So, remember how I talked about the damage to my helmet here?
Well, when I went to see Orion yesterday, I was at the barn for a minute and got to see what it looks like for myself for the first time. I brought it home with me for further inspection.
Bear in mind, my description in that post was based on what my grandpa had told me. In reality, it's not entirely accurate. What he described and I pictured and the reality of the helmet don't exactly match up. I'll just let you see for yourself though...
Left side
Back
Front (missing visor fell off the first time I used the helmet.
Right side (where I landed)
Now also keep in mind that aside from the missing visor, there were no marks on this at all before I was thrown.
Looking at it gives me two strong feelings:
--Pride and thankfulness that I started the good habit of wearing a helmet while riding a long time ago and continued it that day even though I expected Orion to ultimately behave.
--An intense awareness of what could have happened if I hadn't been wearing it and it had been my head that made contact with the ground at that force.
So I know a lot of people preach it, and then there are some that don't. You can go on a million rides, do a million things, and everything can work out fine.
But what happens on ride number one million and one, when something DOES happen? Wouldn't you rather be here to tell about it? You can't brag and tell everyone about that epic fall that you had and survived without a scratch if you're dead or in a coma or brain-damaged because you didn't wear a helmet, and your head took the full brunt of a rock, a tree, the ground, or literally ANYTHING else nearby.
I know that may seem melodramatic, but really. You NEVER know what could happen.
As for me, I'm shopping for a new helmet this week...
So, back to the story from last night. After Orion had his mini-heart attack over a bush, Chelsea and I headed out. What I didn't mention last night is that I was attempting to use Chelsea's bitless bridle on Orion. He still was giving me crap about the bit. I had managed to get him to take it in under ten minutes one night, which all things considered, was quite a feat. However, it was apparently a fluke because that never happened again. So, I knew I still needed to get him over that problem, but in the meantime, I really wanted a real ride and didn't have enough time to work with him that night, so I tried a bitless bridle.
He goes fine in the paddock with a halter and lead rope or halter and reins, and the bitless has a little more control than that, so all should be fine, right?
Wrong.
He did pretty well until we got further out the road. It took some getting used to on my part to change to short repetitive tugs rather than continuous pressure when I wanted him to turn a certain direction. A little more leg was required as well, but all in all, he did better than I'd expected.
Until we got to a point where he decided he'd had enough. We had been trotting for a minute or two, and right when I asked him to go back to a walk, he instead turned very abruptly and sprung into a quicker trot headed back home.
-_-
The trot became quicker and quicker and quicker to the point that I thought he was going to pop up into a canter if he increased his speed anymore.
The whole time this was going on, I was pulling back on the reins as much as I could, to no avail. Bitless bridle be damned, he wasn't listening to it AT ALL. I tried turning him instead, didn't listen to that either. My form went to crap as I was doing this because I was concentrating more on what I was doing with him than how I was sitting. I was still managing to stay on, until I leaned forward slightly to collect my reins more, and at the same time, he dropped his head down. I had my hands firmly closed on the reins so as not to lose them, but because of that, when he dropped his head, I was pulled forward even more. That, in addition to his extremely bouncy fast trot and my crappy form sent me onto his neck and from there to the ground.
Well I was pissed. He stopped as soon as my butt left the saddle and waited for me to jump back up, but then he wouldn't stay where I put him long enough for me to mount back up. I was mad at myself and him, I was sore (but not seriously injured - only had a couple scrapes), I wasn't tall enough to reach my damn stirrups, and my horse wouldn't stay next to the friggin' bank I was trying to mount from. Chels ended up getting off Kit and giving me a leg up.
We made the horses go a bit further so Orion wouldn't think he was allowed to get his way after that, and then turned and went back to the barn. The return trip was uneventful.
Soon afterward I was talking to Liz about going out to see Q and Griffin and asked for her help in fixing Orion's bit problem. She came out the next day and had him taking it in under 20 minutes. See the story on that here.
The night after I fell, Orion went from a horse who would play giraffe and avoid taking his bit at all costs, to one who snatches it right out of my hand when he sees it. Talk about a welcome change!
