Friday, January 22, 2010
A very nice AND successful eventing professional I had the honor of meeting.
Robin Walker sending me along a "good 'morn' before his dressage ride at the horse trial.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Royalty Arrived!
That's right, the day before Jayse left, Comet the Wonder Horse arrived. He brought along with him human companions, Becky Holder and her protoge, Aubrey Dunkerton. Fleshing out the rest of the trailer was Becky's horse Ollie, Tom Holder's horse Rocky and Aubrey's, soon to go intermediate mount, Teddy. I was graced with their presence for a week while they prepared for, completed and recovered from a horse trial at the Florida Horse Park at the prelim level. Becky rode Ollie and Teddy in the show. They had a very productive first outing for this season. They stayed until the ground in Georgia had thawed and then headed north to continue preparing for this years' eventing show season.
Becky said they hadn't been able to prepare much for this show due to the frozen ground in Georgia. So, the day after they arrived, we loaded up and went to 'Bruce's farm' to run them through the water and pop a few fences before the show. Horses arrived tacked up and ready to go. I leaned up against the fence with camera in hand. A man came up to me and started chatting. We spoke about the horse Becky was riding. It was Ollie, the man asked about his stats and was very complementary about his way of going. We moved on to farming and soil characteristics. After a great converstation I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He replied, "I'm Bruce Davidson." I said, "That makes sense, it is your farm." Just another brush with equestrian fame!
So, guess who else was at the show?? Yea, me! But, also Karen and David O'Connor, Buck Davidson, Jen and Jon Holling, Robin Walker, Missy Ransehausen and many more eventing headliners. It was 75% professionals there schooling their clients' horses to start out the season. It was freezing cold at the show. We had lows of 17 degrees, I know that's nothing to you Minnesotans, but, it's cold to Floridians. The show office waived formal attire, they informed all show participants to put on whatever they have to keep themselves warm.
Becky was kind enough to work with Tiz and I on our flying changes every day she was available. It was great to work with a rider of her caliber that 'gets' thoroughbreds particular temperments. It was all very helpful and although I'm not sure how thrilled Tiz is about her input, I am delighted with the direction we are going. I'll include 'down-time' pictures from a burrito ram at my farmlet with Becky, Aubrey, Rob Thiry, Wim Foekema, Roy Williams (farrier), Scrappy Holder, Moose and, no me, I'm manning the camera! But, I'm one of the gang, really I am, just 'cause I'm not in the picture doesn't mean I'm not an integral part of the fun.
Becky said they hadn't been able to prepare much for this show due to the frozen ground in Georgia. So, the day after they arrived, we loaded up and went to 'Bruce's farm' to run them through the water and pop a few fences before the show. Horses arrived tacked up and ready to go. I leaned up against the fence with camera in hand. A man came up to me and started chatting. We spoke about the horse Becky was riding. It was Ollie, the man asked about his stats and was very complementary about his way of going. We moved on to farming and soil characteristics. After a great converstation I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He replied, "I'm Bruce Davidson." I said, "That makes sense, it is your farm." Just another brush with equestrian fame!
So, guess who else was at the show?? Yea, me! But, also Karen and David O'Connor, Buck Davidson, Jen and Jon Holling, Robin Walker, Missy Ransehausen and many more eventing headliners. It was 75% professionals there schooling their clients' horses to start out the season. It was freezing cold at the show. We had lows of 17 degrees, I know that's nothing to you Minnesotans, but, it's cold to Floridians. The show office waived formal attire, they informed all show participants to put on whatever they have to keep themselves warm.
