Memorial Weekend - long weekend!

A 3 day weekend!!! What a blast. Saturday didn't entail a lot. It started with a lot of washing and then sunbathing by the pool. As it was Sara's birthday Chels, Sara and I went out to a rather nice Italian restaurant and had a great dinner. When we got home we decided to make a cardboard box car so we rushed over to K-Mart to get some tape and ended up running riot in there! We raided the toy and hat section. When leaving Chels got into a shopping trolly, definitely the cheapest buy of the evening! We got home and made the best cardboard box car ever!!!!! Once we were done we 'drove' around the the Diva's to show them my new car, GARY!!!!!!
Sunday we went to a creek festival down in Boulder. It was pretty nifty. There were plenty of stalls and interesting foods, including these amazing banana and strawberry kababs covered in chocolate.... YUM! We watched Wendy Woo and her band perform (we had Wendy for a rhythm class a couple of weeks ago) she's a fantastic singer! Now Sara, Chels and I have some of her albums so the rest of the weekend has been spent blasting Woo.
Today has been wet wet wet! I figured seeing as it was a wet day it should also be a PJ day!!! Went headed into Fort Collins for a while (in my PJ's) and did well not a lot else!
Looking forward to another amazing week at school!

Missing you all xx

will post photo's soon!

What a wacky week!

Well what a week!

Tuesday we worked on polo horses out in the field and back at the stables. Working out in the field was pretty cool - to be able to keep catch 14 horses from a large herd and keep their attention while they are in their pasture is quite something! The afternoon session was spent doing quieting and handling. We have a small competition going where you have to complete 2 tasks with your partner. They are timed and you can be penalised. One of the activities is to lunge your partner while they are blindfolded and the other is to gather the lunge rein 3 times in a 'safe' manner as to not scare the horse... this one was done with the rein attached to the gate. Heidi and I did pretty well on that one! We haven't done our lunging yet, hopefully we;ll get that done next week.

Wednesday we spent all day doing hoof care. Bryan is a very knowledgeable man and I learnt A LOT from him! We watched him make a shoe from a piece of bar stalk and attach it to the limb. He then dissected two limbs of a horse so we could examine the tendons, ligaments, joints and hoof capsule. It was fantastic to see what is in the hoof be able to get a good feel for all the tissues and joints etc.

This is a picture of Bryan shoeing the perfect kind of horse to shoe!

Thursday was a full on day of business, my head came away from that chockers. In the afternoon we were

informed that a tornado had hit towns about 20 - 30 minutes away from us which was kinda scary! Everything had an eerie feel to it that afternoon! Apparently there were about 6 tornado's around the area (not too close) last night!
Today we had anatomy and movement, another full on day! While in our movement class we got told that we were on tornado alert until this evening. Catherine was a bit worried about this. I didn't expect to come to America and be so close to a tornado!
This weekend is a long weekend, still no idea what I am going to do but I'm sure ill come up with something!
Missing you all muchly xx

Amazing Monday!!!

What an amazing day! We started off our day with our first hoof care class. It was great, I really learnt a lot from Bryan he is a very knowledgeable man. This afternoon we went to an Anatomy lab and got to look at different animal skeletons (including the horse of course). We were able to go into the freezer and look at horses muscles and tendons. There were also dogs, cows and sheep in there. It was kinda creepy but very interesting at the same time! The bones section was great it really helped me piece the joints together. There were dissected limbs that we were able to pick up and look at. They also had horses heads cut different ways so we were able to see the cross sections of those too. It was all rather interesting and beneficial.
It was a great day with the sun shining, I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Bye for now
xx

Another great week!

Well well well it's pretty much a of week 3! and what a week it has been! We've had sun, rain and snow! It's been a full on week with a lot a learning. On Thursday all of our class bar Jess who was back in Canada, went and saw the Lipizzaner's, it was awesome! What they can do is amazing.

Friday was spent at one of the ranch's doing massage all day. I worked on two horses, both taught me a lot. The second one in particular because there is something wrong with him but it is hasn't been figured out what. His body was an interesting one to work on and I learnt a lot from him.

This weekend is just a relaxing one, not up to too much, just study and enjoying the sunshine.

Missing you all!

Bye for now xx

The lastest....

The last couple of days have been awesome, although the weather hasn't always been great. Monday we had massage and anatomy. I love our massage classes! I always learn something new whether it be a new technique, something about the horse or something about myself. The anatomy class was probably the best one yet. We got to go and work with the horses finding where their bones and muscles wear at, it really started to piece things together for me! It's one thing reading about all the muscles but it's another thing putting them to the horse.


Tuesday was wet and cold but great all the same! We spent the morning working on Polo horses which was great. It was nice to get out hands on different horses, ones that don't just stand there (which is a nice luxury but wont be the case when we get out into the real world!). The afternoon was spent doing quieting and handling. We watched a demo of one of the horses going around a course being lead by crystal through feel. She had to get him to stand on the pallet and back into stables whilst sitting on a barrel among other things. I learn a lot with Rick working in the round pen, getting the pony to move through indirect feel.


Today was great, still very cold! It started with a big breakfast at Vern's Diner where we met the rest of the class before heading to a ranch up in the hills where there was snow, no blankets but more than enough to make you go oooooo, ahhhhh. It was all so pretty! It was good to work on other ranch horses that work in a different environment.

An old wagon at the Ranch

Tomorrow night we are off to see the Lipizzaner's, should be great I can't wait!


Missing you all muchly xx

The wrap up of week 2

Well well well what a week eh!

A big week a at school with lots a massage which was super. We went to some dressage stables on Thursday which was a nice change. The morning was spent watching demo's on the techniques of massage and the afternoon was spent focusing on rhythm. We looked at the gaits of the horse and practised them ourselves. Liw gave a wonderful demo of the Canter!!! FUN DAY!!!

We spent all day Friday at a ranch working on the horses and learning more tecniques.

Saturday a few of us class buddies headed up to a real cute town, Estes Park. We had snow and sunshine. We saw Deer, Elk, Long Horned Sheep and

And so it begins....

I have given into the temptation of starting up a blog like a couple of my fellow class mates have done.
We are now in our second week of our Equine Massage course. It's amazing but intense! There is so much to learn that I think I am going to have to start wearing a hat in order to keep everything in my brain! All our teachers are great, I have learnt a lot from them already. We have a fantastic class with people from America, Canada, Belgium, Italy and of course Australia! My housemates are great, the four of us get along really well and have already created so many memories together!

Just a quick one to check in with everyone and get started. Feel free to post comments! Missing you all xx