FINALLY!

Folks I think we've had a breakthrough.

Went to a teeny tiny barrel race this morning. A friend of a friend put in a new arena and is trying to get established as a good place to hold barrel races so I decided to go lend my small support. (That and it is all of 5 miles from the house. Can't beat that with a stick.)

Remember the Funk I was in? It turns out my theory was right.

We ran in today (well, high loped in. The ground was wonky. Soft on top but hard hard hard pan on the bottom. I'd rather save his hocks than win $30 at a baby barrel race.) and I looked up and looked at my pocket and not at the barrel just like I'm supposed to. I've been practicing that all dang week. It's harder than I thought. I figured out that if I keep the first in my peripheral vision, we're in the right spot. He tried to step in once or twice but I used my outside rein and kept him lined up. The transition to turn was a little strange. He sets so stinkin' hard and I ride like the monkey on the border collie so we always feel a little weird. BUT! I got my hand out and

WE TURNED!!!

Just like that! One second we were looking at the fence, and the next we were pointed at the 2nd barrel. It's a miracle! That was our best first barrel in years.

I'm stoked.

The 2nd was funny. The place we were at raises longhorn cattle and they had some small ones in a pasture behind the first barrel. Poor Bubba spotted those things behind the 2nd barrel and tryed so so hard to duck off to the left. But, once again, Mr. Outside Rein kept him in line.

We ended up 3rd in the 4D and won our entry fee back. Our time wouldn't have placed us if we were at a bigger barrel race (2.3 seconds off) but I DON'T CARE! WE TURNED!

Can you hear the angels sing hallelujah?? I can!

O this feels so good.

So now we'll go on vacation on a positive note and come back in August well rested and ready to finally know what we need to do.

I'm so excited.

Brenda even said she was proud of me. I almost teared up.

Bits and bitting...

I was reading another blog yesterday (which I refuse to link to because it just ticks me off). This anonymous blogger posted a photo of the Sherry Cervi 3 piece lifter.

Then proceeded to tear it apart as a highly leveraged torture device used by "gamers" to torment and abuse their poor horses. (Personally, I think it's ironic that she posted the short shank version).

Of course, she rides hunter/jumpers and has that opinion that any horse not ridden in a french link snaffle bit is poorly trained and poorly ridden. Any horse, in her opinion, that doesn't ride in a french link needs to be further trained. (And, of course, barrel horses are poorly trained, poorly ridden abused animals.)

That just boggles my mind.

A bit is a tool and each tool is designed to do a specific thing. With all the bits out there, why would you limit yourself to one tool in the toolbox? It's like trying to put in screws with a hammer even though you have a perfectly good screwdriver.

O well. I'll continue to use my horrible, horrible leverage bits and hope that somewhere she sees this picture of one of my favoritest bits of all time...

...and gets a nosebleed from being too high up on her High Horse.

withdrawal

I'm starting to feel the effects of no riding withdrawal.

I dreamt about riding last night. How sad.

In other horsie news, I waas emailed a copy of a really cool exercise to try on the barrel pattern. I was watching our runs from State Finals (ugh.) and I've noticed we're cutting off the pocket on the backside. Bubba needs a little more pocket than I'm giving him to get that big body collected and turned around. I posted about this on Barrel Horse World and someone suggested I try the Connie Combs Square Exercise. It's supposed to help teach a horse to not turn early and to stand up and use their balance.

I'll try anything once.

Hopefully, if all goes well tonight, I can come home and ride some. We REALLY need it. There's a barrel race not 5 miles from home on Saturday (anybody in the area: www.eviltwinfarms.com) that I'd like to go to and try out my pocket theory. But, the rule is, if he doesn't get rode at least the week before, we don't go. So I need to ride.

Cross your fingers that it all the stars align today and I get to ride.

In weather news... the high for Friday is below 95! It's barely breaking the 90s! That is the excitement of the neighborhood right now, that we won't fry to death all weekend. We'll just slowly burn.

Welcome to Florida in the summer time.

Typing through all the sweat...

Hopefully I'll get to ride today.

But I've got to wait for the sun to go down...

