Turtles riding the Gulf Stream

Do you remember the scene in the movie Finding Nemo, where the sea turtles are riding the Gulf Stream, being carried along in the fun and exciting flow of the current ... and they are laughing and digging on the thrill of the ride?

That is how I feel right now!  Ok - to be honest I feel a little more like Marlin when he first wakes up after the jellyfish incident, and he's hanging on to the turtle's back and kind of freaking out.   Eventually he relaxes and goes with it like the baby turtles, knowing he is safe and realizing it is actually FUN.   I hope ... plan... to get to the point where I am riding it gleefully.  :)

Since we last spoke, lots of good stuff has happened.  My therapist told me how when you are in the flow of the universe, things happen 'easily' and come to you with synchronicity and opened doors .. and Mario told me that you must be brave enough to walk through them as well!

The flow has been such a nice contrast to the struggle, sickness and strain of the last year +.

We had a student come and stay with us from South Africa again.  Her name was Jana, and we had a great week working with her and teaching her our approach to trimming.  We had some good laughs, drinks and meals (around our new table!) and really enjoyed hearing about life in such a different world - and yet the similiarities in the horse world were interesting as well.  SA is behind the US as far as natural hoof care goes, but that kind of makes it more exciting for the practitioners who are bringing it to their barns. 

Shortly after that my friend Leslie and her daughter stayed with us for a few nights.  Her daughter is moving to Hollywood/L.A. from Brooklyn, and she was helping her move and find an apartment.  It was a nice change to hear someone impressed by how much apartment they could get for their money -- apparently Hollywood is cheaper than NY.  Again we had a great visit!   Leslie is also a founding and board member of PHCP like me, and a member of the AHA as well.  AND she's a dressage rider so she was really excited to hear all about my San Diego client and everything going on there.  We also had good eating and drinking around the table.  ;-)

I was asked to be the client of the month for the boots that we use on our client horses.  I don't want to name names and put links here only because I don't want this blog to show up in public searches for the boots, for example, or for some of the people involved... so I am going to leave that out, but I can email it to anyone that wants, and I already posted the article link on Facebook.  It highlights our trimming business and thoughts on hoof care, booting, etc., plus a couple of photos of me riding and trimming.  There are hundreds (thousands?) of people that see that article and interview, and I've already gotten some emails from people that saw it that want to receive my monthly newsletter.  The company also asked me if I would consider doing articles for them in the future, which would be awesome.  You all know I like to write.  :)

My San Diego area client (we can call her "S") added two more horses to our schedule, a beautiful imported mare and a black gelding with the same breeding as my Jordan.  AND she had us start to trim her husband's Olympic horse.  We thought it would be a temporary (but still thrilling and unprecedented) event before he was shod for the games.  Then it came to be that we would continue to trim him and he might go in the specially fit boots that Mario made for him.  Then it became that he would go in a custom hybrid boot/shoe that the president of the boot company was making for him.  He (we can call him "G") flew out from CO and we met him down there last weekend (our 3rd weekend in a row going down...).  We had a great visit, the horse really liked the boot/shoe and I got to watch S ride the horse in them.  It was like a private showing of an Olympic athlete, and was surreally wonderful for me to witness up close and personal.  At one point Mario and I were literally standing in the middle of the arena and she was riding around us.  Not many people get that kind of opportunity!!! 

Me, S on R, G

In addition to this, we may be flown to NJ to the team HQs to trim the horse before he goes to the games.  I grew up not too far from there and went to watch the upper level events where my horse friends and I would gawk at the horses and the beautiful facility.  When I was a barn manager at the FHRC, I used to ride Hope over to the HQ on a trail ride... again, never would I have imagined or believed I would be going back there some day.. to work on a horse of that caliber.  Amazing...

Or, we may be going to London to do the horse!  That is actually how it is looking right now, but things are changing minute to minute so I don't know how it will all pan out.  Just in case, I am trying to get a passport... they aren't something you get quickly, apparently, and I am not totally confident that I'll be able to get it on time.  I had to have stuff faxed, notarized, FedEx'd, blah blah.  We'll see??

After our trip down last week, G called me on Monday and invited us to his personal home in CO, where he was gathering a group of who's who in the booting and trimming world for a think tank meeting of sorts.  I am already going to Northern CA this Fri-Sun for a clinic and board mtg (any trips away blow up our trimming schedule) and tickets to CO were ranging from $500-$600.  Ugh... But we figured we were going to make it happen somehow, when S called me and said she would cover my ticket with her FF miles.  (S is not going to CO herself though).  I was completely floored!!!  So through her generosity and belief in me, I'm going to CO next week for a few days.  I *wish* Mario could go with me, but we still need someone to hold down the fort of dogs, cats, horses, trim clients and auto magic clients... But if we go to London, you can bet your bippy that he is going!  Can't miss such a once in a lifetime opportunity.

S also invited Jordan and I to her place for a few days of lessons with her.  What an awesome opportunity - another door to be walked through!  She also said she wants to have a friend of hers who is a writer for a big dressage magazine, write an article about hoof rehabilitation and performance, and interview us and have us come down and do photos for it, etc.  She said that there are so many people like her, who thought there was no answer for their lame horse, that could benefit from this being brought in front of them through the well respected magazine and with the type of evidence that we will have by then... successful rehabilitation and showing at the uppermost levels.

And finally, although far from least, it seems that the Gargiulo's are adding another equine to the family.  It isn't official-official but pretty darn close... Mario is getting a horse!!!   Nala was a client horse for the last year or so, a sweet draft cross of some kind - unknown heritage, but such a good girl!   She is a true "husband horse" in that she is calm and honest.  Mario says she has more woah than go, which is what he likes.  :)  She came available briefly a few months ago, but we had so much happening that we hesitated, and she was 1/2 leased out in the meantime.  This time when she came up for sale again, her owner contacted us and Mario jumped on it.  She is still being leased but Mario can keep her where she is during that time, take lessons from the trainer there and learn some more riding basics, have 1/2 her expenses covered, and give us some time to get through everything we have happening with trips and whatnot.  After that she will come to our barn and be introduced to Faith and Jordan.  :)

Nala, in all her cuteness!!!