What happens when we try to take a family selfie

Poor Bowie had been feeling under the weather last week so off he went to the vet on Friday.  Luckily he did not get diagnosed with giardia, which we thought it might be, but they prescribed him antibiotics for his stomach anyway.  While the vet was doing his exam, he found that Bowie had broken one of his puppy canines at the gum line.  The vet recommended surgery before the tooth abscessed and scheduled it for Monday morning because the office was booked up for dental procedures Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Until now, I was not aware that doggie dental procedures were so popular.  Having been a horse owner for awhile, I’ve had and paid for my share of odd-sounding procedures, but dental surgery on a puppy tooth was a new one that I had to ask Bryan to describe what it would entail and the risks of not undergoing it several times.  Best case scenario, they would be able to pull the broken tooth and root and worst case scenario, they would have to cut into his gums to remove it.  Either way, he would have to be sedated for the procedure.

Bowie must have heard us discussing his upcoming surgical procedure because lo and behold, on Saturday morning, the broken tooth had disappeared from his mouth.  We’re not sure when on Friday it had fallen out, but luckily it did and saved us a bundle on an operation that I still don’t fully understand.  If only medical procedures for people were that easily resolved.  On Sunday, Bowie lost the last of his puppy teeth so fingers crossed for no more broken teeth ever.

Despite the antibiotics on Friday, Bowie’s stomach is still not all better.  I’ll spare you all the gruesome details but let’s just say I had been using over 7 dog poop bags PER DAY.  We started making him his own dog food in the meantime to soothe his stomach - boiled chicken breast, white rice, and pumpkin puree.  He was back to normal on Saturday so we thought we could transition him back to his puppy food on Sunday.  NOPE.  Back to the homemade stuff, at least until he’s off antibiotics.  Did anyone else spend the weekend meal prepping their dog’s food??

This is my life now

It’s been a hot minute since I wrote about Mae and everyone’s been wondering how she’s doing, especially as Bowie has been eating the majority of our time.

Mae has been spending the summer getting fat and sunbleached.  It looks like our mixture of flaxseed, alfalfa hay, grain, and Cool Cals are finally starting to do their work and she is as big, if not bigger than her paddock mate who dwarfed her at the beginning of the year.  In fact, she’s finally filled out enough that we can take her off of Cool Cals (for now).  The rest of the horses in our training program have had some type of ulcer flare up this summer, but Mae’s actually been able to avoid any of that mess - knock on wood.  I still have her on TractGard if anyone is wondering how we keep that under control.

Sadly, I don’t remember the last time I had an actual lesson and I don’t see myself able to squeeze one in in the near future.  My trainer is gives adult lessons on Thursday at 5 pm and my work schedule will not allow for me to duck out that early.  That being said, Mae doesn’t mind.  Her training rides are early in the morning and she still sweats buckets.  I hack out with her two to three times a week in the evenings and she’s quite okay with that schedule.  The training rides have been emphasizing her lateral movement, which has improved dramatically, however she still will try to duck to the inside when she’s tired / lazy.

It’s very nice to have everything calm and quiet on the equine front, although I suspect there are some changes brewing in the forecast.  I continue to (always) look at horse properties and haven’t quite let go of the dream of having all of the animals in one place, however during the 100 degree temps, I’m glad I don’t have to spend my time mucking, feeding, or doing general barn / property maintenance.

Stay cool y’all!

In the South, summertime means beating sunshine, stifling humidity, and sweating.  In the North, summertime means eating and drinking outdoors whenever possible, sunbathing on an emerald lawn, and evenings that look and feel like daytime.  This past weekend, we escaped from the suffocating heat in the South and took a trip up north for Bryan’s first trip to NYC to do just those things.  The forecast had called for rain but instead we got a cloudy, cool 70 degree day, which I welcomed with open arms.


I had somehow persuaded Bryan to join me in visiting my old friend the Metropolitan Museum of Art by baiting him with a stroll through Central Park on the way.  It was the best weather to be walking around the city and people watching.  Most New Yorkers must have felt the same way because the fountains at Central Park were lined with people, and a lot of the city was wrapped up in World Cup mania and kicking soccer balls in the available green spaces. 


The last time I had visited the Met was in 2006, and it never fails in impressing even the most uninterested patrons.  The exhibits are always precisely curated and the building knows how to show off its open atriums and large exhibition spaces.  The Costume Institute’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” exhibit was on display in the Medieval Sculpture Hall and was about as dramatic as you’d expect it to be after the hubbub around the Met Gala - it was beautifully shown and the space was perfect for it.  Bryan’s favourites were the Egyptian exhibit and the Arms and Armor exhibit which are the old faithfuls of the Met.  He was entranced by some Van Goghs in the European Paintings galleries, and we ran through the last part of the museum trying to find View of Toledo (my favourite painting).  Both of us left the museum knowing that we hadn’t seen it all and promising that we would have to come back again someday.

