Summer begins with Inter-Club

Inter-Club was Boyfriend's first show as a Westernairs horse.  Kira was a the Apache rider for the show.  Each Westernaires show opens with a grand entry.  The grand entry team rides in with Colorado and American flags and and the leads the riders that will be in the show through a serpentine line.  There can be over 100 horses with their riders in the arena at the same time.  When they are all carrying flags, its quite a site.  For inter-Club there are no flags.  Once the serpentine line leaves the Grand Entry team presents the colors and we sing the National Anthem.  The team is dismisses and the last one out is the Apache Rider riding hippodrome and her two out riders.  Here is Kira in her exit.

2012 Westernaires Annual Show

I last visited these pages in September.  Its January.  That is a fair amount of time to let pass.  And a lot has happened in that time.  October came and went frightening spped.  I went to work, the girls went to school, my bride went to work and the horses ate and contributes significantly the compost pile.

One of the biggest events was Kumi's first Annual Show with Westernaires.

This is the only picture I have.  And I'm not even sure Kumiko is in it.  Why?  I was a barn dad.

Summer ends, School Starts

Here we are at the end of September and much has been happening since the last time I was here.  First, one of our visitors deciphered the t-shirt.  I  sum 8 pi (I eat some pie).  Great shirt for the match geeks among us.

So what has happened since then.  When last I left you, White Olympics were underway.  Well, Kumi's whip team, White Belle Star, won best ground specialty and the sportsmanship award.  They did a great job.  Here is Kumi and two of her teammates doing a pyramid.

Summer Time

What the heck happened to summer!? I find it a bit hard to believe that the last time I posted was on June 2nd and it is August 9th. Its not like nothing happened, I just don't know where the time went.

Random Picture - What does it say?

So, what has happened since Interclub?

In June Kumi had her first show as a Crimson Ranger. It was a two day show (almost) and I don't have a single picture. You see, I was flag dadding and barn dadding. I was so busy that I did not get to take any pictures. I did see her ride and her team did a great job. Rumor has it that the director of Westernaires said the Crimson Rangers put on a better drill than the Precisionettes. Pretty cool.

Westernaires Interclub 2012

Here is Kira, ready for Interclub!

Westernaires is big on shows. And they should be. The kids work hard to learn to control their horses and learn the drills. Tenderfeet, the first year kids, do not have any drills. So how does an organization that specializes in mounted drills get their first year riders into a show? Interclub.

News Flash - Cityboy wins 3rd place!

It is okay to laugh at this picture. I did not know my shirt had come untucked and looked so dorky but hay! Its is my first ribbon on my horse! And as everybody in the horse world knows, its all about the ribbons! Or the occasional saddle. And sometimes a really big belt buckle.

We had a very busy and very fun weekend. Saturday was, as always, a Westernaires Saturday. Kira rode in her tenderfoot class and all went well for her. Ebony was well behaved. (Ominous for shadowing for later).

Two of our friends from Westernaires did not have their horses. One is dealing with some colic issues (but he is doing better this morning) and the other hurt a tendon in his rear leg (but laser treatments are improving his condition greatly!). We offered to let them ride Ebony and Mariah. They accepted so off to Dressage they went. Here are the three horses in the same class. I took this picture because this may well be the only time it happens. I only had my cell phone with me so the pics are not the best. I have really got to start bringing my good camera with me every time. You never know when something cool is going to happen.

Been a while

It has been a while. It always seems like this time of year, between New Years and spring, is a kind of slow time of year. There is not a lot going on. Not much for holidays, the weather is cold and the days are short so there is not a lot going on outside. We get up, got to work or school, come home, make dinner and work on home work and watch TV. Repeat ad nauseum. I'm not complaining, it has just always been a slow time of year. But, there is always a little something going on.

Breaking News: Kumi gets call up

Hot off the press! 10 minutes ago Kumi got a call. See that smile on her face. Well, its a big smile because Kumi is no longer a Nighthorse Ranger, Kumi is now a

Ebony goes to Class

Kira and Ebony at their first ride together in Westernaires.

