Oh what a day!

I haven't updated in a while, mostly because it has just been crazy getting settled here at True Prospect. Things with me are going so much better after a bit of a rocky start getting used to the craziness that is here! My horse Sully is doing loads better after some lessons with Ryan Wood.. his jumping was a little difficult but is starting to come along quite well. In the last two weeks we've lost two of our barn helpers, Veronica (school) and Candace (home), which is sad but also makes the barn work a bit more difficult! Phillip is in England at Burghley with his head groom, Emma, so the barn tasks here are pretty much up to us. On a general day, we feed, bring in night turnout horses, turn out day horses, muck stalls, sweep, tack and untack horses for Ryan and Jennie Brannigan, ride our own horses, feed lunch, bring in day horses, set jump courses, wrap legs, groom each horse, feed dinner, turn out night horses, sweep, and put away the laundry. It starts at 7am and usually ends around 5pm. Every day is a long day!

Today was a very interesting day. It started by my waking up at 6:20 with one eye swollen shut. I called Kelley (the head honcho while Emma is away) and got her permission to miss this morning at the barn, and drove to the Jennersville Hospital to get things checked out. Turns out I got a bacterial infection in my eye. Awesome. The thing that really ooks me out is the fact that there has been an eye "thing" spreading around the horses that I've been treating lately. Sick.

After my ER excitement this morning, I made it to work with a slightly sore eye and a lot of commentary from the barn folks! Just a minor setback :)

Nina came to watch all of her horses today, so that was an adventure! I was elected to set jumps, so I worked through 9 horses of different jump heights. I enjoyed watching the horses jump, as I'm usually stuck in the barn area most of the day and don't get to see the horses go. They're pretty talented!

We had a few little lameness issues and a mare gashed her leg on a stall waterer, but health-wise it was an okay day.

Jennie finished her rides today and headed off to join Phillip at Burghley through a grant she was given. We are all pretty jealous! We found out today that after day 1 of the dressage, Phillip is in first.. at BURGHLEY!! You can definitely tell that everyone who works here is pretty proud.

After work, I looked at a mare at Bruce Davidson's barn for a possible fun project while I get Sully going. As with everything else, the more you look around the better, so I'm still keeping my eyes open for a good little project horse.

Time for bed!

Phillip Dutton's: Day 1

Day 1 of me as a working student for Phillip Dutton. The trip was about 3 hours from Northern VA to here in West Grove, PA. I ended up paying about $32 in tolls on I-95. One toll was $23! It was just crazy. I can definitely tell here is Amish land- I've been stuck behind about 3 horse-carts. I got here about 3:30 and unloaded Sully in to the barn. My old friend Nate lives/works here, so it was nice having someone to show me around and get me acquainted with everyone. I'm staying in an apartment underneath the office/indoor arena viewing area. That means on my day off I can go upstairs and watch people riding in the ring :) My place has a living area, mini kitchen, and separate room for my bed. I haven't been able to get the a/c working in my room, so hopefully I can tough it out tonight and get it fixed tomorrow! For dinner tonight Nate took me to a nearby bar/restaurant. It was full of horse people which was really neat. I miss being in the horse world. This is definitely a headfirst dive in to it! Well, I'm off to bed.. gotta be up and ready for a long day starting at 7am tomorrow!

Litchfield Beach Days 4,5,6,7

Home, bittersweet home from the beach! I have to say that this trip was one of the best beach trips we've ever taken. There were no "too-much-time-together" disagreements which made the whole trip better! The weather was PERFECT. We got a few storms the first day, but then it was hot, hot, HOT! the rest of the week. We really lucked out! On Friday, Tristan, me, two cousins and their two kids all went to the Music Festival Park in Myrtle. There were some really neat roller coasters and rides, and it was so much more fun having an excuse to ride the kid rides :) Saturday mom, Tristan and I went to the Tanger Outlets to hit up the J.Crew store. It's amazing how much discounted the clothes there are. I wish we had a good outlet mall around here!

