Last night we drove up to Amarante’s Winter Wonderland in Dayville. We are new to this local attraction and just learned about it this year. In its 11th year, Amarante’s is a local house that has 160,000 lights, 43 inflatable holiday characters and 36 Christmas trees. They were nominated for “The Great Christmas Light Fight” show on ABC and won the competition. For our local friends, it’s a nice family outing (I recommend Sirius XM channel 70 as your tunes to/from the display).
We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends. Ken and Liz (Rob’s parents) joined us in CT this year and brought the Powell family pineapple turkey decoration to put together with the kids.
In 2011, Rob and Chris Calhoun first served together at the Nautilus. Since then, we have shared Thanksgiving (all of them?) together.
“Black Friday” was spent relaxing. We took all three dogs to Hopeville State Park for a short walk. One good thing about cold weather is it tires a puppy out pretty quickly.
Afterwards, we all rode the horses. The only pictures taken were of Amanda riding Devil. While Amanda and Devil have worked together before, there is a growing likelihood that this will be a more regular pairing.
After spending hours outside in the chilly weather, we all gathered around our first fire of the year to drink some cocoa and warm up.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Our new Brittany puppy, Rusty Red Waggin’ came home yesterday night. He has had a busy first day meeting Mack and Turbo. It was a rainy day, but finally cleared up enough this afternoon that they could run around outside for a while. Mack was happy to have another dog in the family. Turbo was more skeptical, but finally decided it was ok.
Today is also Vicki’s 12th birthday. As usual, she demanded to bale her own cake. Anna bought her a new cake pan that is a 3-D cupcake. It is baked as 2 cakes and then assembled and decorated. She made a unicorn cupcake, complete with fondant ears and horn.
Four years ago, Dakota joined our family and I pulled his shoes off the day he arrived. Since 2005, none of our horses have been shod. I am one of the few hoof boot dealers in the area and for this is my 6th year in business as a Barefoot Trimmer. Today, my title official changed to Farrier.
Anna and I have had great success with hoof boots and my personal experience is what gives me the credibility as a boot dealer. After everything I have learned and my years of experience, why would I nail shoes on my horses? The answer is simple. I want to learn more. I have seen hooves that were in horrid condition from years in shoes, but I have also seen horses that had feet that looked great. I’ll be honest, there have been occasions when I wished I didn’t have the hassle of dealing with boots, but there have been times when I was convinced boots were an advantage. The bottom line is, I don’t believe shoes are evil and I also don’t believe that shoes with proper farrier care is harmful to horses.
Which brings me back to Dakota. I had considered learning to nail shoes for a long time. In fact, that was original objective in 2005 when I started asking questions of our farrier at the time. I am fortunate to have a friend who I believe is one of the best farriers around. I bought Mojo from Vikki Fortier and our friendship has grown ever since. Recently, I decided to start using my days of leave from the Navy to spend time working with Vikki to learn about shoeing horses. So tonight, I nailed my first set of shoes on a horse. I know I have a lot to learn, but I am committed to learning. There are flaws in the job I did on Dakota and I know that:
-The medial heel is too long.
-My nails do not all come out at the same height.
-My clinches are not all the same size.
I am fortunate to have 6 horses here at home that I can work with to improve my skills. I will continue to sell hoof boots and I will continue my business as a trimmer, but if you see us at a ride, don’t be surprised if you notice the sun glinting off some shiny shoes as the horses trot by.
Today, I ran my first marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon. It took me 4:16:07 which was in the top 15% based on the number of starters (~30,000).
Since I started training back in the spring, I lost 20 lbs and feel great. I highly recommend the book “Primal Blueprint” for anyone struggling with weight.
Anna and the kids joined me on the trip to Washington DC. We did a little sightseeing yesterday at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History after attending the race expo.
There was a lot of walking from the bus stop to the start area. We saw Osprey fly overs, parachute jumps with the American Flag, and lots of people.
My training for the marathon was all heart rate based. I limited my training runs to a 140bpm heart rate. On flat ground, that equated to about a 9:45 pace. I knew I could increase the heart rate for the race, but I wasn’t sure how much. I had been warned by friends to start in a higher pace bin than I needed. I started at the 3:30 group, but even then, my first two miles we about a 9:40 average. It started to open up after 3 miles and I ran my best mile of 8:07 for the 4th mile. By the half way point, my pace was under a 9:00/mile, which was perfect.
