Hunts, hunter paces....fall is a busy time!

To busy to blog, it would seem, it's been a month! :)  Ah well, this will be a bit long..it's like three posts in one! :)

• The Blessing of the Hounds was held on October 1st and was a wonderful hunt.  The footing has been dodgy, and that day was no exception, but we were careful and had a great ride.  Here I am giving the big girl a kiss at a check mid-hunt.  It *was* muddy, now that I think of it....muddy enough for me to tie her tail up!

The hounds, huntsman and whipper-in at the check.

• October 10 found us hauling up to Milton Mills, NH for the third and final Hunter Pace of the Wentworth series.  It was a fine day, if not a little warm.  We managed to get only a little lost, but regardless had a great time.  Here's Daatje saddled and ready to head out.

And here she is on the trail

Some of the lovely fall scenery we were able to witness.

Daatje chillin' at the trailer afterwards.



• Last Saturday brought us to Rochester, NH for a meet at Prodigue Farm.  This farm is my all time favorite fixture and last Saturday lived up to all my expectations!  We traveled 9 miles, had many, many good runs through the open fields and finished the hunt with a "balls to the walls" Gone Away up the hill to stirrup cup.  Life does not get much better than that!

Warming up the hounds

 Stopping at a check in the Blueberry Woods

 The only shots you'll see of Daatje are her ears!  I guess I'm the only one in the field with the impossible urge to take pictures while riding. :)

 A pilot was flying a small plane above us the entire hunt.  Here we're all watching him stall his engine and do loop-d-loops!  Made me queasy just watching!

 The best seat in the house. :)



Here's a couple of videos of one of the runs taken back to back to back.....

Part 1

Part 2

(Well, there was a part 2, but blogger wouldn't let me upload it.  I'll try again later...bummer too 'cause it was the coolest of the three...)

Part 3

Daatje has been so incredible this season!  Foot perfect barefoot (less is more when trimming), no back soreness whatsoever (I love you Nickers Saddlery!), strong and willing over the fences (see items 1&2), TONS of energy (Natural Vitamin E)....what more could I hope for? :)

This Saturday we're headed back to Rochester to hunt at the Myhre Equine Clinic.  I've not yet hunted from that fixture, so this will be a first for us!  After that, we're back at Prodigue following up the next day with the Myopia Fall Hunter Pace.  That is definitely not to be missed.  The highlight of our season is yet to come though.....

The All New England Hunts Joint Meet, save the date....November 12th.  I will most definitely be blogging about *that* hunt in a timely fashion. :)

Hunt at Yorkfield Farm

Well, yesterday I took a vacation day to foxhunting during the week.  It was well worth it!  The weather was nearly perfect, if not a little warm for the season.  There was a great turnout!  The hounds were wonderful to watch and listen to and we had many good gallops through the fields.  Total mileage was 10.63 and the top speed was 23.4mph. :)  Daatje was going strong right up to the end.

Here's a video clip of one of the great gallops: 

This was amazing because last year, I thought she was all done hunting.  She had absolutely no second wind, and after the hunts would have this dull, exhausted look on her face.  I thought she was beginning to lose interest and that the hard work and exertion was becoming too much for her.  Not wanting to give up, I did some research and decided to try supplementing with Vitamin E.  It couldn't hurt, and might only help, so I figured it was worth a try.  She's been on 4,000 IU of naturally occuring Vitamin E a day for about a year now and I have more horse under me than I ever thought possible!

She's strong in the gallops, so much so that I'm often testing my brakes only to find I don't have much!  Not a problem I'm going to complain about, that's for sure.

The other element that I changed was her saddle.  For the past two seasons, she's been very back sore after the meets.  Her saddles fit according to the saddle fitters, but she was so muscle sore in her back that when I would run my fingers down on either side of her spine she'd tense up and give me dagger eyes.

I have hunted her in many different saddles to no avail so as a final effort to increase her working comfort level, I decided to order a Sensation G4 Jump treeless saddle.  I made a special weight distributing pad to go under it and off we went, testing out at the spring hunter paces and what not.  I LOVE it.  It is the most comfortable saddle I have ever sat in!  Sensation makes endurance saddles, so this should come as little surprise.  A bit funky looking, but let me tell you, Daatje's back has not been ONE BIT SORE since switching to this saddle.  So, I think between the Vitamin E and a saddle that works for her, she's feeling great!  Makes for a very happy Mum. :)

Wentworth Hunt Hunter Trials

I mentioned earlier that I took Daatje to the Wentworth Hunt Hunter Trials despite the fact that history has shown whenever I try to participate in solo activities, Daatje sees to it that we are eliminated in the most humiliating fashion.

Well, I thought it was high time to get over myself and just do it.  We've been working on some of her issues and attitude so I thought the WWH Trials was a good a place as any to test out our progress.  As you can see by the smile on my face in the above photo, Daatje gave (mostly) all the right answers to my questions. :)  She was extremely angry with me in the beginning for taking her down away from the other horses to the start area.  I rode her through it, despite her throwing her body around in a total tantrum.  When presented to the first jump, she stopped and put a front hoof on it. 