My blog now has its own store...courtesy of Amazon.
You can find most of the books, movies, TV shows, horse products, etc. that I talk about on here. There is also a tab specifically with links to the things that I have bought for/dealing with Orion - titled "Orion's stuff".
All of those books that I've bought and told you about in the past few months? They're in the "Books" tab, along with many other books that I have read and enjoyed over the years, plus some that I would like to read in the future.
Specifically under the books tab, is a subcategory called "Horse Fiction". Within this, there are several book series that I read growing up that led to my love of horses before I ever set foot near one. There is one very important series missing, that I will be adding later, as it is very very long, and I didn't have time to put it together today.
There is a "Movies/TV" tab that showcases many movies and TV shows that I like, as well as another subcategory within that which is specifically for horse lovers.
If anyone has any additions that they think should be added to the store, be sure to let me know! I'm excited to get this going. It's not a huge money-maker for me personally, but to make it easier for other people to enjoy the books/DVDs/horse equipment that I like excites me like you would not believe!
So here you go; you can either click the page tab above, or enter the store here:
I am in love with the look of these boots. They look comfy and durable and easy to clean....and they could be worn anywhere, not just out at the barn. To me, it's a win and would be worth the money to have a good pair of winter boots. The ones that I have now are nice and easy to clean, but I don't like wearing them out to the barn in the winter. I usually ended up wearing them anyway last winter, but I'd rather have a nicer pair.
I'm also in need of a good pair of gloves - as demonstrated when I got my fingers ripped open by the lunge rope. Bah. They're finally almost healed by the way - don't hurt very much at all now. Anyway, I don't have any decent gloves to use for riding or working with the horses in general. I have a couple of pairs of soft leather gloves, but they were never meant for the wear and tire of working with horses. I want to keep them nice for regular wear. I love everything about the description these have.
Plain and simple: I need a helmet. Orion has been a dream for the most part during the tiny bit of riding I have done on him so far, but that's not to say that he may do something unexpected someday. And I'm a fairly inexperienced rider anyway, so a helmet is a good idea. Chelsea and I were horse-stuff shopping online while we were on the phone earlier, and she ran across this one, saw that it came in green, and immediately told me about it. :)
Right now, I need a girth for my saddle. I didn't realize until we had it out there on Saturday that it didn't have one. I'm using a rope one from the barn right now, but I want to have all my own gear soon. Even if people don't mind me borrowing things, I still would feel better having my own and not worrying about wanting to ride when someone is actually using their stuff that I've been borrowing. So far, I have all my own stuff and the only things I have borrowed are Chelsea's lunge whip (we have an agreement that I can use her lunge whip, and she can use my lunge line, lol), Carly's saddle (for all of about 30 minutes, when we realized Orion's saddle was too big for him. It was on the last hole and was still too loose.), and the aforementioned girth. I've been pretty proud of myself for getting things and finding deals to save money. The stuff I have was cheaper but seems to be good quality. :)
So, that's my "wish list" right now. I'm sure there will soon be more added...or maybe not? I have almost everything I need right now, except these four things.
Once I figure out what size girth Orion needs, I'll probably buy that first...then gloves...then either the helmet or boots..... Man, those boots are my favorite on here by far....I want them soooo bad! lol
So, I had a little mini-photo shoot last night to show you some stuff that I got for my birthday. :)
Here it is!
My birthday presents from Mom:
A Thirty-one wall organizer, Pumpkin Caramel Latte Bath & Body Works candle, 2 Strawberry Patch mini-candles, Vanilla body lotions, Creamy Pumpkin hand soap, Apple Crumble room spray, Hazelnut coffee creamer, and a cute picture frame. :)
My mom is awesome. :) :)
Annnd....
My birthday presents to myself:
Bridle, saddle, saddle pad. :D
And a close up of the saddle and pad.
So then..
As I was taking all of these pictures and putting my room back to the way it was, I was looking around and realized that I am in love with my room right now. I mean, look at this:
Hope everyone is doing well. I haven't written for a little while on account of being busy and just trying to stay off of the computer more for a while in order to be more productive. I felt like the internet was starting to rule my life and distracting me from the things I was supposed to be doing.