The only catch was, the temps were rising. It was in the mid 50s when we started. By the half way point, we were in the upper 60s. By about the 18 mile point, we were over 70F and I fell off my ~9:00 mile pace and couldn’t keep up with the 4 hr pace group.
The last 8 miles were definitely tough. There was basically no shade. At every water station, I drank a cup of Gatorade and 3 cups of water. I was walking some and running some. I still maintained a pace in the 10:00/mile range, but I had 4 miles over an 11:00/ mile.
I finished at 4:16:07, with an average pace of 9:46/mile. According to Garmin, i burned over 3000 calories and had an average heart rate of 169 bpm.
Overall, I am pleased with the results. I definitely left it all out there and didn’t have anything else left in the tank. I am totally in awe of my friends who race Ironman triathlons and do a marathon after the swim and bike phases.
Marine Corps Marathon lived up to its reputation of being family friendly and a great first marathon. I’m not sure if there will be a 2nd…
Alex took Dakota for a trail ride this evening. Alone. How did we end up with kids old enough to ride horses off property alone?
It was a warm and humid Fall day today. Alex and Vicki spent some time at Horse Power Farm working on cross country jumping with Duchess and Dakota. They learned about correctly riding step-ups and step-downs and then did some course work. Ann is great at pinpointing little things that will make a significant improvement and tweaking that without getting bogged down. Duchess was significantly over jumping a jump that frightened her and then challenged Vicki with a few other things, but in the end, they had a good day.
Here are some videos:
After the lessons, we dropped off the horses at home and then headed out to the West Greenwich Horsemen’s Association Fall Fest. It is a fun potluck dinner and annual awards banquet for the summer hunter pace series.
A part of the Fall Fest is a pumpkin competition. This year, there were 6 entries. Amanda and Vicki both put a lot of time into their entries and tied for 2nd. The voting is silent ballot by all members present. The Pirate Ship won this year.
This year, Alex, Vicki, and Amanda won the Junior division in the series and came home with customized jackets and ribbons almost as big as Amanda.
Pachaug State Forest is being considered to become home to a new State Police gun range. While I am a big fan of guns, I am not a fan of the negative impact this new training range would have on the largest piece of forest left in the state. This morning, NEATO held a trail ride to help fund-raise in opposition to the gun range. Anna was feeling a little under the weather and opted out of the saddle time. So I took Mojo, Alex on Dakota, Vicki on Duchess, and Amanda on Huey and we did a 14 mile loop through the woods. I was a great fall morning with temps at 40F when we were loading the horses on the trailer. We met up with friends and Jennifer Broome joined our clan for the ride on her Nakota, Tex. This was also Amanda’s longest ride ever (by mileage, not time). She and Huey may be ready for a limited distance endurance ride (25 miles) next year.
It was a typical busy weekend for the family. Saturday morning started out early with the “Proud to Tri” youth triathlon for Alex and Vicki. It was held at Harkness Park and included an open water swim in the ocean. The temps were in the upper 40s when we got up but the kids weren’t cold once things got going. They have been practicing throughout the summer with the Nutmeg Youth Triathlon Team and this was the final event of the season. The swim was 200 yds, 4 miles on the bike, and a 1.5 mile run. They both had a good time at the race.
Saturday afternoon, Alexis and Christina came over to spend the night with Vicki and do a trail ride. Christina brought her horse, Fiona, and Alexis borrowed Mojo. Alex joined us on Dakota and I was riding Teddy. Mojo has been getting treated for Lyme for the past 2 weeks and been in a stall with only riding for exercise. As a result, he was being quite unruly on the trails, so Alexis and I switched mounts after the first mile. Teddy was a rock star and has turned out to be one of the more reliable loaner horses for trail riding. The group rode 6 miles and it was a great success for Christina and Fiona in particular, as it was their first trail ride together.
Sunday morning started with chores and loading horses onto the trailer to head out for lessons at Horse Power Farm. I rode Mojo for my lesson and then Alex rode Dakota and Vicki rode Duchess. All three of us had outstanding rides and a lot of fun!
