Bits and bops, part 3: thicker is not always milder

This series chronicles my progress in the world of horse equipment and gear. 

Part 1 || Part 2

---

If the lesson in my first post was that there is no magic button for bit problems, I think the lesson this time is that there’s ALWAYS more to learn!

A month ago, I knew almost none of this. I’m really enjoying learning, and my pony doesn’t seem to mind terribly because I’ve been keeping my experimenting to rather mild bits.

Or at least I thought they were mild.

I had gone from riding her in a pelham to riding her in a chunky eggbutt snaffle, all while continuing to read up on advice from experts and fellow riders on how to properly fit bits.

Enter, the flash. I think I like it! I think she likes it! However, once I added the flash, it highlighted a potential issue that I hadn’t given much thought to previously: pony’s got a chunky tongue!

She’s got a chunky tongue, chunky lips, and a pony mouth. And while this eggbutt looks VERY cute on her, it might just be too thick for her little mouth.

If I’m trying to get her to stop avoiding the bit, the bit needs to be something that she feels comfortable with in her mouth. And while this is the most gentle bit on paper, you have to take into account the horse.

For comparison, even slippers, the most comfy of all shoes, become uncomfortable if they’re simply too small–there’s not enough room for your feet!

While I feel slightly silly switching bits so often, it’s more important that she’s comfortable and happy, so lets do it!

Bits and bops, part 2: adding a flash

This series chronicles my progress in the world of horse equipment and gear. 

Part 1

---

Notes: She looks cute! But her tongue is sticking out… more on that in part 3

I tried a flash with Splash’s bridle last evening and it was pretty successful! I raised the noseband a bit, but in hindsight will raise it a bit more. Originally, I had the flash at the proper tightness (aka, not too tight but also not loose), but she seemed pretty shocked by it, so I loosened it one hole so she could have a chance to get used to it.

I had a conversation with my cousin (fellow rider) and we debated if that would help or hurt, since some the effectiveness of the flash was lost on a looser fitting. Neither way was perfect, but it went okay, so overall I’m not upset.

When I added the flash, I noticed she was a little frustrated because she could not gape her mouth open (as much as before), and could not avoid the bit by curling her neck. I hypothesized that because she had been carrying herself incorrectly for so long, she wouldn’t magically fall into a good head carriage with the addition of the flash. I was correct. She spent more time with her head ‘up’, but I’d rather fix that than try to get her to stop curling her neck.

We did lots of transitions and finished with a little jump around which she LOVED way too much haha. It’s a funny thing to have the reward for the horse be more work but hey, whatever!

 

The Kitchen of Dreams

The Kitchen as I purchased it

A rendering testing color ideas

Remember this kitchen plan?

The year is 2017, I have purchased a home with an ugly kitchen.

The year is now 2019 and the kitchen is mostly no longer ugly, and it’s mostly gone according to plan!

Lazer cat!

Pardon the sink and the blinds, please friends

You can read HERE about a few things I did early on to fix the kitchen.

Other things that happened:

• My friends surprised me and painted the kitchen walls!
• My cousin (a plumber) helped me replace the spigot on the sink
• I learned how to paint the cabinets in an easy fashion
• I got past my anxiety about painting a color that I may or may not hate and just PAINTED THAT TURQUOISE.

My partner and I also took a weekend and replaced the old stick-on laminate with new stick-on laminate. It was the mid-grade stuff from Lowes and it’s FANTASTIC.

Because I don’t own a bandsaw, I had to use laminate that I could cut with a knife. This stuck on super well, and is thick enough to be textured like real wood. It really made a world of difference in the kitchen.

It was also my first time using leveler (grey stuff underneath floor boards) which was admittedly more challenging than I had anticipated. But it all worked in the end. I did end up having to apply additional adhesive to the areas of the floor which had been leveled.

Looking back a few months later… there are a few uneven spots in the floor that could have been prevented with more careful preparation. I would have used a spray adhesive instead of tape. Other than that, this project went way smoother than I anticipated!!

 

A job well done!

Finn Approved!

