Foal Friday: Polite Daytime Birthing Edition

I am shamelessly stealing Amanda's Foal Friday format because who couldn't use more baby horses in their lives? So far, Lisa has three babies on the ground with four mares left to go, and they are all CUTE blingy chestnuts so far.

This week, something happened that has never happened before, and it's especially bloggable: one of the mares foaled in broad daylight! AND Lisa happened to have guests around to take what ended up being some truly remarkable photos.

First up, pics of mom (who happens to be Connor's full sister) Castleberrys Dyma Hi (*Tuscani Dundee x *Bwlchllan Bessie by Derwen Desert Express).

And dad, Castleberrys Reno (Castleberrys ReFflection x Castleberrys Rosalee by *Tuscani Dundee).

A few years ago as a 3 year old

This is just one of the coolest pictures EVER! You can really see Connor and Dyma Hi's sire in Dyma Hi's face here, I think.

"Hello, world!"

I like the shadow puppet on his face

 

 

One day later, all fuzzy and cute:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For more foal pictures, make sure you follow Castleberry Welsh Cobs and Sporthorses on Facebook!

Turns on the Haunches

Somewhere along the way, our turns on the haunches got really broken. Or maybe they were never good to begin with. Either way, it's a movement I've been struggling with for a while now.

 

For the non-Dressage people out there, TOH is a movement introduced at Second Level that allows a little more flexibility in terms of hind leg placement than its cousin, the walk pirouette, which is introduced at Fourth Level and requires the hind legs to step and down on the spot. TOH allows for the hind legs to describe an arc of up to 1m. 

You can ride the TOH smaller and not get penalized, but you cannot ride it larger. And uh, my comments on the last test were "more like 1/2 circle" for the TOH.

This is bad, lol

 

The hard part for me has been working on this without any way to see what's going on, since my Pivo wasn't compatible with my phone from January until last week, and we don't have mirrors. And being new to this movement, I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. When I finally did get to see video for the first time last week, I was like oh, those look like s***, lol.

In my virtual lesson last week, GP trainer said our biggest problem with it is him not respecting my aids. She said he was running through me, mostly forward (hence the 1/2 circle comment) and had me ask him for a single step sideways, then a single step backward, rinse and repeat until he wasn't barreling through me anymore. She's adamant we get this one right, calling it a "diagnostic movement" - if this isn't right, the basics aren't there.

He was very upset at not getting to race through me anymore, and we made progress that night, but it wasn't until my schooling ride the next day that we really started to put it together.

 

From a schooling ride after that lesson.You can see that he DESPERATELY wants to move the right hind forward, but he thought better of it in the moment.

In my rides since then, I've had a lot more control over the movement, and you can tell he's actually thinking about shifting his weight back rather than plowing forward. Is it an 8.0 movement? Absolutely not, there's a LOT to improve here. But it's definitely going in the right direction.

Aeres Update

No news is good news on the Aeres front, but I figured you'd all want an update anyway.

Just...swoon. I miss riding this movement! PC: Lisa

She's doing absolutely amazing.

No filter. PC: Lisa

On my way to my parents' on Thursday, I stopped to see her for the first time since that early March night when we hustled her back onto the trailer four hours after she got home. 

I could just stand there and watch her eat and swallow grass for hours. Every swallow seems miraculous.

 

She spends her days with "Dr. Grass" as Lisa says, gaining weight by the day. Her wound, which I didn't get any pictures of, looks amazing and is almost completely healed except for a couple of spots. That last bit of healing will take the longest, of course, but it's made incredible progress in such a short amount of time.

I can't believe you're alive <3

Her wound has to be fully healed before we can put a bridle on her and see how her tongue amputation affects her, but I did get a chance to look at her tongue for the first time last weekend and it's WAY better than I thought it'd be. They really didn't take much off at all, and I don't think it'll affect her as a riding horse. Her prospective future owner agrees and still wants her, but as I've said before, it doesn't matter one way or another, she has a forever home regardless.

Keep eating and keep healing, little girl

Hauling Festus

Last weekend, I went back to my hometown to ferry a very special passenger to his new home.

