After The Storm

My prowress as a Weather Goddess was proven once again last night. All day I dreamt of playing and riding Mo. I havent ridden a lot lately due to either weather hitches or animal emergencies. Yesterday the clouds rolled inexorably closer all afternoon.... until around 2:30 they burst into a cascade of water from the sky. Everything from drizzle to downright sideways rain was pouring from the sky. The ground went from dry to saturated in thirty seconds flat, I'm sure!

Our drive home from work was eventful, rain sheeting down, then tapering off to nothing, then back again, full blast, so that it was hard to see the road. And hail. Yes. Hail! BIG balls of ice pelted the car, I was sure it was going to dent or crack the windsheild! Luckily it didnt, and it slowed as we neared home. A small patch of sunshine hovered over our house, just long enough for us to dart from the car into the safety of the great indoors, taking Ajax - who is afraid of thunder storms - with us.

The storm had followed us from the city it seemed. Thunder was rumbling angrily behind us as we ran inside, and the rain hit minutes later. Ajax and I hid out in my room, reading Horse Illustrated, waiting out the storm. I didnt see any [if there was] of the light show because my room is in the basement and my window is covered, but I definately heard the rain on the windows and walls of the house... and the thunder! Apparently the storm was right overhead.

Around 5:30 it sounded like the rain had stopped so Jax and I decided to be brave and peek outside. Lo and behold, the rain had stopped, the clouds retreated, and it was sunny! Whoo! It was really quite neat though, because I could see the clouds retreating to the south slowly, leaving sunshine in their wake, and hear the thunder still fading in the distance.

Seeing the sunshine finally return, I threw on my boots, grabbed a rain coat [just in case] and bolted to the barn to visit Mo! Mo was halfway out in the feild when I got there. I walked maybe one hundred feet from the barn before she saw me. She walked towards me and I backed away from her until she trotted towards me. She kept coming forwards full of intention, until she saw something tasty on the ground! She kept trotting to me, then going "OH BOY!" and diving for a mouthful or two of grass. She got stuck and restarted two or three times before she got stuck for good. No big deal, I just resumed my trek over to her, at least she was much closer now!

Funny thing is, I think she was just waiting for me to put forth some effort, because as soon as I started moving towards her a bit, she came right up to me! What a goof! After hugs and haltering we started our shortened journey back to the barn. On the way I mixed things up a little, asking for sideways towards me and driving from zone three. I got a confused look with sideways, like "You dont usually ask for that now and here" so I think it was a positive that I can still surprise her a bit.

Into the barn, with a really nice soft disengage, and up to the front to get brushed and fly sprayed [drenched!] Mosquitoes were really bad last night in the humidity. Blessed blessed bug spray! Suitably soaked in delightfully repellent liquid, I switched out the 12' for a 22', tied a savvy string around Mo's neck, put my saddle on the fence rail, grabbed my carrot stick and set out to the ring. Our poor ring.... it dires up and then we get torrential rain and now its a puddle again! The bottom quarter [ish] is a giant puddle at the moment. Joy.

I backed Mo out of the barn and to the gate, being super particular about where her hind end could and could not drift to. My goal was to practice some L2 assessment things. Once in the ring we walked over to some poles on the ground to play with obstacles. A little yo-yo, went well, then I asked for far away sideways and POOF... there goes Mo, off at a canter. How interesting!

Even more so, because she didnt actually hit the end of the line. She just ran off and went "Oh, heres the end, I should circle" until I interrupted her interestingly mad flight and recieved a funny look from her in return. Sort of a "Hey! I was having fun! Why'd you have to go and stop me??" It was a really nice canter to, very uphill in the front with reaching legs. Super pretty, compared to her usual low slung pulling forwards version.

Since she obviously wanted to MOVE I changed the game. She could circle me all she wanted, but she had to do it sideways. THAT was cool. I just gave her the direction, and off she went, sideways circle, hardly any correcting at all! It was so soft and neat! Then I changed it up again, and off we went on a circle to practice transitions.

One direction was really good - to the left, and one was just all go go go go - to the right. It was pretty interesting! On the first send, which was as small as I could make it, Mo tore off at a canter. Hmmm..... I let her go for a lap or two and then focused on trotting. Downward transition. Only minor rope wiggling later, I had a respectable trot.... that tended to leak into a canter when she went behind me! D'oh! We played with that until she could maintain the trot and then moved on to the walk. The walk is hard for both of us because its slow and we both get bored with it, so we usually end up with just half a lap before moving back into the trot or canter. It took a while for her to remember that she CAN walk out there on the line, and slower than trot is not game over!

