Cold. It's Cold.

Horses: Yesterday afternoon Equestrian Girl and I drove up to MSU to watch a little of the Cowboy Christmas Horseshow and do a little browsing at the tack booths set up. We knew for sure one of the ladies from the barn was taking her horse up to show tomorrow in the regular classes (actually her trainer is going to be doing the showing) and we figured we were bound to know a few other people as well.

When we got out to the arena to sit down, they had just finished up the 13 and under versatility challenge for English/Western (they'd come back later to run barrels) and were excited to see a couple of girls from our old barn getting ready to go in for the 14-19 class age group. In that class was our old trainer and a horse we knew from Paint shows but we didn't know the rider. (Later we found out it was her friend riding).

The fun really started when they got ready to do the barrel racing. Most of these horses were NOT speed horses at all. In the 13 and under group one of Equestrian Girl's friends from the SPUR shows was there and did a nice slow lope/trot around the barrels - she had fun seeing her and went down to talk to her later. Our old trainer was riding a horse that wasn't at all happy about running barrels. The Paint we know turned into quite a show as his rider tried convincing him it was okay to go faster than a trot!

We had wanted to stay for the freestyle reining class but it was already 8:30 and we have an hour drive home from MSU with a big day planned for today. Another horse filled day! But it's also going to be a bundle up day. Last night driving home it was 24 degrees with a bright clear sky. This morning its.....13 degrees. It will be fun to see how our new trainer from FLORIDA handles this cold day!

Homeschooling: I recently wrote about how I feel we should embrace technology. The very next day I read about a study that shows that kids who use technology such as texting, email, blogging, and even facebook actually have better writing skills than those who don't. I'm always a little leery of such studies wondering who paid for them but in this case the study was done in England where full disclosure and restrictions are a bit stronger. It was done by a British university...

Birds & the Bees...when you homeschool you have total control over this topic to present it and teach it and explain it how you feel best. A while back we started family reading time where we went bit by bit through a birds & the bees book. I had carefully researched various books and had found two that I felt would work best for our family. After each section we talked a little bit about it and made sure both kids had understanding. And then we dropped it as a 'topic' of homeschooling. That's not to say we stopped discussing it in total - we often had either private or family discussions as things came up. A few days ago I came across the book and pulled it out thinking it might be a good time for a quick refresher. I also suspected one of the kids would see the book and take it for their own personal reading. Sure enough, last night Motocross Boy came downstairs to get some index cards and saw the book asking if he could take it upstairs to read...

Rain, rain go away...

Horses: It rained here yesterday afternoon and part of the night. It was a deep drenching rain so no doubt we'll have plenty of mud again. I just love when the ground gets nice and soft so the horses can churn it all up good and then it freezes into something totally impossible to walk on. It's like what I imagine the surface of the moon to be like...

We didn't go to the barn to ride Stanley last night. That was mostly me - I had no desire to go out in that dark rain. But we have been going at least 5 out of 7 days and I've been riding myself every time we go too. I don't usually ride at all during show season, or at least I don't ride Stanley. I felt very strongly that being a new horse to us last winter it was important that Equestrian Girl and him develop a strong bond and he didn't get confusing signals on a regular basis from two very different riders. I believe it worked. He is very connected to her now. We've been tossing around the idea of me riding in a class or two at the open shows next year but we'll see. I will take a few lessons this winter and see how it goes and if I can find some cheap show clothes, maybe.

Motocross: Last winter there were THREE indoor race tracks for motocross in Michigan. This year there are NONE. One was rather far away but the boys went out there early in the winter season to check it out. Their first comment was that the ventilation was terrible. It was built in one of those golf dome type places and the air exchange just wasn't enough. A few weeks later they were shut down for just that reason. Every time they thought they had it "fixed" they would get shut down again. Another place that the boys had gone to a LOT the winter before had trouble with his lease on the building. No go this year. The third track was our favorite. They had a nice pit area that was semi-heated, fan stands that were toasty warm, and a pretty nice track that was well maintained. They held a race series that Motocross Boy loved and a great banquet at the end of the year. A few weeks later the place was locked up and closed down in foreclosure.

