I did take a few photos to document the day. It was also a reminder of when I started Bit of Honey Training as an LLC thirteen years ago (I'd been training horses on the side after my regular day job as a veterinary technician prior to that) and I had only three sets of standards, just enough to make a simple line of a vertical to an oxer. Now I have more standards than I can count, many colorful poles, a cross country field full of logs of all sizes, and most recently some new added brush fences and a coop for the field.
However, on the snowy weekend we didn't get to actually do our usual jump painting party where I have a dozen people here helping with sprucing up our arena toys. As a result, Jasi and I have been gradually painting everything over the past several weeks.
The one thing we haven't gotten to yet is a giant styrofoam block. This 3x3x6' block blew into the yard of one of my clients from who knows where on a 80mph windy day. She didn't want to take it to the dump because she likely would have had to pay to dispose of something that big which wasn't biodegradable. I heard about her dilemma, and immediately thought, "Puissance wall, anyone?"
A puissance wall is a solid looking jump, which usually looks like a brick wall but I've seen other types of decorations. It's made out of some kind of stackable blocks like styrofoam or boxes, and then painted to look like brick so you can gradually make it higher and higher as the competition goes on. It takes a special kind of horse to be a puissance horse, because these things honestly are way more solid looking than any pasture fence I've ever seen. However, with a piece of styrofoam like my recent acquisition I could definitely make a smaller scale version of this!
I have some wall hangings that I purchased a couple years ago that I can drape over the block, and voila' - a mini-puissance wall! I did some research online and found a way to make my own styrofoam cutter so I can slice it in half longways, to make the wall gradually bigger without having to divide it into individual bricks. Rizzo tested it out for me and said it's good for naps in between workouts.
The last things in the arena that need decorating, besides the wall which still needs to be cut, were some pallets I'd cut into brush boxes for cross country jumps. Once I install them in the field we'll have small, medium, and large(ish) options for jumping in the front. I was running low on paint and my last gallon of (free) white paint had curdled into cottage cheese consistency that did not want to reconstitute. So I painted the pallets green, with a bright yellow bar on top for contrast to help the horses see it better. Eventually we'll stuff the top with greenery from the dollar store to make them true brush fences.
Jasi was riding Daisy while I was finishing up my paint job (this is how I spend my "day off", I think this was a Resting Fail) and she noticed that my green shirt and yellow hat corresponded precisely with how I'd painted the pallets. In taking photos of the color coordination the dogs made for some humorous documentation.
First we have me and Rizzo looking apprehensive about whether Pascal will sit and be well-behaved for this photo.... (he wasn't)
Then we have a photo of him trying to stuff Rizzo's face in his mouth....
Pascal then took off to chase a bug or something, so Rizzo sat me down for a firm talking-to.
"Kim, I have something we need to discuss. It's about Pascal."
"No, really, Kim. He's just too much for this photo. Can you please do something about him? I know he's a puppy, but it's hard to be photogenic with my head in his mouth."
"Thanks for understanding, I knew you'd listen."
It took some strong-arming, but I got Pascal in a headlock and then we got the cute photo of us sitting in front of the jumps I'd just painted to show off my matching shirt and hat.
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