Getting those ears into a selfie is no joke

Festus is my mom's 28 year old donkey, who we've owned since the spring of 1996 when we bought him as a companion animal for Little Red. He has a long and storied history as a no-way-no-how trailer loader - when we bought him, we ended up walking him the two miles home with 8 year old me on his back, and then when my parents moved around the block 10 years ago, they again walked him over. So as my parents prepared to move from southern Illinois to their forever home in Tennessee, my mom's biggest worry was how we'd move Festus.

Me and Festus, a long time ago

So I hauled my trailer over Thursday night, and first thing Friday morning, we got Jeannie and Blanche (lol) loaded into my parents' stock trailer. They're my parents' semi-tame no-shear sheep that basically serve as fuzzy lawn mowers.

Jeannie and Blanche like "WTF, this was not on our agenda for today"

Then it was Festus' turn. My mom's farrier of 25 years, who has actually known Festus since before we owned him, came out to help. My mom was a very novice horse owner when she brought Red and Festus home, and George has helped her through SO much. It was a poetic conclusion to their farrier-client relationship that he'd be the one to get him on the trailer.

We briefly tried convincing a hungry Festus to walk on for breakfast, but we all knew that wouldn't work, even though he had been braying his head off a few minutes before at the indignation of missing breakfast.

"I know this game"

In the end, getting him on only took about 15 minutes, with alternating bouts of muscling him forward and stopping to "let him pout", as George said. George looped a lariat through the interior tie rings of my trailer, and with me putting all my bodyweight onto the line and George and my dad's hands locked behind his butt, Festus didn't have much of a choice.

This is a sulking donkey

He actually hauled really well. If you've ever spent time around a donkey, you know they are just immeasurably smarter than horses, and I wasn't surprised when I stopped at a gas station to find Festus with his butt firmly wedged into the small angle of my slant, riding rear facing, and no indications in the shavings that he'd moved a muscle the entire journey. He found the easiest way to absorb the trailer's motion and stayed there the entire time.

Stopped for gas

Unsurprisingly, when we got him to my parents' new home, he leaped off the trailer without touching the ramp. Donkeys HATE it when the ground looks different, and I've survived more than one leap across a ditch on his back (which is no joke since he's built downhill with absolutely no withers!) But once that little bit of excitement was over with, he settled into his new digs.

Her most stressful part of the move over, my mom and I grabbed adult beverages and just hung out with him for a while.

One of my favorite ever pictures of the two of them!

The only remaining wildcard from that point forward was how Festus would do with the sheep. At the old house, he shared a fenceline but not a paddock with them, but here, he'd have to learn how to live with them, which theoretically shouldn't be an issue since donkeys are often used as livestock guardians, but you never know. 

Jeannie and Blanche napping in their new home

He spent a fair bit of time politely but firmly letting Jeanie and Blanche know he was the boss by running them off if they looked at him funny, but by the next morning, after it poured rain from 3am on, we found them sharing the run-in shed together like a weird new happy family.

The face of a donkey that hates being wet, and Blanche right behind him

With that, all of my mom's biggest fears were relieved. Festus' trip to Tennessee went fine, he integrated well with the sheep, and he did great in his new paddock even with his limited vision due to cataracts.

Drier times at the new place, still a work in progress!

For me, I was so grateful I could do this for my mom. She's given me so much, obviously the standard parent stuff but also the love of horses that has led me to pretty much arrange my whole life around them, so the fact that I could use my toys and my trailering skills to make this a safe and easy experience for her meant a lot.

My dad said Friday (after he saw me back a 20ft rented tow-behind camper down a hill around a turn between some trees last summer) when his retired buddies are bragging about their boat backing skills, he says he's got a daughter that can back a trailer better than any of them. I joked that he paid for my backing skills so he's earned the right to brag about them, since I had final exams in both backing a truck and trailer and backing a tractor and trailer in school for Equine Studies

And now, Festus gets to live the quiet retired life on an idyllic hill in Tennessee, and he never has to get on a trailer again as long as he lives. Enjoy retirement, little buddy!