A Change of Pace

Today is a day of firsts. I got called a bleeding heart liberal for the first time in my life.

I know. Surprised me too.

Today on As the Barrel Horse World turns...

Someone posted a thread about how David Letterman should be fired for the off-color jokes he made about Sarah Palin's daughter. If you're like me and asleep by 10pm, YouTubes got everything.

...and o holy cow people went crazy. Fueled by the publicity grabbing by Sarah and Todd Palin.

Everything got blown out of proportion. I even saw one article refer to David Letterman as a mentally ill pedophile.

Really? Come on now.

Sarah Palin has become this Sacred Cow of the Republican party. And David Letterman, an outsider, picked on the Sacred Cow and they rose up in defense.

Wouldn't it have been, i don't know, classier, if the Palins had just let it drop? Why continue to encourage the gulf between the two sides of the aisle? What purpose does it serve beyond getting your face on TV?

David Letterman should probably have done a little more research but she should have let it go. Welcome to the public eye, Sarah.

Part of the reason I don't go in for political parties or espouse a certain ideology is I'm simply not happy with the Us vs. Them mentality that it creates. If you're not with us, you're against us. I don't think it works that way. I know a certain Democratic Representative from Florida who is more Republican than some of the Republicans!

*GASP!* How is that possible? Maybe because he approaches each problem with rational thought rather than ideologically.

I don't know. Maybe I'm naive but the more I look at things, the more it seems that the perceived gulf between Democrats and Republicans is really miniscule. The goal is the same. The difference is the approach.

I get really tired of the sniping, of the name calling, of the mud slinging, of the negativity.

I can think of more than a few off-color remarks made about Barach Obama. And guess what? I laughed at them too.

Post-State Finals Funk

Its that time of year again. The Post-State Finals Funk.

Once again I rode like a moron in Kississimmee.

Maybe not all the time.

The 1st Go was better. I didn't, in the lingo of Ed, "prepare him for the turn" on the first barrel and he overran it like a beast, bowing out almost to the timer line. But, the Ed drills paid off on the 2nd and 3rd which were beautiful.

The 2nd Go was not good. I held him up going to the first and we blew out a little bit, not nearly as bad as the 1st Go. BUT I was petrified. He was so amped and ready to go in the holding pen that I got scared, safetyed up and hit the 2nd AND the 3rd. Ugh.

But, optimistic me, I watched the videos in slow motion and we didn't hit because of a shoulder dropping barrel dive, we hit because he turned too tightly! LOL What a problem to have!

And I think I've got my first barrel figured out. I was watching my videos and we are all out of position for the first barrel. He's dropping to turn 4 or 5 strides out and getting flat on the top side. A trainer friend of mine had pointed it out to me before but... I forgot. (Hi Julie!)

There's a tiny barrel race next weekend in Monticello I want to try to hit if I can talk Brion into going to Plant City without me. We're going to work on our first barrel approach, do some one barrel drills over the next two weeks and see if we can clean this mess up. If we can, then oooo boy look out. Our 2nd and 3rd were Capital B Beeyootiful. Just gotta fix that 1st.

You can tell Bubba feels so good he can't stand it. He was actually loping in place trying to get out in the arena on Saturday. !!! Compare that to all those horses you see that flat refuse to go in the pen. I keep my animal feeling gooooood.

I'm still working on my confidence. Part of the reason I got so scared on Saturday was because I was tired (got NO sleep all weekend) and my legs felt like rubber. I just wasn't feeling strong and balanced and CONFIDENT.

It's funny. I haven't ever really struggled with low confidence in myself. I have a very high opinion of myself (probably too high lol) in most of the areas of my life. Put me on a young horse with a goal in mind and I gots no problems. But, man, strapped on to that Big Red Rocket I lose all confidence in myself. I need to work on that. I CAN ride him. I've done it before!

It might be time for some woo-woo New Age affirmations or something.

Or tequila.

Whichever works. ;)

What I Learned From IKEA

I live in a tiny little house, more specifically a singlewide back in the woods. Yes I am a backwoods redneck.