As you know, Ebony has been is school, ground manners school. We have been working with her on walking calmly and not trying to get ahead or around whomever is leading her. We have had great results around the house but we still have some work to do around Westernaires. She still gets a bit nervous. But we decided to try her out in a class and see how she did.

Promotion Saturday

Last Saturday, 11/5/2011, was promotion Saturday at Westernaires. It is a nerve racking day for most girls. It is the day that you find out what team you will be on fro the coming year. The powers that be look at equitation skills (there is test the riders take in September where judges grade their riding skills), their diagramming points, participation and everything else that you do at Westernaires and decide what team you move to.

You can move laterally or you can move up. You move laterally when your scores indicate you need a bit more work and you move up when your scores indicate you can handle the next level. So Kumi got a slip of paper with a number on it that told her she moved to

Westernaires Starts a New Tenderfoot Class

Kira joined Westernaires. Her induction was August 26th and September 10th was her first ride. Here she is on the rail.

White Olympics 2011

Westernaires White Olympics was this past weekend. Westernaires is divided into three divisions, Red, White and Blue. Blue division is the entry level riders. They don't do any shows but they do have an inter club competition for horseman ship. Next year, early in the summer, watch this blog to see how Kira does in here first inter club competition. White division is the middle level and Red division is the top. Red division travels to a lot of places for shows and they have their big show in November. If you go to the National Western Stockshow here in Denver you have probably seen Red Team doing their show. Kumi is in White Division and every August, just before school starts, white division puts on their big show for the year. It is a two day event and it is judged.

The show starts with White Grand Entry. The kids have to try out for the team and Kumi made it. This is Kumi and Beamer in their post position for serpentine. The show takes place at the local fair grounds so sometimes the backgrounds for pictures are, well, less than photogenic.

Picture Day

Saturday, April 30th was picture day at Westernaires. Here are a few pictures from that day.


This is Thing 1 in her White Grand Entry Costume.


This is the White Grand Entry team. One Boy. Smart kid.


This is a girl and her horse enjoying a quite minute between rides. It was cold that day. Really cold.

This is the Shadow Riders costume that they will wear for the shows.

And this is the Shadow Riders team.

Horses are Strange Critters

Saturday was, as always, a Westernaires weekend. The day was rather interesting from the beginning. We loaded Beamer and Ebony into the trailer and left Mariah home alone. For nearly eight hours. She did fine, better than the other two at any rate.

Kira is doing lessons with Carly on Ebony to help them come together. Kira has been riding a horse for just a couple of months and she is loping bare back. Comfortably and confidently. Kids are fearless. Ebony still tests her but Kira is patient and Carly coaches her until Ebony does what Kira asks. Its fun to watch because Kira's brow creased in frustration suddenly blossoms into a big bright smile. In one lesson Ebony would not pick up her right lead. She wouldn't even step up to a lope from a trot no matter how hard Kira kicker her. I got Kira a dressage whip from the trailer. Kira gave Ebony one pop with the whip and Ebony went right into the lope on the correct lead. Ebony's attitude changed from, "I'm not gona do it and you can't make me!" to. "Oh! You meant it. Why didn't you say so!!"

When we got to Carly's place for the lesson we unloaded Beamer without incident. Ebony is a bit trailer shy right now. She loads okay but she is very nervous while in the trailer. On Saturday when was backing out of the trailer and something spooked her. I did not have a good hold on the lead rope as I had just untied it from the hitching point. She spooked and shot out of the trailer backwards, stumbled and fell over backwards. It was a bit scary as I watched her rump hit the ground and she started to go over backwards and came down on her left side. Her shoulder hit and I watched as her head at the end of that long horse neck headed for the ground. Fortunately, her neck muscles are strong enough that her head did not hit the ground. She looked a bit surprised at finding her self on the ground and hopped right back up. I put her into the trailer a couple of times right away and she backed out of the trailer for slowly. I think she scared herself a bit because she was very careful and slow when backing out of the trailer.

