This is For Her

Shabbat shalom. Do not normally vlog on Saturday, but Lily's got a horse show, and so I'm on it. Not really resting per se, so I'm gonna film this. Yesterday's mishap is now on the bottom of my foot. Cow poop. So enjoy this simple vlog, minimal edits, no music, no fancy clips, no ads. Enjoy this ad-free. Remember how I've been saying we've been loving Egg Basket? The Egg Basket— we've only got 4 or 5 eggs to make us this morning. Well, that's partly because Austin got to get the eggs yesterday because he does the Saturday chores. Okay, we do have 2 eggs. Okay, that's something. Maybe Gaps pancakes for Mom and I. Um, she needs 3 eggs for straight up protein. I should probably not shine this blue light in my face. It's kind of like our hidden secret stash. Austin was able to get the eggs yesterday. That's part of his trade. He does the chores on Saturday, he reaps all the harvest. First things first, a list. It's 5:20. We have to leave, I have to leave with Lily at 6:50. Mom has to follow her at 7:30, so I need to get everything situated and ready to go for them. Are you nervous?

Yeah. I woke up 2 AM and I thought, oh no, my alarm didn't go off.

Well, you did it.

I was afraid, Pop, when I heard your alarm, that my alarm didn't go off and your alarm was going off at 6:30. I made sure we're gonna leave in time for you.

Just went and got tomatoes. It is 35 degrees out there, although they are under the high tunnel. Gonna make the beautiful ones some salsa for breakfast and snack today. Good morning, beautiful one. See if that strawberry goes good with the strawberry kefir, goes good with that breakfast. Yeah, good. That's good. Lily rushed us out. I had 2 hours and I still didn't get quite everything done. Note to self: I either need 2 and a half hours or I need to do a lot of the prep work the night before. I don't get it. I don't get it. But I will say this: henceforth, the rest of this day, you can refer to me as Horse Dad. Okay, what do you want me to do?

Go get me signed up.

Okay, Lily's got me going to sign her up while she gets Luna ready. 65. That's who we want. That's the number we want to hear after Lily's event. She wants at least one first place. I think she's in 5 events. We'll see. It won't be because of her skill if she doesn't get first. It will be up to Luna.

Depends upon if I remember to do all the stuff I have to do.

Oh, that's true. Like, off course, which—

like, staying on course. Switching the lead before the corners, going to the trot and picking up the canter again. So we cannot let Luna go because she'll be— she'll run away. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she'll freak out. And I don't think I'll ever catch her up.

You cold?

Yeah, I am. It's freezing. It's like 29, 27 degrees.

You're from Alabama, so you're not used to this.

No, I'm not used to this at all.

Look at the layers you got on.

This is ice cream.

Hey, put those up nice. Put them back right side out. Don't get them on that horse poop. Don't get your socks on it either. Did you check in with Miss Lisa? Do you need to? You're just ready with cowgirl boots.

Yeah, I wish it was like that with English. Oh, my hands are too cold to zip it up.

You could just wear English boots all the time.

I could.

I do, but you're supposed to have a clean outfit in English. You get marked off if you're dirty.

Yeah, I mean, like, it's just like a respect to the judges.

Western, do you have to— do they mark off if you've got— if you're dirty?

No, we do just—

well, you do barrel racing, so it's just time. Yeah, you get judged. Yeah, it's a difference. That's your number on. Lily got the horse bug, I think, on the Great American Farm Tour. Thanks, Full Circle Farm. Thanks, Jill Wienger. We have this barn within 3 miles from our home. We're out in the rural area, and basically we said, all right, let's quench this little horse bug you've got. Let's put this— let's squash this bug. We'll get you some horse lessons. We didn't know if it was Western or English, which is close to the house, so that's what you're gonna be. Well, it didn't squash the bug. It ignited the fire.

Luna and me already, so we're gonna do the warm-up and do some schooling over the jumps and everything. Luna's very excited for the day. She loves a good horse show. She gets very nervous like I do.

How do you know she loves it?

Well, she's just like naying and looking around and walking fast. Whenever she's energetic, I know that she's enjoying it.

Lily Luna's looking good. I haven't seen her in a while and she looked great. You've got her body condition up. You— she looked great jumping. Yeah, how did you feel about it?

I feel like she's doing really good.

This horse looked fantastic. I haven't seen her ride her in a while. Not only is her condition up, but Luna looked like a show horse. She was a trail— western trail horse, and Lily and Miss Lisa have trained her to be something else. Good job, guys. Hey, good morning!

Good morning! Hey, get in!

Hey, what do we gotta do?

With what?

What do I— I gotta help carry some chairs. You got here so nice and early.

Well, your mom came and she's like, am I early?

And I was like, no, always, always she's early.

Always what?

Always you're early.

Do you want to wear my hat?

Always.

Lombardi time.

Well, I thought I said I needed to— or you said I need to be there at 7:30, so it was 7:23 when I came.

Oh, look at you.

I know. And then I was nebulizing and she's like, am I early?

Rebecca and I tend to be 5 minutes late all the time.

Oh.

They started. And, uh, is she— well, she's going to get a blue ribbon cuz she's the only one. No, there are more people in this event. There's another event going on I got confused with. Here's her competition. So I don't know how many riders will be in here, but yeah, I don't know what they're thinking. They can only do one at a time on these courses. Well, we see how— we'll see how she did. I think— I can't tell. I can't tell. Can you guys tell? Wow, I think she's memorizing her next course. How do you feel you did?