Becky was kind enough to work with Tiz and I on our flying changes every day she was available. It was great to work with a rider of her caliber that 'gets' thoroughbreds particular temperments. It was all very helpful and although I'm not sure how thrilled Tiz is about her input, I am delighted with the direction we are going. I'll include 'down-time' pictures from a burrito ram at my farmlet with Becky, Aubrey, Rob Thiry, Wim Foekema, Roy Williams (farrier), Scrappy Holder, Moose and, no me, I'm manning the camera! But, I'm one of the gang, really I am, just 'cause I'm not in the picture doesn't mean I'm not an integral part of the fun.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Oh, that was mean of me. "We're having a baby!" Mentioned after my son and girlfriend's arrival. It's not what you might be thinking. John, Justin and Desiree (husband, son and his girlfriend of a hundred years) were arriving for a visit on Monday, December 28. John (owner of hundreds of thousands of frequent flier miles) decided to DRIVE from MN to FL. His reason? He was tired of airports AND had never seen Tennessee. O.K. So, 25 hours and two days later he had seen Tennessee AND was in Ocala. I agreed to meet them at the restaurant to see and be seen in Ocala if you are a horse person, the Horse and Hounds. I ran out to check the horses, who had graduated to the paddock next to the cows. The horses were congregating in a far corner along with a large white bovine; cow, steer, bull--whatever, a 'mooing thing', who seemed to be blocking the corner of the pasture with it's body and agitated about something that every other living creature was utterly intrigued by. Oh, yeah! That's right! We done did have a baby calf right here on Daddy Oak's Farm on the coldest night, so far, in Ocala! There was a tiny white thing, with the umbilical cord attached, penned into a corner. Poor thing had my two horses, my dog and three other bovines acting like 'helicopter parents.' They ALL just wanted to get a peek at it. Mama was having none of that noise.
I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Cowboy Ken, owner of the farm. 'Miss Jodi, what can I do for you,' was the response. 'Um, Ken, we had a BABY! NO ONE TOLD ME WE WERE HAVING A BABY!' was my reply. Of course, the Gone with the Wind phrase of 'I don't know nothing about birthing no babies,' came clearly to mind. He told me that, 'yeah, we took that 2 yr old bull on, but, he's so small we didn't really think much would come of it.' Well, much came of it AND on the coldest night I'd experienced (so far) on my Florida trip. So, Ken informed me that if it's up and moving it will be fine. It will cuddle up to its' Mom and stay warm, 'we don't blanket them or nothing like you do those horses.'
I know how to do horse babies, human babies; I was even pretty aware of duck babies' needs, but, this cow thing was new. I trusted Ken, put Puppy Moose in the house so he didn't get his curious body crushed by big, bad MAMA cow and went to meet the family for dinner. We had a good dinner served by a very charming gal named Amelia. She was from Bulgaria, so, of course my husband asked her what language she spoke in her native land. 'Bulgarian' was, of course, the answer. We stuck with English.
To top off the story, because no good story just ends, I named the new baby cow Amelia after our waitress. I relayed the entire story to Cherie, wife of Ken/owner of said farm, about naming the calf after our good natured server, Amelia. Turns out, Amelia is a good friend of Cherie's! Of course! I named a COW after one of her friend's. OUCH! Don't tell her, I pleaded. A week later, when my other son visited, he was helping me with some bookkeeping and found a receipt for the Horse and Hounds. After perusal I realized that I had STIFFED her. I had given her a generous tip and then proceeded to take that copy of the receipt home. We immediately drove to the restaurant and 'righted my wrong.'
So, Amelia lived through the night just fine. Mama cow settled down around day 5. Moose didn't get his body tossed into the trees. Justin and Desiree took off to explore points afar. John and I went to St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. Both were very cool in different ways, both were COLD in the same way. My family left on Saturday. . . my family arrived on Monday. Jayse came, by areoplane, for a quick visit. He got the 'Grand Ocala Tour' and we spent a day at Cape Canaveral. You all know we had really cold weather . . . for Florida. It got down to 17 degrees a couple of times and my pipes froze! O.K., so it warmed up into the 40's during most days, my blood has thinned! It felt cold! I kept apologizing to Jayse for the cold temps. He kept reminding me that he was returning to Grand Forks, ND; one hour from the Canadian border. It was, I think, minus 20+ (or would that be minus 20 -?) in ND the day I put Jayse on the plane. He thought Ocala was balmy!
