Jessica Boyd
About: As an O'Reilly marketing dudette, I'm very interested in hearing what our customers have to say about what we're doing. Or even what we're not doing. It's all good.
We can also talk about balancing the ability to be connected all the time with the necessity of disconnecting, breathing fresh air, and getting your hands (really) dirty.
I'll try not to bore you with too much horse information.
Photos:
Blog Posts
Lena gets a massage
--A month or so ago, I noticed Lena's left "hip" felt warm to the touch. It was after a ride my daughter and I took at Lake Sonoma, when Lena was par...
Horse lessons
--Bar has been giving us all lessons recently, and through it all, we've all learned a few things about him, and I've learned something I need to kee...
Another New Edition in 2008
--On Friday night Ryan and I arrived home late after going to the Giants game in SF. I was drifting off into a deep slumber when I was jolted awake b...
Sunday afternoon trail ride
--My daughter Katie and I took Bar and Lena out today for a great trail ride, though we had some interesting technical difficulties. Lena managed to ...
Headed home
--Steve and I are sitting at JFK Airport, patiently waiting for our flight to board. We drove down from Fishkill, NY--Steve's home when he first star...
Horse spotting
--I saw two horses tonight, pulling carriages in Hell's Kitchen, one on the way to dinner and one on the way back.However, due to the fact that my co...
Away from home again
--I feel a little like Waldo. Where in the world is Jess? Only it's just where in the U.S. is Jess, and this week, it's New York City for our Web 2.0...
Bee's Settling In
--Bee's finally settling in to his new home, and I'm settling in too! So far it's been great. I've been able to spend a lot more time with him - layi...
Horse Entertainment
--I admit it. I miss my horses.I tried to get a horse fix tonight (and mostly succeeded) by doing something totally Las-Vegas-Tourist-y. I went to th...
Horse Emotions
--I saw this article referenced in my friend Linda's newsletter and thought it was a really interesting observation. I know that sometimes when one o...
Free Willy is Coming Home!
--Remember that trip to Germany that I posted about awhile back? Well we finally have something to prove for it, Free Willy! Out of all the horses Od...
Lena Update and Las Vegas
--I'm back in Las Vegas again, only this time it's for Photoshop World instead of Paint Vegas. Lena is doing fine, feeling feisty and acting her norm...
Bee's Home!
--I moved Bee home yesterday - It's going okay - he's stressed that there isn't another horse in his pasture and he's obsessed with the horses across...
Colic scare
--There is nothing in the world (probably) that horse owners want to hear less when they pick up the phone than "Your horse is colicing." Because our...
Bar's Story--a work in progress
--I sometimes wonder about Bar's life before us, what his journey was on his way to being our horse. I haven't yet made it to the races with Devon, w...
Halloween and Bee Dilemma - what a combo
--Last night I played dress up with Huck! We're preparing for some Halloween activities here at the office and I wanted to test out the jazzercise lo...
Successful Show
--This weekend was very busy! It was packed with a work event in the city, a rehearsal dinner for Ryan's brother, and then his wedding, saying goodby...
Schooling Bar (and Lena, too)
--We've all (Steve, my daughter Katie, Bar, Lena, and me) been arena sour for some time now, and the humans in that group have been trying to find th...
Duetchland
--I just got back from an amazing trip to Duetchland. I tagged along with my one of my best friends in search of a horse for her. We were only gone f...
Notes to other drivers
--We took the horses out yesterday and had a great ride, but--as often happens--I was witness to some driving that had me scratching my head, shaking...
Back to Basic Training
--Trail riding is great, and if we could, we'd probably do most, if not all, our training out on the trail. But we can't and it's necessary to do are...
Where do my horses meet technology?
--I've been away again, surrounded by the normal trappings of my "real" job in the technology industry and far away from the dirt and manure of my pr...
More trail riding
--My daughter Katie and I took Bar and Lena back out to Shiloh on Sunday and had a great time. Bar did great and Lena was less spooky about branches ...
Bar loses a shoe
--Bar has typical Thoroughbred feet -- thin-walled, peel-y, prone to cracks -- so he has to have shoes all the time on all four feet. Mike has done a...
Saving horses from the arena
--After two weeks of boring (at least to them) arena work, we rescued the horses from one more day of big and small circles and took them out on the ...
Arena Fatigue
--Bar has been experiencing a bit of arena fatigue over the last week or so. Steve noticed it first on Sunday when Bar stopped dead on the way down t...
Magic Naps
--I've just returned from the Pebble Beach Dressage Show, my favorite horse show and favorite event of the summer! This was Willoughby's second show ...
Wesley the yoga cat
--Sometimes Wesley likes to show us lowly humans what true yoga poses look like. He likes to call this one "Upward Facing Cat" and says it's not near...
Trip pictures
--I finally got around to uploading more of our trip pictures to Flickr.com.
