Karen's EasyCare & Endurance Musings

Great movie clip, an absolute favorite!

This is a great scene from "The Man from Snowy River".

Amazing Human Athlete & Boa Technology

This is an almost unbelievable story about an amazing human -- a long distance runner who has run 50 marathons in 50 days in addition to some other incredible feats.  In the article he gives some advice for pushing athletic performance from the unthinkable to the untouchable.

Check out these cool webcams!

Click here to go to a website that has a list of live webcams on the marestare.com website.  There are several mares expecting and some that have already foaled.

Got lucky and got a photo of a bobcat today!

This looks like a pretty healthy cat!  We just about ran over the top of him on the trail this afternoon.  I'm surprised that we caught him off guard, but I think that the winds may have kept him from hearing or smelling us.  I got lucky and just happened to get the photo at this exact second when he was darting between pionion pines and sagebrush.  We were able to watch him for awhile as he continued up the hill. 

It was nice to get both horses out together.  I think that Tigger is getting to be too herd-bound though and will need to start going out on rides alone more often.  Here are the horses all booted up, we put size 2's on the fronts of both horses, and 1's on their hinds - all Epics.  Chief measures for a 2 and they fit, but he can also go in a 1 and that's what I generally use on him for competing in. 

Chief makes the Reno paper

Breaking in his shoes....errrr....boots. Chief made one of the Reno, NV newspapers - the News and Review.  They took our photo while crossing the four lane highway while out on a break from the AERC tradeshow. 

Chief was really such a great sport about the whole thing and is really a great example of not only a Spanish Arabian, but of horses in general.

He had a couple of different people commet on him being an "Appaloosa".  He is a fleabitten grey Arabian, but definitely doesn't have spots big enough to qualify him as an Appy! 

Yippee---Spring forward!

Don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday night!

Well past the pretty pink sunset....Orion Nebula

Here is a photo that Dave took through his telescope of the Orion Nebula.  This is four photos stacked.  It's got some pretty colors in it too!  I'll stick with photographing things down here on terra firma and he can photograph things that are out of this world!!

Pretty in pink - sunset over Jobs Peak

Check out the great sunset we had this evening!

AERC Tradeshow Photos

Here are a few photos from today's AERC tradeshow.  Chief did a great job demo-ing Easyboots in the EasyCare booth.  We also took time to visit the other vendors as we entered and exited the building for breaks.  As you can see, Chief decided quite quickly that his favorite vendors are the feed vendors like Purina, ABC, LMF and Farmer's.  It was the Triple Crown feed at the Farmer's booth that he ultimately decided was his most favorite, though the others were also high on his list! 

Dave and Mike spent the day repairing old boots for endurance riders while Chief and I did demonstrations on how to use Easyboots, Epics and Bares. 

Chief wanted to make friends with the fake horse but it just never seemed to warm up to him.  He knew the horse must be okay, since it also has Easyboots on!  The floor inside is concrete so it's a really good thing that he has boots on to maneuver around in.  I hope he will be as good tomorrow as he was today. 

AANHCP Update

Everything has been going great so far!  Here is a photo of myself with Debbie and Jaime Jackson.

Update: made it back home after two days of visiting with AANHCP members and listening to lectures on various topics.  Yesterday I spoke about endurance riding and managing barefoot endurance horses. 

I'm now repacking and getting ready to head back to Reno tomorrow morning to start getting set up for the AERC convention which starts on Friday.  It is at the Silver Legacy. 

Chief had his feet touched up by Leslie at High Desert Hoofcare this afternoon.  It took longer to wash the mud off from the knee down than it did to do a quick go-over with a rasp on his hooves.  The mud is back to being gawd-awful again.  Yuck! 

I took Rocky's G2's with dome pads off of his feet today.  He'd been wearing them for weeks.  I have checked on them every few days.  He hasn't had any rubbing though his heel bulbs were a little soft.  Yet, I think they probably would have been soft had he not been wearing the boots and he isn't raw or sore anywhere so am glad he could wear the boots for that period of time when things were freezing up so he had the comfort of the padded boots each morning when things were frozen hard.   Once things dry out and get firmer again I'll put the boots and pads back on him again.  He is moving around great and we are going to keep a close eye on his diet and keep him out of pasture from now on and hope that he will grow out a nice hoof and stay healthy and happy. 