Before Jayse left, Royalty arrived!!! Another cliff hanger. I'll try not to be offline as long. My computer stopped working while Jayse was here. Fortunately, I had a teenage (o.k. 20 yr old) boy and and astrophysics dude son to diagnose the problem. Turned out that my inverter was out. It is the power supply to the light source that allows you to see what your computer is doing. If I took two flashlights and shined them on the screen, AND found the cursor, I could follow the cursor around and kind of compose some sort of email response. So, I'm back online, but, two weeks behind in my updates. Bad me! Poor you!
I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Cowboy Ken, owner of the farm. 'Miss Jodi, what can I do for you,' was the response. 'Um, Ken, we had a BABY! NO ONE TOLD ME WE WERE HAVING A BABY!' was my reply. Of course, the Gone with the Wind phrase of 'I don't know nothing about birthing no babies,' came clearly to mind. He told me that, 'yeah, we took that 2 yr old bull on, but, he's so small we didn't really think much would come of it.' Well, much came of it AND on the coldest night I'd experienced (so far) on my Florida trip. So, Ken informed me that if it's up and moving it will be fine. It will cuddle up to its' Mom and stay warm, 'we don't blanket them or nothing like you do those horses.'
I know how to do horse babies, human babies; I was even pretty aware of duck babies' needs, but, this cow thing was new. I trusted Ken, put Puppy Moose in the house so he didn't get his curious body crushed by big, bad MAMA cow and went to meet the family for dinner. We had a good dinner served by a very charming gal named Amelia. She was from Bulgaria, so, of course my husband asked her what language she spoke in her native land. 'Bulgarian' was, of course, the answer. We stuck with English.
To top off the story, because no good story just ends, I named the new baby cow Amelia after our waitress. I relayed the entire story to Cherie, wife of Ken/owner of said farm, about naming the calf after our good natured server, Amelia. Turns out, Amelia is a good friend of Cherie's! Of course! I named a COW after one of her friend's. OUCH! Don't tell her, I pleaded. A week later, when my other son visited, he was helping me with some bookkeeping and found a receipt for the Horse and Hounds. After perusal I realized that I had STIFFED her. I had given her a generous tip and then proceeded to take that copy of the receipt home. We immediately drove to the restaurant and 'righted my wrong.'
So, Amelia lived through the night just fine. Mama cow settled down around day 5. Moose didn't get his body tossed into the trees. Justin and Desiree took off to explore points afar. John and I went to St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. Both were very cool in different ways, both were COLD in the same way. My family left on Saturday. . . my family arrived on Monday. Jayse came, by areoplane, for a quick visit. He got the 'Grand Ocala Tour' and we spent a day at Cape Canaveral. You all know we had really cold weather . . . for Florida. It got down to 17 degrees a couple of times and my pipes froze! O.K., so it warmed up into the 40's during most days, my blood has thinned! It felt cold! I kept apologizing to Jayse for the cold temps. He kept reminding me that he was returning to Grand Forks, ND; one hour from the Canadian border. It was, I think, minus 20+ (or would that be minus 20 -?) in ND the day I put Jayse on the plane. He thought Ocala was balmy!
Before Jayse left, Royalty arrived!!! Another cliff hanger. I'll try not to be offline as long. My computer stopped working while Jayse was here. Fortunately, I had a teenage (o.k. 20 yr old) boy and and astrophysics dude son to diagnose the problem. Turned out that my inverter was out. It is the power supply to the light source that allows you to see what your computer is doing. If I took two flashlights and shined them on the screen, AND found the cursor, I could follow the cursor around and kind of compose some sort of email response. So, I'm back online, but, two weeks behind in my updates. Bad me! Poor you!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Happy New Year!! Whew! Sorry to be so late with an update. I'm sure y'all have been the same as me, busy, busy, busy! O.K. one difference; I'm warm! Hah! That was just mean. The last two weeks brought lots of company to "Daddy Oaks Farm." Yes, that's the name of the farm. It is filled with daddy sized oaks, but, most of Ocala is anyway. Karen Kennedy and her Mom stayed overnight with me to celebrate her son Jacob's 20th birthday. He's in Ocala working for Buck Davidson. Karen came back the next weekend and did a photo shoot of Moose and I and the ponies for a Christmas present for John. She's a great photographer. Check out her website at http://www.iconstudios.smugmug.com/ John took all but one photo home with him. My favorite shows too much Moose tongue for John.
