A Grace Day

Ber in the middle of a turn on the forehand.

Today was a very good day. Grace Owsley, the riding instructor I worked with last year, visited from Twin Falls, and we were lucky enough to get to work with her today! Here are photos, taken by one of Ber's favorite people, who also visited today (see picture below). Thank you so much for fitting us in, Grace. Can't wait for the next time!

Ber with the photographer, Dora! He thinks she's really nice. He's right.

I already knew that Ber was doing and feeling better, but having Grace here really kicked things into gear. We had (gasp) forward in the trot. Actually using those hind legs. And he was really thinking, and enjoying the work. I believe we pushed past some of the sullen resistance, and he realized he could do these things, it wouldn't hurt, and he'd get a lot of positive kudos for it. We ended with leg-yields. Yay.

Switching whip hands. Ber is carrying himself lightly. Such a big boy.

Ber walking in front of Grace. Love how round and soft he is.

Ber looks so happy here. He knows his job.

Giovanna had a great Grace day, too. Gio's on ride six, perhaps, but only the third time under saddle since November. Spaghetti horse is what she is. And a flexible little noodle, at that! We were working on straight and forward, and moving off of leg. Gio has soft, supple and giving down, I think. Again, Grace pushed the envelope, and we ended with trot work. First trot ever. Holy Cow, talk about an engine! She launches into a trot, all from behind, just beautifully. Forward impulsion to die for. The picture does not capture how cool it was, but it is placed here for posterity--like a picture of a kid using a bike without training wheels for the first time. My job with her is to stay out of the way and let her go forward. Easier said than done, but I'll keep working on it. Pictures below.

Talking to Grace, but look at how light and lovely Gio is...

Giving my Good Girl a well deserved pat!

WOW. We trotted. It isn't lovely, but soon it will be. No, my arm isn't flailing, that's the edge of the roof of the house. lol.

Soft and forward, straight not spaghetti!

Em and Gio, actually in sync in the turn! (We were spiraling in to a smaller circle, I think)

Oh, and Happy Birthday Berhwood. The big SEVEN.

Another Hurdle

This is my Research Committee. They are Relieved the defense is over, I think.

After the Pilot Study defense 3 weeks ago (With Dad and Stuart).

Well, I passed another hurdle, this time the defense for my dissertation proposal. I've attached it in Google Docs for anyone who was interested in seeing what I proposed to do. Dissertation Proposal Document When I uploaded it, Google Docs messed the paragraph indentations up, and changed it to single space, but otherwise it's good. The first page (Introduction) will give you a good idea of what I'm looking at.

Thankfully, my committee said I was good to go. Boy, did they grill me. Basically, this whole presentation I'd created go thrown out the window, and I ad-libbed in response to their questions for most of it. For over an hour I was on the hot seat. Threw me off, but they said it gave them a more real understanding of my understandings and proved to them I knew what I was doing. They asked great questions, and I have some things to work on. When it was over, amazingly, they did not ask me to leave so they could debate whether I passed. They just signed me off and said good luck. I hope that means I did a good job, and not that they were just tired of the whole thing!

One of the team was concerned about the amount of time I had committed to this, and wondered if I'd be able to do it. I keep telling them, I don't have a life right now. This IS my life, so I have a lot of time to devote to it. LOL. They were skeptical about my original plan of finishing the coursework in 18 months, though. Who knew I could actually do it?

Thanks for your support and encouragement. Could NOT have done it without all of you!
:) Em

Beautiful Flowers. Thanks Jen & Company!

Home Stretch

Last May, Happy Girls!

Headed into the home stretch here in Idaho. Enjoying looking back on this venture, and the life-time of memories squeezed into a year plus a few months (that's 5 months, Stuart. lol). I decided to do some posts commemorating this time. A "Best Of" Boise. I'll start with the girls. How often do senior dogs go on such a journey? I'm grateful for Arcy and Georgia's company, and this blog post is for them. Laughing, happy, leaping, grinning, sniffing, adventuresome pups. Here is a series of shots from a day last May, when the grass was dog-high. Enjoy.

