Trip to the East Coast

Last Monday, we came home from a week long vacation in the east coast. We flew into Boston, drove up to New Hampshire and spent the week there. We drove to Vermont a couple times as well.

The first day, we spent the whole day on the plane. Or, most of it.

The second day, we drove up to New Hampshire. It was about a two hour car drive. When we got there, we got a tour of the barn that was a two minutes walk away from our friends house (where we were staying). That night, we all helped make dumplings for dinner.

The third day, I went with one of our friends to the barn for a day. I wasn't able to ride that day, but I did get to help out, take pictures, and watch the other riders do cross country jumps.

 

On horse back, cross country is a long course of jumps which might include logs, ditches, large obstacles to jump over, and water, which your horse has to wade through.

We swam in the pool later that night, and after dinner played games outside.

On the fourth day, I got to ride. I was the only western rider out of the group of girls in the riding camp, the rest rode english.

Here is a picture showing a western saddle and an english saddle. Sorry the english saddle in the picture doesn't have any stirrups!

Usually, only English riders jump, because their saddles are better designed for jumping. I did a few low western jumps on a horse named Jaws. 

That afternoon, we swam in a pond.

On the fifth day I tried out riding English and did a couple more jumps. The stirrups on an English saddle (where you put your feet) were a lot thinner than on a western saddle, and my feet kept sliding out of them. Also, the English saddle doesn't have a horn, so it was weird at first, not having anything to hold onto while I was mounting.

On the sixth day, we watched one of our friends and several of the horse campers do a horse show. We saw them do cross country and jumping. Afterwards, we went mini golfing and swimming at another pond, with several small water falls.

On the seventh day, we had a lazier day of watching Olympics (go America) and filming a video we have wanted to make for a while. 

On the last day, we did a quick trail ride. I got to ride Jaws one last time. He had been a very good boy all week.

   

He's the tallest horse I've ridden. 17 hands!

On our way to the airport, we stocked up on these delicious maple candies you can only buy in New Hampshire. 

Yum!

Oh Deer

There are a lot of deer living at the horse stables this year. There are at least 3 bucks (maybe 6 depending on if the group of 3 bucks I've seen twice are the same or not). There is a doe with two fawns, I've seen a doe with one fawn (or maybe thats the same deer with only one fawn with her), and one doe without any fawns.

I mostly see the deer on trail rides. Sedona is usually fine with me taking pictures of the deer, unless they jump out at us, then she freaks out.

This was the doe without any fawns. She let us get pretty close to her before running away.

The same doe, posing for the camera.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the mother of two fawns, or the doe with one fawn (as she jumped out and totally spooked Sedona).

Horse Helping (after a long time!)

Between the crazy weekend two weeks ago, and being sick last weekend, I haven't gone to horse for a while. So today was my first day riding in two weeks (which is a lot for me).

I rode Sedona today. She got a huge work out. We round pinned her, and rode her for three lessons. After going on rides, Sedona likes to rub her face against her hay bag, which you can see in the background. Today, since it was a long work out, I guess she had to rub even more.

I found this movie of Sedona running from last winter.

Wings

The newest lesson horse.

Her name is Wings. She's from half-moon bay. She is nice to ride because she is so gentle. I rode her bareback for a while. The people taking care of her didn't give her the grain she needed each day and they didn't exercise her. Now she is not skinny because we have been feeding her the grain she needs. Since she's a lesson horse, the work she does helped her get stronger. She is here because her owner wanted her to get better care here, and because our old lesson horse, Masai died.

We miss you Masai!

Camp!

I went to camp from a couple weeks ago. In this camp, you spent the night, rode horses, did archery, did art, completed challenge courses, tried high rope courses, stand up paddle boarded, and kayaked.

There are no pictures from camp because I didn't bring a camera.

                        

I came to camp with 3 other good friends from school. Luckily, we all got in the same tent, so we were able to sleep and hang out together.

I was in a horse back riding program. The first horse I rode wanted to go fast. He wanted to walk out and be faster than the other horses. That was a problem as we were third in line (there was a line of us walking our horses) and the two horses in  front of us were moving very slowly. On our next horse ride, we went on a trail ride. The horse I was riding wanted to trot and touch the horse in front (the touching the horse in front was according to one of my friends).

When we did the "paddle section of our trip we went to a harbor where we divided our time paddle boarding and kayaking. I think I liked stand up paddle boarding best. In our stand up paddle boarding time, we learned how to turn, paddle, and we played a game in which we switched paddle boards with a partner. In our entire lesson, I fell off twice. When we kayaked, we learned to paddle, turn, stop, and we did a relay race. During our kayaking lesson, we saw a seal barking at some people who were trying to get in their boat.

My First Ride On Sedona!

This is a picture of me and Sedona. I've never gotten a chance to ride her because she is a more advanced rider's horse (she is my riding instructors horse) and she had a shoulder injury so she couldn't be ridden by students for a year and a half! Until now… She is recovered and after my ride with Masai, my horse teacher said I could ride her!

Me and Sedona.

This is a picture from the ride. After I first got on Sedona, my riding instructor put a lead rope on Sedona and let me get the feel of her. Soon after getting on we were riding around the ring. We walked, trotted, and cantered. Her trot and canter was very smooth. You could barely feel the bounces on her trot!

Masai Ride

I rode Masai in the top arena by myself at the stables. This is not a picture of the rise I took today, but this is a picture of me riding Masai in the top arena (a year-ish ago). We walked, trotted, cantered, and on our way back, we took the tree farm loop (a small trail around the upper arena) back to my teacher's horse's stall. The ride was great! It was fun to just ride around on Masai.

Another picture from the ride about a year ago.

First Summer Trail Ride

   
This is a picture of the horse I  rode on my first trail ride of the summer. The cat sitting in his lunch is one of the barn cats. He follows me around the stables because I feed him. The hand sticking into the picture is mine. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I think I was calling Motormouth, the orange cat in the hay. On our trail ride we saw a couple ponds, lots of hills, oak trees, and a few creeks. My favorite pond was big and had lots of cattails growing in it. The trail ride was about an hour long. It was great!