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[RC] Toys, Ideas, Looking for, and questions.. Long! - Stefffi_cNew Toys, Frugal Ideas, and Things I'm Looking For -- I recently found a few gadgets at the Lowe's and Home Depot I thought ou guys might be interested in -- 1) I found a headlamp at Lowe's this past week; it's got three settings, Red LED, White LED, and long range spotlight. It's weatherproof and lightweight. It has the strap to make it a headlamp included with it, and the base has three hooks to hook the straps to. They will accept a 1" strap, and are not "closed" loops, but look secure enough to hook onto the middle strap of my breastcollar. It will supposedly run 200 hours on LED lights with 3 AAA batteries. It was only 14.95. I don't know how many of y'all have looked at LED flashights, but at http://www.sportsmansguide.com (my favorite site for outdoorsy stuff) they run around $30.00. I had decided I'd rather be in the dark after much trial and error with regular flashlights. I haven't had a chance to try this thing out yet, but if LEDs work for us it looks pretty neat! 2) For those of y'all that like rope tack, the Home Depot here in town recently started carrying "Yacht Rope" in 100' skeins. It's very soft, and gets softer with more use. The 100' of rope is $9.99 here and I made 2 lungle lines and 4 sets of 10' reins for around 24.00. There are two brands they carry; one is a very soft poly blend, but it seems to get very slick. The other one is a little rougher feeling, but it softens considerably with usage. I rode for about 1:30 hours last weekend gloveless with these reins and they were wonderful on my hands. I've ridden with them with gloves on and couldn't get quite as good of a grip, but they were still acceptable. Frugal Ideas -- 3) I don't know how many of y'all keep your horses mane's braided. I keep Star's done in 1/4" braids from Mid March until it starts cooling off. That way when we ride I can quickly french braid all her little braids together and she seems to stay cooler, that small of braids I think she still gets fly protection from her mane. I tried all the braid sprays sold in horse catalogs, and they do make a differnce in how long the braids will stay, and the super conditioning ones lessened hair breakage. But, I'm rather cheap, so I tried the Dollar General's "Afrikan Braid Spray", and it works even better. It has a wondeful natural scent, has no perfumes, dyes, or anything and it's $1.00 per 8 ounce bottle. Braiding without putting some kind of conditioner will severly damage hair, my hair is about 6" below my waist and if I don't condition my hair first then I end up with little broken hairs. Another note on braiding, I try to never use rubberbands, instead I use crochet cotton. Take a piece about 24 - 36" inches long, loop it behind the braid when you are about 3" from the bottom, braid it in with the braid until you get to the bottom, then tie it tightly, loop it and tie it again. I rebraid Star's about every 3 - 4 weeks and have only lost one braid from her getting it caught on a tree! Crochet cotton is around 2.00 @ walmart and I used about 1/4 of a roll last year. Things I'm Looking For -- 4) I'm looking for a crochet pattern for an ear net and for an Irish Knit Sheet. I've been looking for a year or so now, and if anyone out there has made one if you can also let me know what kind of yarn/twine you used I'd appreciate it! 5) I'm also looking for a pattern for saddlebags for an english saddle. Something along the lines of a sportpack, but without the pocket that goes over the seat. Joint Supplements -- Here recently a good friend of mine and her husband purchased 2 young Friesans with joint problems. He is a homeopath/natropath and nutritionist. Both of their horses are on joint supplements, and I gleaned some things from him. I've never heard a supplement called S.O.D. discussed here and have only seen one joint supplement with it in it (KV Vet carries it) it's supposed to work as well or better than HA. His dad is a hollistic vet and swears by this stuff. I've yet to try it, and wondered if any of y'all had. Also, they started using Corta-Flex, but noticed that it has HCI in it. HCI is a digestive enzyme that is also an anti-inflamatory, works great with "Non-Arthiritis" inflamation. The flip side to that is it causes stomach upset and ulcers in sensitive individuals. I can tell y'all, from my experience, that if you have ulcers HCI will cause a minor pain to become severe pain. In my experiences with HCI, both as an anti-inflamitory and for digestion, have been positive, until I had ulcers. I'm not sure how much the effects would cross over to our horses, but the major side effects for me were constant hunger, more inflamation coming off of it than I'd ever had (I couldn't hardly walk), and upset stomach. Rider Health -- I've debated in posting this here, but finally decided to. I've been ill for going on four month and there's no end in sight. My family doctor is now looking towards auto immune diseases, but due to my problems I've been unable to ride more than a handful of time. I walked back one time, but I've got a super horse who takes good care of me or I couldn't ride at all. Not only do I have the physical aspect, but I'm getting very depressed because I can't even do little things. I feel like it's unfair to my horse just to be a pasture ornament, and I really want to pursue endurance. I just purchased a used Wintec, mainly because of weight and ease of care, but with my health as it is endurance is sadly out of the question. Heck, even pleasure ride is out of the question. I'm looking for others with chronic problems, especially pain issues. My biggest problems with riding is joint pain; I struggle with exhaustion and weekness, what products/exercises have worked for y'all out there? Right now we're looking mostly at Lupus, but they're doing more bloodwork next week. Stephanie __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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