Next to visit was Roy Williams, farrier extraordinaire. He stayed overnight and reset my horses shoes the next day. You'll see that I introduced Roy to a new activity during his stay. I think his skill at horseshoeing is superior to his skill at the hula hoop. I also met up with Cindy Piper and family at the HITS show grounds. HITS stands for Horse shows In The Sun. I know, I know, the acronym should be HSS (Horse Shows in the Sun) or at least HSITS. But think about the pronunciation of each. Hissssssss sounds evil, and you can easily see the transposition of letters causing really BAD publicity with the second choice.
Regardless, I went and rode Popcorn, a 17.2 hand eight year old pinto Hessian (German Warmblood) Cindy imported from England. He has been in dressage training with her daughter, Betsy Labelle, in Orlando, FL. Betsy is not only a successful dressage trainer, she owns her own web design company, too. Busy lady, just like her mom. Cindy's family was together for the jumping show and to celebrate Christmas. It was great to see Cindy and Tad and meet more of their family. Popcorn was really fun to ride. I schooled his dressage and did a little jumping with him. He may be expanding his resume to include eventing this winter. I'll keep you posted. HITS Ocala can house hundreds of show horses and has four rings going--all hunter /jumper. It was fun, but, they do not mark their jumps 'red on the right' like we eventers so the warm up can get pretty interesting. I was on a huge painted horse so I got the right of way most of the time.
I went to a real Cowboy nightclub called Midnight Rodeo in Ocala. These people take their line dancing VERY seriously! Every song has a it's own line dance AND everyone in the bar knew it. . . except me and my party. I heard that the nightclub can house 1000 people. There are four separate bars; country line dancing, sports bar, comedy club and a, um, 'young people gyrating dance club.' Very different clientele in each area. I stayed in the line dance room and mastered the Cotton Eyed Joe, the Two Step, West Coast Swing, and one of those "Pass the Boy on to the Next Girl Circle Dance" things. It was a hoot! There were people of all ages dancing AND it wasn't a pick up spot as much as a "GOTTA DANCE" spot. (Or maybe I'm saying that because NO-ONE tried to pick me up and I'm bitter.) We got home at 2:45 AM--waaaay past my bedtime, but, I was the DD so I felt pretty good.
I spent Christmas Eve laying on the floor. No, I wasn't over imbibing in egg nog! I hurt my neck and was trying to put myself in traction by using items found in my barn/apartment/bedroom/tack room! My purse, my riding boot, my exercise rolly thing. I felt good enough Christmas Day to spend two hours plus on Skype opening Christmas gifts with my family in MN. It was a bit disjointed, but, still felt like Christmas morning with my family to me. They had way better eats than I did, though. I had invited K.T Harrington, Madigan Murphy and Jacob Kennedy over for Christmas dinner. K.T. is a working student for Wim Foekema (Dutch trainer from MN/friend of mine/reason I am here and having so much fun). Madigan is an event rider here to train with Wim for dressage and Robin Walker (English eventer from MI) for jumping. And, Jacob is a working student for Buck Davidson which has, so far, had more emphasis on 'working' and less on 'student.' We had a good meal and nice time thanks to K.T.'s green bean hotdish--yep, you betcha; frozen green beans, cream of mushroom soup topped with french fried onions! You can take the girl out of MN but not vice versa, thank goodness. Jacob received a last minute invitation to have Christmas dinner at Bruce Davidson's (eventing icon) house. Hmmm, which should he choose?? His Christmas present, 10 lottery tickets, is still wrapped and nestled in my Christmas tree boughs. I wonder how many millions I'm harboring in my $9.99 Norfolk Pine from Home Depot?