Places we ate this week were:

• Gilligan's
• Subway
• The Fish House
• Roz's Rice Mill Cafe
• Island Cafe and Deli
• The Mayor's House
• T-Bonz Steakhouse
• Quigleys Pint and Plate

Overall it was a really fun trip and I'm sad it's over!! On to the real world. Packing for Phillip's and heading up there with Sully on Wednesday!

Litchfield Beach Days 1, 2, 3, 4

This week is family beach week at Litchfield Beach in South Carolina. It's a bit south of Myrtle Beach but north of Hilton Head. It's not so touristy which is really nice, so the beaches are really clean and not crowded. Mom, dad, Tristan, and I packed up the Commander and made our way down on Sunday the 2nd. Traffic wasn't too bad, so we made it in about 8 hours (after dropping Sully off at Patricks on the way up so he could be ridden this week). So far the weather has been perfect. We got a few thunderstorms the first two days, but it has been nice and steamy hot since then. I've been trying to lather up the suntan lotion so I don't get too fried while I'm here! Grandma has been staying with us in our condo in Inlet Point, and we've really enjoyed having her. It's crazy with the family. Usually Tristan and I spend a lot of time with our cousins, but this year has been very different! Cousins brought their boyfriends and new babies- Busy, busy group! Grandma, dad, mom, 2 uncles, 2 aunts, brother, 4 cousins, 2 cousins' sig others, and 2 cousins' kids! It's a great group, though. Last night we wandered over to a restaurant in the Hammock Shops, and I had the best meal I think I've ever had in my life. Of course I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I had the lobster linguine. Melt in your mouth lobster linguine. Here are a few of my favorite pictures so far:

Onward and Upward

Today I concluded my summer job of exercising horses in the Clifton/Fairfax Station area. I met some really great people and feel really happy to have made such great connections (future job possibilities...?). I also found out what a small world it is and what an even smaller horse world it is. It turned out by chance that I was exercising horses owned by the mother of one of the guys I graduated high school with. Very random.

In other news, one of my good friends from Salem, Kathy Ann, drove up from Alabama and stayed with me Wednesday to this morning (Friday). We got a chance to metro-in to D.C., checked out the Hirshhorn Museum (very cool), played with bubbles in the park, met up with an old friend of hers, and ate some good Irish food at Fado's near Chinatown. All-in-all I think she had a good time and I was sad to see her go! She's headed up north to New Hampshire to work with Americorps. It's nice to reconnect with Salem friends since we've all graduated and moved on. It has been hitting me especially hard since I keep seeing Facebook updates from the younger classes talking about moving back in. Last week my friend Sellen came up from Georgia and spent a night. We took a cab to Adam's Morgan so she could see the craziness that is there. I'm pretty sure she had a few good stories to take with her up to Connecticut.

As for me, I stumbled on an amazing opportunity up in Pennsylvania. My eventing friend Nate helped me get in touch with Phillip Dutton, an Australian-born eventer who has been to the Olympics a few times and won gold for Australia twice. I spoke with him and his wife, Evie, and worked out a temporary position as a working student at his farm. Basically I will be working 7am-4pm 6 days a week on the farm in exchange for the opportunity to work with one of the eventing world's greatest riders. I know that I will learn a lot about myself and am really looking forward to the experience. Sully and I will be heading up there on August 12th, so be ready for lots of those updates! I plan to blog about it as much as I can (though some days I will just be too tired).

Also, this Sunday I am heading down to Litchfield Beach with the family (mom, dad, Tristan, grandma, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 3 cousins, 2 significant others, and 2 kids of my cousin!). Hopefully it won't rain too much and I'll be able to relax a little before my big trip up north. We're staying right in Inlet Point, so it'll be convenient to the shops and things down there that we always go to. I'm ready for it!


Fountains in the park in D.C.

Bees Be Gone!! (well, soon...)

Today I learned a lot about bees from Dave at Bee Be Gone. Like, if you get stung by a yellow jacket once, it leaves a pheromone on your skin and other yellow jackets will chase you because you were the one that molested the nest. That would explain why they chased after mom when she went in my room to open my blinds- she had been stung outside a few days ago. Dave says the best way to get rid of the pheromone is to lick where you were stung.