Yellow Bristle Grass revisited
--Yesterday, I had a comment on my mouth sores post from a woman in Minnesota, and another a few weeks ago from someone else on my culprit post. The ...
Miscellaneous horse news
--Things are settling back into routine now that we're home. Lena got new shoes and both horses got nice long rides yesterday. Steve noticed that Bar...
Building
--Having been away, and having ridden other horses, it's been an interesting few days back at home riding our two monsters. Something besides my ridi...
Trip to Slide
--We're back!We had a great trip and learned a lot! Slide was awesome and it was so great to see Ike and Cheri again, too. We had told them we wanted...
Fenway, the Teacher!
--Last weekend ended up being another great horse weekend - A clinic with Ellen in Winters, CA. It's about a two hour trailer trip but luckily Willou...
Hello from the mountains
--Steve and I are currently in Bishop, where we stayed the night in hotel. Aaahhh, hot showers. It just so happens that the rodeo is in town, but I h...
Racing perspective
--Devon (Bar's first mom) saw my post about Big Brown and sent me an email with some really important perspective from inside the world of Thoroughbr...
On the road
--Steve and I are on the road, off on our week of camping and exploring. We stopped at the barn on our way out to grain and give treats and I'm not y...
Another One Bites The Dust!
--Yes - I had my share of contact with the dirt this week! I've been out of town for the last week on a business trip and was so excited to get back ...
Big Brown and horse racing
--This story and this video make me glad that Bar had owners and trainers that actually like horses.It is a beautiful thing to watch these equine ath...
Good ride, bad position
--Just when you think you've got your position working right, someone takes a picture that proves you are completely out of whack. Drat.I swear I tho...
Healing
--Bar is coming along very nicely. I rode him last night for about 20 minutes, just at a walk, and he was moving pretty well. He did get a little hes...
Bar update
--Bar seems to be doing fine, though he is a little stiff still. (So is Steve, for that matter.)I took Bar out and walked him down the driveway and a...
Hearts can sink
--We had an interesting day in our little horse world today, a little drama along with the normal joys of training difficult horses. It was a nice su...
I have a confession
--A couple weeks ago, I jumped off Bar. No, I didn't fall off - I really did jump. He started bucking and I bailed, landing - much to my own amazemen...
The First Show
--I apologize for being MIA. I've been very busy lately with work and have been traveling a lot and am just now getting back into the swing of things...
Waiting for Katie to post :)
--Katie and Willoughby had their very first show - the very next weekend after Maker Faire! In other words, Katie - who works for Make and Craft mag...
Boot fetish
--I might have a small boot fetish.Just a tiny one.My red boots, my daily riding/barn boots, had started to crack and fade and I knew it was only a m...
More barn wildlife
--Sunday during my lesson we had two hefty gopher snakes make their way across the arena. The first one Peter herded across the toasty sand and then ...
In the category of why bother
--I love to give the horses baths, and mostly they love the attention and the scrubbing. Bar in particular would stand perfectly still and have me ho...
Lena gets a lesson from Janice
--Steve and I are going away for two weeks (!) in June, so I asked Janice if she would be willing to ride Lena some while we're gone. She said she wo...
Trail adventures
--We took the horses out today and introduced Bar to uphill and downhill. For the most part, it was pretty successful. He got a little tired going up...
Things of note I've been meaning to post
--Yes, I'm still alive and, no, I haven't fallen off again! Woo hoo!Saw this in our local paper and couldn't help but think that the mountain lion wa...
Riding the wind
--I fell off Bar again and have been struggling over the last few days with how I'm feeling about all this. It's certainly better today than it was l...
Horses meet dog
--My daughter Katie's boyfriend has a fine young dog named Cali and she got to come to the barn with us on Saturday. We had tried this once before, b...
Pilates
--This is picture of Cocomo and Odie practicing pilates before their ride at the clinic! It's the secret to their success in the show ring!
Lena and Doc in Paint Horse Journal
--I sent this photo into Paint Horse Journal a few months ago, and they put it in the March issue! (It's their Photo Finish feature where readers can...
Trail riding success!
--We took Lena and Bar out today, for the first time since the beach incident, and despite my apprehension before-hand, it all went really well.And, ...
Trot/Halt Transitions
--This video clip from the clinic shows us working on trot/half transitions. By the end of the clip, you can see how he's clearly "on my aids".
Too Much Fun
--Willoughby and I had too much fun at our horse clinic with Dennis Callin this past weekend. These pictures were taken at the cocktail party (held...
What scares your horse
--I found this question on The Equus Ink from another blog, Pony Tail Club.As you may know, with my two horses, it can be different things on differe...
Horse stretching on a sunny afternoon
--I took some time off today because my daughter (also a Katie) is out of school for spring break. She still likes to hang out with me, which for a p...