Going to Reno for AANHCP

I'm getting ready to leave for Reno for the AANHCP Symposium which starts today.  It is open to the public on Monday and Tuesday and continues through Thursday for AANHCP members. 

I'm looking forward to learning a lot.  I'm also going to be able to share my experiences with Chief as one of the guest speakers. 

Here is a recent hoof photo of one of Chief's feet.  Can you believe he's now into his fourth ride season being kept unshod?  And his feet haven't fallen off!   

My tulips are blooming :) Yay for spring!

Have you lost your confidence as a rider?

Here is a great post from Grey Horse Matters called "Respect Your Fears".  Havinig fallen and broken my clavicle while riding Chief on his first endurance ride, I know all about getting over fear.  It's not easy sometimes to get your confidence back.  Fortunately for me, it was an accident and the horse turned out okay (ya think? 7,000+ miles later--with no accidents!).  :) 

I found this group on Facebook and know a few people who should join!  Check it out:  My Horse is Trying to Kill Me But I Love Him Anyways

Description: A support group for all those who find themselves in an abusive relationship with their horse, but are unable to leave and save themselves due to their crazy love of said horse. If your horse tries to kill you on a regular basis and you have been through several near-death experiences, then this group is for you. 

I'm still kind of new to Facebook, so if you are on there, look me up!

Virtual Horse

My Horse Virtual Pet

I may need to call the vet because I think I fed my virtual horse too many apples!  :) 

(at least there's no manure) 

This works with igoogle.  If you haven't already tried igoogle - give it a try.  It's great how you can add various tabs and add in gadgets and blogs in different categories to keep them all straight.  You can even customize your backgrounds. 

Book reading

I just realized that on this last trip to the Denver WESA show I finished four books!  I read two books that were in print, and listened to two other books.  I just updated my book list in the blog so you can see the last four books.  I get a lot of my audiobooks from my library - they are always updating their selection.  I get the rest of my books usually from amazon.com or audible.com.   It's nice to be able to listen to a book (or music) while waiting in the long security or check-in lines at some airports. 

These are the two print copy books that I read - each one on the flight to or from Denver (from Reno).   Both are fairly short and easy reads - I got through them in a 2 hour flight. 

Who Moved My Secret by Jim Gerard was hilariously funny.  You may need to have a warped sense of humor to enjoy it though.

Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin is the best book on marketing that I have read in a long time! (well, okay maybe the best only since the last Seth Godin book I read)   Here are some of the quotes that I liked, and I won't do too many because the book is filled with a lot of great gems! 

We make what people buy.  If it doesn't sell, it doesn't get made.

The new marketing doesn't demand better marketing. It demands better products, better services, and better organizations. 

In any normal marketplace, if you give people more choices, revenue goes up.

Got any good book recommendations?  Let me know!  thanks.

Last nights snow

This storm has been wreaking havoc in a lot of areas.  Yesterday for most of the day we received quite a bit of rain.  Lots of water was flowing, or over flowing.  My driveway started to overfill into the garage by three or four feet until I was able to unblock the drain - then the pump went to work and cleared it out.  It was a good thing somebody was here to do that!  As evening came, it started to snow and really came down.  I went out to the barn and found Chief standing outside completely soaking wet with snow and ice on his neck, back and hindquarters - he was shaking and shivering something terrible.  I know that is nature's way of having a horse stay warm but since the temp was dropping, the snow was coming down and I know he spends most of his time outdoors (even though he has more than one choice of shelter) I went ahead and put a blanket on him, and the other horses too.  For just a snow storm or cold weather I usually don't blanket but in this case, he was already soaking wet and I could feel frozen areas on his  fur.  It only took a few minutes for him to stop shaking and I know he was appreciate of having the blanket put on.  This year I haven't clipped the horses and in the last year have allowed their polls to grow out completely natural.  You can see on the photos of their legs how the snow is balling up and sticking on their fur.  We are supposed to get more snow tonight. 

Bad news for the residents of Fernley.  A levee broke and flooded 800 homes, possibly caused by two 4.0 earthquakes at 4 a.m. this morning.

