Sunday, September 16, 2007

Got out to the barn, brought Josie into the barn in time to have her take a HUGE pee. Learning the barn rules constantly. Put her back in her little paddock, let the pups out. They so love to help with brooms and shovels. HA, HA!

I am so feeling great happiness and peace. I cannot live my life without horses. It broke my heart to have to give PJ away but I would never have met Josie if not. Love comes with sacrifice.

L came down. Darn it I missed riding with her. She rode in the upper arena- yahooooo! Wyatt and Pix were happy to see my friend.

After a bit, giving the pups time to play and me time to do what I needed to do. I brought Josie in to get saddled. I did a much better job of putting the bridle on. I walked her up the the outdoor. Poor girl her feet hurt so on the rocks. At this point we will do what we need to do but I feel I may need to put at least front shoes on. She has a slight crack on her front right. I rode in my schooling chaps. J said looks like you are very serious today. Let the schooling begin! Josie is a bit gate sour. I can handle her better on the right rein than the left. It must be a physical thing on my part. I am hoping the yoga I have started will help. Josie and I did flexing, a bit of turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches. I started her on a bit of leg yield and that is going well. I will probably start riding in my dressage bridle but with L's help it looks like even my wide tree senior collegiate saddle isn't wide enough. AND she is a little bit of a thing! I then asked for the right lead canter and twice got the left lead. I tried again make her fall into it and yeeeee! got it. She gives the left lead willing enough. I know I am not no Stacey and apologize to Josie contstantly. Josie is just testing me. After that I decided to walk a bit and then took her out of the arena. I forgot to mentioned, I neglicted to grab my helmet and gloves. i didn't want to drag her back to the other barn to get it so decided to opt out - not a issue. Again I must mention how wonderful my new steed is.

Call me crazy but I decided to take her on the trail by ourselves. After doing a bit of our impression of drunk sailor down the lane we went across the tracks. I originally thought oh, we will ride to the water cross and turn around but went even further. She gave a start at some bird being obnoxious in the bush, totally handled a hern taking off and only wanted to check out the fish jumping in the lake. Once we got into the woods she settled down very well. Not meaning she was bad but more relaxation set in after that. We made it through the two mud areas. The first I had to leave my left stirrup to get past the little tree there. She got a little riled at that. Her worst spook so far has been that other horse stumbling. She does the Bambi stance with a bit of emotion. What I like is my heart rate hardle jumps up. I do more laughing than anything. Have I said lately how much I love my horse!!! We went up the hills and journey back through without much issue.

As by my riding her in the arena, I am learning to sit back. She has quite the whoa on her. I love her so. I am so happy but yet feel a slight chill that this is too good to be true. The lord giveth and he taketh. Please let me have the girl for a long, long time. She is the one. My total all around.

With vacation mind I had forgotten we have agility tomorrow night. I got back from my trail ride and it was 4:30. Josie didn't get to go with the herd. I tracked down Heather and she said let her out. I did and no one minded her at all. She got to eat grass for 15 mintues before the others were to come in to eat. After the first two horses she thought she should go through and ended up hugging the gate. She came through a few seconds later, only to get run towards the gate again. She then came into the dry lot but hung out beind the "king of the hill" pile. I caught her and brought her to her sanctuary. With Wy and I having agility tomorrow i will see that she gets turned out and bit earlier.

I got home after having a bit of Chipotle - mmmmmm good!

Wy and I practice the weave ples. Gawd! How he loves agility!. My morning project is to figure our schedule so we arrive at agility not to far beforehand as Pix will be with us. We had a bit a cool spell, freezing the other night but today was nicely hot.