Washing and Waxing My Trailer

You could consider this revisiting a past product review today, since I washed and waxed my horse trailer last weekend with Aero Cosmetics again. Reminder and perhaps also a guilt trip, you're supposed to wax your horse trailer 1-2x a year, especially if any part of your trailer is fiberglass (many roofs and some trailer skins are). You do not want that stuff to oxidize and turn chalky!

As a reminder, Wash Wax All is a waterless spray all-in-one wash and wax product originally developed for the airline industry since, you know, sending a plane through a car wash is logistically challenging. It's safe for all surfaces you'd encounter in the average plane/vehicle/trailer and biodegradable.

I let my Shadow go a little longer between washes than I like to this time, so I had some legit black streaks, which Aero Cosmetics will tell you isn't something Wash Wax All will be able to remove alone. Wash Wax All is more of a light duty surface cleaner and UV protectant than a stain remover.

Before on the right, after on the left. I have to move my mom's donkey from Illinois to Tennessee later this week and I decided I couldn't stand looking at this bug spattered nose for 12 hours.

So this year, I also tried Wash All Degreaser, which is their recommended product for black streaks, and I also used the Aero Scrubber more broadly on the entire trailer (rather than just on the ghosted trailer decals I originally bought it for).

Shown: Aero Scrubber (it comes with a handle but I prefer to use it as a sponge) and Wash All Degreaser. The Aero Scrubber is like a very gentle Brillo pad. Tough enough to take bugs off of your paint but it doesn't leave scratches or swirl marks.

Working in sections, I would first spray Wash All Degreaser, then use the lightly damp Aero Scrubber to agitate it. This removed all the grit and bugs from the paint.

Next, I would take a dry-ish microfiber rag and wipe that section down to remove the debris the Aero Scrubber lifted. When Wash All Degreaser is used by itself, the rag is supposed to be totally dry and you're supposed to wipe the Wash All off before it dries, but because I was following it up with Wash Wax All, I found it didn't really matter if the rag got progressively a little less dry. I did switch it out fairly often though.

Next I would spray that same section down with the Wash Wax All from my original post, and finally I would take an actually dry rag and vigorously rub that section in circles until it was dry.

Like any wax product, vigorous rubbing helps it bind to the vehicle and gives you that smooth, touchable, glossy look. And boy was it glossy and touchable. I couldn't stop rubbing my hands over the finished sections, which were straight-from-the-factory smooth.

Before/in progress

After

The combination of the Aero Scrubber really getting the road grit off of the paint and the Wash Wax All left the trailer surface feeling like I'd taken a clay bar to it (which is a time consuming process in which auto detailers use a firm piece of clay to lift grit and other surface contaminants that don't come off with normal vehicle washing).

This was about the level of black streaks all over the trailer before I started. Not horrible, but not something that would come off with a light wash.

 

Every last black streak is gone, and it looks new despite being four years old.

This process doesn't take less time than washing alone, but it takes WAY less time than washing and waxing does. It took me 3 hours start to finish, and that was taking my time and obsessing over it. Doing a coat of paste wax would take longer than that by itself! 

There are some cases where you will need a proper coat of paste wax, but if you keep up with it, something like Wash Wax All is all you should need.

My audience was bored

 

2021 Membership Costs

With being a part of my GP trainer's show team and (hopefully) getting my amateur status back, this year felt like the year to "go for it" for the first time in terms of year-end awards. Plus that whole post-pandemic (are we there yet)? YOLO feeling.

Pony Cup 2017, the last time I was able to go.

And I'm paying for that decision, literally, in terms of more membership fees than I've ever paid in my life. Up to this point, I've been a GMO-only, don't-care-about-Regionals-and-All-Breeds kind of rider. So I thought it would be an interesting exercise in self-flagellation to see how much "going for it" costs.

