Monday, November 16, 2009

Friday night I had the dirtiest horse ever! Josie rolled in the freshly plowed up paddock. Why when it is raining out would you want to roll in wet mud? With the arena empty I let her run around a bit to speed up the drying process. I spent more time cleaning her up than I did riding. I scraped off the mud and proceeded to blow dry her. She seems to like the blow dryer to the face. We have made a game out of it and she seems to tolerate her body being blown dry if we play.I will have to take a picture of her enjoying the warm air. It is pretty funny. I have to be careful that she doesn't take a hold of the dryer with her mouth. It seemed to take forever but I had an area dried up for the pad and saddle. Thank goodness it was already a dirty pad - even though it was my best jumping pad and it would be WHITE! I let the rest go and saddled her.

Mare was a superstar tonight. She settled quickly into work mode. Ever the pleaser she is. She really loves her jumping saddle. One of the boarders had put out ground poles so we walked through both directions and then trotted through. The first time trotting through I didn't keep her forward and we died going through. The second time through I counted as we went - keeps me breathing and gives us a beat to dance to. I thought she was going to jump the last two poles to make it through. We took a moment to establish a nice pace on the track and then came through perfectly.

Saturday I was bitten by the ambition bug. I cleaned out closets, organized, put away summer clothes, stuffed boxes in my attic. My To Do list shrank a bit. I now have another bag of stuff to donate. The dogs were most disgusted with me and thought life as they knew it was over until I started packing up to go to the barn. Happy dancing began and off we went for a much needed night of soccer. We hadn't played for about a month now. Jonesing for some soccer!

Josie was clean compared to the night before. I let her run around before mounting but she didn't do the yahoo bucking of the night before.

We had three players and the horses had already played before. We did a little warm up taking turns moving the ball around. Josie and I worked on a new maneuver - backing into the ball. Didn't work so well but she will come around to it. We pressed P and Rosie and got them to back off. I don't know who intimidated more with their game face - me or Josie. I wasn't able to bring the ball straight to the goals this time - WT_. Here I am thinking I have more control of the ball. Josie used her head again when we needed it. She just amazes me! It was really a lot of fun doing more of a scrimmage than waiting for other players to get their horse use to the ball.

Sunday went for an hour and a half walk with the pups. Wyatt had his nice little sweater on to start with. Pixie isn't a fan of clothes so I don't press the issue until it is needed. By the halfway mark I noticed Wy panting and removed his sweater. The walk was pretty uneventful. I thought oh, good the pups will be tired but then a squirrel made an appearance at they became most fresh again. The squirrel was very gutsy. If we weren't by the busy road I would have let them at him as he remained on the ground. Lucky for you today Mr. Squirrel.

After a little lunch - did I mention I am now eating like a rabbit? I am sick and tired of the increase in size. But shame on me I made some fried pork rice - mmmmmm - must ration portions. Must have portion control . . . oh but it is soooooooo delicious!

I did more cleaning up but still need to actually clean. I can leave messages to myself in the dust these days. I finished my tack inventory on Sunday. Now, I just need to update the document (it is on the list). The tack locker is nice and tidy, well, for now anyways. I moved the saddle rack from the kitchen to the second bedroom. My, but my kitchen is so spacious now. It will be huge once I remove the large plastic container.

Monday over at last. We did an hour walk today. Pix was marking every corner. Thinking she is finally coming into season. Now I just have to come up with some cash to get her spayed. I should probably find out just how much that is going to be.

Life is still good today.