of cans of tomato soup, a tub of honey, a box of cookie cutters and a jar of pop corn kernels.



Peter walked in around 8:00 PM as I was finishing cleanup...so I don't feel so bad. I let our gingerbread house cure over night and I removed the props this morning.

Tada!



The lighting in the kitchen wasn't great this morning, but I took a picture of the other side so that you can see it in all of its glory.



I tried to get pictures from the front but it looked like a haunted gingerbread house so I deleted them.

The plan tonight is to decorate the actual cookies (with or without peter) so that they have time to cure as well. Then I will get candy so that we can both decorate the actual gingerbread house scene. I think that is a good compromise. I am sharing the joy of cookies with him, but I get to decorate the actual cookies in my own OCD way. He may be home early tonight though which means I will have to let him help me...but that is ok. I suppose that it will be good for me to share.

Jingle Balls

Well, I finally went nuts for Christmas. I usually get antsy right around...January. It is so bad that I have to actually live by my own strict rule of "no Christmas until AFTER the Turkey has his day." And typically it is all I can do to wait. Then the day after Thanksgiving, I go "Jingle Balls" as my friends so aptly named it. I set up the tree, the lights, I bake, I make and I wrap my bootie off until, well...January.

The last couple of years have been atypical though. I finally decorated my tree and put frosty the snowman window clings up, but there hasn't been much Christmas in my spirit. Now, I find myself 2 weeks away from the joyous holiday and so behind I don't know what to do.

I am behind on gifts. Looks like cards won't get out. And I have a BUNCH of homework to do...what a wonder that I am not in the mood.

But I am changing all of that. After all, Christmas is a joy from inside you. The joy of sharing.

And Cookies.

I made gingerbread cookie dough and sugar cookie dough to rest last night. Cutting and baking will happen tonight, then decorating whenever I can get Peter to help. This last step will be the hardest for me. I want to get things done. Patience is a virtue that I do not possess. But I want to share the joy of Christmas with my DB and the best way that I know how to do that is to share my joy of cooking.

Which reminds me: Santa? Would you please send me the Joy of Cooking Cookbook for Christmas? I need it! My youngest cookbook (an everything cookbook) is 50 years old.

While I am here, I want to share with you how very cold it is! Here is a picture of our very frosted Lilac bushes.

Well, I get a big fat "F" in Blogging. I haven't updated for quite a while. Since I wrote last, Pippy got severely hurt, then got better, has been weaned, I enrolled in an MBA program and we have gotten into Dairy goats. Yes, I have just crossed the line.

I am officially: "Just Plain Crazy."

But, don't you want to hear about the goats? I am overly obsessed with self sufficiency, and the more research I did, the more I liked the idea of having dairy goats. They could cut milk and cheese (and possibly even butter if I can muster the patience of Job) right out of our grocery bill. Of course, they add some back on top of the grain and feed bill, but I will analyze that later, and then continue to not care.

After finally deciding to go ahead with the goats, I put out feelers and an ad on craigslist stating my purpose. Almost immediately I was contacted by sherry. She had 2 Saanen/Oberhasli doelings and offered them to me cheap. Perfect. Babies we could raise the way we like. So, about a week later, Trixie and Honey joined our Family.

About 2 weeks later, Sherry contacted me again to say that she has one more doeling that she would part with. A little Saanen/Lamancha. I have a huge soft spot for Lamancha goats, so Amy Farah Fowler (or just Amy in most cases) came to live with us also.

Along with Amy, we decided to take one of Sherry's bucklings. A small mini alpine/cashmere ball of adorable. We are going to use him to breed the does this winter and then castrate him. I think he will make a much better pet than a herd sire, and I can't wait to learn to spin his glorious fiber.

As if I didn't have enough on my plate.

I do have to say that these goats have added just the right amount of joy to my life. Amy is a little trickster, and we call her the "Parcor" goat. She will do a wheelie off of a bale, hit the wall and spin around before landing. Honey is a quiet little thing that follows me around and doesn't ask for much. Trixie likes attention. She wants to be loved and pet and scratched all the time.

We named the buck Willie, and he is so cute I can hardly stand it. He follows me around like a dog and seems to take part in every conversation. Cute. Cute. Cute. I got supplies to make drop spindles (I will post a tutorial when I actually get around to doing it) and I bought a few different kinds of fiber to learn to spin. Having one small cashmere goat won't give me enough for a sweater, but it will probably contribute to some pretty sweet mittens! Maybe a hat...I don't really know what to expect.

Which brings me to a bit of a gripe: Even on this marvelous World Wide Web, it is nearly impossible to find information on managing a small number of Cashmere goats. I plan to document what I learn by trial and error here so that maybe someday, someone can learn from me. Cashmere type goats are said to be hardier than Angora goats, they have finer fiber and I hear they give a decent amount of milk. Why don't more people have one or two? Maybe I can help to change all that.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I am behind in school, I haven't spent much time with my lovely Cricut, and my horses get ridden on the weekends (sometimes) because at 4:00 pm, when I get off work, it is pitch dark outside. Lovely.

Anyway, I promise (as an advance resolution for 2012) to update more often, provide pictures and maybe even some tutorials. Finally, a resolution that does not require me to give up chocolate; I am liking this more and more as I think about it.