Movie sap
--I finally watched the movie Seabiscuit and (naturally) cried my eyes out several times during the movie. I wondered out loud to Steve if Bar missed...
Learning curve
--This was a challenging week in our horse world. Not entirely without flashes of hope - though on some occasions, it was merely the hope that one co...
Horse listening
--This may sound a little, oh, ethereal, but I'm listening to horses more. Talking to them more, too.Now, I've always talked a lot to Lena and Bar; I...
How soon they forget
--I just had a lesson on Sunday and it went really well. Bar cooperated and I learned a few new tricks with him.Peter had me follow Bar's head up wit...
Photo Shoot
--Here are some stunning pictures of Huckleberry Finn at the lake. He's so handsome, but I'm partial!
Retraining racehorses, part 2
--One of the comments I've received was from someone who had a paint horse and was thinking of adopting an ex-racehorse and it made me think about wh...
Looking Forward to a Horse Weekend
--In a week from today, I'm headed down to Carmel for a clinic with Dennis Callin. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons - This will be my fi...
I wish I could save them all
--I am on an email list that sends out information on some of the local horse rescue agencies - like CHANGE, the one I blogged about back in February...
Bee's Doing Well
--The vet came out today to check on Bee Boy and he's doing really well!! She took x-rays and the coffin bone did not rotate at all - which is great ...
He's a good citizen!
--Yesterday, Huck was put to the test! I took him to get his Canine Good Citizen certificate, put on by the AKC (American Kennel Club). And he passed...
New perspectives
--I just started a book called The Tao of Equus by Linda Kohanov. It's a pretty interesting look at the horse-human relationship, though she focuses ...
New perspectives
--I just started a book called The Tao of Equus by Linda Kohanov. It's a pretty interesting look at the horse-human relationship, though she focuses ...
Bee's Foundering
--Poor Bee is foundering. Foundering is when the P3 (Coffin Bone or Distal Phalanx) separates from the hoof wall and actually detaches or sinks. The ...
A Riding Lesson
--I had a great lesson with Peter today, though I almost flaked on it because I'm sick (again) after all my time on the road. I'm really glad I didn'...
Reasons to come home
--There are a lot of reasons I'm glad to be home - Steve and Katie chief among them - but obviously, I have two other favorite folks to come home to....
Poor Little Mole
--Yesterday while I was on my way home from Spanish class, I received a call from Ryan, my fiance. He was very anxious for me to get home but wouldn'...
Poor Little Mole
--Yesterday while I was on my way home from Spanish class, I received a call from Ryan, my fiance. He was very anxious for me to get home but wouldn'...
Horse withdrawal
--Did you know this is a medical condition? Though I guess to have withdrawal, you have to start with addiction. When you're traveling and away from ...
On the Road Again.. Still
--I'm sitting in a hotel room in San Francisco tonight, getting ready to fly out tomorrow morning for Austin, Texas and South by Southwest. If I had ...
No Need To Worry
--No need to worry, Mr. Bee Boy is going to make it!! The farrier came out to the barn last night to look at the crack and concluded that it was very...
A Crack!
--I was out at the barn this weekend grooming Bee when I noticed this awful crack in his hoof!! The farrier is coming out this week to take a look at...
Getting ready to leave
--I'm getting ready to leave for ten days to work two tradeshows. And this is what I'm leaving! So hard. I love the dual ears. They are waiting for S...
Sunsets at the barn
--I stopped at the barn - as usual - on my way home tonight. I didn't ride, just cleaned and petted.As I was tending, I noticed the lavender sky lit ...
Horses and technology
--I always feel a bit of a disconnect between my job in the technology industry and my personal life, in particular the time I share with horses. Mos...
Retraining racehorses
--I've found a few articles and books with information about retraining ex-racehorses. It's pretty interesting to read things that help me see how "n...
February Clinic
--Last weekend I trailered to Davis (Sacramento Area) for a clinic with my coach, Ellen.Here is a little video clip from one of my lessons.
Bar and Jess get a lesson
--Bar and I had a lesson yesterday that consisted of a lot of walking and a lot of Peter telling me to get my rear end in the center of the saddle. A...
Tigers in the bushes
--I rode Lena Friday and while she's better trained than Bar in some ways, she was not on her best behavior. It was definitely a tiger-in-the-bushes ...
Help for Horses
--I ran across this article in our local paper on an increase in abandoned and abused horses, followed by another about a local vet, Grant Miller, DV...
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Sara Peyton (mutual) friend |
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Pinar Ozger friend |
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shirley bailes (mutual) friend |
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Craig Palmer (mutual) friend |
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Laurel Ackerman (mutual) friend |
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Kathryn Barrett (mutual) friend |
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Chad Capellman (mutual) friend |
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Julie Delany (mutual) friend |
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Mark Levitt (mutual) friend |