Unphased, I re-presented her and she jumped, yay!  The second fence was a small stack of telephone poles at the crest of a big hill.  She got up to the top of the hill and was focusing on the new scenery beyond the jump, so she stopped once at that as well.  Second try, she jumped just fine. 

After that, she was great!  The third fence was a big log that she sucked back for just a split second, but then jumped it.  The rest were smooth and easy.  There were 16 obstacles in total, including a gone away, hold hard, gate and lead over.

The last jump was this nicely sized log in the jump ring.  She was tired (lots of big hills!) but did a great job getting over it.  Go Daatje!

Cubbing season is underway!

Hooray!  Although circumstances have kept me from going out as often as I'd like to this early in the season.  In fact, they're the same set of circumstances that have kept me from blogging for the past two months!  In short, we bought our first house.  Lots to do, fix, repair, throw away, trees to remove, barn to renovate.....not leaving much time for anything else!  I think I rode a grand total of three times in August.  Ptooy. 

Well, now that we're situated and things have normalized a little bit, I'm back to post hunt updates and happenings with Daatje and I.

Last Saturday, 9/3, we had a lovely hunt at Prodigue Farm in Rochester, one of my all time favorite fixtures!  The gracious host prepared hot mulled cider to warm the riders up prior to setting off.


Here's a nice shot of the hounds warming up with the huntsman and whipper-in.



And a shot of the photographer on her trusty steed. :)

I must say, it was one of the nicest hunts so far this year!  (not taking into consideration I've only attended two!)  This coming Saturday, 9/17, we'll be at Garrison House in Durham and I'm hoping to get some nice photos of the hounds working.  Daatje's been very excitable and I've had to keep two hands on the reins more often than usual. :)

On a very cool note, today, 9/11, was the very first (hopefully annual) Wentworth Hunt Hunter Trials!  Daatje and I decided to compete last minute and I am so glad we did.  Those of you who know Daatje and I and the issues we've had over the past 5 years (her flat out refusing to go off away from whatever she considers "home base") know this was a HUGE DEAL.

I've been working on not giving up or giving in to her tantrums when she doesn't want to be in a place that I've put her and it seems to be paying off.  Today, Daatje completed the entire course of 16 obstacles and we only had two refusals, one at fence 1 and one at fence 2.  After that, she was really getting into it and seemed to have a good time!  Hooray!  I know there were several people taking photos, so I'll be back with some pics (evidence that we did it!) later on.

I'll leave you today with a shot of Daatje after the "gone away" up the hill to the stirrup cup.  She is starting this season out better than ever! :)



Jumping practice

I put some jumps up in the field today, since Mom had offered to take some pictures. :) She got this really nice one.

Foxhunting starts up in a month! If she continues in good form, it should be a wonderful season

It's blurry thanks to my less than stellar Cannon (can't handle action, but great for macro) but here's another of her powering over a 3' oxer.

Grey hairs be gone

I haven't done much with Daatje lately. It's been hot during the week and I'm very, very preoccupied with getting ready to buy our first home, so by the time I get home from work I'm exhausted!

So, I thought I'd share the strange and unusual stuff that I use to dye my hair. Box dyes from the drugstore are so very damaging and my fine hair can't take it. Years ago, I discovered how to color my hair using the powdered leaves of the Henna and Indigo plants. It's messy, smells funny, but the result is super shiny hair that can grow strong.....and not be grey!

I've had these nasty grey hairs since I was 17, so you can imagine how they've multiplied in the past 17 years!

First, I mix up the Henna powder with lemon juice. The acid in the lemon juice helps to release the red dye from the Henna.


I let the mixture sit covered for 12 hours. Once the Henna has steeped in the lemon, I mix the Indigo powder with water and combine with the Henna. Once everything is well combined, I put this goopy, green slop that smells like grass on my head.



Then, I put cotton balls around my hairline and wrap the whole thing up in plastic wrap and cover with a cap. I keep this on overnight, so about 8 hours. In the morning, the mess is rinsed out and I have awesome hair!

Tons of work, yes. But so worth the effort to be able to have healthy, colored hair! Here's where I buy my supplies: http://www.hennaforhair.com/

Bradley Palmer - flying solo

Last weekend I took Daatje back to Bradley Palmer by ourselves to work on moving forward when asked, when she's alone. It's a battle, but worth it when I'm winning. We did a lot more trot and canter work than we used to be able to do when out alone, so I guess you could call that progress. We even jumped a few fences.......and she ran off with me after one of them. You'd think I'd think that was bad, but honestly, I loved it! She's finally giving me something different to work on other than the endless kicking on. We were out for 2 hours or so and covered about 8 miles.



Moon hill as seen between her ears.



Faded wisps

And when we got back to the trailer, we saw these two awesome horses being hitched to a fore cart. Beautiful, just beautiful. I love the big drafty horses all done up in harness.

All in all, it was a good day.