Horses!

Maybe I'll start writing on the 22nd of each month ;)

So this post is going to be primarily about horses. That's because they basically take up all my time at the moment. I'm always thinking about them: Hoping it will be sunny on Saturday, counting down the days excitedly and reading about them in fiction or non-fiction books or magazines. I love every minute I spend with them; even if I'm just mucking out a paddock I'd still rather be doing something towards looking after them than sitting inside looking out at them. I feel good about myself when I look back on a day spent at Nui Wai and realize that I did more tack cleaning, grooming and mucking out paddocks than actually riding horses.

Last weekend I had an amazing ride in the morning followed by a soaking in the afternoon. I went on the ride with KP. We went up Mt Grace and it was just the two of us. On the way up the horses spooked at the pig pen because the smell freaked them out so we had to get off the horses and ewalk them past, Then we continued up to the top with a fair bit of cantering, KP giving me tips about how to make it easier for the horse. On the way down we trotted and cantered to start with then, when it got steeper, started walking the rest of the way, however we had a set back when we rounded a corner to be faced by dog that decided it would be fun to chase the horses back up the track which it promptly did, so we charged back up the track until KP turned around and shouted at the dog to scare it off. After this the horses were extremely hesitant about going back down but we got them going again and made it back a little later than planned. That afternoon I got soaked when I was washing some saddle blankets, partly because I had a minor water fight with the girl I was doing it with and partly because I stood too close to the table we were washing them on and some of the water slopped off the side onto me ;(

Below are some photos I took on my phone of a couple of the horses in the back paddock. The first is of Rocky and Zac with their heads resting on eachother's backs which I thought was really cute since Zac is a bit antisocial and likes to bite the other horses a lot. The second and third are of Teddy's face and the last is of Zac and Rocky again:

Horse Riding Camp!

I have just gotten back from a four day horse riding camp at Big Water Horse Centre. It was so awesome!!! I love all the horses. The highlights were going up the west ridge on Zac, jumping 70cm on Teddy and cantering around the farm on Red. The camp was from Tuesday till Friday. On Wednesday I was leading one of the younger girls around the dressage paddock on Tara and we were trotting (Tara was trotting, I was running) up to the little mini jump and she knocked my foot because I was too close to her. I went in a full circle head over heals. I didn't get hurt though.

The camp was really really really amazing. We weren't always riding but we were always doing something to keep the horses happy and healthy.

Looking back

I have just been looking back over all my previous posts. It's really funny to see how much more I wrote when I was being home-schooled. However I did make several spelling mistakes that I would certainly hope I don't make anymore.

Hello Again

Hey!

I know it's been a long time since I last posted so there's probably a lot to catch up on. I'm not going to go into any of the boring details though.

The reason I have the time to write is because I'm home from school with a cold. It's the second one I've had this term, the last one kept me home for five days and this is day three of staying home for this one.

So lets see what I've been up to since last year:

Term three: we studied Naenae and Photography for our main subjects at school. I was very busy with school work and didn't do much outside of school.

Term four: Our class went on a four day camp on matiu/somes island. We did volunteer work cleaning up some of the paths around the island. One of the focuses of the camp was that we were cooking all our meals entirely from scratch. For example on the first night we had a meal with pasta and the pasta had to be made with the special pasta maker one of our teachers brought along. The most special thing about the camp was that we got to help tag the penguins on the island. I got to help catch check and let go two of the penguins.

Labour day: one of our teachers was accidentally shot by a hunter who mistook her for a deer when he was spot lighting near the campsite where she was camping. This event caused much trauma and grief in our class. Three of us went to her funeral to represent our class. The time afterward at school was spent trying to grow through it together as a community.

Also around this time my great aunt died of cancer. Her funeral was the day after my teacher's so I had a

lot of mourning all in one week. She had been ill for about a year and a half. It was very sad to say good-

bye to her.

Summer holidays: I spent Christmas Day at my grand parents place. It was a lovely sunny day so we went to the beach which they live a five minute walk from. The waves were really big so we enjoyed catching them on our boogie boards.

After New Years we went to Golden Bay. We spent a lot of time at Paynes Ford but I managed to spend about half of the two weeks doing other stuff. Some of the things I did were;

A two hour horse trek

A few hours in a hired kayak with Mum going around the islands and little beaches around Tata Beach.

Two days of shopping in Takaka

Several lovely bush walks

Term one 2011: at school we started the term with an eleven day camp travelling around the north island. We were studying the Maori history especially those parts related to the Treaty of Waitangi. We spent an afternoon getting a tour of the Treaty Grounds and then spent the day there on Waitangi Day. After going up to Waitangi we came back down the island spending four days paddling down the Whanganui river. The iwi who took us down the river were extremely awesome, friendly, smart, funny, creative people. I was really sad at the end of the river trip because I didn't want it to be over.

The school work this term has not been very enjoyable for me. However, I am not going to be going to Wa Ora in term two. I will be going back to homeschooling :) so that I have the freedom to choose my own work and how I do it. I was really sad that the school did not continue the Spanish after last year and instead switched to Mandarin. I will be happy to be able to continue the Spanish at home. This year I have enjoyed the Maori a lot better so I will be sad to leave that part of it. I'm also really going to miss my classmates and Teachers :(