Broken Promises, A Brand-New Tomorrow

 

I thought I'd start this post off with a silly picture of Apollo; he was scratching an itch when I took this picture.

 

Anyways, my dad came out today to see us, the first time in a year (sad isn't it?) and weeks ago he said he'd bring my oldest half brother because he was interested in horses and wanted to ride.  So I planned a day where I board and was all excited to get him up on the horse. 

 

I was so excited that I finally had a sibling into what I was into, even if he's 17 years younger than I am :|  But nonetheless, I excitedly told everyone and even went as far to announce my excitement on facebook (which rarely do I ever post status updates about coming events). 

 

Then the day came and something happened.

 

My dad decided he wasn't going to bring my brother and didn't give a reason why.  He complains we don't see our other brothers enough, but then pulls shit like this.  I was beyond pissed, this was another thing he said he'd do that he didn't do. 

 

Though, I blame myself for getting over excited about the whole thing.  I should have known my dad would do something like this.  Hell, he's done stuff like this before. 

 

Like at Christmas, I was supposed to go up to see him and my half siblings and exchange gifts.  Well something came up and I couldn't go up.  He even went as far to say they weren't even celebrating Christmas. 

 

Christmas day I go onto facebook and see a group of photos uploaded by him and guess what, it was him and his new family enjoying Christmas with her family.  It all summed up to the fact that they didn't have room for me to stay with them.  Let's just say last Christmas was the worst Christmas I'd ever had. 

 

So why should I be surprised that he didn't bring my half brother?  Maybe I thought he'd changed, maybe there was a tiny sliver of hope that he was going to be the father I used to remember eleven years ago. 

 

Now, back to the rest of my day. 

 

We went to the barn after eating lunch and only spent a few minutes because my dad wore white shoes to a barn with a muddy barn yard.... He's such a city slicker...

 

Then he brought me and my brother home and left...we spent maybe 2 1/2 hours with him?  He then proceeds to call me to say that he's 'sorry' for not spending so much time with us because of the long drive home.  Come on, I have a cousin who probably drives a longer distance than he does and they spend the day with us. 

 

So this summer, I guess we must go up to his place because he complains we never stay at his place, and I'm going to pull the same stunt.  We'll stay for an hour then say we have to head out because of the 'long drive' home.  Then we'll just go over to my aunt's and visit with them. 

 

And I know I sound spoilt and selfish, but when you have to live with broken promises and teeth pulling to get a single visit out of the man who helped conceive you, you get sort of sick of it. 

 

I was told I was a real daddy's girl when I was a kid...not anymore. 

 

 

So on a lighter note, I'm heading to the barn tomorrow afternoon with family from my mom's side, at least they won't disappoint me.  They never have without good reason. 

 

~LEB~

Where's Spring?

Holy chow mien it's been quite a while!

But as always, I'm super busy and have barely been on the computer in weeks. 

So lately I've made some big purchases in my life, many of them horse equipment. 

I got a good deal on all of that and he looks snazzy in all his sexy black tack ;)

 

So anyways, mostly trail riding has been going on and lots of it.  I've also figured out Apollo's little quirks in the short eight weeks I've gotten to know him and own him.  For one he's a very smart boy, you can see him assess the situation before he reacts resulting in fewer spooks as the days go on.  Like just last week we went on a trail with two other horses and a turkey flew out of the brush, spooking the horse in front, but Apollo just looked at where the turkey was, didn't move for a few seconds, then relaxed. 

 

Another quirk I've figured out is that when he knows we're going out, and he really does know (he's found out that when there are other horses as we're all tacking up outside that he's going on the trail) he'll act up and dance in place, try to untie himself and just be a big butt until we're out in the woods and I get on; then he just mellows out and marches along. 

 

When we're coming back from the trail he slows down quite a bit and will hang his head really low and will flop his ears to the side because he doesn't want to go back to the barn.

 

There's a spot behind his right cheek bone where when you scratch it he stretches out and forgets he's not a lap dog and ends up sort of stepping on me as he pushes right into me.

 

He paws when he's impatient to do anything.

 

He doesn't like when I'm out of his sight when he knows I'm there.

 

He has a vendetta with tree branches.

 

When he spooks he drops like how cats do when you scare them.

 

He has this obsession with my coffee.

 

He won't let me hug him, but he will wrap his neck around my shoulders when I'm not facing him.

 

He follows me like a dog, no matter what I'm doing or carrying around (Lately I've been dragging large sticks around so they make loads of noise and he sticks right beside me).

 

Those are only a few of the quirks and behaviours I've picked up and I know with the years to come there will be more.