Of course, I can't stay off of it forever - I need it for school. lol
Typing notes, research, that kind of stuff.
So, I'm caught up for the moment. I have a little bit of homework, but I'm saving that for my two hours in the library for work study later. If I do it now, I'll only be able to read (which I am completely capable of :P) for those two hours. Time goes by faster when I have something to actually work on though.
Anyway.
This weekend was pretty eye-opening for me.
It got out to a pretty slow start. Last week exhausted me. I was sort of sick for most of it, so after work on Friday night, I just kind of crashed and did some relaxing and went to bed. Then I slept through half of Saturday. Literally. I stayed in bed and read and slept until 2:00. My boss called me in to work a couple hours early, so I ended up working for like 6 1/2 hours straight - it was fine with me, as we weren't uber busy, and that meant more money for me, or so I thought. Turns out, I only made like $35. <-- On a Saturday evening! It was awful. I went back to my dorm really depressed and wondering why I even bother working there anymore. I love the people I work with, and I love working there - but the whole point of being there is to be making money so that I don't have to rely on my family for it anymore, and that is slowly not happening. Business has been slower and slower the past couple of weeks, and everyone is on edge about it.
I guess I can only wait and see what is going to happen, but I'm seriously deliberating about what other places I can put in an application for.
Sunday was a lot better. Vanessa and I went to my church (Philippi Baptist) together. I've been meaning to ever since I came back to school, but I'm always exhausted from studying the night before or I oversleep - it just seems like there's always an excuse. A few weeks ago, Sarah Ferguson, a woman my mom went to school with and who goes to Philippi Baptist, messaged me on Facebook and asked if I'd be interested in helping out with Wee Church. It's the little children's class that takes place after the Tiny Moments section of the service. I told her yes, and then asked Vee if she'd like to help too. She did. :) So we went this Sunday and took the kids (they were ages 2-4 - 2 girls and 3 boys) upstairs at the right time. We read them their story, a short Scripture passage, and prayed. It was a little rocky, as the girls wouldn't settle down and sit to listen, and one of them had a bathroom accident, but we got through it.
All in all, it was fun. I think once the kids know us a little better, they might respond better to us.
Vee and I both said we would help out again sometime. :)
After church, Vee and I went to the Philippi Inn for lunch and came back here a little before 1 so that I could make it to my work study. I got a call from my Nana asking when I was free, and we agreed to go to dinner at 5 when I was done. We went to Moe's and had a really nice visit, talked about horses, her upcoming vacation to Aruba with her husband, and a lot of other things. :)
After I got back to my dorm, Ethan came over. :) We watched The Green Mile, which he had never seen before. He was here from around 6 or so until 11. It was really fun, and I'm really glad he was here. We got to talk about a lot of things that we haven't talked about for a long time, things that we needed to discuss. I felt really good about him being here. :)
So, that was my weekend. I wish it could have included a visit to Orion, but no one was available to do that when there was actually time to go. :( Next weekend I'm supposed to go out and help them trim their hooves on Sunday though, if all goes well. I'll probably stay out there for a while and work with him then.
Oh! I finally got my saddle, bridle, and saddle blanket. :D The bridle and blanket got here last week, and the saddle came yesterday. I'll post pictures soon. I'm so excited!
I feel like everything is coming together again. I'm happy with where I am in my life right now. There are ups and downs, but mostly ups. :) I'm in a good place.
Everything was very reasonably priced, and didn't break the bank as far as saddles or bridles go. They're not a regular saddle and bridle either, though I'm definitely going to get those in the future. This will work for now though. :)
I'm starting to get very excited about the prospect of riding Orion. He's been doing awesome, so I'm really hoping it will be in the next month or two!
Okay, so one thing I've always wanted when I got my first horse was to have a rope halter. Random, I know, but I've always loved how they look.
So, I'm looking at a couple different options for Orion, but I can't decide which one I like better. And I also don't know whether it's worth it to get the lead rope with it or not. Can my regular lead rope work just as well with a rope halter? I know I totally sound like a beginner here, but I've never been around a horse that had one, so I've never noticed if a regular lead was used or not. Hmm....
