Workcation Day 1: What 160 Meters Of Ring Fence Really Feel Like...

It's summer 2017 and thanks to my busy schedule at work and tons of business trips it was nearly impossible to find at least a week to take some time off. I would have loved to have at least two weeks and go to the Netherlands for a week (road trip, here we come) but due to a pre-defined trip to Silicon Valley there was no way to having two weeks off. So, I took at least this week. As my family had no time to go on vacation with me and I was not to eager to go alone, I decided to start a workcation and do all the things that need to be done anyway. Today, it was my first day after spending the weekend already with cleaning my apartment super thoroughly on Saturday and starting the trailer polishing part 2 project yesterday. I made a huge to do list and plan to do as much as I can during this week. My workcation also includes a riding boot camp with several lessons to get Hafl and me back on track.

The brand new footing definitely helps 

We had our first lesson of the week today in the morning after an almost sleepless night. Already before 9 a.m. I sat on my horse dragging our first rounds on our brand new arena footing. The last couple of weeks I almost always worked alone and tried my best to improve the canter by doing short periods of very collected canter followed by walk transitions and back to canter, always on a circle. We (my trainer and I) were both surprised how well Hafl's canter developed and we even easily managed to ride shoulder or haunches in in canter on a circle. The trot feels already great and Hafl is really round and supple now. His strength increased as well making riding so much fun.

Fancy trotting in the warm up

For lunch, we had a dentist appointment and after having Hafl's teeth done, riding should become even better tomorrow. 

The major work project for today was the ring fences which needed a fresh layer of paint after not being painted last year. Seven people worked the whole afternoon to get 160 meters of ring fence brilliantly white again. You have no idea what 160 meters of fences feel like until you paint the last pole!

In the end, we were super tired (and for sure, sore tomorrow) and all covered in white dots making the visit at the supermarket afterwards quite funny. We will have our annual show in less than two weeks and we are really happy that we finished one of the most awful tasks when getting show ready.

What seemed an endless pain...



Concentrated on the job

Fences, fences everywhere!

 

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