Eventing Bingo

Emma, over at Fraidy Cat Eventing  has a great contest going called Eventing Bingo, where you get an assigned Bingo card and have to write a believable story around the card spots to get BINGO!

Here's my entry!

Annie wasn't always the most perfect horse out there.  In fact, we had some rough patches in our show career together as Annie learned how to be a team player, and how to trust my judgement and respect my wishes.

I had a hard time getting Annie to pick her her canter when I restarted her, she had been shanked in the mouth in order to get a "lope" so many times she either wouldn't pick the canter up at all, or would throw her head constantly.  I had her picking her left lead pretty good, but I foolishly entered her first CT ever and didn't realize it was a WTC canter test until three weeks out.  We still didn't have a right lead.

Morning of the test it was snowing.  I felt like I was doomed.  However, Annie was a very good girl and promptly picked up her right lead when asked.  Judge called it EXUBERANT, and we got a four on the movement when she quickly swapped to the wrong lead.

Our dressage woes gradually went away but cropped back up when Annie realized I was less likely to whack her for being lazy in the dressage ring.  Which lead to this lovely test when I brought the hammer down for the lack of obedience to my leg.  She jigged through the entire free walk so we got a big fat "free walk not shown" but the next test was amazing!!

Luckily she was never THAT HORSE in the warm up as she was always pretty good on the flat.  Nothing compares to Nikki running backwards out of the dressage warm up because she couldn't deal with the crowd.  When in doubt, back out.  Nikki eventually mostly became comfortable with crowded dressage warm ups, although oddly she never had the same fears in jumping warm up, even crazy ones.  Go figure.

Nikki also never had a problem going forward on the XC course so I was quite surprised during Annie's first XC run when we racked up 2 minutes of penalties.  Due to a golf cart.  Lurking in the woods.  Suspiciously.  No amount of beating got her to move while she remained on high alert.  Eventually the golf cart inhabitants got tired of waiting and moved on and so did we.

Would you believe that we actually got a ribbon?  Apparently we didn't have any stops at the fences on stadium and XC and our dressage by that point was decent enough!

I always like to look back at past shows and years and it makes me all fuzzy and warm to see the improvements.  From horses who were in dead last after dressage to horses that won on their dressage score.  Horses that spooked and snorted over a pile of poles on the ground at their first show over fences to horses that bravely jumped their first roll top.

Eventing, never the same ride twice!

Trailer organization

I tend to get really anxious if things aren't running on time or according to plan so I combat my anxiety by organizing.  Everything has a place so I can quickly access things I need.  Works in life and in trailer organization.  Unless it's leaving a show, in which case I chuck everything in as fast as possible and head home for a shower and nap.  Nobody's perfect.

I've been working on organizing and increasing the storage capacity of my little dressing room while keeping things easy to reach and off the floor.

I really like the things offered at the Organized Barn but it's out of my price change (and I'm a do it yourselfer)  so for this blog post, I'm going to show you how I did my own organized wall.

I started with these  Grid Storage Cubes.  You can get them pretty much anywhere that offers home improvement items.  I got mine at Target.

I never actually got them to organize stuff, but to house my bunny.  House rabbit people use these grids to construct all sorts of sturdy and amazing cages that far exceed the availability in your local pet store.

Here's my bunny in his cage as well as my cat,  Simon.

Since we are doing cat pictures all of a sudden, here's another view of the cage and my other cat, Zoe.

I pieced together the bunny cage and my grid using regular zipties.

If you don't want to go with the storage cubes a slightly more expensive way are Grid Wall Panels.  It's what you use at a store to hang merchandise.  You can get them by googling and pick them up from any number of stores or right off of Amazon.

While you're at it, pick up some grid wall baskets (the kind with regular hooks and not peg hooks).  You can also use the kitchen organization baskets with the little hooks for hanging on the inside of your kitchen cabinet doors.

I got a couple that I actually zip-tied on because they didn't come with hooks.

Now for the attaching part.  The downsides of a steel trailer are weight and rust.  The upside is that anything magnetic sticks!  I have multiple magnets, they hold up my organizer on the door, a tack hook rack, and even my broom.  I use these 65lb hooks from Master Magnetics.  Careful when attaching these, they are VERY hard to remove and do a great job at holding heavy things.  If you have an aluminum trailer it's a little harder because you need to get your grid welded on.

Here's the finished project.  I don't have the right stuff in the right baskets, but you get the idea.