Camp Day 1

Sorry I didn't get a chance to write this post before, but I didn't get home until about 6:15 yesterday, and I was extremely tired from riding and being in the sun all day. I have to say that when I woke up yesterday morning, I really did not want to go to camp. I was tired from being up early (and getting up at 7 rather than 8 because my clock was set wrong) and a little apprehensive about the day ahead. And once I stepped outside my house, I realized it was going to be really hot and humid that day (it's going to be all week though). Luckily it did rain in the afternoon, giving us a break from the humidity and sun.

After getting our name tags (there's only nine campers, including me) we went up to the barn owner's garage and sat in a circle. We went around and took turns saying our scariest horse moment and something we wanted to learn or improve on in the week. I said that I didn't have a scariest horse moment, because I haven't even been riding for that long, and that I wanted to learn how to tie a fly bonnet. Then the barn owner went over the horses we would be riding (I rode Annie) and we went to go tack up.

Annie's usually grumpy, but today she was especially grumpy. She kept making weird squealing noises when a horse got too close to her butt that freaked everyone out. It was chaos in the barn too, which didn't help, but I did learn how to tie a fly bonnet! Once we were up in the ring and on our horses, we all warmed up around the ring (which had been turned into one giant one so there would be more room). It got a little crowded at times when everyone was trying to get by jumps and barrels and poles at the same time, but once you broke away from the group there was enough room. We then worked on half-halts, which basically means you ask your horse to halt, but when they are just about to, you ask them to move forward again. This helps your horse collect itself and rebalance.

After a while we switched to pole bending. This was how it worked: We had to walk, trot or canter our horse (it didn't matter) along one side of a row of poles, turn around at the end, and then weave the poles down once and up once. Then we had to turn around again and walk, trot, or canter back to the beginning without weaving. We were also timed. I went last the first time, and I trotted the whole way except for the last straight stretch, which I cantered. I think I got around 59 seconds or something. For my second turn I half trotted, half cantered the way up (because Annie decided she wanted to canter), trotted when weaving the poles, and cantered coming back. I got about 56 seconds this time. Everyone got two turns, so it was nice to just sit in the shade and watch.

When everyone had gone twice, it was time for anyone who wanted to switch horses to switch. Someone wanted to ride Annie, so I got off, switched a couple times, and ended up with Annie again when we were done. After that we went down to the barn to untack. At this point I was dying because I had not thought to bring my water bottle, so I was desperate to hurry up and untack. Once I finally did I ended up chugging so much water my stomach hurt (I now know not to do that!). Then we had to feed the horses, which didn't take long, and after that we went up to the porch to eat lunch, which was a much needed break.

The next thing on our schedule was to go back to the garage to paint wooden jewelry boxes. I painted mine dark green, and it was fun to see everyone else's too. Some people went crazy and painted their's ten different colors, and some people went simple like I did with one solid color. We were to finish painting them the next day. About half-way through painting, it started to thunder, and then it started to pour. After painting we were planning on going swimming in the neighbor's pool, but their filter was broken so we couldn't. It was okay though, because we wouldn't have been able to swim in the thunder and rain anyway. So we decided to go into the house and watch a movie and eat popcorn. We watched this old movie called Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, and I must say I wasn't expecting to like it much, but I actually did. It was a true story, and it was pretty incredible.

When the movie was done we all decided to try vaulting, which we saw in the movie. Not when the horse was moving like in the movie, but just when the horse was standing still. So we brought two horses up, one small (Rita) and one bigger (Rosie), and left them bareback so we could practice. We tried to lift ourselves up onto a horse's back without using anything to help us, which was pretty much impossible on Rosie, so we all brought her next to a wooden platform about six inches high and we vaulted from there. That I could do (sort of). I wouldn't say it was graceful or anything, but I got up there somehow. With Rita, no one needed a platform because she was so tiny. I could get on her with no problem. It must have looked very funny to see me on such a small horse, but I definitely had a lot of fun trying out vaulting and laughing with people at our lame attempts.

By that point it was around 4:15, so when my stepdad came to pick me up I decided to just stay till my lesson at 5. So I went down and got my riding clothes and changed into them again (which was not easy to do when all my clothes were inside out and sweaty). I'll write about my lesson in a different blog post, as usual. I hope I didn't bore you guys with my ranting about my day, so congratulations if you made it this far! :)