Vacation's over

For me anyways. We had a lovely few days at the beach with my family. It was good timing... no horse stuff to get home for.. and just early enough in the house sale that it's not too stressful to leave. So yeah. But... unfortunately, since Dan is still lame and since the house needs to be packed, we came home a little early.

And since we came home early... I went to say hi to the ponies. Maybe they were expecting dinner, but ... maybe they missed me! Dan was at the gate. So.. we went for a quick ride. We had fun. We just went for a long hack and planned to just walk and trot a little. We went to the back hay field and started in the path of the "fire swamp" and suddenly Dan froze. There was a balloon in the field and he could just barely see it. He stared and stared and then bolted! I managed to get him stopped but he was freakin' out, so... we turned around and approached it from the open field to make it a bit more approachable. Dan still said no, but at least he kept his cool and managed to walk past it instead of galloping away. So then we did a little trotting in the field and then headed to the arena to feel him out. I was pretty sure I could feel the lameness in the field though.

And yep.. it's still there. Although I swear today it feels worse on the right. ??? So.. who knows? We did do a little bit of trotting in the arena... and then cantered both ways. Then we did our lateral walk work and he was soooo good. I couldn't help it. We half passed a couple of steps at the trot and it was quite lovely. We only went right.

Anyways.. it was a great ride and a great day. Hot, but not too terrible and a decent breeze. It's just very sad to not be able to do more than just hack. But we still enjoyed the hack. :)