Wild Ride

Well, not really. He was actually quite good. :) 

It was in the upper 50's, if not low 60's the last few days but rained all day. So it didn't feel that warm but it was definitely not frigid. Then after the rain quit yesterday the wind picked up and the temperature plummeted. I think we went from a high of 62 to a high of 42, and I'm not sure it ever got to 42. And with the wind chill factor, it felt like 32! So... I had some very frisky ponies. They stayed in Thursday night and Friday day because of the rain. I turned them out about 6:30 pm Friday night and they were rowdy!! Even Fleck was jumpy and spooky. They were fine of course, once they hit the pasture. But getting to the pasture was tricky. ;) I ended up bringing them in around midnight because it was so windy and chilly.  It was really cold this morning too but dry, so they got turned out. And they were still jumpy!!! 

Mike and I spent the day together. We unloaded hay, went to buy a fan, got lunch, and then even replaced our ceiling fan/light together. Go us! Then he said I could go ride since I have to work tomorrow. Unfortunately it was 4 pm at this point, but I didn't care. I threw both ponies in the trailer and we headed out to Ashland. 

I put Dan's quarter sheet on, wrapped a scarf around my face and put on my big jacket. We hit the trails and did our walk warm up. We are now up to 20 minutes of trotting!!! Yahoo!!! Danny was a bit jumpy starting out and just walking from the trailer to the XC field he did a spin and scoot at least twice. We managed to keep ourselves together and eventually he settled. Kind of. ;) We found 3 good spots on the trail to do our trot sets. :) He was trucking!! I tried to sit the trot on occasion so that he doesn't associate sitting with a downward and slam on the breaks every time. But it's really hard to sit the trot in a jump saddle on a very frisky very forward pony who is power trotting and spooky. ;) Shockingly, he did NOT do a downward transition even once. ;) Well, he did when I asked, but not when I just sat. I didn't do much, but I did some. :) 


We finished in the XC field and had our final trot. Which was going great until Dan squirted sideways yet again. 5 deer had decided to run from the top of the field, in front of us, all the way to the woods. Dan was convinced they were running from a monster by the swing and tried to join them. Ooops.. more illegal cantering. Doh! But after I got him stopped and he watched them, we were able to finish our power trot. And then we grazed and cooled down a bit. I did get hot during the trot sets but once we started walking again, it got chilly quick.

We headed back and by that time it was getting super cold! The wind chill was 22! And it was 31 degrees. So... I told Fleck that I was sorry but we were heading home. Especially because it was getting dark and I was getting hungry. Poor buddy. But at least he got to go on a car ride. ;)