Video Horse Show!

One of my trainers, Jennifer Moshier, is doing a video show series this winter.  You can check out the facebook page: Fuzzy Fun on Film Facebook Page for more info. Essentially, she posts patterns (or instructions for the rail classes) and you send her a link to your video.  She then judges the classes and sends written comments to each entry.  Show clothes not required and Fuzzy horses are encouraged.

Jennifer is a carded judge in many breeds and associations including the Pinto Horse Association and is certified with 4H in 10 states.  She was the judge at the very first show Junior and I were in, was the clinician at the Show N Tell Clinic last spring, and I've had some great private lessons with her.

I wanted to enter the January show, but my back wouldn't let me.  On Wednesday, with the help of my BO, I recorded my entry for the Adult Showmanship class for show #2.  For us, I'm hoping to get some feedback on what we should work on next.  I didn't count how many times we ran it, but the truth is I could run it all day and it still wouldn't be any where near perfect.  Though we've come a long way in our showmanship work, we have MANY things to work on.  I can already tell lots of the things she's going to say about our pattern, and I've already figured out how to fix one of our issues, which is that unfortunate dipping motion I do when I cross over during the inspection.  After watching the video I You-tubed some of the QHCongress finals and I know what to do to fix that, which is to run my hand down the lead so I have slack for the inspection, moving it back up before we do anything else.  I suppose ideally you never move your hand from a fixed position, but we're not anywhere near "ideal" yet. :)  It hasn't been an issue for us at shows because he's never had his head that low.  And there's all kinds of crooked issues and I basically had to punch him in the face to get him to move into the pivot.  Ugh.  And you might notice him trying to bit my thigh every time I cross in front of him... he is such a brat.

Anyways, for what it's worth here's our entry!

Art

With the temps being in the low 20's today and for the next few days, I decided to take advantage of it by laundering our mid-weight blanket.  It's filthy and probably smelly and I probably won't get another chance to do this before he needs to wear it.

Here is the tale....

Girl takes blanket to laundromat.  Girl uses archaic commercial front-load washer instead of cheating and using the fancy new super-capacity machines, even though the attendant isn't around to tell her that horse blankets are only allowed in the crappy archaic ones, even though the fancy ones spin WAY better and therefore cut drying time WAYYY down.  But since Girl knows she can use the nifty archaic Super Spinner Wonder Machine to finish the spin job, Girl feels good about following rules.

Girl washes the blanket a 2nd time without soap in order to ensure removal of all soap since washer isn't really big enough to rinse properly.  After 2nd wash, girl removes very wet blanket only to find that Super Spinner Wonder Machine is out of order...... oh, F&D*ING H*$LL.

Girl grumbles and hauls wet and very heavy blanket home.  Girl wonders what exactly to do, but thinks the bright sunshine and breeziness out on the deck is a good place to put said wet blanket for an hour or so before hanging it over the shower bar for heaven knows how long.  Girl goes to retrieve said blanket a mere two hours later and finds the blanket is frozen solid into an interesting dual patio chair hugging shape.  Girl wrestles blanket off of chairs and into apartment.... and by wrestles, I mean takes far too long to figure out how to pry chairs out from their heavy blanket's frozen death embrace and wonders what the new downstairs neighbor will think of the noises and the grunts, then tries to sqeeze the object through the single patio door. I suppose Girl should have not failed chemistry class... water WILL freeze when it's only 18 degrees... duh.

Blanket is now sculpture.

An ICE sculpture. She shall call it... "F&D*ING H*$LL" .... oddly reminiscent of The Supplicant Barberini , no?

Sculpture is now bungeed onto the shower bar. Facepalm.

WTFriday - The Lion...

A friend had this on her facebook today.  I watched it twice. Then I made all of my students watch it... you know, for their costume education...

You can look forward to the day I buy a buff colored mini JUST so I can make it wear this costume...

Ode to the February Shed

Ode to the February Shed...

Oh dear February Friend.
You come suddenly and unwanted into my life.
Your static-y magnetism mingles with mud and sand and scurf.
You get in my eyes, in my mouth, and somehow tie yourself in knots through my fleece.
Lord knows how you find your way through my underarmour and into my bra.
You seem so full of yourself.
And my Neti Pot and dryer lint trap are also full of you.
I know you will be here a while, and I am already...
tired of you.