Home, home on the hill (catch-up, part 1)

Since my last post I've been taking photos as usual – of what we do around and riding out from home, and of the two excursions away. All told the photos add up to a lot, so I've decided to create three posts from them. You can tell from the title what the subject is for this post. 😉

I think this was after Stella got rinsed off; SO shiny!

Continuing to enjoy someone's mowing efforts

I was pretty sure bow season had started, and prepared accordingly.

Poison oak along the lane; pretty  but....

Fall is litter-al. The Bigleaf maples on the south side of the arena start dropping their leaves, which must be blown off so the organic matter doesn't eventually clog the drain tiles. We used to have to rake, until Rick bought a big, powerful, gas-powered backpack blower. I think I wo-manned the blower six times to keep the leaves from getting too thick and so I could occasionally turn the horses out to burn off steam and school Stella before 'fall' was done.

The final clean-up was this week; such a relief when the trees are finally bare!

With no pasture access, much-reduced turn-out, and fewer riding opportunities, Stella becomes more challenging again. You can see from the foam on her face how much she flips her head. She is still better in this bit; I no longer ride with a running martingale to keep from head-banging with her. 

Riding up and down our gravel lane is sometimes our only outlet.

Our shadow on the winery wall concerned her at first.

I do enjoy the views!

Compared to Stella, Lance is lazy and food-focused, not tense and combustible. But that's not to say that the lack of turn-out doesn't affect him. He eats until every stalk of hay is consumed, and then goes to work on his surroundings – trying to unlatch his door, dumping the stock tank, pulling off the tongue-and-groove boards from the inner wall of his stall, etc. I went down to the barn the other night to find he'd dismantled them ALL. Only the chainlink divider I'd put in the middle stall for sheep kept him contained and our hay supply safe.

Last night he pulled the top board off (even though Rick had NAILED it into place after the 'pick-up-and-drop-sticks' episode), then went to work on the stall door. I could hear banging from the house; by the time I arrived he had done a lot of damage and almost released himself. I put him in the arena and was prepared to leave him out there all night in the rain and wind, but when Rick got home late from a meeting he graciously went down with me to fix the door, replace a board, and run a hot wire along the top of the stall wall. But not before I had texted with the lady who gave Russell a retirement home and offered her another horse. She's considering it. Lance would have daily pasture turn-out there and would probably enjoy an occasional easy trail ride. It would leave Stella an only horse here, but since she doesn't ever act herd-bound, I think she'd handle it better than most. I could be assured that we have hay enough until next season's harvest, and the empty stall might prove useful in a variety of ways. Another horse? Taking in a training project for someone else? A hospital stall for a client's horse? (Rick's clinic lease ends on February 28, so he might be practicing from home soon.) Stay tuned.

How do you solve a problem like Maria Stella?

The last time I posted anything about Stella was in March 2023. I know, I've been a very lax dressage blogger. That's because there hasn't been much to blog about. In short, despite countless hours spent caring for and riding Stella, many lessons with Suzan, and the three shows in which we've competed since my last post, it doesn't feel like we've made any progress. In fact, I think things have gotten worse. Oh, her training is farther along, but her tenseness has only increased, no matter what I've tried. Years ago when my first Morgan was young, a good friend told me that eight was the magic age for mental maturity in Morgans. Stella is now eight, and hotter than she's ever been. (That same friend now thinks I should try endurance riding with her, but that would take more time and hauling than I could fit into my life and I'm not convinced it would change anything.) Relaxation is foundational in dressage but is foreign to Stella, so there is no point in trying to show her anymore, or even take lessons. And while I persevere in working with her, I don't think either of us is having much fun.

Earlier this year I felt so hopeless that I called Suzan to get her advice. I'm not sure what I expected, but she surprised me by saying that Stella is the hottest horse she's ever worked with. She thinks that I'm doing an amazing job with her, and that anyone else would probably totally blow Stella's mind and ruin her. Said that breeding her might settle her mentally, but I don't have any interest in doing that. That suggestion did make me wonder out loud about putting Stella on Regu-Mate, and Suzan thought it was worth a try. Unfortunately, like the two 'calming supplements' I've tried, Regu-Mate didn't affect any change in Stella, so after a couple months I stopped using it.

I don't know how to solve a problem like Stella. Maybe a horse better suited to dressage will fall into my lap someday; maybe a guaranteed breeding-only home will open up for Stella. In the meantime I'll keep riding because that's who I am and it keeps my riding muscles in shape.

Looking through a year's worth of photos, below, gives me pleasure because she's just so beautiful, and makes me want to cry from frustration. Unless and until that changes, there will be no new posts here, because we are not dancing.