Getting their oats

It's so nasty out there ! Rebecca and I rode late Friday evening and were just eaten alive - Fischer must have had 20 Chinook Heliflies on him at one time - it was horrid. The only good thing about Friday's ride was introducing Rosie and Fish to ginormous whole-town-sized combine harvesters, and their massive dust clouds. 

So today we went back to Baker's Creek, but with ShastaPony instead of Fischer, to reap the rewards of the newly harvested fields. 

(ok so not the immediate field, which was harvested earlier and is now sprouting soy beans, but the far field, the stubbly one, the one that goes on and on and on for mile and leads to a gazillion other stubble fields :D Squeeee !)

So yes, we gallolloped, and gallolloped and gallolloped, until we couldn't gallollop no more. And then we swam, and took pictures, and the ponies just loved pawing the water and churning it all up. And then after a little while we realised why we don't take cameras into the water and had to figure out how to find it again. :| Rosie was a trooper, standing stock still marking the last known sighting of the camera, while I stripped and threw my clothes to Rebecca. Alas, I throw like a girl. And it's not easy to throw stuff while sitting on a silly saddlebred in the middle of the lake. I know, this would have made a great picture, but fortunately for me - no camera, so no pics. 

Except for this one :

Is it true that people start to look like their ponies ? 

So after that, we gallolloped some more and Rosie was so pooped that I could completely let go of the reins and she didn't go anywhere. Then we went back to find ShastaPony's lost Renegade boot and repeated the same no-reins trick. I should probably remember that endurance ponies can find an extra gear from nowhere. I did get her stopped at the end of the field after the field after the field I was supposed to be gallolloping through. 

Ponies enjoying their oats :

In other news : I rode TInyPony in a quite adorable little County Warmblood saddle size #5 !! It is slightly too wide. Phew. That's a wide saddle. Obviously I had to dig out my second best purple half-chaps for this since my main pair are sopping wet still. 

I think I have managed to finish most of the shims and paperwork from the last Nashville trip so those will be on the way to you today.

And I figured out I have an extra week before Mid South Pony club, which is handy since my leather-fixed lady has STILL not put the billets on other KateW's saddle. I am going to have a rethink about this - billets should be done on the spot - not 3 weeks later. Grrrr. 

Elderly Stubbens

Dear Old Stubbens. Built in the 1970s, and going on and on and on ... these things never die. They are really not the best saddles - times have moved on and saddle design has improved over the past 40 years. However, for people first starting out, not sure what direction they are going to end up going, with all the up-front cost of a new horse, you know, there are worse choices. For example, a cheap 'starter set' for $300 complete with stirrups, leathers, saddle-pad, girth, bridle, horse, truck and trailer ... well, you can imagine what part of your $300 is spent on making the saddle - and of that, how much goes to 'quality control'. Not much, I assure you ! I have never seen one of those things that has a straight tree and even panels.

So there's a need for these elderly Stubbens, and you can buy them for $300 - $400. But here's the thing... they're nearly 40 years old and they dearly need a reflock. In order to reflock them, you have to unstitch the pommel, and unstitch the cantle. Having got the thing apart, you pull out the old flocking, and it's basically old sweepings from the floors of carpet factories - short, coloured fibres in all different shades. Then, ideally, you reflock and rebuild. But the kicker, of course, is you never know quite what you're going to find when you take it apart.

Today's shocker was the original Stubben nails. You can see the nailheads on the outside of the saddle, below the Ds at the pommel. They go through the treepoints and are then bent and hammered into place, so that the shank of the nail lies flush with the tree, and therefor harmless.

And not sticking out an inch into your horse's back.