To tired to tinker with a thoughtful title….

Let me open this post with an apology. I know that I stated that I would try to update my blog twice a week, but honestly I have been so busy and have had so much come up that I haven’t had much time to. Last week a vicious storm ripped through town and caused some damage (tree’s down, holes in my tent, and a lost wifi signal…). So posting has been difficult for me lately and I feel very out of touch. Not having any service on site or in the surroundings little towns has also been a pain to deal with. Anyways, let me just start by saying that I am sick of the rain here. Seriously peeved at the amount of moisture falling from the sky. Sunday we had to perform for almost 45 minutes in a torrential down pour that left me soggy and dripping. Water in my eyes, soaked through my boots, and every piece of clothing I had on was dripping. The arena completely flooded and we had to shorten or last show due to the condition of the field. Today it started coming down in buckets as we were riding and of all the riders, only 3 of us stuck it out and continued to ride in the flooding conditions. Yep, we’re hardcore jousters. Who then have soggy bottoms and socks and end up putting diapers on their feet to keep them dry. Ok, only I did that, but it worked. Even though I was teased relentlessly about it. Maggie has been…. a challenge. She is definitely the most difficult horse I have ridden and it’s been a definite change of pace working with her. I feel like I’m learning so much by working with her, but am also so worried that I will end up not teaching her something correctly and end up causing some bad habits with her. I know I’m not a perfect rider, but if Kelly and Dave feel I have the skills to work with her I guess  I need to have a little more confidence in myself. My brain is near exploding after every ride and on show weekends half the time I want to strangle her and the other half I want to sing praise to her about how well she is doing. I know she’s dealing with a lot in the show, and I’m extremely proud of what she is dealing with, but her problem points irritate me because I know that she is capable of performing at the level that I am asking her. She’s great at practice, but she’s so smart that she’s figured out that she can do it wrong in the show and because she only has one shot to do it, she can get away with it. Last week, I discovered that she’s getting frightened of not only the sound of the armor but also of people screaming (like when I make my war cry to go in and hit the guys or when they cry out in alarm when I smack them), so for practice, Harry rode in his armor and I rode along side him and just hit him with a stick and we both started screaming. Maggie and Penny took such a fright to this, they both took off around the field. When we finally got them stopped, Kelly just looks over and says, “Ok, now do it again”. So we did. Both of us rode along in the field screaming bloody murder and me hitting harry until they were both ok with it. It was pretty hysterical and throughout the rest of practice we just have surprise screams to help desensitize Maggie.   I don’t have much else to say, except  tequila is nicknamed “te-kill-ya” for a reason and I am so grateful for amazing friends. We also recently pitched in and bough a Nintendo 64 to play Super Smash Brother on and me and the guys were up till almost midnight playing it while Collin’s wife, Christine, made us snacks. It was awesome. I’m also getting to put my vet skills to work as we’re had some medical issues with the horses. Abraham had a abscess burst out through his heel bulb after we spent almost 2 weeks soaking and treating him and Christine had a puncture wound get infected and abscessed that we’ve been dealing with. I’ve spent almost every day here either soaking and packing a foot or flushing, irrigating, and cleaning a wound. Oh, and who can forget battling a picky Cylde to take her meds… However, I do love it, and secretly really enjoy getting to help fix our sickly steeds.   This week I”m planning to really start getting back into shape with my armor, and it means I’ll be working with Maggie on her training first, then suiting up and riding one of the more seasoned horses in my kit. It’s going to mean lots of riding, and I know I’m going to be sore by the end of the week, but my goal is to be ready and confident to joust by the end of Sterling. Grrr!   I’ll sign off with this lovely picture. Epic chocolate fight. We manage to have fun even when we’re soaking wet and miserable with the weather. Moral of the story, don’t piss off a girl with chocolate cake.

Chocolate Fight!

And here’s a pretty rainbow! I think it’s starting to turn into a double rainbow!!

Rainbow over Sterling