Bryan’s cousin lives in Brooklyn, so we took the subway down and spent the afternoon hanging out with her and her boyfriend, wandering around the waterfront.  Having tour guides take us to their all-time favourites - Grimaldis and hipster bars - is the best way to see a city, in my opinion.  All told, we walked 11 miles that day and the only souvenir we picked up were black & white cookies, nabbed from an upper east side deli.

In conjunction with the trip, I dropped Bowie off for his first overnight boarding experience at the vet’s office.  I won’t say I wasn’t a little concerned as to how he’d react to being taken, but he pulled the handler away from me, en route to inspect new smells, and my concern evaporated just as quickly.  The vet emailed us a few pictures of him while we were gone, and he didn’t look too thrilled about being left behind but he looks just as grumpy when you wake him up from a  nap as well.

It has been way too long since I’ve done a quick weekend trip like that and even though it was tiring to spend all that time traveling to get to the destination and then not stop moving once you arrive, getting a mental break and physical separation from “home” was wonderful.   You can bet that I will be on the lookout for more opportunities to run away that crop up.

Destroying toys on the area rug

When you’re adulting, it really is all about the small things in life.  Now that I have an animal that lives in our house, I have a new level of appreciation for the relief and calm that a clean house can bring to one’s mind.  Despite having hardwoods downstairs, the amount of dirt, dust, dander, hair that collects on our large area rug in the living room is obscene.  At 32 lbs, Bowie is now half the size that he will be when he’s full grown and even with a short coat, hair streams off of him.  He also likes to collect grass, dirt clods, and sticks and bring them into the house.

Big Bowie

Bryan and I both travel for work and my last international trip ended at the exact hour that Bryan’s five day trip started.  I was jet lagged and exhausted, then immediately jumped into a puppy filled weekend.  My free time is eaten up by dog park visits, regular park visit, dog play dates, dog sitting for our neighbors, trips out to the barn to restock Mae’s supplements and check that the poor girl is still sweating in the Texas heat.  Because of all the time the horses spend outside in the summer, her mane and coat are sun bleached and she’s undergoing her second cycle of shedding.

I come home sweaty, itchy from fire ant bites from the park, mosquito bites popping up everywhere, and covered from head to toe in both horse and dog hair.  Jumping into the shower after a long, hot, and humid day outside is one of the simple joys of summertime.  It is unfortunate that I can’t throw my house into the shower or take a power washer to the downstairs.  Instead, before I left for London, I bought a new, professional grade vacuum cleaner.  This one specifically.  And it SUCKS in a really good way.  It’s disgusting and incredibly satisfying to look at the full canister after every vacuum session (which is Every Damn Day) and see the amount of dirt and dust that’s collected over a 24 hour period.

And now my area rug is finally clean!  And dirt and bug-free!  It’s actually fluffy again and looks like when I first bought it three years ago.  It is a very grown up thing to attribute one’s sanity to a vacuum cleaner but I’ll take those little wins these days.

Let's file this one away as lifestyles I daydream about while slogging away at work on Friday, shall we? 

The equestrienne who would pick up this estate would have no problem shelling out $1.2 million for a three acre property an hour north of Dallas - complete with horse barn of course.  She would stroll casually through the 4,500 square foot home, 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom, glancing briefly at her saltwater pool and spa and theater room.  She would see all of the extra space as a bonus, she'd never have to see any other members of her family if she didn't want to.  Her dogs wouldn't scratch up the hand-scraped wood floors, and she would never let a sriracha bottle explode in the cream-coloured kitchen.  Of course she wouldn't bat an eye at the water bill required to keep your property that lush, deep green in the middle of a mild drought in Texas.  She wouldn't lose sleep over the pests and insects trying to invade her home in the middle of the country.  The equestrienne who lives here would never have any dust in her barn, much less on the fancy light fixtures hanging from its rafters.  Her breeches would always stay blindingly white, and she'd never have a horse defecate on her shoulder.  She'd sit on her back porch NOT covered in sweat/mosquito bites, ice tea in hand, and serenely gaze over her property while a cool breeze blew through her perfectly coiffed hair.

Daydreaming indeed...

Over the last few months I have had quite a few thoughts about adult riders, particularly after reading about the variety of different riding experiences that all you horse bloggers have.  Some of y’all show on a weekly basis and I am constantly amazed at your level of energy and dedication.  Some of y’all train your own green horses on your own property and I am constantly amazed at your level of energy and dedication.  Some of y'all handle injuries, hauling, feeding, etc all on your own and I am constantly amazed at your level of energy and dedication.

My own evolution as an adult rider and horse owner has been over the course of 15 years after I picked up riding again in college.  I started out as an adult rider taking weekly lessons, getting an introduction into hunter/jumper land, and following that schedule for almost ten years.  When I moved to Dallas and ended up working and living near an equestrian center, I found my current trainer and started half leasing one of her horses.  That turned into the purchase of Ryon, my first horse, and you could find me out at the barn training / riding 4-5x per week.  Now I’m on my second horse, Mae, and since we got a puppy, I’m out at the barn riding 3x per week.  I don’t lesson quite as frequently anymore, I’ve written about it before, but to summarize, adult obligations, work, travel, blah blah blah.

