♣Ambitious♣

I was visiting Houston recently. You don't need to know why. As I was flying into the Hobby Airport, we passed over some interesting looking farms. Despite my experience, I've never come across set ups quite like this. I'm *thinking* these arenas are set up for roping, and I did see a few others that obviously had cow pens attached. It's fascinating to see how a specific arena set up is integrated into the farm layout and with the rest of the riding space. I was immediately inspired to create a design based on what I saw. This barn has seven stalls total with the main barn facing a 96' x 180' arena. It's the type of set up where another lean to could be easily added onto the other side of the arena, ideally a copy of the existing barn. Currently, I've allotted space for a 24' x 60' feed room/storage shed. The area extending halfway around the curve is a set of bleachers. The underside of those bleachers could also be used for additio...

I always get excited for spring. Winter is ew, and summer is meh, and fall is just Winter Lite. Spring is fresh and new and smells nice. For some reason, Gabby really wants to be on the blog, so here she is, y'all Except when we have intermittent thunder storms and whipping wind. Yeah, that's not fresh or new, it's just loud. Really loud . By chance, the poor weather overlapped with my first real ride on Summer, one of our hotter school horses. I use hot kind of loosely here because she's not necessarily forward, but things fall apart very easily, and she requires some micromanaging. I rode her once prior to this when we were doing a bunch of swapping in a lesson a few months ago. It wasn't bad or good, just very nerve racking. My skill set is there to be successful on her. It's my mind that needs to catch up and stay focused without making me stiff or inducing a panic attack. Fun times. Summah Summah! Sometimes, when I have some knowledge of a hor...

Yeah. I am. Honestly, I was feeling pretty "eh" about my riding habit when I first got back into it. Granted, I did only bring two pairs of breeches to school with me this year. That's a tragedy considering who I am as a person. Anyways, my $5 Pikeurs rekindled that fashion flame (this statement is why people have editors), so here I am digging this tag out of its grave. The death of Polyvore hit me hard. It's especially insulting to see all my embedded sets completely gone from their posts. Can you tell that I'm bitter? I found a replacement, but while that's still being set up, I thought I'd share some of my favorite finds over the past few months. The Nina Lookbook, image from GEM Equitation GEM Equitation I've known about GEM for a while and wanted to do a post highlighting them. Might still do that, but in any case, here's your introduction to the brand. GEM is a French company that produces a variety of equestrian products. My focus ...

Guess who's sound again!! Carlos spent most of the fall and all of the winter unclipped, in the field, abscessing on the same foot non-stop. He has just now remained sound for the last few weeks, and fingers crossed it keeps up. I missed my boy! My actual last time riding him was during last semester. I was supposed to ride Mark, but then Mark was lame. So I grabbed Carlos to see if he was lame still and . . . yeah, very lame. My last time riding him seriously was when he finally managed to actually bite me . That was two years ago. I still have a scar. Contrary to my bitter sophomore ramblings, I do love this asshole of a horse, and I'm glad he's finally back in work. He's taking it like a champ, weird head twisting and all. Now that Regionals has passed, things have mostly settled down. It seems like Coach is keen on my lesson group jumping again; the last two lessons have included a grid of some kind. When I was allowed to pick Carlos this week, I genuinely...

Edited out the part where I stopped and stared at a bee outside my window for 30 seconds straight. Thanks for supporting me. Song: Swoop by The Mini Vandals

I feel like I've never actually spoken on here about how I got into riding in the first place. I've loved horses since I was born. Like, I genuinely can't remember a time when I wasn't asking my parents to buy me a horse. I was hooked on probably the world's dumbest animal. I didn't actually start taking lessons until the summer after 8th grade when my dad finally caved to my incessant begging. Be annoying, kids, it works. But before all that happened . . . I went to horse camp. Not only did I go to horse camp, but I was the oldest, tallest, Blackest kid at horse camp. I was 12, which is already a rough age, and to be quite honest, I did feel pretty out of place for that week. Despite the discomfort, it only made me more passionate to keep riding. Horse Camp Summer was also the same summer that I was going crazy designing horse barns. My interest in horses and my interest in architecture kind of took off at the same time. Hasn't really changed...

The combination of rain and the Polar Vortex really put a damper on being able to ride outside over the winter. Usually, we get a couple of nice, sunny days to get out of the indoor, but the ground being saturated turned out outdoor ring into one, big liverpool. That is, until this week (ok, technically last week, but that wasn't a real lesson). Yes, friends, we made it. We rode outside. The lesson started outside and almost ended outside but my trainer was getting cold but technically it was still fine to ride outside. I'm honestly just grateful that the precipitation has finally cut back. Maybe now we'll stop having to deal with abscesses and rain rot. And I got to use my new saddle pad! I was on Lionel, who I haven't ridden since the theatrics of the fall. If I'm being honest, he isn't my favorite to ride because he's particular, he's huge, and takes a lot to put together. As a result, I always feel like I don't look great on him, which ...