Middle ground

Last weekend’s ride was not without its bobbles, for both my friend and I. Unfortunately her horse, Cody, found a tunnel under the trail and stumbled to his knees and she had to bail. Both are fine, though she did bust a rib, she is otherwise upright (just don’t make her laugh for awhile!) Of […]

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Tarma Eats a 50

The true measure of endurance for me isn’t just completing on time, or having the vet declare my horse fit to continue at the end of a long day. It’s the week after, especially the first few days after you get home. Do they stiffen up? Look off in any way? Dip any weight? Do […]

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Grizzly bound!

After last weekend’s ride, I’m pretty set on a 50 at Grizzly. There’s a lot going into this, so let’s dig in: Our last conditioning ride went swimmingly; the Octos stayed on and both horses were thrilled to move out without feeling the rocks as much or dealing with rubs, we got several up and […]

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Two weeks to Grizzly!

With just over a week to go until we load up the trailer to (hopefully) haul over to Central Oregon for our first endurance ride of the year, the to-do list gets rather busy. I save myself a lot of packing by leaving most things in my trailer year round, but I still have to: […]

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Conditioning Check In

Once again, I’m bouncing back and forth between posting straight to Facebook and here on the space I actually pay for. Folks don’t always follow a link to a blog, but they usually take a few moments to read a full FB post. I value the blog as a much better way to search and […]

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Missed connection

The reason I always ask “what am I doing that isn’t right” when Tarma’s not responding the way I’ve come to expect it’s cause it’s pretty much always a me problem. Yesterday was a good example. Tarma actually came up to me in the pasture instead of waiting for me to hike out to her, […]

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Why endurance?

Why Endurance? Now that I have publicly stated my intention to attempt a 50 mile ride with Tarma this season, a first for both of us, it’s a good time to question why. Why isn’t exploring trails and moseying enough? What drives me to try to prove ourselves in such a sport? Last year I […]

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Circles

There are days when I’m on top of everything, I have a good handle on the life stuff. Work out, eat mostly ok, get the kid out the door and the dog happy, do my work, take care of my horse, listen to my son’s day, share some funny TikToks with my husband. Then there’s […]

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Winter’s Work

When the Dark Months hit and the desire to ride is hit by the short dark days and icky weather, and adventure season is over, I pause and take stock. I bounce back and forth between giving Tarma a month or so off to breathe and recover and be a horse, and doing just enough […]

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Trust

I had plans for this week, oh so many plans. But the Universe said, “Ha ha, take a break!” Tarma’s coming off her first endurance ride, so I gave her last week off. We did some ground work and I lunged her a few times, but I didn’t ride until Monday. On Sunday I drove […]

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