Belated weekend update

I felt kinda guilty posting this last night, because it was just such a lovely day yesterday. The northeast is buried in ice, Hawaii is buried in mud, and it was 60 here.

But today it's hovered near freezing and we could possibly have up to an inch of ice overnight. Aaaaand as a direct result, our schools all let out at noon today. (Please remember to breathe in between bouts of hysterical laughter, Northeasters.)

Anyway. Yesterday.

I had another frustrating ride on Valentine. Progress is slow with me getting all my parts coordinated, but I am getting there.

I did decide to entirely stop looking at my reins, even when Hardy mentioned them - I realized that whenever he'd say, for instance, "outside rein!" I'd look down. I don't need to see it wiggling to know it's loose. I really need to feel it wiggling, or better yet feel the lack of contact and do something about it on my own.

I also had this happen a few times:
Decide to trot.
Squeeze for trot.
Nothing happens so squeeze again and suddenly, Val throws her head up and inside and pins her ears.

Hardy said I was yanking, and I protested mightily that I was not in fact yanking, and then I realized that perhaps I was tensing up when Val ignored my first cue. Hrmm.

She's fun, but she's really frustrating. You must give the cues perfectly or she either ignores you or pins her ears and gets angry.


After that lesson - which didn't feel like a stellar advancement of my skills, but I know I'm just on one of those plateaus and one day soon it'll come together again - I went trail riding.

With James!

Yay for James!

K and T were out there - T wanted to go with us, and K just wanted to take a nap but she was quite eager for one of us to ride Poppy. I really wanted to ride Dixie, so I stuck fearless James on Poppy, K rode her bastard Goblin, and we headed out.

Dixie and I led the way, and she was completely relaxed and fearless and swingy. Such a great horse. Poppy was a bit stumbly, but he was very well mannered for James. And T was really alert with Goblin, so he didn't try to bite/kick any other horses, yay.

It was a short ride, just over an hour, but that's a very long ride for T. And a fairly long ride for Poppy! He's not out of shape, but he's not muscled up like he could be (I'm looking at Klein here!) After we got back, we made K ride Poppy. Poppy was an angel for her, cause he was a) a little tired and b) in the habit of listening to his rider. Then we stuck T on Poppy and he did well for her too. Then I let James ride Dixie, and she gaited beautifully for him.

Next weekend I'm gonna go up to the old barn and go riding with James again. Now those are some technical trails! I will get pix for those (i.e. all) of you who have not slogged through a full year of my blathering, so you can see what I think a "hard" trail is. Anyway, we're going to try to alternate visiting each other. My new trails are beautiful; his are longer and tougher.

Today we purchased Guitar Hero World Tour. I took a break from ROCKING to post this, and I'm off to ROCK again!