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From HorseGirlTV, the farm and all our furry friends!

My mom will occasionally send me a card for no special reason but seeing the front of this one immediately made it special! When I was a little girl, I’d gallop my Shetland pony around as fast as possible and bareback if allowed pretending I was some wild cowgirl. I dreamed of growing up and becoming a rodeo queen or famous western horse trainer.

So long story short, I guess this card summed up my childhood aspirations pretty well. The quote by Emerson “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” makes me tear up every time I hear/read it as that is what I’ve tried to do in life and especially with HorseGirlTV. I think back to starting this new media production company years ago back before there was ANY video podcasting in the horse world and I think now how there’s tons knock off HorseGirlTV’s out there and many other like sites and it’s gratifying to know to some of those I might have blazed a trail!

Enough reminiscing and on to the card. What a great picture and the girl is wearing HorseGirlTV teal too!

I’ve been trying hard to stop working most evenings by 7 and sit on the back porch to watch the horses and dogs meander while the sun goes down. Life can’t be all busy, busy production and new media work! While that’s fun it’s nice to re-boot the brain and body on the occasion.

It was a perfect afternoon as Ex was able to come home early enough to enjoy it with me. We propped up our feet in the backyard, watching the dogs run around and just sat! How nice. So please do note my toes are HorseGirlTV® teal! Yup, I do get a wild hare every once in a while and paint HorseGirlTV® colors. 😉 First time in 4 years to see me outside of breeches or jeans so for those that will ask, on the ankle is a horse of course!



Here’s another reason for the sitting outside is time to bond with the new kitty. We did adopt the full grown “Lil Dude” and he’s still hanging around but as a grown neutered cat he’s a bit independent so we also now have a kitty that will hopefully bring the Dude around a bit more as he knows her and he likes other cats. She’ll get to move out to the barn as soon as she’s spayed and adjust to the family (including Zita and Picollo). She’s not too keen on Carrara even though Carrara thoroughly enjoyed licking her back the other morning!

Okey so for equine athletes we really do need shoes and we need to take the best care of our horses feet as possible but I realized last year that when my horse threw a shoe all was not lost, training didn’t need to be sacrificed. There’s tons of boots and wraps out there and I like these Hoofwraps. I emailed with the guy who invented them and they seem like really neat people. The wrap is easy to put on, wash and re-use.

I just opened up a new wrap after I’ve been using my other one for over a year now. This is what it looks like coming out of the package.



Here’s a close up of Miss C (otherwise known as the fabulous Carrara) AFTER we trained!



Here’s one of us looking super pooped after training but HEY at least we didn’t have to stop training just because she threw a shoe. It rarely happens here but when it does happen it’s really nice to know we don’t have to stop and wait for the farrier to get out! Yeah!



Oh yes… Their website is http://hoofwraps.com/ and I talked with Bryan! You can also buy them online with my favorite online tack shop, Equestrian Collections at http://www.equestriancollections.com/

We had some GREAT rain this week and the arena has been perfect. While warming up walking around I thought to snap a shot of the Carrara view of the arena. How pretty all that golden moist sand and German Geo Textile footing blend!

I just thought it was cute that in the process of my education on arena development I’ve likewise gained a definite comfort level using a saw, drill and some elementary carpentry skills! I see hosting a farm improvement show in my future. Haha! 😉

The winner of the gorgeous Anky XL Remy Carriet Edition with XCH System Dressage Saddle is Bridget McLaughlin of Marietta, GA. Congratulations Bridget and thanks to the many folks that entered. This is a GREAT saddle and please visit Equestrian Collections to find out more about it and all the other amazing products they sell.

Stayed tuned to HorseGirlTV, Equestrian Collections and AnkyUSA.com for some fun Anky Technical Casuals giveaways from the sports apparel line. Many thanks to English Riding Supply for their support of this giveaway!

Again, congrats Bridget! We hope you’ll have many wonderful years riding in your dressage saddle and don’t forget to check out Equestion Collections great selection of fittings, stirrups and dressage pads to go with your fabulous NEW saddle!!!

Life has SPED by these past few weeks and I wanted to send a huge thank you out to GGT-footing and Attwood Equestrian Surfaces. I smile EVERY SINGLE TIME I walk out to my amazing new dressage court and my horses joints and muscles thank you! The effectiveness and consistency in our training has advanced leaps and bounds and my students love it too!

It’s on mornings like this I am especially happy to have such a fabulously engineered and great GGT blend as I now welcome, not shudder, at the rain!

Zita says thank you too!

So we had massive rains (think buckets of water dumping from the sky). It was so loud pounding on the roof that I woke up and my first thought is how I wished I could look out and watch how the base was battling the rain. The next morning first thing I looked and the base won and MY, MY how did it win. There were puddles of water all around but the base, smooth and perfect without blemishes was just there no puddles, nada! I walked out there and as silly as it seemed I thought how fun it would be to lay down, look at the still rainy sky above and make snow angels in this perfection. I immediately snapped back to reality thinking, those guys would kill me if I ruined their perfect work. Hehe.



The other half will be getting leveled and we’ll have part of the sand delivered to get ready for blending with the GGT footing. I simply can’t wait to see this. It’s going to look amazing!

So I will be installing more kickboard all the way around to make up for the bad local folks work and one final complaint/note to myself is to make sure and hire real pros (like Attwood Equestrian Surfaces) for the entire project so you’re not spending extras for more materials in base and kickboard or anything else. You guys at AES are simply the best!

Anil and Jason, with Attwood Equestrian Surfaces, showed up to do the finish grading only to find out they also had to fix the awful rough grade. What I learned from all this is I should have asked Attwood about doing the entire job from start to finish. They immediately set the laser level and went to work showing me all the errors in the rough grade. Don’t worry is what they said. This is what they do and they can fix it and produce a wonderful arena.

Essentially these guys did our rough grade walking every foot feet to set the grid of the sub-base and how to properly set the base on top of it. It WAS/IS a science and I so respect their work. They were super professional, fun to chat with and just all around nice people!

Anil is a maestro with the Bobcat! Wow, he dusted base with the bucket like a find chef sprinkles on seasoning! What fun to watch!



Did I mention they were hard workers? They started a little after 8 in the morning, worked solid (NO lunch break) until almost 8 in the evening!



Here’s the roller in the sunset.



As if walking a grid with the laser level wasn’t perfect enough, they laser grade the surface!



The ultimate professionals! I’ve never worked with people so passionate and good at what they do when it comes to arena development and working with heavy equipment!