Aaanyway, here's what I'm looking at:
This one, I'm considering getting in lime, the second color choice down.
Annd, this one, would be hunter green.
I'm doing the color scheme for his things in green. Right now, he has a green nylon halter and a green and white cotton lead rope. I wanted his lunge line to be green too, but alas, they only offered it in black and white. I went with black.
I like both of these halters, and they're available through State Line Tack. I just can't decide! So I'm putting it to you. Which one do you like better?
Today was a pretty laid back day. I didn't go in to work until 4:30, and I just got home about twenty minutes ago (which translates to finishing up around 9:30). It was a fairly steady night once the customers started coming in for dinner. Most of the people were nice; I had one couple who were particularly tough though. They made me so nervous. I was doing everything they asked and got everything right, but I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong from the way they were acting. Oh well. I was forewarned the minute they walked in the door that that's how they would be, so I just had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't really because of me. Next time, I'll just be that much more prepared for them, now that I've waited on them once. I saw a bunch of people I knew, including one of my cousins and his son. I swear, I'm related to so many people in this town that I see one of them every time I work. It's crazy!
I slept in until around 10:30 this morning. Yes, I am aware that I was a bit lazy. :P After I got up and got ready for the day, I headed to the computer and started looking up prices for horse stuff and researching a little bit on different kinds of tack (for those of you non-horse people, that's bridles and saddles and such - and if you don't know what those are...well...go look it up. No offense. :) ). I think I've decided that I'm going to ride English rather than Western. I've never ridden English, only Western, but I want to learn. And English is what Orion is used to from what I've heard. I'm pretty sure that's how Liz always rode him. So there's no rush to get a saddle since he won't be able to be ridden for a while, but I want to at least know what kind of money I'm going to be spending on the stuff so I have an idea when the time comes. Plus, it helps my decision knowing that English saddles seem to be a bit cheaper than Western saddles, at least based on the ones I've looked at.
I bought some grooming stuff and leg wraps and a lunge line last night to get started. They won't be here for a couple of weeks because I chose the cheaper shipping rate to save money. But at least it's a start. Oh, and I ordered a French link bit too. Liz uses it with Orion, and he seems to respond well to it, so I decided to stick with it. I don't want to change things too drastically on him, since he'll already be adjusting to me and being moved back to Linda's, away from where he's been staying in the first place. Just seems logical to try to keep as many things as possible the same for him - the bit, the English tack, etc.
I'll hopefully have him out at Linda's sometime in the next couple of weeks. It just depends on how much I get to go out and see him beforehand, and that depends on my work schedule, which determines when I get to go home. I already know that this coming week is probably out, and I'll know the schedule for the week after that at the end of this coming week...... So it's all kind of up in the air right now, even though I'm trying my best to get things planned out.
This weekend I have two family reunions, so even though I don't work, I won't be able to get up to Elkins then either. *sigh* I am excited about seeing my family though. And on Sunday, my Grandma gets to go see everybody. The last time we had this particular reunion was two summers ago, only a couple weeks before she had her stroke. She pretty much only leaves the nursing home for doctors' and dentist's appointments. She leaves her room for physical therapy and showers. She takes her meals there and only goes down to the dining room if it's someone's birthday or a holiday and we come to eat a meal with her; then we make her go to the dining room, pretty much whether she wants to or not. It will definitely be good for her to get out of the place and see everyone on Sunday. She's been telling us that she's "excited but nervous". I think she's going to love it once she warms up to being there. :)
With that being said, I probably won't be back here until Sunday evening at the earliest, so don't expect any posts tomorrow. I'll be staying with my other grandfather tomorrow evening, and sadly, he's never gotten internet. :'( It's nice not to be wired into the world sometimes, but other times, it's just downright annoying. And if I still don't have a cell phone by the time I go there, I can guarantee it will be annoying. Blah.
Anyway, I'm exhausted and have a headache, so I'm going to end this ramble here for the night and go get ready for bed. It's going to be a lonnnnng couple of days. Good night!
