Bitter Sweet

Having bitter sweet moments stinks to the high heavens.
Sweet
I go home on Tuesday! Not only do I get to go home, but on the 14th I start my internship. Dr. T e mailed me and we discussed how many hours I will be working, and my pay (YUP I am getting paid!). So as it turns out, this gal will be working 40 hours a week either 5 or 6 days a week. When I found this out I was so excited I didn't get to sleep until after midnight. Not only will I be working my butt off as an intern, but at the alpaca farm we have at least 20 more babies to be born (4 are due any day!!). I'm going to be so excited to grab some pictures for everyone to see. I here the newest cria, Monae's Rebel, is to-die-for-cute! Also I cannot wait to start training the babies for the fall show season. We have a ton to teach and I want to approach training a little differently then I have in the past (maybe I can start up an alpaca blog??)

Bitter
I go home on Tuesday...and leave everyone that I have grown so fond of behind. I have said this from early on, but I have made such amazing friends here. I have started packing and it's been hard to finish. My room is bare, and mostly everything except a few clothes that I need have been packed. It seems like yesterday that I moved here.

Lesson
Friday was my last lesson here in MN. I rode Jealousy and it went great! Jealousy is very different then Mr P but it was nice to ride another horse, even though there were times of frustration! I went from Mr P who you pretty much needed to point his nose a little to the inside when on a circle, to a horse that on a circle you need to use your outside rein. My body was so confused! I was getting my outside rein correct, but my inside hand instinctively was trying to pull her nose to the inside, this horse put up with so much! Jealousy has so much more energy than Mr P so at times it felt like she was ignoring me when I would ask her to slow down or go from the canter to trot. It was probably some rider error also haha! Being on another horse brought some tensing moments out in me. Again, not that she was being naught but just all of the energy!

Not only did I have a lesson on Friday, but I had a lesson on Thursday too! Thursday was a group lesson with Katy and it went fantastic! Sadie set up some ground poles which had us shortening our trots in one diagonal, and lengthening it over another. Mr P was such a rock star!! We didn't always accomplish the extending and shortening, but he did try and he made me so proud! We then did some cantering over a ground pole (and YES I did consider it my first jumping experience!)

Lately Mr P has been acting a little off. With other students he has bucked at random moments, and he seems a little more lazy than usual. I feel like he is trying to work, but he just can't. The horses have been out on pasture for about 2-3 weeks now, so I'm really hoping that it isn't founder. They were weaned onto the pasture nicely (starting with half an hour) and are now on pasture from 8-2 on all week days.

Thankfully Katy, Ali, Syd, and I are going to get together on Monday to order pizza and watch a movie (a HORSE movie of course).

So I said good byes to Sadie and Kelly yesterday, and I'll say good bye to the rest of my amazing friends on Monday.

I can handle sweet moments, and I can handle bitter moments, but these bitter sweet ones just drive me crazy.

Thanks for reading :)


EDIT: AGH how could I forget?!?!?! I won a $100 gift certificate to a local tack store that my boss works at, so I went shopping! I got 2 ariat riding shirts, and THIS beauty!

Helmet

I rode it in my lesson and it is WONDERFUL! I needed to buy an SEI certified helmet in order to start eventing.