he was always a bronto

Even when I'm not doing anything directly horse related, the ponies are never far from mind. Apparently. Like this past weekend. Charlie enjoyed a long weekend off while I trekked down to Durham (driving directly through that snowstorm, genius planning Emma) for a long-overdue visit with an old friend.

anthropomorphic friendly face!!

At one point, while strolling through a chilly wooded path out behind a local museum,* we happened to find ourselves face to face with the above looming giant. A life size scaled replica of a brontosaurus.

(Museum of Life and Sciences for anyone ever in that area - it's mostly a kids museum, but we adults had a grand ol' time even with some of the exhibits closed bc of ice. Highly recommend - and if you have another zoo or aquarium membership you may get discounted admission). 

but damn that conformation looks SERIOUSLY familiar lol, right??

And the resemblance was striking. Uncanny, even. Anyone else see what I saw??? lol...

ahhh yes, that's right. my off track brontosaurus, charlie. this pic is from last year, but those angles are spot on lol

Lol poor Charlie.... I've always jokingly referring to him as my beloved dinosaur who occasionally gets mired down in one tar pit or another in our never ending quest for better flat work. Turns out tho, I might not be far from the truth with that visual imagery.

can you imagine coming around a stand of trees on your hike and facing down one of these??

All joking aside tho, I'm hoping the time off was useful as a bit of a "reset" for me. It kinda bugged me to miss our weekly jump lesson - except a snowstorm blew in so it was probably held in the tiny indoor anyway. Not super sorry to miss that, and an extra week of not jumping certainly won't hurt that freshly recovered surgical limb!

really tho, who am i kidding, if i even ran into the baby sized version above i'd probably lose my shit

Plus, as you know, we've been dealing with a serious balancing act of bringing Charlie back into work while addressing the physical creakiness that settled in during his stall rest, and his own disinclination to work through it. He's been.... Grouchy. Cranky. Grumpy.

this is Lightning the farmyard donkey! who, coincidentally, happened to be dressed more warmly than my own equid who was left to fend for himself in the snowier northier maryland during my absence. sorry charlie! :(

That, combined with the lion's share of our rides happening in cold darkness, with only dimly lit or small, crowded spaces to work.... Plus Charlie's apparently amplified gate sourness in the dark.... Eh. It's been the perfect storm of small, nagging inconveniences that I can't help but let sap my motivation away.

he shouldn't be too jealous of Lightning tho, poor guy was lame AF with a duct tape covered hoof. apparently abscesses can strike even the most humble of petting zoo critters!

So. A weekend away to recharge was maybe welcome. I also spent the time thinking a little more deeply about how to tackle this set of circumstances so I feel less blah and more energized.

the alpacas were borderline disdainful of our offerings

Luckily - there are actually a few ideas bumping around in my head. Very realistic, reasonable ideas about small tweaks to my schedules and routines that could actually maybe make a BIG difference in Charlieland. Fingers crossed.

the butterfly garden was spectacular. difficult to photograph tho, except for the, uh, slightly more.... stationary of those creatures who enjoy only brief existences, apparently. never fear tho - the ants were ready and waiting to do their part in this little ecosystem

Nothing settled on that front tho, but hopefully in the next week or so I'll have more details (and can actually trial some of my ideas to see if they work as intended).

ok so i did get more than just dead butterflies tho haha. these pale beauties flitted around like little ghosts

In the meantime tho, it's a return to business as usual. The reality is that Charlie really needs to be kept in regular work right now. Motion is lotion and all that. Plus the consistent routine helps avoid any big fuss when we have to suddenly get back to work after a prolonged rest period.

there were birds in there too! these two had a very pretty song, and i guess don't eat butterflies. maybe they eat ants tho?

So upon returning home from Durham, I was able to get on the schedule with dressage trainer C, who came out to our farm last night. I even got to have the lesson during daylight since I had already taken the day off work for the drive home. Bonus!

Going in tho, I knew it was maybe a bit of a gamble asking Charlie to buck up for a lesson after four days off wherein a major cold front also blew in. And.... the gamble did not pay off. Charlie was reeeeally not having it. I got him up to the arena about 10-15min early to work through what I knew would be some deep, dark tar pits and he was... ugh. He was actually really fucking bad.

look how colorful!

Luckily by the time trainer C got there, he was more or less resigned to his fate. But it was still kinda a fragile feeling lesson, and we really didn't do much beyond working on square turns on a small circle at one end of the ring. Plus a little bit of work on canter departs.

Charlie lodged many protests throughout the evening and I think only had one clean canter depart that didn't involve some variation of stamping his feet like a petulant child, or just letting fly with a hind leg. Ugh. But. Ya know. That's just kinda where we are right now, and kinda what I'm gonna get after letting the horse sit for a couple days in a row.

mine is more 'bronto' than 't-rex' but yup, this about sums it up!

So hopefully some minor adjustments to my schedule will help with that. And help reduce the ennui that comes along with facing an hour drive through rush hour to ride 20m circles on a cranky horse in the dark.

And in the meantime I'm still working on all those other little details that always merit a second look whenever things aren't going great with the horse. At least one big positive was that trainer C thought Charlie looked stronger behind than the last time she saw him. Reassuring, lol. The whole plan of "A Fitter Charlie is a Sounder Charlie" is working.

So. Ya know. One of these days we'll get this brontosaurus back on track haha. Eventually. Needs more jumping, methinks ;)