Horses and Baseball

The weekend was a combination of horses and baseball.

Saturday the plan was to work in the yard.  But the wind hadn’t died down from Friday and that really messed with our plans.  We were going to get a couple loads of tanbark from Sierra Nursery but we figured the wind would be blowing the splinters and dust all over the place and really mess with us.  So that kind of nixed that idea.

Thinking of alternate things to do I thought about some of the items I needed to get for Blu still and did a bit of surfing to find out what other tack stores were in the area.  I’ve been to Christensen’s and to Douglas Ranch Supply and wanted to see what else was around.  I googled “placer county horse supplies” and found a number of possibilities.  They weren’t close but using Google Maps I figured a way to make it a loop.  I mentioned it to Ken and he said it was a great day for a drive, so why not!

We hopped in the MINI and set off on Highway 50 towards Shingle Springs then Placerville then over Highway 49 to I-80 in Auburn and back home.  We had 7 possibilities noted and ended up at 5.  We haven’t been along the complete route before so it was fun when we recognized places like Poor Reds as we drove.  We also drove through Coloma – Ken went there as a kid, I don’t think I’d ever been.  Though if I have been I have no memory of it.  Maybe Mom or Dad will let me know if we’ve been there?  We thought about stopping but then figured it would be a good trip for the summer.  I ended up with two favorite stores that I’ll want to visit again – Double Diamond Ranch Supply and the Placer County Farm Bureau.  I bought a rope halter at Double Diamond and a rain sheet at the Farm Bureau as well as purchasing things that had been on my mental list at most of the other places we stopped at.

In Placerville we took a break to eat some tasty pot pies at Z-Pie.  And we brought home an apple pie that’s pot pie sized which we enjoyed at home.  We took a stroll around town window shopping and then continued on our way.

And yes it WAS fun to drive Highway 49 in the MINI!

Sunday I went to see Blu.

Blu caught a cold at Rancho Murieta and he’s still feeling pretty poorly.  Colds last about the same in horses as they do in people, so we’ve got a bit more time before he feels 100%.  But we still had a fun visit.  I lunged him (lightly), and Todd rode him with a Bosel (a bridle without a bit basically) and he did pretty well.  I rode him with the bosel, too.  It’s a completely different way of handling a horse.  It took me a while to understand what Todd was telling me so that it actually sunk in.  But it was great to have an “ah-ha” moment when it sunk in.  And the “ah-ha” moment was realizing that with a bosel when I’m turning Blu I need to keep light pressure on the outside rein at the same time I am bumping the inside rein.  By keeping an eye on his nose and the nosepiece I could see that by keeping some pressure on the outside rein it was keeping the nosepiece off his chin and that by bumping the inside rein it was giving him the indicator or command to turn or bend.  (along with the leg pressure)  I don’t know that I’m describing it correctly, but it made sense to me at the time.  It was fun to try something like a bosel that I’d never tried before, too.

I probably spent 30 minutes riding at the walk and jog, but I didn’t try loping.  I left that for Todd.  And Blue needs a LOT of work on his right lead.  It was like he (Blu) had a mental block today.  The left lead was a piece of cake.  The right lead, not so much.  I’ve got a feeling we were overly optimistic thinking that Blu might be ready to show in Santa Barbara.  But who knows, maybe his cold will help us out in the long run.  He doesn’t have the energy that he had before, so maybe he’ll think back to Rancho and to the training he’s been having this last week and will remember that things went really quietly and so there’s no reason to get excited next time.  And he won’t be able to be logical and think that “duh – of course things went quietly – I was sick.”

We can hope.

So, baseball…how did I have horses and baseball in one day?

Ken’s baseball game was in Davis on Sunday.  And it was a 6pm start.  That meant that if I left Blu by 3pm I would make it to Ken’s game before it started.  I exceeded my goal and arrived in Davis at 5:30pm.  It was really nice to see the players and the wives and kids and do a bit of catching up.  I was put to work immediately though, as scorekeeper.  I managed to take a few photos and video while keeping score too.  It’s amazing what you can do with a small camera, a camera strap and a chain link fence.  My ingenuity went to work and I looped the strap through some of the links in the fence.  And I slid the scoresheet under a wire on a post.  That kept my hands semi free to keep score and to aim the camera. 

It was a pretty low scoring game.  I’m sad that they didn’t win but happy that I got to go to another game.