America's Long Distance Challenge

  This new (at least too me) book is now available online at Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.  It is my next new read ☺  I'm sidelined...by my heart continues to think distance!  A review will follow....but I have a wedding to get through and an upcoming three day CMO, and two graduations in the next two weeks.  So it may be a few!  I'm always excited though to add a worthy book to my equine collection.  The book is also available from the author's (Karen Bumgarner's) blog in hardback for $26.50 for those who prefer a "real" book.

International Endurance Concerns

I do love the distance sports.  Even though I'm out of the loop, I still enjoy reading endurance, and contemplating the conditioning and stamina of the top horses in the sport.   But international is being tainted by doping scandals.  It's too bad that "winning" over-rules the welfare of the horse on this other endurance platform.

...the  “negative evolution” of endurance in the Middle East is now so unacceptable that concerned endurance riders and officials elsewhere in the world believe a breakaway movement should be considered."  ~ Horse and Hound.

A breakaway movement indeed. 

Slow Improvement

On Tuesday evening Phebes was able to pick up a horse cookie from the ground with her lips.  A week ago this was virtually impossible for her.  A casual observer would likely not notice anything amiss at this point, though I still see a very slight droop to that side of the lower lip.  When it first occurred it was very pronounced and obvious.  I'm giving a guarded opinion that she is on the mend.  The perplexing thing is we still have no idea what happened to her.

We are revamping Phebes diet.  She is over-weight and there is the muscular issue.  I'm withdrawing all concentrated feed (even though it was low NSC per the label) in favor of grass, hay, and beet pulp mash.  I'd like to drop a hundred pounds off of her.  The other two horses are going to eat the same diet, but if Journey is working she may need more calories to maintain a healthy weight and energy level.

For now, just grateful that Phebes seems to be on the mend. 

Fingers crossed...

Jacke

The Update on Phebes

The update is actually a non-update.  No change.  In the early mornings the paralysis looks barely detectable, but by evening her lower lip is sagging.  The good news is the problem thus far hasn't progressed into anything worse and if it were EPM it certainly should have by now.   But we are still left with "what happened" here, and "will it improve", or will she struggle to eat hay the rest of her life?  None of these address the other thing, a tie-up standing still, not in work, just due to an emotional melt-down.  A lot of tough questions remain unanswered.  The interesting thing with Phebes' tie-ups is that all were in April/May, recently on grass, and emotionally torqued up.  For the first time I'm able to release myself from not being the cause of this on going issue. But knowing it isn't me is certainly bittersweet. 

Phebes

We could use some horse prayers.  Last night Phebes came up with her lower lip hanging, some kind of paralysis.  We don't know at this point if she has contracted something such as EPM, or if she has had a trauma to her face that has caused a nerve injury, her blood work came back normal except for her muscle enzymes, which are off the charts so high, but no physical symptoms of a tie-up.  Phebes has been out of work for two years.  I thought I'd let her "just be a horse" and have time to recover.   She also has swellings in front of both udders, hard tight swellings.  Her coordination is good, but she can't pick up hay as she has no control of her lower lip.  The vet is trying some things, thinking the lip looks somewhat swollen, and the chin hot and slightly swollen.  She's never seen the off the chart blood values (concerning the muscle enzymes) on a horse before.  We are currently doing a banamine / bute rotation, a course of anti-biotics as a precautionary measure, and I have to watch for any further decline concerning the paralysis of her lower lip.  If things get worse we have to consider EPM, and then I will have to make the hard decision of do I undertake the expensive treatment for EPM for a horse with apparently a  chronic muscle disorder, a mild uveitis, with an uncertain outcome should it be EPM.  My beautiful mare.  What a difficult life she has had.  I love her so much.  But love doesn't fix too many things.  I'll keep you all posted.

Cafe Press Product Review

Cafe Press asked for me to select a product of my choice and try them out and follow up with a review.  My selections were an ARMY style cap with the Endurance Granny logo, and a necklace with the logo.

The hat is a soft drab olive which does not show well in the digital photo.  It is one size fits all with a velcro tab adjustment in the back.  The fit was good, it is soft to the touch and of good quality workmanship.   I REALLY LIKE IT. The positioning of the logo was probably a "me" error as I did the design without help (on purpose) to see how user friendly the Cafe Press really is.  You can see that the necklace lost the edge of the moon...again, my positioning was slightly off.  I was happy with the experience over-all, though I would be much more critical of placement of an image in the future. I would have liked the horse down a little on the hat, and over a little on the necklace.  Some items are easier to place images on than others.  Adding text is very simple.  If you are feeling creative give Cafe Press a whirl!    

Today's Distance Rider's T-Shirt

Find it here.

Ride the Challenge

The sun...

         ...the moon

...one rider

    one horse...

Your t-shirt starts here !

Endurance Ride Calendar 2013

Click here for calendar.