Were your boots unzipped?

Yep.

How'd you do?

I feel like I did good. The leads could have been better, but everything else was good.

I think she looks really good on at least some of them.

I don't know about all the first time over 2 foot with as much anxiety as you've gone into remembering your course. Yeah, if the 2 negatives were you circled, that's on you. Round number 2 for Lily. How was the trick-or-treat last night?

Happy Halloween! Are you a banana?

Did you get any Feastables? Jonah and Josiah want to know, did you get any Feastables?

No.

He's like, yeah, not one Feastable.

They did give out organic apples. That's too—

that's too expensive. So you kept that one?

So he ate one.

We totally messed up. We should have gave him an apple. Yeah, that's not us. Chocolate chip. You got lucky. Yeah, you found us in a low-key place. I went trick-or-treating. I did not like it when they gave me an apple. Yeah, he was quiet in the back. We should have made you bob for the apple. Did you make any mistakes on that second one?

No, not really. I just need to follow more with my hands, like—

All right, Luna did good on the second one. Yep, third time's a charm. Good job.

Yeah, we knocked the pole. Do you get marked off for knocking off the I don't know how many points though.

Okay, some people are just doing it the first time. Look, here's your fans. I think they're all getting out here to be judged. Yeah, here they come. Either this is another class or this is the judgment. Okay, this is a new class. We'll have to wait and see how she did in the first event. We got a judgment on this?

This goes to entry number 68, Emmy Knight-Rouse, ridden by Cheryl Grigsby. And 6th goes to entry number 60, Grayson, ridden by Grace Kennedy.

So I think it only goes to 6th. It's another class. I think it's all the same riders. They must be fierce competition. She's pretty deflated, I can tell. Mom can tell too. We gotta get a ribbon in this one.

What?

What did she do wrong? Good job! Is this the announcement for the jumping?

Number 51, Calvin, ridden by Claire Rice. Number 65, Luna Lightfoot, ridden by Lily Rose.

She got something. Okay, she got something. Did you win?

No, I just got 6th.

And what was that in?

Uh, it was in one of the jumping classes.

Oh, okay. Were you super bummed you didn't get a ribbon in the walking and trotting classes?

No, but I got the wrong leads, so.

Oh, is that what was wrong?

Yeah, I got the wrong leads. And like when I tried to fix them, they kept being wrong.

Is that your fault or his— her fault?

My fault and her fault.

Oh really, it's both of you? Well.

It's mostly my fault because like, I don't know, like, I have a hard time like seeing what it is.

Okay, so now what's the plan?

Well, we're gonna be done.

You're done? That's it? We're leaving? You did good.

You did good too. I didn't know the leads though. I had a hard time with the leads.

When can you start doing jumpers?

Soon.

Let's do it.

Is that an age?

That's more—

no, that's more— It's not just— It's not judged on like all these things. It's how fast you go through the course, and there is some judging like if you knock a pole down and stuff like that, but there's not— it's not— it's a lot less judging. Yeah. On like— on these things that are so particular, if you will.

Yeah, well, I feel like this show has some jumper classes in it. I don't know. Yeah.

Are you not old enough, or—

I am. This doesn't do them though.

How was the horse show, gentlemen?

Good, I guess.

Performance-wise, it was probably one of Lily's worst shows. I'm proud of her though, of course. I feel like maybe I need to learn what we're looking for in those judgments. We're also learning that we probably just want to do the jumper classes, or the— where they just run the course and it's on time and it's not judge, judge, judges. And Lily wants to get into that. It's just her trainer doesn't do that. So we may just have to start entering her ourselves. Let's get home. I'm looking forward to my leftover birthday meal. Brisket. I'm gonna add some fried onions, and we got one piece of pork left.

Make a U-turn.

Mom and I are gonna split that. New York world in early May. Back home. Leftover birthday meal that's almost as good as the birthday meal. I'm gonna make some cubed sweet potatoes since we ate all the fries. Sweet potatoes look great. Hey! All right! Thank you. Oh, you get an applesauce and a trick-or-treat? Need some rice and burger for people so we can make this brisket go a little further. Yum. Afternoon chores, trying to get as much as we can done before supper. Yeah, okay, it's good, it's good. Just do this. Are you— I got you, I got you, I got you. He knows to lift up this chain so you could hook it on itself. Here, come on, bro, let's get in there while we can. Something has happened in this pen. This is our third wheelbarrow load of wood chips. It's somehow gotten muddy. No rain, under a shed. Hey, did we spill the water or something? Let's see if we can— we haven't been without eggs yet, but we came pretty close today. Y'all have a lot of excess food here. I'm just gonna stir that up for you. Okay, the little birds are starting to come in real strong. Pretty much a full basket. Sun is on its way down. I was trying to get as much as we could get done before supper, ideally, because of time change— the clocks go back. The sun don't move. The sun's still going. And we liked what we were doing, eating a little bit before the sun went down. Kids insist that we still eat at 5 even during time change. We were going to bed at 9, the new 9 is 8. So if we're still eating at 5, that means we have 3 hours to get in the bed instead of 4. That may be a challenge. If it were up to me, we'd start eating dinner at 4. Maybe that's a little early because you got to start prepping it at 3. We almost need to eat an hour after dark in the winter so that we could work up till dark. It's actually the next day. I forgot to say good night. Time change. I'd like to think we'd stay with the sun. I'm not sure that's gonna happen. I think we're gonna take advantage of the— if we adapt the new change, we get an extra hour sleep. Good night. Happy day.