Inspiration

When times get hard, we all need a little bit of inspiration. Here's three of my absolute favorite videos for motivation and inspiration that I watch whenever I need to remind myself why I do this.

Mother went for an MRI scan last weekend and the results came today. She has one tendon that has snapped away from the bone, meaning that she will need to have surgery on it immediately to try to get it fixed. This means that she will not be allowed near the horses for the next 6 weeks and then after 3 months she can start riding again. This means that I will be looking after the horses and riding Vallu, Rama and Nelli by myself until mother has totally recuperated. Hopefully she'll recover as soon as possible! ♥

Vallu's accident

Horse accidents 1 - 0 Roosa's will to carry on 

Another awful freakish accident happened today with Vallu. Whenever I take Vallu out to his paddock, the first thing he does when I let him free, is to go and have a good roll. Always, no matter what. The ground is never too wet or too hard for him, Vallu loves his rolls. Today that morning roll didn't go exactly according to plan... He rolled too close to the fence, and then got his left hind stuck in the fencing = chaos and panic and a loose horse. In his panic he then decided to gallop off as far away as possible from the fence and into our woods. Vallu also decided to gallop through the thickest part of the woods, even though the was a slightly more open section 5m to the left of his chosen path...

First broken tree

Second broken tree (picture doesn't do it justice, it was massive!)

During his gallop up the woods, he managed to pull down two trees, and the second one has caused some swelling on his right side muscles around his ribs/back :( And when he walks and trot his right hind leg moves differently than the other leg.

Where Vallu could have ended up: on the main road

 Luckily Vallu decided to turn around just before the end of the woods at which he would have reached the main road. Thank God for horses being herd animals and making Vallu decide to turn around and gallop back down the woods to his paddock (more like the remains of his paddock)!

Luckily today we had both our farrier and our chiropractor coming to visit, so if anything good can be said about today is that Vallu chose a good day to get loose. If he'd lost a shoe our farrier could have put it back on and now that he hurt himself, Erika Torronen (our lovely chiropractor) was able to try to help him as much as possible. We couldn't be more lucky with our farrier and chiropractor. Our farrier always comes over whenever we need help for emergencies/lost shoes (and doesn't charge a penny!) is always on time and somehow always has a smile on his face and cheers us up. Erika is a very busy lady who is a very talented chiropractor, yet she still managed to make time to come check on Vallu again on Thursday.

Hopefully Vallu will recover soon, and if it looks like he isn't getting any better then we will have to take him to the clinic at Hyvinkaa to get him checked over.

On a happier note, spring has indeed sprung! Our crocus flowers have started to flower and our horses have been naked outside!

The outdoor arena experience

Switching from riding in our neighbor's big (20x60m) indoor arena to our own little (20x40m) outdoor arena is proving to be very interesting every spring. Today Nelli and Basse had their first ride on the outdoor arena this year, and Rama had his first outdoor ride ever! All of them behaved much much better than I expected to, and I'm really looking forward to being able to ride on our own arena from now on! 

I adore riding outside; after having been riding in the indoor arena for the last 8 months, being able to ride in the sun and breathe the fresh air is just one of the great things in life that you don't fully appreciate until you've missed it. (Photos also turn out much better when riding outside!!)

My favorite of Nelli and I
Riding outside for the first time means that we don't really work on anything, I just focus on keeping the horses working forwards but being calm, and trying to stay on when the keepthemcalm technique doesn't go exactly to plan!

Normally switching to an outdoor arena isn't a problem for me, but what makes the first rides rather interesting is that our outdoor arena is right next to the road, so the horses find the cars and lorries a bit scary at first. The horses do in fact get used to the cars, bikes, runners, prams, dogs and other horses really quickly, but we always have a problem with the lorries. Even though the road is very small and there isn't a lot of traffic on it, when the lorry goes past, the idiots drive incredibly fast (the limit on the road is 50 km/h but they drive more like 80 km/h!!) and the horses really don't like them, and to be honest I don't blame them at all.

 I love my facial expression when riding!!

Rama was a very good  boy today, and I was again blown away with how well behaved he is. Not only was this the first time ever in the time that he has been with us that he was ridden outside, Rama also did not react at all when one of the lorry-drivers with the biggest and nosiest lorry drove like a maniac on the road!

Totally in control!

Spring update

Spring has finally managed to properly arrive in Finland, with temperatures of more than +10C The first flowers have started to arrive, such as coltsfoot (above)

Niilo helping!

With spring comes the daily paddock poo-picking! The only person who doesn't find it boring is Niilo who thinks it's endlessly fascinating to dig up rocks and make huge holes in the paddocks!

The snow from our own outdoor arena has finally melted away and we're now able to start using it! I love our arena, the surface is just lovely, and it is great to be able to exercise the horses at home and outside! After 8 months of riding in the indoor arena, I can't wait to start working the horses outside. Unfortunately Vallu is at his worst when being ridden on the outdoor, he constantly spooks and does't concentrate, but I have decided this year to ignore his spooks and work him there all the time (unless it's pouring with rain/gale force winds - I am a bit of a fair weather rider!) until he starts to relax.

Basse being lunged on own outdoor arena
 

The arrival of spring has also resulted in all of our heavy winter rugs going to be washed. 14 rugs in 8 big bin bags nearly didn't fit in my little car, and I had a very interesting 30 min drive to the cleaners. I must admit that it is a bit difficult driving when you can't see anything out from your rearview mirror!

Niilo and I went for an evening walk in our own woods and watched the sunset! Finland is so beautiful in the spring!

Wild mare

Now that the nearly all of snow has melted away, our own outdoor arena (20x40m) can be used! Nelli had the honor of testing if it is good enough to work on (she won't trot if the arena's surface isn't good enough so she's perfect for this job) You can see how happy our little Nelli was in the video below...