Dave is great. His uncle was a master beekeeper.. did you know they make about $30k per farm they deliver bees to?? Now THAT's baller status. Dave did a little walk-around and found the trouble outside. Apparently if you can fit an eraser head through a hole it's big enough for a bug (or bee) to fit through. If it's as big as a nickel a mouse can fit through it, and if it's as big as a quarter a RAT can fit through. Yikes. I had a few holes in my room from where we had hung some curtains, and the bees were attracted to the light in my room. The best thing to do at that point is turn off all the lights in your house and open the blinds so the bees fly towards the window. Since bees aren't too bright, they spend about 8 hours trying to get out through the window and then they die.

Since the bees were attached to the house, Dave chose to distribute a powder substance that is used to poison the yellow jackets and dry up their environments. The chemical is poisonous to bees, but does not harm animals or humans, which is good since we have so many pets around! After spraying a significant amount of the powder on the outside of the bee holes, he checked the drywall to make sure the bees weren't chewing through. Dave says bees like to keep their hives at about 85 degrees, so you can feel a warm, soft place in the drywall if they're about to come through. He also said there can be from 500 to 5,000 bees in a nest at one time. That's a lot of bees! Fortunately he didn't find any of those warm spots in my room, so that was a relief. Mom had him check their bedroom since they had originally found the bees in there. Dave found a soft spot and went to poke his spray through the spot when it caved in and a few bees came in and stung him. That has to be a rough job! He says he only gets stung for about 4 months, then he does a lot of winter sports :) After patching up the holes and giving us the ok, we walked outside and were given an opportunity to see a few of the nests he had collected earlier today. Some of them had bees actually hatching out as he was showing them to us! All in all, I give an A+ for friendly service and (hopefully) a job well done. Bee Be Gone :) Thanks Dave!!

A collection of insects he had gathered for educational purposes

Nests he had collected that morning.. some were hatching while we were talking!

The spot in my parents bedroom where the bees came flying out.

The Bees Knees

Not a day goes by in the Hardy household without a touch of insanity. Today we got a visit from the bee kingdom, after dad had "taken control of the situation." Lately we've had a bee problem (yellow jackets?!) and the solution was to perch in very precarious places while continuously spraying them with hornet/wasp killer. Unfortunately, today we learned the hard way (or I learned the hard way) that this was a failed method. According to Dave at Bee Be Gone, these products only contain about 1% of actual chemical. What a waste. Of course, I've been telling dad to hire an exterminator for about a week, after the first case of "bees in walls" occurred in his bedroom. He had been complaining about a chewing noise in the walls- he thought they were termites, and after I Googled termites and found that you can't actually HEAR them, we discovered the bees flying IN a hole they had made in the wall outside the window. Dad got mom to precariously lean out the window and spray them, and they "disappeared." Then I heard them in my walls, so the spray came out again. Unfortunately this time it didn't end the same.

Here's the story (the long version, of course): I ordered a dress from J.Crew that was on sale in a larger size than I am, so of course I bought it. I decided in a quick-witted moment that I was going to alter the dress myself with my new sewing machine (this is the present you ask for when you turn 22) so I laid out everything I needed on my bedroom floor and started working. I had just finished riding Sully, so I had quickly changed in to house shorts and a tshirt, with no undershirt.. if you get my drift... then I heard a "bzzzz"....."bzzzzzzzzzzzz"..... thinking it was a silly barn fly I had brought in with my funk (hey- horses, sweat, dirt- it's a great life) I ignored it until I heard TWO of them. Then, I remembered the bees. Oh the bees. I glance up at the ceiling fan, there's one. Glance over at the window, another. So of course I jump up, run out of my room screaming like a 10-year-old, and slam my door. Mom had to call the bee man. On the phone with dad, it was definitely an "I TOLD YOU SO" moment. And of course, waiting for the bee man I had to find an undershirt to avoid presenting my frightened ego as funky AND "skivvy-less."

Anyone need a roommate for a while?