The Owls Approve: review

Galloping Graphics

12:17 PM
By Beka Burke
14 Comments

I first saw this ..artist? store? product?.. on Instagram. Because social media has replaced conversations and subsequently become the new "word of mouth." Which is to say, it hit my feed.

Not all of the graphics and mottoes resonate with me, but I appreciate the style and simplistic renditions. I think it's something I could replicate, but not something I want to - she does a damn fine job. It's all really cute and fun.

She's got a Store Envy site here. The prices are pretty reasonable, especially for custom art. A simple digital image is $5, a button or sticker of that image is $10 (total, not additional). Most of the pre-made stickers are $3-4.

I sent in a photo of Archie from one of our little shows and asked her to flip flop some of the colors around. Turn around wasn't super quick, a couple weeks and a reminder email, but she's young and the sole artist and was at least super professional.

Now my only problem is deciding where to put them! I think the tack truck is about to get more personality. I've also reached out to her for another one with Ox and permission for her logo. You might have noticed that the blog got a face lift. It's still in the works, but I decided it should look like an IT professional runs it. Sorta. I plan on adding a link to my favorite small businesses on the side bar.

Archie

The Herbal Horse

9:50 AM
By Beka Burke
32 Comments

Guys. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Like, super duper.

A little while ago, I was ~~stalking~~ perusing instagram. One of the equestrians I follow posted a little IG contest for something called "the Herbal Horse." I immediately started following the Herbal Horse and ventured over to her Etsy shop. We know I love Etsy. When I failed to win the contest, I still didn't hesitate to buy some products.

I fell in love with everything that I've tried: Be Calm, Healthy Hair, and Heal Quick.

Review

I started with a gross pony.

Life is hard.

After a quick workout, the Dude and I came together with some balms from Herbal Horse.

Helen, the owner and mastermind, lists everything she uses in her balms. All the details can be found on the product description on her store. Let me point some things out: coconut oil (which we know I love), essential oils targeting specific issues, and an expiration date. She also uses recyclable containers. I love this lady!

Be Calm

I used Be Calm the last time I trailered Archie. I rubbed it along the bottom of his neck, so he could breathe it in. It is now going to be a definite part of my trailering the crazy pony routine. Between it and the super yucky SmartPak show prep paste, my guy had no nervous poops on his last adventure. That's huge! It's also safe for human use and Helen recommends it for bedtime for us two-legged folk. If you see me sniffing it, you know why!

Heal Quick

As you can see from the above photos, Archie had a little superficial scratch on his inside gaskin/stifle area. I applied her Heal Quick and it resolved, no issues. I compare the consistency to that of Fuze, but all-natural and with no harmful carcinogens.

Healthy Hair

My BM's kid swears that braiding the forelock will help it grow. I'm not going to discredit anything that might help with the mini-rat-tail stuck on the Kid's forehead. After having had it in a braid for a few days, I pulled it out. It was nasty and super grungy. I slathered it in her Healthy Hair to help with the crispies.

Grungy.

Slathered.

And, you know me. I put it in my hair, too! I let it soak for a couple hours one night, washed it, and had soft hair the next day. I think the absolute best part was that the amazing scent lingered for a few days. Sure, I got some comments about holding my hair over my face and breathing while my coworkers tried to talk to me. Screw them, it smells good!

Someone else also loves the scent.

Contest

Helen has graciously agreed to sponsor a contest for some of her products. If you win, you will receive four 1-ounce tins of your choice! And even if you don't win, you can use discount code OWLS20 to get 20% off your order until 12/15. Stocking stuffers for your barn friends?!

You have four ways to enter (and you can do all four):

Follow the Herbal Horse on Instagram.
Check out her Etsy store and leave a comment here as to which product you'd be most keen to try.
Share this contest on your blog - link the post!
And share the below image on your Instagram.

Use the Rafflecopter below to enter and the contest will in one week! Midnight EST on 11/12!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

books

Books With Horses.

11:53 AM
By Beka Burke
6 Comments

Soooorta like Steph's "Books With Horses On the Cover".

I'm an avid reader. I can't help it. It's an addiction and it neither makes me fat nor drunk, so I indulge it. A lot.

So I want to share with you some literature I found that involves ponies, but won't tell you shit about how much you suck as a rider/trainer/caretaker/owner/person.

Novels.

The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope

Okay. This is a weird book. It's a love story. It's amazing. It's not for the faint of heart or the sexually close-minded.

But the ponies, right?

The basic gist of the plot is to follow the romance between the two main characters post WWII, as they meet, marry and build a family. The primary source of income for the couple is horse training. It isn't just "breaking" horses, but rather the softer charming of equines that is more readily practiced today. It talks about communication between the rider and the horse, building trust, and dealing with issues. Granted, the horse-training is a secondary aspect to the main plot of the love story and its complications, I still found it a worthwhile inclusion and informative.