All this means that if Motocross Boy is to do any racing this winter it will have to be outdoors if the weather is okay or they'll have to travel. Apparently there's a couple places in Ohio and Indiana but none are real close...several hours away.

Homeschooling: I read an interesting article this morning about how schools have been fighting the use of cell phones in class and how they are so often used for cheating. Students will save information on their phones and then use it during a test. Or they will text questions and answers to other students. Motocross Boy is an expert at figuring out ways to cheat on some of his on-line material (which is why I now have to print so much!) but he's never used his cell phone and I don't think he knows anyone to text to get an answer during the day! Equestrian Girl has never used hers to cheat (that I know of anyway) but she has used it to take a photo of her on-line test results to send me. We use one on-line program for science that we all really love but there's no way for them to email or save their test results for me to see if I'm not there. Since this program is quite independent, I'm don't make it a habit of being around when either of them use it. Thus the reason for taking a photo I guess!

There's a lot of controversy in the homeschool world about how much technology to embrace in schooling. We are more on the side of "more is better". Our society is advancing so quickly in this field that it's difficult to keep up. Both of my kids can do things with computers that I still have a hard time comprehending. Equestrian Girl can whip stuff out of Gimp or Photoshop before I can figure out which icon to click on. Motocross Boy can track down a piece of information he needs in seconds. When I told him he needed to read for "exactly" fifteen minutes, he quickly downloaded a little program that was a digital timer. The other day Motocross Boy came in asking me how to spell Adolf as he typed it into Google. Huh? He had caught the tail end of a program on the history channel that mentioned Adolf Hitler and wanted to learn more about him. Instant access to a world of information....

In my opinion our society is changing and our kids need to keep up. We do too. I remember at work when we first got our laptops and were told that we would learn to use them and work with our contact database program or find another job. We had people leave because they were afraid of that black hunk of plastic and electronics. I jumped on the opportunity (I was also much younger then) and it paid off handsomely. I was considered one of the go-to people and am still considered one of the more techno-literate people. We don't have many around that can handle both PC based and Mac based programs...but I can and it helps. Our kids are going to have that leg up if we continue to expose them to technology in age appropriate safe ways.

Goals

Horses: Equestrian Girl made up a list of goals for riding that she wants to achieve next year. I thought this was a great idea and was pretty impressed. I don't recall having much in the way of goals when I was 11. Heck, I still don't! But one of them is learning "goat tying".

Since neither of us knew the first thing about goat tying we did what every modern family does - watched some videos on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP_-iqfHMbg
It appears the goat is tied to a stake at one end of the arena by a "leash". You start on your horse at the other end and when you get the "go", you ride like heck towards the goat, jump off your horse, run over to the goat, and tie up three legs.

So a couple of days ago we set our "stage". She decided Stanley should be bareback so it would be easier to learn to do a fast dismount. We set up a couple of cones as her "line" where she needs to jump off. Then we set up 4 cones all next to each other to be the goat and she'd have to stack the cones in lieu of tying it's legs. We decide she need to start at a trot until she masters the dismount.

Cones are set up and she trots towards her "dismount line". She leans forward as she approaches the line, starts to swing her legs and Stanley stops dead. Before the line. Try again. Same thing. Stanley has always been taught when you are losing your rider, you STOP! In this game, the horse should still be moving pretty fast across the line so the rider can hit the ground running and other people worry about stopping your horse. Not Stanley. His rider comes off and he stops dead - nobody needs to catch that horse! Over and over we try this with Equestrian Girl trying to get him to run over the line and even when we took away the cones and just drew a line in the dirt, he still wouldn't run across it if she started to come off but she did learn to get him really close before jumping so at least it was a fair trade.

Today we tried it with a saddle. First, Equestrian Girl ditched the spurs just in case. We didn't want any accidental stabbings. Since this was the first time with the saddle, she has Stanley stand still. He was still standing still when she tossed herself off and found herself dangling from her coat caught on the saddle horn!! We are so lucky to have such an unflappable horse. He just stood there chewing while I ran over to lift her free.