Bits and bops, part 1

This series chronicles my progress in the world of horse equipment and gear. 

---

Splash has had a very impressive career. In 2012 and 2015 she competed at Devon International, winning the pony jumpers with her owner on board. She’s a wonderful jumper. She’s athletic and smart. She’s also about 18 years old.

While I don’t think she’ll ever slow down, I would like her to get to a point of relaxation. My goal is to teach her that she can still have loads of fun bopping around jumps, just not 1.20. She can absolutely canter for days, just there’s no need to gallop at top speed.

In addition to just getting her to “chill” a bit, I’d like her to learn to use her body a little better so that she can remain fit and healthy as she ages. She’s so naturally athletic that she can get away with moving less correctly, but that’s no reason not to try to get better!

Head position behind the vertical, and “rooting” her mouth into the bit.

When I got Splash, she had a habit of leaning on the bit. She was strong mouthed, and would simultaneously pull her head behind the vertical and downward to brace against my hands.

At the walk, I am able to get her to stretch down, but at the trot and canter, she’s often so quick that it’s hard to relax my hands. To combat the back and forth battle, I’m experimenting with different bits to see if there’s something that will encourage her to stretch down and out, or to lighten her mouth/forehand.

In short, there’s no magic button. Or if there is, I haven’t found it. It’s naiive to believe that a piece of gear would fix something instead of good old fashioned hard work. However, I watched a video from a german bit-maker, and she said something that stuck with me: A bit is not to fix training problems. A bit is a tool to communicate clearly with your horse. Finding the correct bit is simply finding something that allows you unfettered and clear communication with your equine partner.

Thus my search began.

Landing off a crossrail

We started with the Pelham, which is the bit that she arrived in– the bit that her previous owner competed her in.

The bit works on leverage and is commonly used in the show ring, cross country, even for polo. It’s not particularly harsh, but it does apply more pressure in more areas than a standard snaffle.

The bit was no longer effective. She was setting her jaw and bracing into the bit. I don’t have particularly strong hands, so I was perplexed.

While it’s tempting to go up in bit strength, I’m a fan of “less is more” so I did the opposite: And eggbutt snaffle, about the most basic bit of them all.

And, you know, it worked! Kind of. She was still bracing against it, but there were a few steps of relaxation here and there. This makes sense– if she’s used to carrying her body in a particular manner, it’s going to take some work to get her in a different frame. And if she’s going to brace against something, I’d rather have her brace against a really gentle bit than something harsher.

Unfortunately, after a few rides, especially in lessons with other horses, I didn’t have many brakes. I tried a Waterford bit, which sits loosely in their mouth and encourages them to not gape. She didn’t love it and mostly kept tossing her head out of frustration and gaping her mouth more than ever.

So now what? I’m getting nice steps here and there. Maybe it will just take a lot of work. Or maybe she’s so set in her ways that she needs a little structure to point her in the right way.

Enter… the flash! A flash, paired with a snaffle and a noseband, should encourage her to feel the bit, not avoid it. Neither the flash or the noseband will be too tight–I’m going for comfort and relaxation after all and that would be counter productive. But this should give her something to think about.

Tonight will be my first night employing the flash. Let’s see how it goes. I might just use it for training, or it might be a permanent addition. If she hates it, then I guess I’ll have a flash for sale!

Slightly more relaxed… more of this please 🙂

Luck out of Hard Work

Not “working so hard you get lucky.” No… I’m your classic depressed millennial and my motivation is often low.

What I’m talking about is having luck which gets you out of hard work. Score.

I haven’t gotten lucky on a lot of this house so far. There are STILL massive staples in my floor that someone felt were necessary to use to tack down carpet. (They’re 2 inch long spikes driven into the floor! Why????). There were about 8 outlets that were not grounded and were massive fire hazards (hello $$$$).

But some things have swung in my favor.

The floor is the biggest thing. Underneath the rather crusty 90’s carpet was a hardwood in an unknown condition. It looks so much better than anyone expected! The worst thing about it is some paint drips. I will need to refinish it in the future, but for now, it looks pretty good.