After the lesson we loaded up and headed for Westernaires. Unloading at Westernaires went without incident, Ebony backed out slowly and calmly. And then things got interesting. First, you need to know that Beamer does not like Ebony. He chases her around the pasture and pushes her off her hay. Which is no problem since there are enough hay piles around at feeding time that she just finds another pile. Since it was our first time taking Ebony to Westernaires, we decided to walk her around the grounds to get her used to all the other horses and the activity all around. She was nervous and we worked a lot an getting her walk with her head even with whoever was leading her. She needs more lessons. The surprising part was Beamer. When Ebony walked away from the trailer he started winning and pacing. He did not want her walking away! What!? He doesn't like Ebony and now he can't stand to be separated from her!? I don't get it.

Later that day it was time for Kumi and Beamer to head to dressage class. I walked up with her to watch the class. About 5 minutes into the class my phone rings and its Kira. Now Ebony is having separation anxiety from her bully! She is pacing and pawing and just will not calm down and Kira is a bit nervous and not sure what to do. So I go down and do some more leading lessons with Ebony. She was better but there is still more work to be done. If I tied her at the trailer and stepped out of sight she immediately started pawing and whinnying for Beamer.

When Kumi got back we loaded up the horses and headed for home. The horses were unloaded without incident so we are hoping Ebony has learned a little lesson and trailering will be a bit easier for both her and us. (Besides, we absolutely do not want her shooting out of the trailer and falling over backwards again. No fun at all!) We were also hoping that Ebony and Beamer had discovered that they can actually get along. Nope. As soon as the halters came off and the hay came out, Beamer started pushing Ebony off the hay pile she had selected. Strange animals. But we love 'em anyway.

Busy Times

We have entered that time of year when time speeds up and there is never enough of it. It is the last four of five weeks of school and our schedules fill up until bursting and something has to give. Usually, we just run out of time for riding the horses. And that leads to a whole other set of demands on our time just deferred to a later date. Kira is preparing for a school trip to Washington D.C. (I have to have her at the air port by 4:15AM on Mothers Day). Her sixth grade class just performed their class musical, which was a blast. She is in honors choir so she has a few more performances and we have a bit extra work to do in math. Nothing major but it all adds up.

So, Kira has joined Lacrosse. They practice twice a week and have games on Saturdays. I got to go to here first game which they won 7 to 4. I did not get to go to her second game which they lost 13 to 8. Saturdays are Westernaires days so I have to take the horse(s) to the fair grounds. That makes it hard to get to her games. Fortunately, most of her games are very close to the fair grounds so I should be able slip over to watch. As soon as she gets her uniform I will post a picture of our Lacrosse star.

Kumi tried out for a spot on the White Grand Entry team for Westernaires and she won it. That means that at the beginning of every show Kumi and 17 other kids will present the colors and do a short routine. To get on the team the kids have to show a high level of horsemanship and control of their horses. They are expected to show a much higher level of coordination in there drill and they have to do their drill at a fast lope. She loves loping on her horse so she is having a grand time.

Kira did a lesson on Ebony last night and it was a good lesson. Ebony tested her and Kira was frustrated. But Carly talked her through it and in the end, Kira won. Ebony would not go into a lope no matter how hard Kira kicked her. So we got out a dressage crop. Horses are funny critters. Ebony ignored the kicks but when Kira popped once with the crop Ebony said, "Oh! You mean it!" and stepped up into a very nice lope. Kira's look of frustration turned into a smile pretty rapidly after that. Kira loves to lope as well and Ebony has a nice smooth lope.

I went for a ride on my horse last Sunday. It was crazy windy, the kind of wind that makes horses crazy. As I climbed up into the saddle I thought to myself, what am I doing? Mariah is a bit jumpy under the best of conditions and I am going to take her out into the open space where horse eating plastic bags and evil waving signs wait to devour her. So, being male with that gift all males have for ignoring common sense, off we went. We had a great ride. She was much more collected and controlled in her trot than ever before. I credit Carly for that. Carly told me in our last lesson that I need to expect more from Mariah and keep the pressure on until she does what I want. So I did. We did circles and figure eights for a while and she got the idea.

