Trail Ride Photos

Not much to say here, just had a beautiful ride at the ranch on Thursday after working on scheduling and paper work all morning... the grass was so green in places it was almost fluorescent. I WISH I had gotten photos of all of the adorable baby cows we saw! Next time definitely. And at one point we came across a huh-uge bull bellowing for his wimmens, all by himself... he wasn't in a hurry to move out of the trail and so brave Jordan had to help kind of push him along until he moved off the path! Who knew an imported Warmblood with very distinguished parenthood would be opening gates like a cow pony, and moving cattle on the trail?? I am borrowing a client's saddle - once mine is back, we are going to get going on the @#%* dressage lessons already. And don't get me started on my weight loss program. It's just completely stagnant, it's frustrating me absolutely. But how can you be too frustrated when you get moments like this??

Blue layer in the distance is the ocean, the little lump at the top are the islands off the coast

Desiree from SA & Between the Twines Clinic

Desiree trimming Montana, a client horse

Last week was a big blur! Just a day or two after my birthday and a mad rush of trying to get my house cleaned, horses trimmed and schedules scheduled, Mario and I picked up Desiree from South Africa at the Santa Barbara airport. We had never even talked on the phone before, just traded voicemails and emails. Desiree joined the PHCP (hoof care training program that I helped found) and came to the U.S. to learn natural hoofcare in a whirlwind course and pace. The Gargiulo household was her first stop... gulp! But, any concerns about having a foreigner in our house - sharing living and working space alike - was quickly soothed as we got to know her. It was an awesome experience!


On Sunday evening, Mario and I speculated that Desiree was getting on a plane heading to towards the US, but we would not pick her up until Tuesday evening! That's a lonnnng time of traveling, especially when you consider she had never flown before! She arrived looking fresh and relaxed, and seemed to immediately know who we were before I even held up my "Desiree" sign with smiley faces and hooves drawn on it. Once at the house, after she got over her total delight at our 6 foot tall cat tree (should have known right then she was good people!) - she was given a brief tour of the west and east wings of the house, and decided to have a shower and go to bed! Mario and I took up our usual spots - me at my computer, him on the couch, when we heard the tell tale sound of the small bathroom shower door magnet opening. Mario shot upright and said, "You didn't tell her she could shower in there did you?!" to which I, confused, said "well... yeah, it's ok isn't it?" Turns out Mario had taken apart that shower head and didn't tell me. So he insisted I go and tell Desiree that there was no shower head...



said through the door ...


Sossity: "Desiree? I'm so sorry... I didn't know! Mario just told me there's no shower head in there!"


Desiree: "Oh, it's fine... it's fine, don't worry Sossity" (spoken in her charming SA accent)


Sossity: tiptoes back to Mario, uncertain what this all means. It's fine? Is she getting out or no??

But we hear the water running for awhile, so we are baffled at what could be happening. Is she too embarassed to get out? Confused about the US water spigot systems? Thinks we are redneck Americans with water shooting out of the wall instead of proper showers? Later she gets out of the bathroom, says she actually did continue on with the shower, saying it was a wonderful massage for her tired back!



The shower incident became the joke of the week, and it became known as the Mario Shower, which she assures us she is going to bring back to South Africa as The Thing To Do. Everyone, remove your shower heads! It's a great massage!



We also learned fun new words for things. Mario's truck is a "bakkie", the trunk of a car is a "boot", horse trailers are "boxes", and wife is pronounced "waahf". She also had personal sayings such as "oh, shame" when something is too bad... and it is pronounced "oh, shem", and instead of when we would say something like "is that so?" she would say "oh is it?" even if "it" was a person or event, etc. ;-) Oh and napkins are serviettes.



She entertained me to no end with stories of riding in the South African bush on her Arabian stallion named Hamra, where they literally rode with zebras, giraffes, ostrich, monkeys, wildebeast and even rhinocerus. We saw photos of her beautiful home and garden, and to my surprise the plant life is so much like here. I recognized jacaranda, pepper trees, lillies, palms and ferns, bouganveillea, etc. just like we have here.



In turn we taught her what we know about natural hoof care, bringing her on our daily trimming schedule to see the usual range of southern California hooves. We introduced her to things like Hoof Jacks (hoof stand), hay probes, thrush remedies and nipper springs, driving on the 'wrong' side of the road and even to mules and Quarter Horses (don't have them in SA much). And of course to the wonderful pets we share our lives with! :) We also taught her the mustang roll that we are so proud of... I like to think I started it, the extra big and pretty roll we put on a hoof, but Mario does most of the rolls now and he did a great job teaching her that part of the trim. She now calls it The Mario Roll, so that, in addition to the Mario Shower, are going back to SA with her!

