22 August 2011

When u'r feeling blue...

... all you have to do... 
 
is...
 
?
 
No, I donno? U tell me!
 
It scares me to realise how fast the year has gone by! It feels like we've achieved and finished nothing, but in fact we've been very busy with a LOT of different things! One of those things have been the puppy - that certainly kept both of us VERY busy (fun field trials, training, showing, playing, walking, cleaning up where she's destroyed things... the usual). I am happy to report that I have regained at least SOME measure of control over this hooligan of ours, with the help of the "Charlie" (a rolled-up newspaper-friend discussed in the previous post) and that at least to some extent it works to threaten her with "where's Charlie!!". She becomes submissive and stops growling and performing for a while, but she is still a little handfull! I guess some would consider it cheating or not being a very assertive pack leader, but I don't care anymore - I just want to be able to stop our brat from taking over when she feels like it. I think the mission is accomplished, at least as long as we have the Charlie with us ;)
 
Heheee - this is so fresh! As I'm typing (9:40 am)... I get a ping on Facebook from Hunny to say "Room service order: 1 x coffee and 1x kiss please" ;) technology is just so fascinating! He's playing on his iPad in the room while I'm waiting for the puppy to eat her breakfast :) The Suchness :)
 
As I was saying, the puppy is still keeping me rather busy!! Living in the city is a far cry from being in the countryside, where your dog has endless space to run and could go along on an outride. In the city there are so many rules and you're hardly allowed to take dogs anywhere anymore... :( 
 
Dogs are not allowed in the shops, on school grounds, on other people's property (even on farms) and they're not always safe at the beach (where there are often other aggressive dogs) or even in an obedience class (where some people can't control their Great Danes from running smaller pups right over), so it's hard to find enough time to stimulate their active minds - especially since you're spending half your time in all the places a dog's not allowed to be. 
 
Besides the poochy, I've also been rather busy with our mare. I've hardly been spending enough time with her, but I try my best and have even recruited an assistant - there's a schoolkid who cleans out Shala's feet and plays around with her a little a few times a week and then walks her over some stony ground to help condition her hooves in the very muddy environment of the yard where I have to keep her (not much other choice around the city once again). I am trying to prepare her for short endurance rides and I've resorted to trimming her hooves myself (after attending a barefoot endurance workshop) since I don't have the patience to try and explain to our rather critical farrier how I want my horse's feet done... so this is currently taking up quite a lot of time as well, since I'm still learning. It's damn hard work too might I add. I try to break it up by doing either the fore or hind set every 2nd week, so there's a reasonable interval of 4 wks between trims and I can keep myself fit for the job (no need for gym anymore). I think I'm doing quite an ok job though :)
 
I'm not planning on doing any long rides with Shala just yet, mainly because I just don't have the time to prepare her according to my standards, but I have my eye on doing a 30 km ride in less than a month's time...? So, yesterday we took Shala to a friend's place (about 30 min drive from the yard) for just an easy outride. I wanted to get some practice in loading and unloading and getting her used to the idea of trucking (luckily she's a very good traveller) and even though all went rather well I have realised what a Mission it is to truck a horse around! It takes a Lot of time! It was a very good exercise though, especially since we don't have such deep sand at our yard to ride in and where we went there was a LOT of deep sand - I even had my first unplanned canter on her and it was OK, given that I didn't really want her to canter yet! She also gave a few small bucks on the trot home, because she wanted to canter again... so I have quite a lot to work on!
 
BUT - I have quickly realised that my ambitions to compete in endurance is unrealistic in this little life of mine :( Even just doing a few 80 km's or 120's as I'd hoped to do will be just too much for my current setup... besides the fact that it would be such a MISSION to truck the horse to rides every time (and it wouldn't really fit in with our weekend plans). Hunny isn't THAT crazy about horses (and related events) and we have to do things over weekends that he also enjoys, so it would be close to impossible for me to prepare the horse sufficiently for anything more than a slow 60 km ride, :( never mind serious competitions :( 
 
 
My conclusion: I won't really be able to compete with my horse, because it just wouldn't be very fair to my non-horsey partner AND I honestly don't really have the time to dedicate to all the aspects required by a serious competitor. Therefore, my only choice is to remain a leisure rider! :( 
 
To a certain extent I am accepting this reality as part of Life, but I do admit I'm a little more than just disappointed that I'll never be able to reach my dream of doing well at an equestrian discipline?
 
:(
 
So now I will have to see how much time I do realistically have to dedicate to my "leisure" riding and to the dog (showing, training and outings) and to the garden? And then I will have to see if I even find enough time for all these things - since they're all very time-consuming in the first place! Why do we always want what we think we can't have?? If I add the effort required to make a big career change as well I doubt whether I'd have time for ANY of these other leisure things!!? 

:( 

I think I feel a little disappointed with my life? All my efforts thus far feel very much wasted and I am doubting my ability to make things work out right.

:( 


I was looking very much forward to the prospects of spending more time in the countryside, with more opportunity to tag the dog along and go riding a little more often, but it seems like that will also not be happening? I am doubting the viability of my organic shop idea and we would never really be able to move to a farm (it's currently just too much of a risk in our country).

Not feeling very optimistic about the future at this moment to be honest!

... so HOW do I change this?

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