One of the downfalls of my tiny shack in the woods is I have NO counter space. None. The little I do have is taken up by the microwave, toaster and dish drying rack. The space next to my stove is about a 2 feet wide and currently the home of my crock of cooking utensils, the tea maker, the coffee maker and the blender.

Space is at a premium.

Today I was looking through the IKEA catalog and saw this...

OMG! It's a whole SYSTEM of ways to hang stuff on your walls instead of on the counter!

Am I the only person who has never thought of this before? It's BRILLIANT! Kitchen organization is not something I devote a whole lot of brain power too. And the idea of being able to hang stuff on the walls instead of on my counters is a freakin' awesome idea and excites me more than I care to admit to.

If you had told me 3 years ago that ways to organize my kitchen would give me a thrill, I would have probably just now stopped laughing and rolling on the floor.

Of course there is no IKEA in Tallahassee because anything fun is not allowed within 50 miles of the city limits.

I was really surprised at the organizational side of IKEA. I think of IKEA as cheaply made boxes with names I can't pronounce. I'm not into a lot of sleek, modern furniture. I prefer stuff that looks a little more substantial, something I'm not going to slide off of. Something like this...

Purrrr.... this can come live at my house any time. I'm much more a Restoration Hardware girl. My stuff's gotta have character and curves, no hard lines for me.

But... once the cash flow gets a little more...uh....flowing?... I might actually put some time and effort into better utilizing the space that I have instead of using the top of the coffemaker to rest my pot stirrin' spoon.

Thank you IKEA.

In news that might interest someone other than me... I leave for State Finals tomorrow! Ahhh 5 days of barrel racing. Can't wait!

Bubba got 'Sherrie-d' on Saturday. His sacrum was out but his stifles did not read as sore. I guess we just overdid it a little last week. I haven't ridden him since just in case I did screw something up. So he should be well-rested and ready to buck me off.

See ya in Kissimmee!

The Inaugural Post

Welcome me to my own blog.

This blog (ick. Web-based collection of ramblings.) is a continuation of Bubba Does Florida, where I chronicled my (constant. never ending. ad infinitum.) struggles with my horse, Bubba, and our barrel racing addiction. And that will most certainly continue to be a part of this one.

but...

I had this temptation today. I had the urge to write about something OTHER than Bubba! Shocker I know.

I wanted to write about.... kitchen organization.

How sad is that.

And I still do.

And this is my not-limited-to-Bubba blog so I'm going to do just that.

That? That was the blog equivalent of Nah Nah Nah Nah Boo Boo.

I Could Learn to Hate a Stifle

Stifles suck.

I hate them.

A few years ago, Bubba was diagnosed with Upward Fixation of the Patella or locking stifles. He popped when he walked. After much consultation with the vet, he went into Long Trot Boot Camp, at least a mile every other day. By the end of 60 days, he was in the best shape of his life. And the popping stopped.

And hasn't come back since, even with time off and discharge from Boot Camp.

Today, for some inexplicable reason, I decided to resurrect Long Trot Boot Camp and we did a mile around Harry's pasture. By the end of our mile, he wasn't blowing real hard. We walked a bit, loped some more circles and loped through the barrel pattern. Beautiful turns but he "lost his butt" coming out of the first and second barrels and crow hopped a little bit.

Hmmm...

We immediately take off walking and I hear it. The pop. The pop that I thought had left us for good.

Ugh.

I got off and walked him in a circle around me and yup, there it is, that telltale lag in his stride.

Boo hiss boo.

Did I mention State Finals is next weekend? No time for the entirety of Long Trot Boot Camp.

I'm going to call SSHorsepower (Google them. Wonderful women.) and see if there's anything holistic I can do to get him through State and then it's back into LTBC for us. I WAS going to lay him off for a month or so after State but I don't know if that's such a good idea now.

At least I'll have great legs for the beach this summer.

Short and sweet

I have very little to say on the horsey front today. Just been riding regularly, lots of long trotting, keeping the monster in as good a shape as possible because...

STATE FINALS IS IN 9 DAYS!

Can't wait it's gonna be great.

Come to Kissimmee!