Hell yeah.

HELL YEAH

On a slightly less impressive note, the latest lucky moment I’ve had has been in the kitchen.

The kitchen is… outdated to say the least. I don’t have issues with things looking old-fashioned. My grandmother actually owned this house in the 1980’s, and I would not have minded at ALL if the kitchen was still outdated to her tastes.

Unfortunately, almost everything that had been done to this kitchen to ‘update’ it was either done incorrectly or half-assed. It really does need a full redo, but I don’t quite have the money for it right now. Painting is the next best option.

Painting is easy! Except when things are in your way. Someone had put up a wallpaper crown thing around half of the kitchen. It wasn’t applied correctly and was peeling, with glue dripping everywhere. Parts of it were held together with that SUPER STRONG packing tape. Urgh.

I wasn’t looking forward to peeling this off of the walls. Everyone kept telling me it was going to be a nightmare, with the glue not coming off, or what have you.

LUCKY FOR ME the glue is SUPER OLD and may not even be proper glue because it is WATER-SOLUBLE. Literally all I had to do was run a warm, wet rag along the wallpaper and just scrape it off.

For some reason, this is more exciting to me than the floors.

This is what I’m going for. I just really want teal cabinets. 

Basement Rescue

What a dark and dingy space.

In order to comply with the FHA loan requirements, the basement needed a fair bit of work before I could even purchase it. Since I purchased the house from a relative, I took place in the rehabbing of the basement. This is my first home, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible in it to get familiar with it before I moved in.

The inspector was concerned about mold in the far corner of the basement. Not sure if it was actually mold, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry, and regardless, the walls looked gross.

The basement is divided into two rooms. The front room (left) has a drop ceiling, and all the walls are sealed with a white sealant paint.

Basically I needed to reseal the walls in the second room, which probably hadn’t been sealed in over 40 years.

This is what the walls of the second room looked like. You could almost feel the dampness seeping through the walls. Gross.

*this is NOT the second room that I worked on. This is a room that still needs rescued.

The first thing to do was to chip away all of the old sealant paint, which was coming loose anyway, since moisture had gotten underneath it and kind of bubbled the paint out from the wall.

If you’re working on old homes, be aware of lead paint and please use a face mask when chipping or sanding paint off.

I then sanded down the whole wall with an electric sander… make sure you don’t actually care about your electric sander before subjecting it to a concrete wall. This kills the sander.

Make sure you also don’t care about your paint brushes… the sandy paint will murder them.

The corner picture is a fair example of the difference one coat of sealant paint makes. Pretty neat.

The lower half of the basement wall got a second coat of sealant, and I finished up with a coat of flat white over the whole wall.

I bought blue paint on an impulse, handed it to my cousin and his friend along with plenty of beers and told them to go for it.

Oooh shiny. As a result, my basement looks MUCH less murdery.

bonus pic.

Blank Slate

What’s simultaneously more exciting and more terrifying than a completely blank slate? I used to begin new sketchbooks from the back to the front because opening the book to all those blank pages was too intimidating. What if the drawing on the front page was terrible?

On a grander scale, I’m currently facing this with my new house. The duplex was built in the late 1940’s and is a perfect example of working class, post-war town architecture. The neighborhood as it currently stands is actually pretty much the same; working class families. The house has been rented for the past 20 years, and as rental properties tend to be, it’s a bit worn down and devoid of character.

In other words, it’s a blank slate. In other words, I can’t mess it up.

This also comes with a fair bit of anxiety. I have never done this before. At all. Sure, I had painted houses before, spackled, even did some drywall. But I had never been allowed to call the shots.

What if I paint the walls too dark? What if nothing matches? What if my friends think my sense of style is ridiculous?

It took a simple door to instantly quell my anxiety. The basement door. The murder door. The door leads to the outside and was broken, peeling, and overall disgusting. I didn’t waste time sanding. I didn’t even clean it off. I just took an old paint brush and gave it a fresh coat of white. And I realized that literally anything I do will be better than the current situation.

Below: The blank slate as it stood in December of 2016.