Welcome to Kari’s blog of horses and cute children

First off, happy birthday to me! Since that’s how I roll, I’m asking people for a bale of hay. Not for me, silly (John wouldn’t be very happy if I stored it in our apartment) but for the horses at Horses, Hope & Healing.

If you’re fresh out of a bale of hay, or just don’t have enough wrapping paper, you can click here to donate $10 (or more!) to HH&H so they can buy a bale of hay. One bale will feed one program/rescue horse for 4-5 days, and they definitely appreciate it!! :-)

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One of the reasons I haven’t been blogging much, aside from the fact that I’ve been, oh, INSANELY BUSY, is that I feel like my blog is becoming a one-trick pony.

Ok, I only used that phrase for the punny value, but really, it’s more like a two-trick pony these days — see my blog title for what I’m talking about. Not that there’s anything wrong with horses and cute children — on the contrary, they’ve both brought much joy to my life as of late. But I feel like I’m getting repetitive, and I like to try to keep things mixed up as much as I can.

But because it’s Tuesday Mooseday, I’m going to post not only a picture of Moose, but a somewhat rare picture of me as well (that’s two days in a row that I get in  a picture in my own blog! Wow!) This past weekend, there was a two-day horse show up in Orangevale — English on Saturday, western on Sunday.

I had to work AND I had two photo shoots on Saturday (yesterday’s pics of Kim’s kids, and senior portraits for a student), and I don’t have any English show clothes anymore, so I didn’t go to the Saturday show. But Moose went, and Rudy, one of the HH&H kids, rode him.

They braided his mane for Saturday's English show. DYING OF THE CUTENESS. This is my desktop wallpaper at work right now.

After the kids finished braiding him, I put on Moose's hood so that the braids would stay nice and Moose would stay clean. Have you ever tried to keep a white horse clean? Imagine putting a two-year-old in all white clothes and then surrounding him/he with mud puddles. Yeah, pretty much that. Oh, and that's Rudy with Moose, and other kids in the background getting their horses ready. :-)

Now, keep in mind that Moose is bred, born, and trained to be a cow horse, and while I’ve done English with him, I’ve only ever done flat classes. We’ve jumped once or twice in the arena at the barn, but only ever cavalettis (very small jumps!) and only ever one jump at a time (jump over the cavaletti, loop around, jump the same one again, etc.)

But Rudy, the kid that took Moose to the show (and whose show fees I’m subsidizing, since I’m a sucker like that — hey, I get Moose’s stall cleaned AND my car waxed!) loves to jump, so he decided to show Moose in both flat classes and jumping.

They took two firsts and a third. And one of the firsts was in JUMPING. Moose, my little cow horse, who used to look at a jump and go, “Mom, that’s a FENCE. I’m NOT SUPPOSED to go over it.” MOOSE WON A JUMPING CLASS!!!

Rudy actually showed Moose at a western show the weekend before, and they didn’t place in any classes, so I can’t even TELL YOU all how happy this made me, for both of them!!

And then on Sunday, I showed him in the ranch horse classes. If I’d really thought about it, I would have gone for both the ranch horse High Point and trail High Point awards, but I’m kinda dumb sometimes and didn’t think about it.

In our reining class (the thing that we really should have rocked at) my rein broke, and we got disqualified because I had to get off Moose (I kept trying to lean forward and fix it, but poor confused Moose kept circling, so I couldn’t get his head straight to re-attach the rein.)

But we took first in a class that I hadn’t expected to do all that well in, and which was our biggest class of the day, and placed in all of our other classes. So we ended up with High Point Reserve — runner up, but still awesome!!! That’s a first (heh heh heh) for us, and I had SO MUCH FUN at the show, broken rein notwithstanding. I can’t wait for this summer — even though most shows don’t have reining or a ranch horse division, it’s still a kick to be out there and watch the kids and everyone and their horses and enjoy the day. :-)

Here are a couple of cameraphone pictures. The first one was taken by one of the program kids (and one of my students), and the second one I took when I got home Sunday night. :-)

Moose and I after our first class. No laughing at my awesome $3 thrift store show shirt. :-D

Saddle blanket, hat, and proof of our awesomeness. :-)

He may be a big goofball...

...but I love this damn animal so, so much. He's the best birthday present I could ask for. :-)