We are planning some rides finally

...so I've started both of the girls on some work.  The sun is shining and I'm seeing little bits of green grass poking up.  The daffodils are in bloom, and the trees are budding.  I'm in my happy place :)

Phebes started last week on a process to put her back under saddle.  Another year has slipped by and was she ever full of herself in the round pen this morning.  She looked like a wild bronc coming out of the gate.  Whew!  Glad I was working from the ground.  We made progress though.   Journey I did round pen with last week, and had our first spring ride, followed up today with another.  Journey is a great solo horse, but in a group she stinks.  We need a lot of miles doing more of that to work the kinks out I guess.  Journey traveled bare today, and it was fine including dirt track, rocky creek crossings, and paved road.  This might be our year to make the total transition since our ride distnace goals will roll back to a very comfortable 15 miles, and I can choose the pace I want without fighting a clock anymore.  It feels in many ways such a relief to not be under the gun of meeting a mileage / time quota anymore.  I do miss doing the LD rides  though.  But I won't try again unless we move to another region.  Which is very unlikely. 

But I do have some CMO's planned and I'm happy about that.  I have a three day coming up in May, assisting with a demo ride for Red Hats & Purple Chaps in June, and with marking a ride out of state if all goes well with getting off work for a long weekend in September, then a two day ride in October.  We'll sit out the hot/humid rides in favor of evening pleasure rides, or doin' nothing ☺  I am empowered ☺  We can ride a nice pace...stop and have a picnic...dawdle in the deep water of a flowing creek, or ride hell-bent to leather.   Or not.   ♥  Life is good. 

To my endurance friends across the country, good luck on your upcoming season.  I miss you all.

Jacke

CAFE PRESS

 I thought I'd take a minute today to introduce some of you to Cafe Press .   I'm thinking about taking my t-shirt line through them.  They have graciously offered me a product review for the future so I can see how their site works, the quality of an item I might enjoy from there, and share that information with you.  From their site you can have a multitude of custom products made.   I like to use this type of site to have an item made to commemorate a special event, or ride goal I've attained.  They have custom thermos bottles for your saddle, Acoffee mug for cold mornings at ride camp, drinkware, t-shirts to rock your endurance world,  funny shirts  to express your sense of humor...custom canvas, tote bags, caps, clothing, flip-flops the list goes on and on!    Definitely a fun site to check out for custom made items, and gifts for family and friends.  My product review will be coming in a few weeks.  I'll keep you posted!

 If you would like to try them for your own custom order they are offering  FREE Shipping on orders over $50! Use code: CPSHIP3    CAFE PRESS

This shirt is not my design but can be found here.

Gotta love those "out west" distance riders ♥

They know how to have FUN.  The culture is so different, and wonderful.  Wish I were THERE.

A NEW ENDURANCE BOOK!

America's Long Distance Challenge

It comes in hardcover
softcover...

and e-reader ☺

Enjoy!

Endurance 101 and Beyond and Beyond

 Preparation

Conditioning the Endurance Horse (on facebook)

Conditioning

Collective Wisdom for Endurance Riding

Conditioning the Endurance Horse

Interval Training for Endurance 

Endurance 101 and Beyond

10 Tips for Training for Equesterian Endurance

*Don't drink the Kool-Aid       Endurance Riding is not for all horses

Four Month Endurance Training Schedule


Feeding the Endurance Horse

Help for New Riders

Cold Water Cooling the Endurance Horse

Heat Stress and the Endurance Horse

Clipping the Neck for Cooling

Selecting an Endurance Prospect

Considerations for Selecting an Endurance Horse

Look! It's not an Arab

Books & E Books

4th Gear Power Up Your Endurance Horse   an e-book taking performance up a notch (not a beginner's how to)

Go the Distance a book available at Amazon.com

Endurance Riding and Competition 

Endurance Riding Tips for Beginners

Endurance Riding First Steps to a Hundred Miles

 A Rider's Fitness Program

Enjoy!

Announcement

Life sometimes throws us some twists and some turns. I reached for something that glittered and seemed golden, and important to my identity, the defining something that says "this is who I am."  Only to discover, that it is who I am not.  Endurance Granny has run its course.  I may stop by now and then.  But since the chase for the elusive 50 mile ride has come to an end, I'm moving on to other things.  That is not to say that someday the right horse, or the right set of circumstances, the geographical move may make things fall into place, to try again.  Phebes definitely is not endurance material, and I don't see Journey's heart in long distance mentally.  So we are seeking a different job and seeking fun and enjoyment instead of frustration.

If you are new to this blog, I'll leave it here as long as blogspot supplies us a place.  It chronicles about five or six years of my life.  You will find a lot of good source links on this site, and can search by keyword for a lot of good information.  If you have the drive for riding distance, DO IT.  Embrace it, love it, God bless!

As for me?   You will find us here:

North East South West Indiana CMO

Let's go!

My friends here, if I can ever be helpful, serve as a crew member on a 100 mile, or 50 mile ride...or ride catch, because you have a hitch in your giddy-up contact me at jackereynolds@yahoo.com

Off to my CMO adventures.

INTROSPECTION: Proof of Heaven

My mind has been rather "out there" lately, or should I say "in there."  My reading has centered upon ideas of consciousness, life, death, planes of existence, what matters, what does not.