Motocross: One of the biggest races in the country is in Florida this weekend. We are proud to know several of the boys who are in the placings as of today!! Having such world-class riders here just ups the standard for all the riders in Michigan which explains why we have so many that qualify for these national races.

Homeschooling: I spent a good chunk of Friday getting the school assignments scheduled for the next several weeks - or at least until the Christmas break. I'm always amazed at how long that takes to do even though such a good chunk of it is cut and paste...but we are ready!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been a lot more about eating turkey in our family than about giving thanks. Sure, we've tried to start traditions where everyone has to state at least one thing they are thankful for as we sit down at the table but it's never really "stuck". As family has moved south over the years, our table has gotten smaller and smaller. There were years where we had to add a card table or two and this year...it's just the 4 of us. Since our favorite parts of the meal are the turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes, that's all I'm making. Maybe rolls. It's just such a non-event for us any more...

Horses: We'll take Stanley a fresh apple today.

Motocross: Hmm. Pretty hard to thank the bikes.

Homeschooling: The kids will watch "After the Mayflower" on the History Channel. They were supposed to watch it yesterday but neither of them did - thus having to do it on Thanksgiving. I'm really not that evil!

Ribbons

Horses: As planned, we attended our last horse show of the season yesterday and as hoped, it was a great success. Equestrian Girl would have had a clean sweep in her age group for Showmanship and her 4 riding classes but...a metal table sucked the magnets off the number on her shirt and none of us noticed until it was too late. The judge couldn't place her in her Western Pleasure class because she wasn't wearing a number. And the 4th place ribbon was in Open Bareback equitation so she was competing against adults - but the real problem was she was losing her boots and had to reach down to pull them back on a few times!

Motocross: The boys got a nice surprise on Saturday when a friend invited them out to their home track and found it to be awesome!! They were really impressed and had a great afternoon of practice. They were on their best behavior and hope to be invited back soon.

Homeschooling: I have a sneaky suspicion this is going to be a tough week of schooling. I have some fun stuff planned - like history channel videos on Thanks giving...but we'll see how it goes.

Friday Feast

Horses: Last night was a lot like old times...we have two old friends from a barn where we used to board a few years ago back boarding with us again! There's actually a 4th person that was there that after we left but came to this barn before the other two. This is Lori and Blade and Kris and Joey.


Equestrian Girl gives advice to Lori on how to side pass.

Equestrian Girl was all smiles!



We are doing one last little show on Sunday. It's at MSU so all indoors and heated!! It's an open show and we know the judge so it should be a lot of fun. Our new trainer is coming up with her baby horse so we'll have help - but it's a low key, no show clothes show so it will be relaxing and FUN! The next day Stanley's shoes come off and we will be DONE for the season!

Motocross: The boys just can't give in and winterize the bikes...such wishful thinking! Last winter they were able to race and practice all winter - there were 2 or 3 indoor tracks and one had a race series. This year...the only one they can find is about 5 hours away in Indiana.

Homeschooling: I honestly didn't think either of the kids were going to get all their school work done this week and then...they did. But I did have to laugh at Motocross Boy. He really thinks he is tricking me when he gets 100% on a quiz but has no idea what the topic was. Today he sent me a quiz on pronouns that was perfect...except when I asked him to name 3 pronouns he couldn't do it. Back to actually READ the lesson sir!

Equestrian Girl's Wild Rides

Equestrian Girl had some big time fun last week. We went up to visit our friend Shannon and see the horses she's been training. The first one is her Gypsy, Ace. He's only been under saddle for about a month and was just as cute as cute could be! He took a few minutes to figure out Equestrian Girl's long legs but they looked awesome together.


Big smiles riding this little guy!

Then she lunged Blade, the QH/Paint that Shannon has in training. He was sooooo pretty!


Shannon warmed him up for Equestrian Girl after the lunging.


Equestrian Girl loved his big lofty trot! He's only been in training for a little more than a month too but is going great. Has all his buttons already and just needs refining now.






And then we got up north and she turned on some REAL horse power!!


She won the shirt at Motocross Boy's banquet last weekend and he dug up a pair of pants that fit her. She had to steal Dad's new boots - they were a tad big in the calves but not so bad in the foot!