Grateful... so grateful!

 Thank you God for your kindness and blessings upon me. 

I ended up working this morning because it was raining. So I went and shockwaved two horses. Easy peasy! Then I came home and ate lunch. Still pouring. But then, as I was finishing... the sun started to peek through and the rain quit. Ooooohhhhh!! I checked the radar and it looked like I was going to have a decent window.. .maybe a little scattered shower here and there, but as likely to go around. So... I fed Fleck lunch, and let the others have a tiny snack too. I changed clothes and then Dan and I headed to Ashland. 

We had the place to ourselves suprisingly... the arenas were all closed but.. the trails were open! I hopped on bareback and we headed off. He was a very good boy. Only slightly frisky! We snacked and hacked and just enjoyed the squishyness of the day. We did a much longer walk than our last one and I noticed that he didn't seem upset at the uphills. And wasn't lame up hill either. Whooo hooo! I did a few little trots just to check him out and he felt pretty darn good! He actually tried to put his head down and buck a few times... once going downhill and once or twice when we were trotting. And, it was so cool! We were trotting and he suddenly put his head down and went to buck and as I pulled him up I saw a GIANT hawk or some sort of eagle type bird swoop up into the trees! It was huge! I'm not sure if that's what Dan was "spooking" at or it was just coincidence, but it was so cool!

There was water everywhere. It was so squishy and soft and wet. There were new creeks everywhere and they had rapids! We found a few new waterfalls too. And... we found a fun jump if it'll last til we can jump. It was so tempting to try it today but considering we haven't ridden but twice in two months, I wasn't sure how his stifle ligaments were looking, and it was slippery... I was a good girl and didn't. But it was tempting! 

We enjoyed ourselves and Dan didn't seem to want to go back home either so we added a trek in the XC course with a tiny detour through the water complex and then up the hill. And he still wanted to go explore more instead of heading back to the trailers, but... it was time to go home. Baby steps my friend. (ha ha... okay.. I know). 

I'm so grateful that it quit raining and I got to ride. I'm so grateful that Dan felt sound! The time off did him good. Now we've just got to strengthen up all the things again. 

Thank you God! 

Playing in the Rain

 Today was a soggy, rainy, dreary day. So.. Dan and I danced in the rain. 

I took him to the arena for some groundwork/lunging. I came armed with snacks. We started with our pillar walk and he was pretty good. Then we walked the ground poles. And then, he got sassy and pulled loose. So at that point, I gave up and just took the lead rope off and we played at liberty. We kind of made it up as we went. We played tag but I made sure that he halted and backed up away from me before he got cookies. Never once did I think he was going to run me over. We played with lunging, though he's not very good at it without the lead rope. And I could have easily taught him to rear today. He kept popping up in the front end. It was tempting... sooooo tempting. But I decided to behave and not encouarge that. Today at least. ;) 

We also jogged side by side and he's better at that. I managed to get him to trot the poles a few times. We also played with side passing over the poles. And we did the pole straddle a few times too. And then we did some more pillar walking. He was getting a bit nippy... mouthing at my jacket and hands for treats but he was mostly polite about it. More playful than anything. And he knew better so he was being careful. I still gave him stern looks a few times. 

It was fun though! And... he looked pretty darn sound behind. There were a few moments where he wasn't pushing off. But overall he looked pretty darn good! Although he looked more lame in the front end. Not lame. Weak... asymmetric. And he tripped hard a time or two. So I definitely think he needs to go back to work to get those shoulders working. I'm guessing that it's a combination of compensatory muscles as well as actually building up his atrophied muscles, but clearly 2 months off was not good for that. 

So... this month we'll do lots of walking and water treadmill and groundwork and hills and see what we can accomplish. 

And.. because the weather was not conducive to photos (and we were having too much fun), here's photos of his Reserve Champion Ribbon from the Obstacle Course. So.. maybe we can do that if nothing else. 

 

Behaving... mostly

 Dan was apparently MOSTLY good while we were on our cruise. :) Hee hee. I'm so glad I have such good petsitters to help them stay cool :) 

He did apparently lose a shoe... and then, politely, before Patrick came back out, lost another one. Ha ha. As did his sister. So.. at least when Patrick came out, he was able to put three shoes back on in one trip, vs three. ;) 

Hee hee. I miss these kiddos!