New Year's Resolutions...

I'm feeling inspired to do things today. I've half taken down the Christmas tree (I decided mid-way that I'm going to buy a new storage box to keep it in, so that's going to have to wait a little while), and generally started cleaning things up. I'll unpack the suitcases next I think...

Pity it's too hot now to clean the horses up. That's on the list for this afternoon. They're all very muddy right about now from the rain while we were away. It was good coming back and seeing them again, but now I have to get back into my campaign to find new homes for two of them... It sucks, but it's got to happen. I've got two perfectly good, rideable horses out there just hanging out doing nothing! If I was super-rich I'd keep them (and probably a heap of other ones too...) and pay someone to come and ride them or something, but unfortunately I have to get moving on my decision to free lease them out... or maybe even sell them if I'm feeling really brave... eep!

I've never sold a horse. I don't know how other people do it really... it has to happen one day though. There are so many good homes out there for horses, with people who will love them and take excellent care of them. I just have to stop being an anxious control freak and make myself let go :P

I bought a copy of Horse Deals to look through and see all the people who have horses. There are a lot of them! And there are definitely people out there who would make excellent homes for my two.

So it's going to be a new year's resolution. New homes for the horses!

Ooh, did I mention I'm addicted to RedBubble??

Hehe, I guess I've become so engrossed in RedBubble that I forgot to post on here about it!

I haven't uploaded much work yet due to scanner and storage issues. Namely, my scanner is being temperamental, and most of my old artwork is stored about an hour away from where I live... So I discovered a nice free program called 'GNU Image Manipulation Program' or GIMP. It's very cool, and I think I've got most of the basics understood now... So basically everything uploaded so far is something I've drawn while trying to figure out how to use GIMP!

Actually that's not 100% accurate, as the first thing I uploaded was a photo of a flower. It was the first time I've ever taken a photo of a flower in fact, which just shows how desperate I was to upload something on there so I could play around with the settings and see how it all worked!

I'm slowly getting better at working with GIMP, and my aim is to have enough work that I'm proud of on there to make a calendar for 2010. :)

Here's a slideshow of my work, and a link to my gallery.



I've ordered a few things from RedBubble and the quality really is fabulous. Well worth checking out if you're looking for a good 'print-on-demand' site that deals in t-shirts, greeting cards and wall art! :)

Well that was a nice little break now wasn't it?

Things got pretty busy there for a while! Hopefully I'll be able to get back to a more regular schedule of blog posting now that Christmas is done for another year!

How was your Christmas? Mine was pretty good! I got a new rasp for trimming my ponies' hooves, and after using it I can't believe I put off getting a new one for so long... Funny how much easier it is to trim when you're not using a blunt rasp!!

The horses are having a bit of a holiday. I had my last competition before Christmas and was very pleased with the results considering our preparation was a bit patchy due to all the rain. I rode in two tests, for two seconds with scores just over 60%. I was especially happy considering the surface was slippery so I had to ride 'safely'. We weren't exactly dribbling about or anything, but we definitely could go more forward next time under more normal conditions.

Always good to finish the year on a good note!

Hope you're all recovering well from whatever festive celebrations you may have been partaking in :-)

Rain rain go away, come again another day!!

At the moment it seems like every time the arena dries out enough for me to ride, we get more rain! Sure, it certainly beats living in drought conditions, but I need to ride a little bit before the last competition of the year!

Hopefully tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to get back into it.

At least it's given me a chance to do some Christmas shopping and catch up with people! I'm so tired now, I might write a proper entry in here tomorrow. *Yawn*

Sunday mornings are a great time to relax and reflect... and get horsey jobs done!

It's a beautiful Sunday morning in this part of the world. I'm just eating my breakfast before I go out and feed the horses and give their feet a bit of a tidy up where needed. It's been very wet here lately, and today looks like a great day to catch up on a bit of hoof maintenance.

I have been trimming my horses' feet for several years now using the "wild horse" style of barefoot trimming that can be seen on sites such as Barefoot for Soundness.

That site is an excellent place to get started if you're interested in learning about an increasingly popular method of hoof care. To put it simply, people have studied the way the hooves of Mustangs and other wild horses wear naturally and have developed a very successful triming method based on their findings.

Another site that is great to visit is Iron Free Hoof.

I visit these sites regularly to 'keep my eye in', and refresh the theory of what I'm doing in my head.

Learning to trim has been one of the major turning points in my life with horses. I'll share the story of my hoof trimming journey at a later date when I've got a bit more time up my sleeve!

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday too :)

The Equine Inspiration Zazzle Store has been launched!

I've been playing with Zazzle this afternoon, and I'm glad to report that it's great fun creating things on there!

I've created three things with one of my favourite photos, and I've even found out how to insert them in the sidebar --->>>

Pretty cool, huh? My favourite is the bag.

In future I'll be creating images with inspirational quotes, cartoons and other cool things.

Right now though I have to get off the computer and go feed the horses! :-)

Welcome to the Equine Inspiration Blog!

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things... of horses, blogs and inspiration, of cabbages and kings!

Ok, perhaps not cabbages and kings... I'm not sure why I suddenly thought of that poem from Through the Looking Glass (it's from The Walrus and the Carpenter, in case you're wondering). I love Alice in Wonderland! The density of nonsense in his writings is very appealing indeed!

Anyway, let's get down to it. I've been creating bits and pieces of things around the internet under the name 'Equine Inspiration' for a little while now. I haven't had much time for it lately because I've been very busy, but now the wet weather has made it impossible for me to ride, so I'm indoors in front of the computer this weekend!

Amongst my web projects I have created several 'lenses' on Squidoo, which can be seen here. I am also in the process of starting a Zazzle store, which I find very exciting! My designs could one day be on t-shirts, mugs, cards, mouse mats and all sorts of other items! Even shoes! I'll start playing with Zazzle again once I've finished this blog. There's a lot I still have to figure out over there, and setting things up will take some time!

I've started this blog because... I wanted to! That's a good enough reason isn't it?

I wonder if anyone will read it :)