20 Things You Didn't Know About Snow

It's snowing right now!  This is from discover.com

You might as well understand the stuff that could soon paralyze your car.
by Susan Kruglinski
1  Snow is a mineral, just like diamonds and salt.

Patches the Pony

Gift ideas for the horse person

Here is a fun idea for a gift for a horse person.  A custom made braided horse hair bracelet made out of their favorite horses tail hair.  Now is the time to plan ahead for the next special occasion. 

It's the little things that make us happy

Here is an article from the M.A.P. Maker blog on what makes us happy. 

It's so true - for example today the best part (besides getting the last piece of pumpkin pie and getting to sleep in) was getting to watch my horses play and interact together.  They all have such distinct personalities and it's fun watching them do silly things and also knowing to some degree how they are going to react to each other in different situations.  The weather is cold and breezy today and that invariably makes the boys all very frisky!  The two horses going to Death Valley tomorrow (Chief and Tig) are the most energetic and were rearing and jumping in the air the most, spinning and galloping in circles around Rocky and Zenos.  I'm definitely happy to see them all having fun and am excited and looking forward to getting to ride this next week. 

We got Tigger's feet trimmed up yesterday (and Chief the day before).  This time was probably the best that Tig has been with his feet and I don't recall any raised voices or bad language. ;^)  Time and patience is paying off and we are making great progress!  Sometimes you don't realize how good you've got it (with horses that are all excellent about their feet being handled) until you get one that isn't.  I've got Tig and Chief's boots already packed, all broken in and with dome comfort pads in that are also broken in.  The new gaiters are working out fantastic too, Tig has not had any rubs from them (we aren't using vetwrap because he wouldn't cooperate real well - but turns out, he doesn't need it). We are so ready for this ride! 

This time of year is difficult with the shorter daylight and winter weather to do as much outside, so getting away to a warmer (for us) climate for a few days is always something to look forward to.   Here is a photo of Chief taken from a previous Death Valley ride, on the 31st of December - he gets to celebrate too by wearing a party hat.  As usual, I'm bringing the party hats for the horses so if anybody is going and wants one, come and see me!  Chief wants to wish all of his equine buddies a Happy New Year!  He hopes they all stay healthy and sound and get to enjoy life's little pleasures in the coming year! 

I am horses video

The Christmas Eve Myth

This is great!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas :). 

What's your New Year's Resolution?

I just have a short list. 

1)  Spend more time on the back of a horse.  For a lot of reasons, it keeps me healthy and fit (and the horses too).  The best ideas I ever get come from the back of a horse and not from the inside of an office. Like this one. 

2)  Make new mistakes.  Once I've made a mistake I need to get over it and learn from it, then go see what else I can learn by making a totally new and different mistake.  I figure that based on all of the mistakes I"ve made so far and will likely continue making that someday I'm gonna be pretty smart.  ;)

3)  Keep in touch more frequently with friends and family, especially the ones that don't have email.  Might as well use up more of those free night and weekend and mobile to mobile minutes! 

4)  Don't take things too seriously.  Life is short.

Here is a great list from the Career Counselor:  Ten New Year's Resolutions to Improve Your Career and Boost Happiness. 

Movies, books

I recently added my Netflix movie queue in a side column.  It is pretty cool how Netflix works.  You can select movies that you want to see, and they send them to you.  Watch them, send them back and then they send the next one in your queue.  Everybody at work got a subscription, so we have been trying it out.  It has been working pretty well, with the only flaw being human error in choosing sucky movies now and then :^).  If anybody has any good movies to suggest, leave a comment and let me know.  For now I'm letting Dave pick them out, since my track record isn't so great.  But then, I have to admit to not having a long enough attention span to watch one all the way through if it doesn't get my attention.  I can't stop myself from going out to the barn, or picking up the laptop, or the phone rings...  We just saw this one, which wasn't too bad but Dave actually fell asleep and I had to tell him what happened! 

I've also been keeping my book list fairly up to date.  I don't always remember to put all the books in the list that I read or listen to, but I get most of them.  I'm always looking for more recommendations, especially audio books.  I get most of my audio books from the library, and from audible.com.  I love to read and would rather do that than watch a movie, so I would love to hear some recommendations of good books too. 

