Up Before the Crack of Dawn

So, I promised I was going to keep up on my blog for my father's benefit, and it seems I am writing one of these every month. Seeing as January is almost over I guess I'd better get on with it!!

My day started this morning with a 3.55 am, yes I said am, alarm going off. I know some of you were not aware that I could get up at 3.55 am, (I used to be one of them!) but apparently I can!
Lelah and I fed over 100 horses in 2 hours and then I resisted the urge to go back to bed and went to work in the office instead.

We have over 100 students coming in to participate in the 1 and 2 star instructor courses starting Monday morning at 8am!! All week we have been making name tags and folders and name tags for the folders and .... The printer has been going non stop, I am amazed it hasn't gone up in smoke. I have carpel tunnel from repeated punches of the stapler and paper cuts numbering in the thousands! Well maybe that's a slight exaggeration; reality is I don't have any, but that is simply because of my paper handling prowess!! We have killed I don't know how many trees in the printing of the necessary handouts, and it aint over yet! The trees sacrifice won't be in vain however when we produce many, many new Parelli Professional's to go out into the big wide world to teach. I mean that literally, we have people coming from all over the world, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, even a few Brits are gracing us with their royal presence!!

Two weeks after the instructor course arrives is the beginning of FT1 that's highly secretive Parelli code for Fast Track number 1 for the year!! This is the one which Sam and I will be participating in, it begins on February 14th and runs for four whole weeks. By the time it comes around, Sam and I will have been at the Parelli ranches for over 5 and a half months, a long time to go without very much horse time or instruction. Our Parelli journey is truly about to begin.

I have been making good progress with my horse recently; only now he is sick, with a pretty nasty cough and runny nose, I haven't done anything with him for over a week and I feel a little bit like we are losing ground!! I hope he improves quickly and is completely over it well before FT1 begins, so that we have some time to tune up a little, so as not to embarass (the computer doesn't like that spelling, but I disagree and argue that is exactly how you spell embarass?!) ourselves. I think we are ready and will be fine, just a scary prospect, we start with theory and practical testing on day one of the course!!

Scoot and I are in this months DVD distributed to all Parelli members, titled Performance Summit Highlights, we are in there doing our mounted shooting demonstration!! I am trying to get some free copies to distribute to y'all so I'll keep you posted!

Pat Parelli and some of his mastery students, as well as Sam and I recently went to a ranch roping clinic held by Martin Black, Martin is a very talented man trying to spread the way of traditional ranch roping. Unfortunately both of our horses were sick and so was Sam, so our participation was limited. We learned a lot though and it was really great to see Pat in a learning environment, I think he picked up a lot of new techniques and information. Sam grew up in the same town as Martin's wife Jennifer, he is good friends with her brother, Jennifer invited us over there and it was a lot of fun getting to know them a little bit.

Sam has a real interest in this type of roping and the more I am around it, so do I. We plan to take a little time away from the Parelli ranch at the beginning of April. Sam has a commercial drivers license and Martin and Jennifer have asked us to help them drive their horses from here in Florida to their place in Idaho, it will be a four day trip probably, and mostly driving, but will be a good chance to take a little break. It may also help to develop a valuable contact with Martin and Jennifer to advance our skill and learning in other areas, and provide a real purpose to our horsemanship. Exciting!!

I am very excited to be an auntie, Nathan and Charlotte have had the most beautiful baby girl in the world, (until I have one that is!!) named Mia Gilbert, she was born on January 15 and they are both obviously instantly in love. I got the opportunity to speak to Nathan for about 25 minutes a few days after Mia was born and he gave me the whole story. I am pretty sure that Charlotte is his hero!

Well, that's about all I got really! I've been awake too long to concern myself with editing so, you get it in the raw I'm afraid!

Enjoy.

Love to you all.
Jessica