USEF Membership: $80 + $25 insurance

Required for: Rated shows, and the optional insurance is a cheap, well, insurance policy 

USDF Participating Membership: $90

Required for: Regionals/Finals, All-Breeds

Welsh Pony and Cob Society of America: $50

Required for: Attending Welsh shows and earning Welsh Open Program year-end awards 

Indiana Dressage Society GMO: $53

Required for: Supporting my local GMO and getting GMO year-end awards

 

WPCSA Open Program: $60 ($30 per division entered, and rated and unrated Second Level each count as one division)

Required for: Street cred for the Castleberry name in the Welsh world and year-end awards

 

National Dressage Pony Cup: $50

Required for: Attending National Dressage Pony Cup, plus some year-end awards

 

USDF All-Breeds Declaration: $35

Required for: Earning WPCSA-specific USDF year-end awards. One time fee (I think).

 

Upgrade Connor to USDF Lifetime Horse from HID #: $80

Required for: All-Breeds, Regionals/Finals. One time fee.

USEF Amateur Status Reinstatement: $50

Required for: Actually having a shot at earning year end awards in all of this stuff, lol. One time fee.

Okay, are you ready for the sum total? $573! $165 of that is one-time costs, but that still leaves over $400 of membership fees every single year that I put a full show season together.

It's a first world problem to be sure, and I'm excited that I have the opportunity to do all of this and can afford it, but there's no denying registering for all of this is painful.

Anyone else feeling the membership rodeo pain?

Product Review: Smart Carts Wheelbarrows

A while back there was a COTH thread on "items that have made your life easier at the barn," and it made me realize I can't believe I haven't shared my barn's Smart Carts on the blog, because I'm kind of obsessed with them.

I had never heard of them until I moved to this barn, but I'm a total convert now. Smart Carts were originally designed in the 70s by a horse husband whose wife had health issues that made normal wheelbarrows challenging and painful to use in her barn.

From SmartCart's website. Pictured: a SmartCart frame (looks the same today!) with the tub removed

They are:

...incredibly lightweight. Our model weighs 44lbs empty, and when it's empty I can move it with a single finger. When it's full I can still move it with one hand.

One finger

...easy to move even when completely full. You know when you have one more stall to do and you really don't want to take the time to dump your almost-full wheelbarrow, but you know if you put one more stall's worth of manure on top it's going to be really hard to push? I don't even blink at putting 4 or 5 stalls in the SmartCart and filling it to the top, even with a 200m or so walk around the barn to the manure pile

...able to be spun 360 degrees in place even when full

 

...made of entirely interchangeable and replaceable parts. Did you initially buy the bicycle tires but now need a heavier carrying capacity for your Competitive Wet Sand Hauling Competition? Buy the 600lb beefier turf tires and swap them out. Want to upgrade to the bigger bucket? It fits on the same frame as the smaller bucket.

...impossible to tip over sideways

...made with a snap-in snap-out bucket that makes dumping manure and getting that last little bit out of the bucket super easy

There's a bump out on the bucket just underneath the silver crossmember that holds the bucket very firmly in place (and another one on the front of the bucket), but you can press on it and pop it out easily. I often pop it out at the manure pile to dump it and then pop it back in.

...backed by a lifetime warranty on the aluminum frame and a 5 year warranty on the tub

...easy to push or pull through snow or mud

We get both here, of course

I realize I probably sound sponsored by these guys, but I'm not, I'm just that much in love with these wheelbarrows. I can't believe how much easier they make chores than a single- or double-wheel traditional wheelbarrow.

The only downside is the price, but given the lifetime warranty and easily obtained replacement parts (most of which ship free), this is one of those things you'll spend more on up front but less on over time, since you'll never have to replace it.

Bottom line: These. Are. The. Shit. And if you shovel shit, you need one. That is all.

What: The Original Smart Cart

Sizes: 7 cubic foot or 12 cubic foot (tubs are interchangeable on the same frame), plus a muck bucket cart size is available as well

Price: $364-596 depending on the options you choose

Where: smartcarts.com

Disclaimer: The one SmartCart I've purchased (for my parents) I've purchased with my own hard earned money and I am not sponsored or associated with them in any way. Views are my own.