Christmas Lights Gone Wild

I won something on horsegirltv.com!

Today was my lucky day!!

I won this in the Holiday Wish List Giveaway at horsegirltv.com!  Here is a link to the horsegirltv blog. 

If you want to sign up for your chance to win stuff, you can do that here. 

I'm thrilled that I won something - and am sure that the horses will no doubt enjoy the treats!

Do you try this hard?

Check out the rest of the photos of this determined snail!  Do you put out this much effort to get the things done that you want to accomplish? 

Where in the World IS Bernie Harberts and Mule Polly?

Bernie and Mule Polly are traveling from Mexico to Canada.  Click here to read Bernie's website for more information on where they are and their most recent adventures!  www.riverearth.com

Look below to view a video of Bernie and Polly visiting a drive-in theatre!  Bernie uses Easyboots on Polly - you can find information on his website with photos showing how he modifies them to work on mule feet.  It looks like they are having a lot of fun, and isn't Polly beautiful?  Be sure to check out Bernie's new book "Too Proud to Ride a Cow".

Crazy high mileage endurance riders

I thought that what Dave wrote was nice about his experience using EasyCare boots - he is a genuinely nice person and means what he says so I knew that he wasn't just saying blah blah blah because I asked him to.  Though, I did give him a hard time about the part where he pointed out that he had four horses that had over 5,000 miles each - and he'd used Easyboots on all of them.  I s'pose it is okay that somebody besides myself has ridden more miles in Easyboots.  Once you add in both of our training and conditioning or pleasure miles, plus competition miles between us we have most definitely ridden over 100,000 miles using the boots on our horses - that is a LOT of miles no matter how you look at it!

So why did I give him a hard time about that?  Well... going back a couple of years (almost), when my horse Chief reached the 5,000 mileage mark I checked the AERC 5000+ mile equine results online to see how many other riders had (at that point) three horses with 5,000 or more miles.  Looked like only Les Carr and Trilby Peterson had.  Now little 'ol me.  ;)  Well, I knew that was going to be short lived since Dave was also closing in on that same milestone - and had not one, but two horses fast approaching that milestone.  Of course, I couldn't resist pointing out to him "hey Dave, there is something that I beat you at!".

It wasn't soon after that he had a third horse reach the 5,000 mileage point, and since then - a fourth horse (some listed in the results now have different owners, but it is accurate that he has four).  Now all I've got on him is that I've got (the same) three horses over 6,000 miles (two are over 7,000).  In the words of MC Hammer... "U Can't Touch This"--Dave!!!  I know it'll only be a matter of time before he does,  give him a goal or reason to do something and stand back!  lol 

So even tho we may compete against each other, it is a friendly competition.  It doesn't hurt that  I work for EasyCare and can't officially beat Dave in the hoof boot contest.   Still tho, it's fun to point out that a girl did ride more miles on him on two horses in the contest this year.  I do have to say that in all of the years I've been competing in endurance some of the most encouraging and supportive people have been those that I have competed against the most - without some of them, I wouldn't have been able to accomplish some of the things I have, or even tried in some cases.  I guess it goes without saying - if you have to get beat by somebody, it may as well be one of your friends, right?  Makes it less painful that way, and more fun - depending upon which end of it you are on.  Endurance riders as a group are some of the nicest people.

Besides winning, [the most fun thing is] getting out there and mixing it up with friends; it's the competition. ~Al Unser, Jr.~

Have you elfed yourself?

Hey, I just made a total elf of myself.  Check it out by clicking on this link.  It is pretty funny to watch.  Happy Holidays! 

What it's like to drive in China (a little humor)

Be sure to watch the entire thing!

Keeping up with your friends

Somebody from work sent this to me.  This is how a lot of my friends (you guys reading this blog) keep up with me!  Ha ha.  One other way I keep up with my friends is to talk to them on my bluetooth headset (through cell phone) when I am riding.  I did that today when I took Chief out on the trail, with Dave and the dogs.  Boy was Chief full of himself, very bouncy and snorty and animated.  He and the other horses all grew in thick winter coats while I was gone.  They were also all very well fed, lol - though I am sure that having less exercise while I was gone also contributed.  Chief needs to go on a serious diet.