Doggie Schooners, Full Steam Ahead!

Georgia really IS the leader of this crew!

I love the angle of this shot. A Dog's-eye view of sorts.

Double Yikes!

Fence at sunset (taken by Stuart)

Well, the next ten weeks are going to be super intense and busy. So I may not get back to blogging for a while. I just got back from a week in Humboldt County. Had a great time, though it rained almost the whole time I was there! Go figure. So much for riding at the beach. lol. Did get a lot done, but not exactly what was intended.

Possibly found a great pasture for Gio and Ber. Am in the process of talking to the land owners and working out an agreement. It is a short ride to the beach, and trails. Beautiful land. We'll see what happens. I have a place to stay (my brother's house in Trinidad) either permanently or short term. I'd like to be closer to where the horses will be, but that may not be in the cards. I am set to move the first two weeks of June, depending on transportation for the horses and my stuff. Woohoo!

Pretty braids, busy teeth... (picture by Stuart)

Approaching weather, coming up the pasture (photo by Stuart)

However, a lot to do until then. I have my dissertation proposal defense Tuesday, April 13th. I stand up in front of my committee and any audience who comes, and explain what I intend to do and why. They grill me with questions, and then send me away while they discuss. After I pass the proposal defense, I can start collecting data. I am not real confident about passing this defense, from where I stand right now. Monumental task.

On top of the defense, I have a poster to put together for an education research presentation next Wednesday, and I need to work on the research projects I'm doing with the professor I work with. Yikes. And I need to finish up the work I was doing for my independent study classes. Double Yikes. Oh, and did I mention I'm going to Washington D.C. for a week, to supervise a high school student? Last week of April, something my professor hooked me up with. Will be a great experience, but it warrants a Triple Yikes at this point! lol.

With the weather warming up, and the arena drying out, I plan to start riding this week, as my diversion from this massive pile of work. lol. We'll see how that goes. Needless to say, I need to get off of here and get back to work. The house is so quiet, and I miss my girls. I may be taking my work in to the university and setting up shop at the Library from now on, to avoid this empty house. Until I grow accustom to the silence, I guess.

See you all in a while... Oh, and Happy Birthday, Stuart!

Arcy's Moon.

Georgia's Moon.

Spring is Here, I Think

High-desert lupine. About the size of a teacup saucer!

It is spring, I can hear the birds singing, and the grass is starting to grow a little. The trees still look dead, but that's how it goes up here. The flowers above are from Jump Creek Falls.

It's spring break next week up here in Idaho, so I'm headed south. Not much I can do with my research with most people gone, and I can read pretty much anywhere. While in Humboldt, I'll be looking for a place to call "home" while I finish my dissertation this next year. Also looking at trucks, and making sure Ber and Gio have a place to call home, too. The week is going to fly by.
Hopefully I can ride a couple times, visit with friends, and have a good meal at my favorite Mexican restaurant. I'll try to post pictures, and maybe a few videos of horses.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with some very, very cute goats from down the road, an example of a "catbird seat", and my happy horses.

Cat in a tree...

Very content cat in a tree!

Mama goat and two kids.

Third kid-an "orphan" in her own home. Bottle fed, hence people are very cool.

Tiny, micro flowers. The size of a pin head!

Side view of same micro flowers.

Carrot time!

Rare, quiet moment for Ber. Before the carrots appeared...

Jump Creek Falls

Went to Jump Creek Falls today, which is south of Marsing, on the south side of the Snake River. I'll let the photos tell the story....

At the Entrance, looking south into Jump Creek Canyon. It's a 1/4 mile hike in.


Walking up the trail.


Really cool caves all along the cliff sides.


I have lots of pictures of moss an lichens. Rocks were covered in them!


This yellow lichen was all over the place, especially high up on the cliffs. Looks exactly like the stuff on Abert Rim, in Oregon.


Jump Creek, winding under the boulders


Can you see the fish? Talk about camouflage!


The water fall.


The water fall from up on the cliff.


