Sunday, July 26, 2009

An Evening in Paradise

Pictures fresh from yesterday afternoon!
If you click, they should enlarge.
These are of my Grandad, on Bebe. Me on Fabio and some of the babies...




My baby, Mocha!..

My favorite, cantering with contact...

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Just for You!

I haven't taken a video in a while, and decided to take a little one of us just fooling around at Liberty.

In this video...

Circling game with attempt to flying change
Backing by tail with turns - Just learning
Kick the Ball and Sideways over Ball - Sundance's spark of excellence, he decided his soccer beating skills should be shown! I think he did a good job of adding his own spice.
Mirroring - Legs
High five - Legs
Stick to Me

There's no dash or flash, just having fun together in the arena... working on some little things. No editing, no music... just true blue us in a regular daily session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfqnUMppHY

I hope you enjoyed it!

XOXO

Mariah & Fabio

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Summer is Soaring

Hello friends,

I just  got back from the beach, it was quite a wonderful experience. But as you all know, I am happy to be back... where I belong!

It's been busy around the barn, we've had some sick horses. Starsky, our club footed rescue had a bout of lameness. We had the vet come over and we now have some medicine to give him that will help the blood flow in his leg. We had an x-ray done on our 18 hh Amish Percheron, Doc, and heard back that he has a severe case of ringbone that can't be fixed. Then silly Sundance came up the very minute the vet drove in, with a limp, an abscess... but luckily the vet took care of it then and there and he is very well at the moment. We also have a new addition to the herd, one of my dearest friends and dedicated students has finally gotten her a horse. He will be coming in on Monday, and thankfully, he grew up with little Bebe... he is his half brother, so we will put those two in a separate pasture to settle down and then introduce them within the week. 

We also had a play day a couple of weeks ago, it was a blast!

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Email me at mariahhelms@hotmail.com if you are interested in joining a play group.

 

There's also been a lot of planning going on, on the families part with my going to the Centers next spring. Which is not far away! At the moment, it looks like I will be taking Fast Track # 3 in Florida, go straight to the 12 week Extern program and study there for a while in Florida. Then make the transfer with Pat and Linda and Crew to the Colorado center and finish the rest of my term there. How exciting! I am waiting for an email back from Lee Palmer to get all of this finalized... so we should have all of this official, very soon.

As for what I am doing in the arena, Sundance and I are tuning up on our Liberty skills. We are incorporating Level 4 Patterns, and playing with our circling game at close contact in larger areas. I am trying to be the best leader I can be, but we all know that takes a lot of elbow grease, and it pays off more and more by the day. I am going to start tuning up on our Freestyle patterns too, take is slow and easy. "Slow and RIGHT beats fast and WRONG." - Pat Parelli. I am looking for purity of gait and sensitivity to my cues, time to pay attention to those two.

My students have picked up also, I am very blessed to have such motivated and dedicated students... without them, I wouldn't be getting where I am going! Thank you!

I want all of you to be sure you keep an eye out for me on Twitter daily, I post throughout the day. You can keep up with me there on a more consistent basis, and get to know a little about what my days look like and what's going on in my head. It's simple and free! http://www.twitter.com/mariahhelms

Well friends, I am out to feed the precious ponies and start another beautiful day. Thanks for joining me once more on this beautiful journey!

XOXO

Mariah Helms;

http://www.mariahhelms.com/

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Horsenality Moderating

For those that have asked, I use paint to personalize the horsenality paper... ;)