Bored Boy

 photos; Bored boy

Homeboy needs a job. ran out of time so opted to go to pasture and toss on bosal and bareback pad. climbed on auto water trough to get on and did NOT fall in. rode in pasture and he tried to sling his head and buck a few times. then went to arena. tried to work gate but just don't have the steering in the bosal. trotted a little and did some figure 8's but really not thinking the bosal will work. darn. then went down the driveway. had a minivan fly into the culdesac and then fly around and back out. Rude. then opted to hack to the lake since dan was being so good. tom's dogs (3) came out and barked and growled at us and dan was like "whatever" and carried on. GOOD BOY! Seriously good boy... like that could have been awful. then hacked past lake to tennis courts. Trotted a bit and got a nice fancy trot. then he tried to run off. did a few more circles and then headed home. got to the lake and had a car come up behind us, very slow (it was brooke!) and had two neighbors walking towards us. said hi and took him down to the lake edge to avoid the car and he went to "jump" the little dam section and turned it into a bucking spree. ha ha. mild. but still. I was pulling his head up and telling him he was a twit and trying to stay on in front of Brooke and the two neighbors! Fool! But I did. ha ha.. they were like "he's beautiful".. i was like "He's a twit!" . ha ha..  no more drama the rest of the way home. 

hopefully he gets cleared for real "work" on friday because boy needs a job!

video: jogging in arena

Charlie Elliott

 trail ride with sharon and baylor.  cantered on right lead on his own

Another "cheat" ride!

 Making lemonade out of lemons! I had scheduled a farm today and blocked off the whole day... and then, this morning, they texted and said they only had 2 horses for me. Ugh... really guys? I could have filled that slot! Or slept in. Of course in retrospect, I should have asked my first appt on Wednesday if I could have come today, but.. .I didn't think about it until after dark. Darn... because that would have made it easier to get my truck dropped off. Oh well. 

So... I went and saw the two horses. And then dropped some drugs (medications people.. medications) off at another farm. Then headed home and had lunch. And then... I took Dan to Ashland. Because I didn't get to ride him Sunday and probably won't have time tomorrow. And it's supposed to get miserable cold again. So... we enjoyed the day today. 

We had the whole farm to ourselves. I put the bareback pad on and the hackamore and off we went. It was chilly but not too bad. We tried to get some hills in. He tried to snack. I let him. We did some trotting in the fields and even in the woods and he was pretty sound and fairly forward. A few times he hit the breaks but was forward while he was trotting. 

We finished in the cross country field so we did three laps each way in the water treadmill at the trot. :) Brrr, but.. it was nice. At least the sun was still out and the wind had died down. 

Good boy! Fun day!

Not lazy today!!

 Today was supposed to be a rainy stormy day. But.. it really wasn't. It didn't know what it wanted to do. Like me. ;) But, it did look like the rain wasn't supposed to start til around noon or 1ish, so... I took a chance and grabbed Dan after breakfast and we headed out. It was warm enough that I wore a sunshirt but there was a little breeze so I added a vest. (But then I got hot on our ride and took the vest off. Again... in January!!). 

   

We got to Ashland and I got him "tacked" up - although I did put him in the bridle today vs the bosal or the hackamore. We saw Judy and Teller so I mentioned to her that I was going to hack over to say hi to Aubrey (who I thought was already teaching in the XC field) but that would love company if she wanted to join me. She had just pulled in as I was hopping on. So I chatted with Jenn and her crew for a minute before we went to the XC field. Sadly Aubrey wasn't out that. Ha! I let Dan snack for a few minutes and then Judy showed up. The boys played a short game of bitey face. Teller likes to play as much as Dan so they were a good match. Hee hee. We hacked over to the bridge and then went up the steep hill and then down idlewhile. Dan was happy enough to be behind Teller. He's not as fast now that his stifle was broken. But then coming down the hill he kept getting rowdy. He would sling his head in the air and then bounce up or buck. Which.. fine, but when he slings his head first he knocks himself off balance. And pulls the reins out of my hands. So... no sir! Judy let me get in front but that didn't really help. I wonder if the downhill was bothering him or if he was just being rowdy? 

 

He let Teller lead again on flat ground although he would randomly toss his head and bounce the entire ride. Goober! We then went along the creek beside 138 and crossed the big creek crossing. They had another round of bitey face and then Dan was pawing and splashing in the lake and Teller was threatening to go down and roll. Hee hee, Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum! We got them moving and carried on. We headed up the nice gradual up hill stretch and I mentioned doing a little trot in twix and tween... Judy agreed so I went to pick up the trot and.. I don't know what happened.. it was like his stifle either got stuck or he stepped on a stick and rolled, but his hind end gave out, then his front end slipped and then he slung his head... I pulled him up because honestly I didn't know what was happening. We decided to not trot on the wet leaves anymore. Then Judy's husband called and said that we were about to get wet! Sure enough it did look a bit menacing off to the .... west? east? Ha! Darned if I know. So we did trot in the hay field and he felt pretty good. He was quite forward and quick but then would slam on the breaks to wait for Teller or if I tried to get him to slow down. Goober! Unfortunately Teller couldn't keep up so it was a bit of haphazard trotting. We managed to make it mostly back to the woods before it started sprinkling. Oh well. At least it's warm. And luckily it didn't do much more than sprinkle even though it sure looked like it was going to be a heavy rain. 

 

  

We untacked and loaded up pretty quick because we thought it might get bad. But then Aubrey came over to say hi, so her and I chatted for a few. It was good to see her. 

 

We got home and it was still only sprinkling. It maybe rained a little harder later on, but not terribly. And was dry for quite a good bit of the day. (well, the ground was wet but it wasn't actively raining a good chunk of the day). But I didn't ride the others. I did get my business taxes mostly done. So yay for that. And hung up my watercolor of Lyric. And took the Christmas tree out. So... I accomplished things at least. 

Lazy day

I rode the rugrat at home today, because I was running low on time. And didn't feel like hauling to Ashland. So I put the bosal on again to see if I could get better results with it. I still haven't researched it more. Doh! 

 

We hacked up to the arena and did a little bit of trotting after some warm up work. He is still tougher to turn to the right at times, but we did manage some good circles and serpentines. We also walked and trotted some poles. But man he was a slug today! I don't know if it's because it was so hot and humid and he's got his full winter coat, or if he was sore today or just bored in the arena or what. But I had to basically keep kicking to keep him trotting and even his walk was sluggish and slow. Of course Funny wasn't her usual hyper self either when I lunged her aftewards, so maybe it really was just the weather? It isn't supposed to be 70 degrees in January!! 

   

We didn't do a ton because it was hot and... there's only so much I can do until I get his vet appt done and make sure I'm not going to make him worse. But, he was pretty good overall, for a slug. :)