 

 

But that's all, there are a few movies I've been itching to watch, but haven't been able to due to work >.>

 

~LEB~



*insert witty title here*

Before I truly begin, I'd like to mention that it is half an hour to midnight right now and I'm mentally and physically exhuasted at the moment.  Hell I'm still in my work clothes and I've been home since 8:30 pm....

Anyways not alot has been going on besides the usual working and heading to the barn whenever I have spare time.  I am off of work for hopefully only tomorrow, so I'm hoping to be able to go and ride Apollo and take my much wanted escape from reality for an hour or two. 

So last weekend, which I never blogged due to soreness and a lack of willingness to type even a paragraph here, I went on another trail ride on Saturday which was short, but still enjoyable.  Actually all of my trail rides with Apollo seemed to be the best hour to hour and a half of my entire life lately (not a bad thing).  But when we came back from the trail I wanted to ride a little longer so we went in the arena and let's just say we had a little disagreement on not being able to see the other horses he went out on the trail ride. 

I had the bit in his mouth because of the trail, but switched back to the hackamore which stopped a lot of the fighting, but he still wanted to be with his buddies from the trail instead of work. 

Sunday I stayed home and recovered from last week of work and the daylight savings thing. 

Monday went back and we went on a hour and a half trail ride.  At the beginning I thought I'd have to lunge him out in the arena before heading out because he was dancing almost the entire time I was tacking up, but once we left the barn yard and headed for the trail he settled right down.  It was decided that I'd put the hackamore on him for the trail and the barn owner would take along the headstall with the bit on her saddle incase he wouldn't listen to me out on the trail. 

I'm proud to say we didn't have to even think about headstall with the bit as he was perfect the entire time.  Be it I hit another tree with the opposite knee and cut my wrist on a thorn bush some how, but he was amazing. 

We all came back after an exceptionally long ride to find the barn owner's new barn cat greeting Apollo at the hitching post.  (Forgot to mention that the barn cat and Apollo seem to enjoy each other's company quite a bit -- as you can see in the picture below).

 

Well the barn owner suggested I put the cat up in the saddle and see how Apollo reacted to that since he was so comfy with the cat being near his face (and the fact that he was trying to pet the cat with his upper lip).  So I did...and this is the results....

 



And there you have it people!   I'm so proud of him, he never flinched or looked at what I was doing with the cat while I put him up in the saddle (which he usually does when I'm grooming him and saddling him; he just has to see what I've got).  That cat walked out of the saddle and sat on his rump before walking back into the saddle, laying down into the seat then walked up on his neck and jumped onto the hitch post; my boy barely flinched! :D

 

 

Well that's about it for now, I'm tired and have to be up early to get my hair finally cut off. 

 

~LEB~

OKay One More Post Tonight

I just put the pictures from today onto my computer and would like to ask you if you think there's been a change in Apollo from day one til today, six weeks since I first saw him.

Before

After

Now this will give my followers a reason to comment >:D

~LEB~

Busy Week/Weekend

I totally forgot to update this thing, geeze! ^.^'

My only explanation for the infrequent posting is that between work and going to the barn I've been too exhausted to really open up Internet Explorer (which is not what I normally use, but blogger won't cooperate on FireFox) and type anything is past week.  So I sit here now, after just getting back from the barn this frosty afternoon, to tell you a little about what I've been up to as of late.

Last weekend was full of trail rides (Don't remember if I mentioned them so I'm just going to go over this entire week and last weekend).  Of course on Monday I ran into a tree.  Which only happened because Apollo squeezed between the trees, but I was paying more attention to how he was going down the hill rather than where my knees were places and whacked it hard off a nice sized tree.  Let's say hard enough that I thought I shattered my knee cap until we got back and found that I had scrapped it and bruised it under the knee cap.  Now that was Monday's adventure.

I caught him taking the reins off the post and dropping them on the ground.

Thursday I didn't go because of that snow storm since our van's wouldn't have been able to clear the driveway.  But Friday I went out and had just a simple play day in the arena where I spent some time cleaning up the arena while Apollo followed along beside me.



My mom really knows how to take shitty pics of me -_-

 

 

 

This Saturday I spent about an hour desensitizing Apollo in the arena while the trainer worked with his half-sister at the same time.  Then I got up on him and rode around for a bit, even got him up into a jog!  Sadly no pictures from Saturday :/.

 

Then today I went out for about an hour and just fooled around in the arena with him. 

 

Tomorrow I'm going back out to ride again so hopefully I feel up to posting tomorrow before work :P

 

~LEB~