 

I've come to the conclusion that what matters is-well...MOST OF IT.   Currently I am reading Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, M.D.  He is a neurosurgeon who contracted bacterial meningitis spontaneously (which is darned near impossible), went into coma for a week, cerebral cortex activity ceased, chance of recovery was down to nil, doctors had given up hope, only he miraculously survives.  But that isn't the interesting part.  What is so fascinating is what he experienced while in his near death state.  It's been a great read, and if you believe as I do that our human experience is not all there is you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

It is fascinating to think about who we are.  Who we REALLY are.  Are we this body, this person?  Or are we a soul, a passenger in a body?  Are we only here to experience? Are we here to learn?  Are there planes of existence? Or are we just here?   Questions upon questions.

Another interesting topic that I've been reading about is lucid dreaming.  I've been experimenting with lucid dreaming and had one exciting experience in which the goal was to recognize my hands in a dream, then to be aware that I was dreaming.  I was able to do that the first attempt and unable to repeat it since.  Last night's experiment was to control the content of my dream.  Telling myself that I would dream a dream of my father (deceased).  I was able to do that.      The mind is fascinating.      No I'm not smoking anything ☺  Sometimes if you seek an intelligent conversation you just end up having it with yourself. 

We are still on the fence

Or should I say the horse is still "in" the fence.  I find myself still on hiatus even though I'm supposed to be logging some miles.  What can I say?

Aside from that planning still continues for a CMO in the Fall of 2013 and details related to that will be posted on the sister blog North East South & West Indiana CMO.  We are making progress.

I expect the next time I throw a leg over Journey to have a great rebellion.  Let's not even think about Phebes, though she did surprise me last time.

My lovely half chaps are lined with leopard spots.  They totally velcro, and look forward to trying out their wash-ability.  I've been creating cloth covered wooden beads and put together a couple eye popping necklaces, and have one more waiting to be strung.   

I draw cartoons in my spare time (all those little appy pictures I post up here and there), and have been working extra hours since the holidays to cover vacations at work. 

Now, off I go to network some more CMO.

~E.G.

Hmmm...

All's Quiet & Cold in The Kingdom of Mare

It has been a frozen and slippery world since our post Christmas snow storm and the follow-up New Year's snowfall.  My primary motivation this winter has been stay in, stay warm, don't break a leg.  So I've taken up some quieter (warmer) pursuits instead.  I now have two extra pair of half chaps that I sewed up over Christmas.  Royal blue and black ones with leopard trim.  finished that project up yesterday.  I've been doing some beading.  Learned ladder stitch yesterday using 6/0 seed beads (big beads, big holes for my eyes to see).  I have a new project in mind later today if YOUTUBE doesn't fail me to learn how to bead around a larger bead.

LSEGH is enroute with 50 bales of hay...so staying warm is not completely embraced in this equation ,bearing in mind I just stripped three stalls and a pile of frozen doo-doo.

~E.G.

The Magical Mystical Beautiful

I challenge you to watch this without getting a stirring of your soul.  It is as if they are dancing.

Phebes started out the morning with a spiritual uplifting of her own...I let her out of her stall and she stops, I turn the flashlight to see what she is doing.  She is taking her lips and petting the cat.  The cat is purring with back arched, and Phebes' lips are going up and down her back.  Two years ago she would have mashed the cat.  It is a wonderful world.

Wishing

Wishing you all a Happy New Year full of hope, horses, and blessings.  ~ E.G.

Blizzard Warning

Snow's piling up! Can't find Phebes!!!

Waiting for Christmas

The Christmas Stocking

Journey the moment she realizes she has no fireplace mantle  to hang her stocking.

The Civil Wars

I love this duo, especially when they perform this folksy back porch style of music.  The pair have an intimacy that you feel almost  as if you should step out of the room. 

A Journey Christmas

"Admit it, I'm cute.  Under the tree, by the snowman, over the wreath.  ~The Christmas Spotted Wonder."

So you try it....

"So you try it without thumbs!"

Mine

The big one is mine!

Four Legged

I know these things to be true.  Even though we have been hovering at about 56 degrees for daytime temperatures, my skeletal barometer is screaming get ready for winter... IT'S COMING.  So the horses were tucked up snugly into their stalls with a belly warming mash, racks stuffed to overflowing with grass hay, buckets topped off with warm water.  That is  the best part of my day.  My horses bring my pulse rate back to normal, make me smile, make me wish that I could be a "stay at home" kind of gal.  I've just never been enamored much with the world, preferring my closest friends have four legs, and short fur coats (LSEGH notwithstanding).  Never one for much conversation, my mind wanders into philosophical territory when I ponder my four legged friends.  I'm lucky.  So lucky.  I'm like the pied piper tooting a flute as I walk about the place.  Furry cats that adore me (did I mention I'm not fond of felines), that demand I pick them up, or rub furry bellies, an ancient decrepit dog that looks at me as if I were a god (humbling), and horses that run with hooves flying when I call (at least around supper time).  This little menagerie is my kingdom.  It is where I belong.  Where I fit.  Who I adore. Where I want to be.

Just because it is so pretty :)

And pray tell...

"What are YOU looking at?"

Santa will have to decide who's....

A Christmas Journey

"I wonder if this one is for me?"

Ho Ho Ho

What did you call me?