Hiked up on the west rim of the canyon to see the water fall.


From way up on the cliff, where the ravens were soaring.

A Sad Day

17 great years. 14 weeks, omg cute!

So Glad March has 31 Days!

I'm glad March is here, but I'm grateful there's 31 days in all. I need them! My Pilot Study passed IRB, which means the university research review board said I could go ahead and do my study. I mailed out 57 letters, with return SASE's, to prospective participants. I've heard back from 20 so far. That was enough to pull five participants for the first interviews, to test my questions and procedures (aka "pilot study:).

The exicitng news is that I need to submit a draft of my Pilot Study report on Monday (Mar. 8) to my committee for their review and feedback. Why so soon? Because my Pilot Study defense is March 22nd!! Wow. Pretty cool. So, nose to the grindstone and all that. Do five interviews, transcribe them, analyze the transcriptions and the data from the demographic survey, and find my conclusions. Whoa!

The weather here has been really nice. In the 50's, clear skies. Arcy has decided she likes to go for walks again, after a couple weeks of being a house potato. She says the warmer weather suits her fine. The horses are beginning to shed a bit, and the grass is beginning to grow in their pasture. So they are pretty happy. Jetta went to the VW dealer and had some work done, and seems to be running purrrfect again. I can't wait to see how the mileage is for this first tank of diesel after the work. Hoping to get back up to 45 mpg! None of this 40 stuff! (I realize 40 mpg is nothing to shake a stick at, but when you've been used to 45, it's hard to swallow! lol).

My dad and my brother, Stuart, are coming up the end of March to visit, just in time to go to my Pilot Study defense. Very cool. Then I am headed to Humboldt for a week. On my agenda for the trip is to figure out where the horses are going to live, find a truck to buy, and maybe even find a place for me to live! I also want to help a friend with her garden, check in on my house, spend some time with friends, maybe do some horse stuff, and spend some time each morning working on my dissertation proposal. Then it's back to Boise to submit my dissertation proposal, defend my proposal, and collect the data. Pretty exciting to see how it is all coming together. I hope to move back home by June 15th. WooHoo. Just before the heat really bakes Boise to a crisp. lol.

Putting the Cart before the Horses...

Well, I went and did it. I found a sweet new ride for the horses. I do not own a truck, so it is going to sit there and look pretty until I find the right truck. And don't even ask if I have ever driven a truck pulling a trailer! That would be a "No." I'll be learning how on the flat farm roads of Idaho.

The trailer needs a serious bath to get rid of the dust, but other than that, it's a beauty. 2007 3-horse, slant-load, aluminum skin on steel frame. The story is, I've been shopping horse trailers for a while, and when this one came along, and they accepted my offer, it was just too good to pass up, even if I didn't have a truck yet. The sellers were kind enough to deliver.


As for the rest of things, I'm chugging along with my research and work. Really enjoying what I am doing, but I don't have much spare time to speak of. So, hello to everyone! I'll be down in Humboldt the end of March to start figuring out my move back, so if you're there, maybe we can visit.

Maybe I ought to go look on craigslist, see if I can find that diesel long-bed automatic truck I am looking for...

It's February!

View from far pasture, looking towards barn.

Short post today. Just checking in and sharing my good news. The Pilot Proposal is done. I only learned of what I had to do on Tuesday, and fortunately I'd been working on reading the research for a week already, but still it was a major crunch to put it together in a week. Emailed it to my committee, and so far the response is very positive. So glad. Here's a link to it, for anyone who was curious or wanted to read it: Emily's Pilot Proposal.

Now on to contacting parents and lining up interviews. I'm definitely going to need every minute available to me, between now and the end of May. The good news is it is doable. I wasn't so sure a couple weeks ago. I can do this.

Snowed yesterday. The snow is gone today, but it's pretty cold out. The horses have decided that hanging out in the barn, eating, is a good thing!

Giovanna at snow-filled fence.

Horses investigating thrown snowballs.

Black walnut tree, holding snow.

A fat, happy bush.