There are less than a handful of other adults who take lessons from my trainer.  We’re a rare breed at our barn - the adult rider that enjoys riding but doesn’t want to or plan on showing for many different reasons.

There is one adult rider in the program who along with his wife bought their first horses together less than a year ago.  One week, he had a jump lesson scheduled, however his horse was consistently spooking hard on one side of the ring, every time he walked, trotted, cantered by.  Instead of schooling the course with his wife as he expected to, his lesson instead was focused on walking by the spook site calmly and quietly, which eventually happened toward the end of the hour lesson with much coercion, treats, and a crop.

Afterward, the rider was extremely dejected.  When we chatted about it, his biggest disappointment was that it was a waste of a lesson.  Instead of making progress, they were regressing and falling back.  Despite taking lessons or not, showing or not, one common theme among us adult riders is that we want to make progress or see progress being made, either in ourselves as riders or in our horses.  It’s about doing everything perfect and just right as a rider and then expecting the associated result on the horse’s side (or vice versa).

But since when is progression in anything in life ever linear?  I can count on one hand the number of real life scenarios where X level of effort plus Y level of practice has directly resulted in Z desired outcome.  In practicality, progression looks more like a game of Chutes & Ladders. 

Riding for adults is mostly mental.  Yes, it’s about being physically able and fit, however most of the hurdles that I’ve heard adult riders talk about are mental ones.  There is a lot of disappointment around being frustrated, scared, insecure, and angry.  It’s understanding that horses are sensitive and can/will pick up on your mental state - if you’re stressed, anxious, frazzled.  They feed off of those emotions as well as your confidence and strength.

Back to the failed lesson, the rider may not have jumped anything that time or worked on lengthening / shortening strides, etc.  However, his horse learned how to approach a scary thing calmly and to fight his instinct to run away from it.  They both learned to trust each other.  The rider learned to change his expectations and to be fluid in his plans.  He also learned how to redirect his energy and mental state in a more positive direction.

Riding is about all of those things.  It’s not only about who can look the prettiest,  jump the highest, or run the fastest.  It’s about the partnership and connection that you develop.  It’s about problem-solving in a way that you didn’t expect.  It’s about knowing when to have patience and when to ask for more immediately.  And more generally, it’s a gentle lesson about how life is full of setbacks and disappointments and living is about how you handle them.  For me that’s the crux of being an adult rider.  Lesson programs and showing set up a framework with which to accomplish those objectives, but it isn’t the only way of learning, progressing, failing, and growing.  Riding in itself is a challenge that isn’t a simple equation of X + Y = Z and that’s what makes it such a proxy to real life.

As in many other parts of the States, here in Texas we have completely skipped spring and headed into the deep end of summer.  Everything got green and bloomed in a hurry and now there’s pollen, pollen everywhere.  My eyes and nose immediately itch when I step out the door.  In fact, everything itches.  The dog dropped a bully stick covered in fire ants inside the house.  After a moment of sheer panic (I’m violently allergic to fire ant bites), I grabbed paper towels and managed to eradicate the problem without getting bitten.  However now there are fire ants crawling along the baseboards in our house.  In Texas, regardless of where you live, It’s a constant battle keeping them out of the house in the summertime.  If there was ever an argument for me getting LASIK, it’s so I can always spot the bugs.

Small dog in a big field

Next week we’ll be solidly in the 90s for the entire week, a swift and tough transition for us all.  After each of Bowie’s walks outside, he plops down face first in his water dish and drinks like a camel, which results in frequent potty breaks afterward.  The horses are sweating (luckily) and riding in the afternoon is starting to get brutal.  We are supplementing Mae’s diet with electrolytes (Apple A Day) and alfalfa hay, which gave her an extra burst of energy for ~3 days.  Now she’s back to ho-humming along and even then, works up quite a sweat during our hack sessions.  Mae drank out straight out of the hose for the first time this past weekend, a sure sign that it’s hot and summer is here.

At the grocery store, Bluebell’s Red White and Blue ice cream is in stock again.  I also bought a bag of frozen mango chunks, which are a vital snack when the heat gets to be too much.  Hovering over a hot stove is so six months ago; there are going to be a lot of salads in our future.  The postage stamp-sized swimming pool at our complex is packed to the gills on the weekend - you’ll find Texans trying to live in water for the next four months.  I’ve got it in my head to try this cookies and cream key lime ice cream recipe - maybe this weekend.

My summer reading list at the library continues to grow longer.  Some of the books on the list include: Those who leave and those who stay by Elena Ferrante, The Afterlives by Thomas Pierce, and Transoceanic Lights by S. Li.  Anything y’all recommend for summer reading?

We don’t have any summer vacations planned so far, but my sister and her boyfriend will be visiting in June.  I really ought to get something on the calendar before the rest of the year gets away from us, like last year.  What are your summer plans?  Do they include staying in the shade and sitting in the sprinklers or journeying off to some far off exotic locales?  Or maybe just sweating a ton, like me.