Cheers to 2010!
Next to visit was Roy Williams, farrier extraordinaire. He stayed overnight and reset my horses shoes the next day. You'll see that I introduced Roy to a new activity during his stay. I think his skill at horseshoeing is superior to his skill at the hula hoop. I also met up with Cindy Piper and family at the HITS show grounds. HITS stands for Horse shows In The Sun. I know, I know, the acronym should be HSS (Horse Shows in the Sun) or at least HSITS. But think about the pronunciation of each. Hissssssss sounds evil, and you can easily see the transposition of letters causing really BAD publicity with the second choice.
Regardless, I went and rode Popcorn, a 17.2 hand eight year old pinto Hessian (German Warmblood) Cindy imported from England. He has been in dressage training with her daughter, Betsy Labelle, in Orlando, FL. Betsy is not only a successful dressage trainer, she owns her own web design company, too. Busy lady, just like her mom. Cindy's family was together for the jumping show and to celebrate Christmas. It was great to see Cindy and Tad and meet more of their family. Popcorn was really fun to ride. I schooled his dressage and did a little jumping with him. He may be expanding his resume to include eventing this winter. I'll keep you posted. HITS Ocala can house hundreds of show horses and has four rings going--all hunter /jumper. It was fun, but, they do not mark their jumps 'red on the right' like we eventers so the warm up can get pretty interesting. I was on a huge painted horse so I got the right of way most of the time.
I went to a real Cowboy nightclub called Midnight Rodeo in Ocala. These people take their line dancing VERY seriously! Every song has a it's own line dance AND everyone in the bar knew it. . . except me and my party. I heard that the nightclub can house 1000 people. There are four separate bars; country line dancing, sports bar, comedy club and a, um, 'young people gyrating dance club.' Very different clientele in each area. I stayed in the line dance room and mastered the Cotton Eyed Joe, the Two Step, West Coast Swing, and one of those "Pass the Boy on to the Next Girl Circle Dance" things. It was a hoot! There were people of all ages dancing AND it wasn't a pick up spot as much as a "GOTTA DANCE" spot. (Or maybe I'm saying that because NO-ONE tried to pick me up and I'm bitter.) We got home at 2:45 AM--waaaay past my bedtime, but, I was the DD so I felt pretty good.
I spent Christmas Eve laying on the floor. No, I wasn't over imbibing in egg nog! I hurt my neck and was trying to put myself in traction by using items found in my barn/apartment/bedroom/tack room! My purse, my riding boot, my exercise rolly thing. I felt good enough Christmas Day to spend two hours plus on Skype opening Christmas gifts with my family in MN. It was a bit disjointed, but, still felt like Christmas morning with my family to me. They had way better eats than I did, though. I had invited K.T Harrington, Madigan Murphy and Jacob Kennedy over for Christmas dinner. K.T. is a working student for Wim Foekema (Dutch trainer from MN/friend of mine/reason I am here and having so much fun). Madigan is an event rider here to train with Wim for dressage and Robin Walker (English eventer from MI) for jumping. And, Jacob is a working student for Buck Davidson which has, so far, had more emphasis on 'working' and less on 'student.' We had a good meal and nice time thanks to K.T.'s green bean hotdish--yep, you betcha; frozen green beans, cream of mushroom soup topped with french fried onions! You can take the girl out of MN but not vice versa, thank goodness. Jacob received a last minute invitation to have Christmas dinner at Bruce Davidson's (eventing icon) house. Hmmm, which should he choose?? His Christmas present, 10 lottery tickets, is still wrapped and nestled in my Christmas tree boughs. I wonder how many millions I'm harboring in my $9.99 Norfolk Pine from Home Depot?
Here is your teaser for my next entry. The day John arrived with our son, Justin and his girlfriend, Desiree, we had a baby!! I didn't even know we were expecting!!
Cheers to 2010!
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