July

The month started off with a trip to the county fair to see more Mule Racing. I reviewed the tack and apparel I use for showing and did a blog hop on the supplements my horses get. We tried cattle sorting for the first time and it was so much fun. I really want to try it again.

We had a scare with a small wildfire near our barn, which is one of the reasons I don’t like living in California, but our barn was fine. I invented cake pops for horses and took them on our horse camping trip. I rode Levi without a bridle and he was fantastic. I really need to do this more often. We finished out the month by taking Levi and Eugene to our favorite local schooling show.

August

I’m not sure why it took until August to post about it, but Nilla was diagnosed with a very minor tear in her suspensory in July. One of my favorite posts of the year was reviewing Horse Dancer an enjoyably terrible horse movie. In August I posted about documentary and other horse movies that are actually good. Because Eugene was still recovering from his stifle injury and Levi wasn’t ready for a rated show yet, we volunteered at the Woodside Summer Event.

Levi went to his first multi-day event at the Camelot Schooling HT: Dressage, Cross Country, and Stadium. Levi was every bit a green bean, but he managed to keep it together enough for first place. We finished up the month by doing our first Training level Dressage tests and did a H/J show for schooling.

September

We started the month off with XC schooling and then Levi and Eugene competed in the Woodside Derby.

Next up was the last Eventful Acres Horse Trials. My husband and Eugene finished in 7th in their Beginner Novice division. Levi was a nutcase and nearly got eliminated for lameness because he was too excited to trot and would only canter. Then we actually got eliminated in stadium and I fell off when trying to school him over baby XC jumps. We finished out the month by trying to go horse camping and getting the horses seen by a new chiropractor.

October

October was another busy month. We started out the month by doing dressage and jumping at another JK Presents Schooling show. Then my husband and Eugene returned to Woodside for the International Horse Trials: Dressage, Stadium, Cross Country.

One of our barn friends adopted a Mustang from the prison program and we got to do some vicarious horse shopping. We did a jumping clinic and then went to a Halloween H/J schooling show. Eugene and Levi were both really good and we had a lot of fun. If all H/J shows were like that, I’d do more of them. We finished up the month by going to the Halloween HT at Twin Rivers. Eugene was excellent in both dressage and jumping while Levi was such a ginormous *sshole, I considered selling him. Or just leaving him behind.

November

I started off the month by doing a blog hop on my worst fall and another post on caring for my back now. This was a good lead up to one of the coolest clinics we’ve attended: LandSafe. We spent two days learning how to minimize the risk of injury while falling off.

We played Horse House Hunters in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Our last event of the year was the Fresno County Horse Park’s November Horse Trials. We did practice rounds on Friday, then dressage Saturday morning.  In the afternoon, my husband did Stadium with Eugene while Levi and I did cross country. On Sunday, Levi and I finished up with Stadium while my husband ended with cross country.

December

With showing wrapped up and Levi off for the month, December was a lackluster month for blogging. I mostly posted professional photographs from the Twin Rivers Schooling H.T. and the November Fresno H.T. Eugene had a few lessons that I wrote about including the one where our truck broke down. I put together a DIY guide to making your own surcingle belt and got some amazing gifts through the equestrian blogger gift exchange.