So off we went down the trail. The first small spook as at a plastic sign advertising a housing development. It was waving in the wind and she tried to side step it. I didn't let her and she knew what was coming next. She is not allowed to get past a scary thing until she puts her nose on it. She put her nose on it almost immediately so we proceeded down the trail that runs next to the ditch. The coyotes must travel along that trail pretty regularly because she was real jumpy the whole time. She didn't spook but I had to keep a short rein on her to keep her focused and calm. The next small spook was a steel sign with the name of the open space on it. It didn't wave in the wind but it is as tall as she is so it was obviously about to eat her. Again, she touched it with her nose with very little coaxing on my part but we spent about 20 minutes at that sign just trying to get her to stand quietly next to it. I will go back to that sign again for the practice.

The big blow up came in the place I least expected it. We were trotting along at a nice slow trot and all of the sudden we were side-passing at a lope. I am happy to report that my seat is sure enough that while I was unbalanced for a moment, I did not come off. Cool. So what spooked her? A dark spot on the trail where a puddle had been. There was no water, just dark mud. It took me five minutes to get her step over that horsey eating black-hole of death.

(Note regarding horse psychology. Horses look at the world by determining the answer to two questions. Question 1, will it eat me. They always assume that it will eat them until proven otherwise. Assuming the answer to question 1 is no, they ask the second question: Question 2, Can I eat it? It is amazing what horses will eat. The horses of people I know at Westernaires have eaten the following: Oreo's, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, live fish, cheese burgers and one likes Pepsi.)

We spent about two hours on the trail and working on some circles and figure eights and all of it was fun. It was so much fun I didn't even notice my knees were getting tired until I got off the horse and me knees almost buckled when I hit the ground. I held onto Mariah for a few steps until my knees remembered how they are supposed to work and then all was good. A good day of riding.

Project house has another project that is one step closer to completion. The new electric panel is set and some of the wires a terminated. This is the new wire waiting to be connected to the meter.
The board at the bottom of the pictures is just holding the conduit in place while the insulating foam cures. Once cured, that board will go away.

The next step will be to connect the new panel to the meter and then move the circuits from the old panel to the new. That will be an all day project so I am thinking Memorial day. Nori has to work, there is no Westernaires and no Lacrosse games so I will have the whole day. And I will need it. Moving those circuits from the old to the new means each one has to marked, a new piece of wire added to it and then connected to the new breaker. Its not hard, but it is very time consuming. And the price of wire doesn't help at all. I bought 50' of 12/2 romex wire (the kind of wire used for nearly all household wiring) and it was $62.00. $62.00!! That is over $1.00 a foot and that is just crazy! Ah, well... Such is life.

Trying to insert a video

I broke down and updated my cell phone. My Razor was about 4-1/2 years old, the battery was getting week and the girls were texting me more than calling me. Trying to return a text on the old style keypad was a pain in the fingers. (Thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) So I updated to a smart phone. It is the Samsung Galaxy S and I love it. The Android operating system is just too cool. I can talk to this phone and it understands me (though some might claim men aren't all that hard to understand in the first place). I tell it to search for something on Google and it finds it. We (the phone and I) are still trying to figure out how to dial somebody by name but we'll get it. One of the coolest things is that I can ask the phone for directions and it gives them to me. It doesn't heckle me and I don't have to stop, just press the microphone button, tell the phone where I want to go and it tells me how to get there. When it comes to texting its even better. It has an app called swipe that allows you to trace words on the key pad without ever lifting your finger. It is amazingly accurate and fast. But if that is still to slow I just press the microphone button and speak and it types what I say!

It also has and HD video camera built in that I had to try. Yesterday Westernaires held tryouts for white grand entry. When the white division sow comes along on Father's Day, the Grand Entry teams rides in first with the flags, US Flag, State Flag and Westernaires flags. The kids have to try out. They go into an arena and they have to demonstrate good control of their horses riding in pairs and with a flag. So here are a couple of videos of the tryout. They are really short and I am posting them more to see if I can than for anything else. One of them is rotated 90° and I can't seem to rotate it. Sorry, but know I know how I need to hold the camera to take proper video.