Rocky, Doctor Who and a Rainy Summer

Wow!

It's been a while since I wrote last. I've been really busy with nothing much.

It's summer and I'm sitting by the heat pump with slippers and puffa jacket on. Today is not raining but it has rained more than usual this summer with lot's of flooding in the South Island. We were glad to be staying in a unit on the rainy days of our Golden Bay holiday, it would have been pretty miserable in tents. We got some good climbing in around the rain. I tried Burly But Sensitive (22) and had a lot of fun mucking around on it. I re-climbed one of my favourites twice (Beautiful Day (18)). I went on a horse trek on an Icelandic horse. They are quite different to the horses I'm used to riding: they are small pony sized and they have slightly different gates. Here is a photo of me galloping on the beach:

I left the holiday early to fly home for horse camps and Nui Wai. I flew in a little six seater plane and we had to circle around Wellington three times before landing because our flight was low priority and others were allowed to land first. I stayed with my aunt and uncle for the nights in between the two horse camps.

On the first camp I got Rocky as my horse. Rocky is a horse who is a challenge to ride because he is really strong in the mouth and also really spooky. Part of the reason he is spooky is because he was abused when he was younger, before he came to Nui Wai. I was really excited that they thought I was good enought to ride him. I mostly worked with him bareback because we were trying a more gentle style of riding with the horses. His trot is really bouncy so it was hard for me to sit to and I spent most of the week just trying to keep my balance, it was an achievement to trot the whole way round the ring without having to stop him because I was losing my balance. On the last day I rode him with a saddle and that was so much easier: I could trot and canter comfortably. He loves to move forward so he had more fun too. We were doing jumping that day, but because I had Rocky I couldn't jump the proper stuff on him. I put a little jump that was only about 20cm in the ring and walked him over it. He found it really scary and kept trying to walk around it so my arms got a real workout steering him into it. He took me by surprise one time and jumped when I didn't think he was going to. Because I wasn't ready he got his mouth yanked by the reins and that freaked him out. I had to work really hard to get him to go over it one last time. When he finally went over it he went over well and I didn't pull on his mouth. I then got to ride one of the other horses to jump some bigger jumps, up to about 70cm (I think). One of my favourite parts of the camp was my solo ride on Hobbs. I hadn't gone on a ride by myself before.

On the weekend between camps I stayed with my aunt and uncle. We did lots of gardening except when it was raining. My aunt and I went into town one day and we went to Te Papa to see the exhibition on wedding dresses in the past. It was really cool but neither of us saw a single wedding dress that we would have wanted to wear.

I got Rocky again for the second camp which I was really happy about because I had been hoping to work with him. The weather wasn't as sunny as the first camp. We walked up the west ridge with the horses almost every morning and that was a lot of fun, though very tiring. It was still warm enough to swim two of the days. The first one I took Rocky and went with LK who was on Huck. Rocky spooked at the reeds in the water and bolted out of the water. I fell off and he snapped the reins and ran home. I hurt my finger and got a few grazes on my knee but wasn't really hurt. The next time I shared Tara with S. Then we went swimming without the horses and some of the girls jumped of the cliff into the water. We did more jumping on the last two days which was fun. Also went out on rides in pairs (I didn't take Rocky). I went on a really fun one with L. We had races up to the camp and just fooled around a bit. At one point I had to get off the clear some small trees off the path which had been blown over by the wind.

At the end of the two weeks I was missing my family and I was really happy to see them when they came to pick me up.

Below are some photos from camp: the first two are me on Ray, then it's Rocky grazing then me standing with Rocky. The last one is from the second camp and it's me jumping Hobbs.

My latest non horse-related obsession is Doctor Who. I have watch the first four series and I'm racing through the books. I don't have to worry about running out soon though because there is just so much of it. I have watch a couple of episodes from the original series.

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 :(

Unwell

*Cough cough* oh well at least I get to spend a couple of days relaxing. It's probably good for my stiff sore body to get a bit of a break from Mum's 20 minutes every morning exercise regime. Thats a new thing she started me on in the second week of the holidays. That's when my holidays ended...

It's sad not being able to climb or play squash. Life becomes very dull when you're home from school for several days on end, even when you have all the stuff you need to do your school work sitting beside you. I can't find the inspiration to sit down and search the internet for scraps of information. Last time I got a cold I got addicted to Television but this time the urge is not really there. So, I sit around asking Mum what I should do. And When she gives me a perfectly good suggestion I shrug and tell her "Nah, something fun."

The one television show that I am addicted to is 60 minute makeover. Lots of fun to watch them race through yet still get the job done with amazing skill. It's kind of depressing that I can get attached to probably the most boring TV show around.

School, when I'm there, is pretty good. This term we are studying Naenae from the period of about 1935 to 1955. It is quite cool to be learning about my own suburb even though I think it is a ugly place except for the hills and even some of them are covered in gorse and traveled by loud noisy bikers. We have just started learning Spanish and I've missed two sessions. Oh well thats what you get for catching some lousy cold.

I have recently found an awesome blog for reading and writing lovers. It is a blog called The FABO Story. Every Monday a new chapter is added by a different one of the nine New Zealand authors. So far there is only one chapter but the story is already awesome and addictive. Here is a link for anyone who is interested: http://fabostory.blogspot.com/

Rotorua National Cup Series Event 2

Recently we went to Rotorua for the second event in the national cup series. This time I didn't compete. Instead I did homework and took photos of the family climbing. I had a lot of fun hanging out at the gym with some of the climbers from the other gyms. In his grade Josiah got first. He topped out his first qualifier, got the furthest on his second qualifier and topped out his final. Mum and Dad both did well in masters. Mum got fourth and Dad got third.

School is going well with plenty of killer homework to try and complete. Our chicken eggs arrived a couple of days ago and are now in the incubator at school. They are so adorable even though they look identical to other chicken eggs, it's probably because I know that there are little chicks growing inside them :) Our chicken coop is nearly finished. We just need to put the roof on. For humanities this term we are studying Ancient Alexandria. It is very interesting. It's really nice to be doing maths again and not just practice stuff. We are learning about statistics which is a lot of fun.

Matariki, which my school celebrates, is coming up so there is lots of stuff going on for that in Maori, and also in art where we are making things with flax. I am looking forward to singing the songs we are going to sing.

Busy Term Two

Sadly for me term two will be even busier than term one was. I guess this is partly because of it being eleven weeks not the like nine that we had last term because of camp.

Three days in and I already have a zillion things due and that's just for half the term :(.

This term for occupations (the first half of the term) we are continuing our study of chickens by buying five chickens and looking after them in a hutch that we are making ourselves from a design made by someone in the class.

On a happier topic the holidays were great! In the first week I just lounged around sleeping, eating and reading ... but in the second week the whole family went down to Christchurch for the first competition of the National Cup series. We had decided that because it was the holidays we would stay on for a few more days and do some climbing at Spittle Hill. After the comp I was feeling really tired and wasn't looking forward to doing more hard, tiring stuff, but when we got into it I became hooked. My favourite part was when I succeeded at a V2 that J and C had given up on. I even did it the same way.

The next competition that I'm going to is not a national one; it is one at HangDog for secondary school students. It is aimed more at beginners than people who climb heaps so any teens that want to go totally should. For more info please see the HangDog website:

www.hangdog.co.nz/riot.asp