Eventually, all three gaits got repectable in that direction, and I was really proud of Mo. I asked for a change of direction so we could play with the other side and as soon as Mo figured out that was what I wanted, she tore off in a canter again, in the new direction. The positive thing being she didnt rip the rope out of my hands, and it was actually a really slow, nice, uphill canter. She just wanted to go, and go and go! I had to actually get to phase three before she registered my directive. When she did 'see' me, she stopped dead. How interesting. I brought her in for some confidence and as a thank you for cantering on a circle and loose line. Thats a new-ish development from her!

When I sent her out again, we played with yo-yo a few times, getting it snappy, before actually going out on the circle. This time on the circle she was a little less in la la land, and more able to do the transitions I asked of her. Going to the right didnt get as good as the left, but she was getting annoyed so I changed games and drover her to the barrel lying on its side and said "Ddo something with it" Mo's version of doing something is slinging a foot over it and calling it a day. I have to laugh at her, because her expression is so laid back and at the same time so much puppy dog "Did I do good??"

After that I went over to move and arrange some of the logs so they wouldnt be in our way, and then sidewaysed across the ring over to the saddle. Just before the water and the saddle we stopped and I unclipped my 22' and put it all up on Mo's neck so it wouldnt get soaked. Mo and I walked at liberty to the saddle, saddle up at liberty and then I put a savvy string on her halter as a safety net and we went to play some at liberty. Normally I wouldnt have put anything on her halter, but the ring is part of the pasture for Indy, Ivy and Candy, none of whom Mo really gets along with, so I didnt really want to have no way to stop her if she decided she wanted to go make some enemies.

The string ended up being redundant anyways, because I didnt use it, but it was ok. We ran around playing stick to me at the walk and trot, me stopping suddenly and backing and Mo coming with me! Also played with some sideways and a little driving the front end around like in a cutting game. It was really fun. When my girth was all tightened I mounted up with my carrot stick and my "one rein". We walked around a bit and then over to a barrel to take off the halter... and test everything we have been playing with for the last 6 months.

Mo was having a great day, but at this point I cannot express how utterly and completley astounded by, and proud of Mo I am. She is just the most amazing thing ever. I took off her halter. She put her head down, licked and chewed a bit then asked "Whats next?" And off we went! Just like Pat says, When you have something on their head, ride like you dont, when you have nothing, ride like you do! And thats just what we did!

We walked around both directions, doing circles and serpentines without the stick! Into the trot, continuing to do patterns randomly around the ring, needing only minimal stick. We tried to canter, but it was to slippery, and after almost going down on one side we kept it to a trot.
After the slip, we had to chase Candy, Indy and Ivy out of our space and that was really fun. I knew it would be a really good test on my brakes, because Mo gets right into chasing Candy and sometimes ignores me for it. Not this time! Go, stop, turn, go, STOP. All of it. Right there. Right with me!

It was such a phenomenol feeling! When they were out we trotted around in the ring a little more before heading out to the pasture part. In the pasture we wove patterns around the weeds, walk, trot, stop, back up. The only thing we didnt do was canter because everything was slick. Oh wait, we cantered a few times in a straight line, just to see if we could. It was super nice to be able to STOP with nothing but my body! I only picked up the string around her neck once - and that was to remind her how my "back up now please" body language sounded.

I felt like I was hardly using the stick at all, it was so great! Mo was tuned right into me! I had no qualms about not having anything on her head at all!! We had go, we had stop, we had power steering! I was very focused about where I wanted us to go, and go we did! It was so perfect!

Everything we have been working towards all winter and spring is now coming to fruition and I just cant express my joy enough! All the frustration with Mo is just gone now.... we both have our basics and we can work on quality now. It is so much FUN!! The only thing missing is my own personal photographer to follow me around and document all my cool discoveries... since I am usually alone when all of these fantastic cloud nine days happen. I think that is what contributes to my focus though. I am alone, just me and Mo, I've got my ipod on to shut out the rest of the world, and its just us, in the moment, doing our thing, be it laugh hysterically or concentrating on getting a pattern.

At the end of the ride we worked on getting some circles at the trot and that went really well! Mo got the pattern really fast and I hardly needed the stick after she got it! The hardest part for her was to give up leaking to the barn, but that didnt take long at all!

So that was my super awesome ride after the storm last night... Mo is amazing! We are going to have so much fun in Florida together!

:-)
S