Unfortunately I only got a couple of photos of her, we were just so busy the entire time she was here! On the 2nd to last day we ran around getting everything ready for the equine nutrition clinic that I hosted. We hit up Costco (good for some eye popping consumerism) for serviettes, fruit, cookies, etc for the clinic, then Office Depot for signs, then Kinkos for the clinic handouts, etc. Mario borrowed dozens of chairs from Randall and set them up the day before. The night before friends came from out of town to stay at the house or in hotels before the clinic, and we somehow organized enough to get to dinner at the same place and time. Desiree and I stayed up until almost 1am working on directional arrow signs for the clinic, and we were up and at 'em early Saturday for the clinic itself.

Sally (green jacket) teaching the clinic attendees

32 people showed up (to the venue that I was fortunate enough to have use of thanks to a generous client!) to learn about the ins and outs of equine nutrition, in a clinic given by Sally Hugg from the PHCP. It was awesome! So much work but definitely worth it. We had coffee, tea, chocolate, breakfast rolls, sandwiches, chips, fruit, water, and even wine for the attendees, which Mario and I somehow managed to organize ahead of time. A portable toilet was delivered in my name, and I actually got compliments on it. That's a group that knows their portable toilets! :-P We all learned so much! Either reinforced what was already known, answered long standing questions or was the catalyst for huge light bulb moments for some of my clients that attended. It was so cool to see a group of my clients together, most of whom had never met, getting along, helping each other and even making plans to meet up afterwards.

After everyone had left around 6pm and we had cleaned up all of our garbage, chairs, tables, etc, a small group of us went to dinner to wrap it all up with a final rousing hoof care discussion. It's really funny how passionate a group we are. :)

A somewhat dark photo of the beautiful area in Ojai where the clinic was held

More intent listening to the clinician, Sally

Sossity, Desiree, Sally and Jennifer
We were the diehards along with Mario of course, staying late to clean up and go to dinner, so here we are proudly displaying some of the more important goods... leftover wine and a big ole sandwich! Desiree was frozen, and is clutching onto her "wine glass" which was a water bottle filled with wine, to warm up. She said it worked, and we all agreed it was too bad she didn't have wine earlier in the day!

We brought Desiree back to the airport on Sunday to send her to her next stop, northern CA, for more mentoring and clinics. She gave us both Cape Buffalo horn necklaces, which she told us symbolizes strength and bravery. We were both sad to see her go, but I know we've made a lifelong friend! And I am once again grateful to the entire concept of natural hoof care, for bringing all of these blessings and experiences into my life and to those around me as well!

Sossity's 38th Birthday

My 38th birthday dawned bright, sunny and beautiful! It's always a happy surprise because it has been known to be a date for record breaking snowstorms (NJ) or torrential downpours (CA). But this one was lovely...

Mario and I went to breakfast at Cafe Nouveau, my favorite breakfast spot. We brought one lucky dog, Bailey, who got to sample my eggs benedict made with avocado and tomato rather than ham... so good!

When we got home I convinced Mario that the thing I most wanted to do - rather than get a massage, pedicure or ride one of my horses, was to paint the spare room furniture. He was truly disappointed in me, but what could he say - it was my birthday after all! And the furniture really needed to be painted, it was so ugly, and we had a house guest coming from another country no less! (more in my next blog entry on that!) It turned out to be a surprisingly painless process, the paint we had gotten went on easily and quickly after a quick sanding, and we brought out a fan to blow away all the overspray. But then do you put white pristine furniture back in a dirty room? No, we ended up going through all the drawers, knicknacks, built up crap, etc. and cleaned and re-arranged everything. We tried to bring in the daybed from the shed, but to Mario's disgust there was a mouse hole/nest in the middle of it! Ugh, one more thing to buy before the guest arrived. We did clean up the frame and set it up in the room.

That night Mario took me out to The Watermark, a restaurant/club in downtown Ventura. The upstairs area has a bar and tons of windows looking out over the town, and they have live bands. We met our friends Stephanie and Nick, Leticia and Alex, Daryl and Maria and Randall. I was so happy to see everyone! Stephanie gave me a goody bag of fun, cute and funny gifts, and Leticia gave me beautiful earrings. I opened a gift from my Aunt Lois to find a wonderful surprise of photos of Hope and I and Lois and Alison from a visit to us in the early days in NJ. It had to have been around 1991??? It was so sweet and such a surprise to see those pictures again!! And Mario gave me his gift as well -- a hardcover book of this entire blog! It is like a year in review, and I love it!!