Chaos Walking

This is a trilogy for young adults. The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men.

Here's the basic premise: we've fucked up earth so badly that we had to find a new place to live. We found a new planet and it was habitable and amazing, until we realized that being on the planet meant that we could hear the thoughts of every living thing.. except human women. Also, we took great joy in slaughtering and enslaving the primary inhabitants of our new planet. You follow along with the main character, a teenage boy, as he leaves his city. I don't want to give too much away.

But the horses talk.

A depiction by LeaBHarlann.

It's pretty much what I would expect horses to say, except there's this bit about gender confusion that initially drove me crazy. By the end of the third book, instead of being annoyed by the author's fuck up, it becomes a charming part of the horses' personalities.

books

Book Review: Making Your Own Jumps

9:36 AM
By Beka Burke
6 Comments

This is a little book. Almost a freaking pamphlet.

It's 24 pages long and has a ton of hand-drawn illustrations. Published in 1988, I don't think that much has changed in fence construction, save the frangible pin stuff. And if you're using those, you probably don't need a 24-page book to give you pointers.

Fran and I probably could have been friends.

Pretty hefty contents page.. for all 24 pages.

Good intro!

So, the book is basically into two categories (to me). Show jumping and cross country. I think it pretty much assumes that you've got basic show jumping stuff, so it affirms how those things should be set up. What point should be the highest, how many poles should be used in the back portion of an oxer, et cetera. While not rocket science, it did make me think.

One of their things is to not have excessive poles on the back portion of an oxer - something I've never even thought about.

Sproing.

The "dangerous jumps" was probably my favorite section.

YOU GONNA DIE.

Not really. But it makes a lot of sense! And I see this crap all the time!

Alright, picture directly above the bath tub. Single pole. That is one of my biggest, biggest pet peeves. I was taught to give a ground pole, at least directly below the single pole. Ideally, you would have two ground poles on either side of the base of the fence for jumping from both directions. At least, that is how I was taught.

I want to jump tires into water.

So. Um. I've included a shit ton of the book, actually. There is a whole section on constructing cross country fences, how to build proper supports, what type of wood to use, and some measurements. That part is pretty informative, but I didn't include it because that would be it. No one would need to look at the book for themselves. It's really that tiny.

And what's my take away from this tiny book? I think I can follow some of its instructions and build a brush box. It's pretty specific on how much space to leave between plants and stuff. It reminded me of a lot of basic jump-setting-up concepts that being on my own have made me a little lax about. At the first barn, in Augusta, they were pretty die-hard about everything being proper. If anything, we had too many ground poles, but everything was pretty visually friendly. Second barn, just me. And this barn? It's now just me, so it's my responsibility to make my lazy ass set everything up correctly.

*This was a library rental. You can buy this book used for roughly $5. Thanks for all of those who told me titles and stuff to look for, because that's how I found this little guy.

Archie

Clothes for the Kid.

11:14 AM
By Beka Burke
9 Comments

First up, though: the Eventer has a blog! ..About eventing! It's very informative about the things she's doing with her pony, Johnny, and has a shit-ton fewer swear words than you'll find here (okay, zero). In addition to training talk, she also talks about the surgery that he had - evidently, there isn't much first-hand experience on the interwebs about laryngoplasty (tie-back surgery). Go check it out!

My pack horse.

Secondly, the sheet I ordered for the Archer came in. When I opened the package, I could hear my mother's voice saying, "You get what you pay for." It was really, really cheap. And cheaply made.

Opening the box.

$3.30 lead rope.

And an end (in addition to cheap metal) that you would expect on a $3.30 lead rope.

$9.95 halter. I expected the "Horze" to be bigger. Is that tacky of me?

Um. I'm an artist.
I normally pick turquoise or teal for Archie, but I dig this color, too.

Deets on my $47 "waterproof sheet."

It says "navy", but I really think it's like a gunmetal blue.

What?

Just like with cheap human clothes, you size up.

With both cheapies on!

Of course, immediately after I buy this, they get a whole slew of 600 and 1200 denier blankets for $2 cheaper. This was much thinner than his Weatherbeeta and the fabric felt like... the cheap disposable blankets that they give runners prior to a race. I don't expect it to last long, but hopefully I'll be a grown up some day and purchase blankets on sale off-season. Maybe.

Archie

2013.

1:31 PM
By Beka Burke
13 Comments

Everyone is writing these detailed recaps with goals and reviews and analysis, and I'm just sitting here day drinking and having flashbacks to my last year of biz school and Strategic Management and the professor pressuring grad school. So I thought long and hard (or not) about what could be my lackadaisical response.