The night quickly became a blur, as my wine glass was never empty and I had NO idea how many times it had been refilled!! The band was good, and Mario and I closed down a bar for the first time in many years. As I looked through the photos to share on the blog, I had to laugh at a common thread through just about every one. . . not a normal expression in the group!

It was a great way to bring in my 10th anniversary of turning 28. :-P

The Equine Affaire

Mario and I had a very long, horsey day yesterday! We drove down south to a place known to most as Broken Horn, and to those that are really in the know -- Broken Wallet. Not because they are overpriced, just because they are huuuge, carrying both english and western tack and apparel, feed, stable supplies, dog and cat products, etc. It's several floors and levels and there's just always something you need when you make the trip. Luckily, it is over an hour south of me and entails driving through L.A. area, so it's not appealing. Yesterday however the drive was clear sailing to be honest, which was a nice surprise since we were expecting torrential downpours and bad traffic. I was taking my saddle to Broken Horn's repair specialist to see if he could add external thigh blocks to it to make it more secure for me. While there we ended up discussing modifying the seat so it is a little deeper as well. I am really excited for the changes but it means about $500 and 5 weeks without my saddle!! I'm going to have to sort that out somehow! :(

After buying a metal tined pitchfork - which was deemed necessary after breaking 2 plastic tined pitchforks - we head over to the Equine Affair in Pomona. There is also an EA in Massachusetts and Ohio each year. The EA comes to CA once a year every February, for 4 days, and takes up a handful of convention hall buildings, arenas and outbuildings and draws thousands and thousands of people. The convention buildings are filled with displays and sales of every possible horse related thing you can think of, from tractors to supplements, saddles and bridles, horse trailers and horse insurance companies, jewelery, photography and art, stable supplies like buckets and brushes and rack after rack of equestrian themed clothing. People bring rolling carts to carry all the stuff they buy! You can also enjoy the carnival food - overpriced funnel cake, ice cream, hot dogs, pretzels, etc. Both inside and out in different arenas running all day are dozens of clinics, seminars and demos with live horses and trainers. There is a breed and youth pavilion in addition to all of the above... It's a serious extravaganza!

This year we were able to meet up with several friends and clients, and a couple of them were working in different booths, which was very cool! One was selling hoof boots for Action Rider tack in addition to promoting her trimming business , another was promoting her organization which teams up trimmers, vets, chiros, etc., and another was advertising his new breeders website Dream Breeders.com. Everyone said it was a succesful event, which was definitely good to hear considering the economy and the expensive nature of owning horses at all!

The big draw for Mario was the Extreme Cowboy Race. We had not seen it in action yet, although having heard a lot about it! It was incredible! These riders take their horses through a series of obstacles and challenges, and are timed, plus given style points for creativity. The venue blasts music and the crowd cheers, stomps, and generally goes wild. Some of the challenges last night included dragging a log through hay bales, jumping a tight series of jumps, doing reining spins, ground tying the horse while the rider crawls through hay bales, stripping off the saddle and riding bareback at a dead run, etc. It was amazing to me how the horses literally hauled ass as fast as they could and then would come back to stand quietly while the rider completed some difficult task! Mario wore his cowboy hat and whooped and hollered with the best of them. In fact, he may have been the best whooper and hollerer there! I think everyone on our side heard him pretty distinctly! ;-P We didn't get home until almost midnight, but it was a really fun day! I bought some good stuff, too... just in time for my birthday!!

In other news - Dylan ripped off a toenail. We don't even know how he did it, he just came in from the fairly innocent backyard with a bloody foot... a vet visit, pain killers and antibiotics... poor guy!! He's so stoic, it had to hurt like hell, but he came in the house just wagging his tail like nothing had happened. He's limping on it a little now, but it's all wrapped so it could be partially lack of range of motion. I will take off the bandage tomorrow to let it all breathe and finish healing. It was very cute when he came home from the vet, the pugs went and sat quietly next to him... they knew he needed puggy support.

Today's the Super Bowl. I don't even know for certain who is playing so that shows you my level of football involvement. Colts & Saints??? I think that's right. Mario went to golf this morning, and then he will watch the game at Randy's. I'll go to the barn as per tradition. :) Later tonight I have an AHA conference call. It was supposed to be raining but instead it's intensely blue skyed. Bailey asked to go outside just now, and I had to snap this quick pic of her soakin' in the rays after 3 days of rain and clouds.

That's Bailey sitting on the chair like a fat buddha...