Playing in the Storm

Like any sensible person during a highly humid day, when the rain began I headed out to play. The thunder only started later, and there was no lightning, so I wasnt to concerned! It was warm, it was dark[ish] and it was raining, not to hard and not to soft. Ironically, the 3.5 seconds I spent in the barn retrieving some treats, the rain tempo increased dramatically and poured buckets - until I was ready to step outside to go visit the horseys.

Mo was actually with the rest of the herd on the far side by the tree line that separates the pasture from the neighbours. I walked over there, amused by my dry foot-prints in the top-moist sand. I got about 20 feet away before she deigned to notice me and walk over. Mo was thrilled I had come all the way out to see her just to feed her! I scratched her some, rubbed her belly, swatted mosquitoes and then walked away. Behind me I hear a discreet "thud thud thud" and turned in time to see Mo [seeing me see her] try to look like she was just browsing grass. I kept walking a bit more and hear more footsteps, so I stop without looking back and all of a sudden there is a Mo at my shoulder! Cool!

I loved on her a bit more before walking away, and this time she realized I wasnt hoarding treats so she returned to finding her own. Crystal on the other hand approached me! She walked right up and stuck out her nose to smell me. I stuck out my hand to be sniffed and sniffed did I be! Her little [thoroughbred] nose scuttled all across my hand, by arm and up and down my body twice before her curiosity was satisfied. I thought it was pretty funny! I dont usually pay much attention to Crystal, because she is not my horse. I spent some time with her though. Finger combing some of the tangles in her mane and scratching some bug bites. She loved that!

I eventually walked away from her and she actually followed me a short distance where we stopped and made nice once more. Her head got lower and lower, until she was determined to investigate my boot. She snuffled it. She licked it. She pushed it. Then, in a really slow, methodical way, she opened her mouth and tried to bite it. At that point [while laughing in a mildly hysterical manner] I blocked her and asked her not to eat my shoes [please]

Some more scratching time later I walked away and said hi to King, the smallest pony in the field. He is so cute, I just cant resist his itty bitty little ears. Mo saw this though and came over to make him leave so I would scratch her instead. She gets jealous so easily! Once King had be removed though, she lost interest in me and walked away. I followed her lead and walked myself back into the barn.

My intention last night had been to play with Indy, and now that I was thoroughly moistened anyways, I figured why not. I grabbed her halter, but exchanged a 12' rope for a savvy string in case of lightning [so my twisted logic tells me] Indy was waaay at the bottom of the pasture with Ivy and Candy. When I was about 50 feet away she 'saw' me and actually came over to say hi, almost. About two feet away she went "Oh no.. cant do it.. sorry... "and dove right and went for grass. Ivy on the other hand pranced her midget bum right up to me all bright and shiny to say hi. She looks a bit daft right now all shedding out. Cant be helped!

I walked over to Indy and she looked up at me from her grazing, so thats a good sign. She also turned her head for haltering, so that was a real nice thing. From there I went into a porcupine challenge mode. Can your hindquarters move? Well.... sort of, but ONLY if you are really really sure.... and then I will take only two steps and then one back towards you. How interesting. Can your forehand move? Sort of... but 'over' gets mistaken for forwards... Can you move backwards off of halter and chest pressure? YES! YEY!

Some of this is Indy's horsenality going "Nanner nanner I'm bigger than you" but a lot of it is just that I tend to under play the porcupine game and havent done much with Indy since her pregnancy left her pretty uncomfortable as is. I plan to play with her a lot more as the summer wears on and Ivy grows up.

After porcupine 101 I went into Lateral Flexion 101. This was really interesting. Flexion came really easily with a lot of licking and chewing to the right. To the left it seemed like everything was a brace! No licking, just brace. I waited for one little try and then filed it away to play with another day.

I started to play a little game of stick to me after that. Just walking, stopping and backing. *Usually* when I try to back like that with Indy she tries to turn and face me. Not last night! We actually achieved moderate success at this activity! I was super proud of her! We moseyed in circles and straight lines all around until we ended up at some barrels nera the barn. I asked Indy to do something with them and she chose to put a foot on them after investigating with her nose. Pretty cool!

We played with that for a while, with her crawling all over the barrels several times before I set them up right into a figure 8 pattern and asked her to go through that way. The required a lot of thinking on her part, but she got it really fast and tried really hard! After accomplishing that pattern I changed it up and stood on a barrel asking for a circle. My goal was to get her to bend around the barrel. She didnt bend overmuch, but she did go around and she did offer herself for a ride. It was so sweet!

I couldnt say no, so I slid on with my one rein and off we went - two steps to practice our lateral flexion. A big surprise here was that lateral flexion mounted was SUPER EASY! How interesting!!! She flexed to both sides like she did it every day, and totally didnt care when I threw the string over her head. Whoo! We walked all the way to the end of the pasture and back to the gate, just getting in sync with each other. Ivy was carovting and cartwheeling circles around us the whole time.

At the gate I dismounted and unhaltered Indy. She was awesome and I am very proud of her. Just a small session, but you gotta start somewhere! Lots of hugs and scratches later, I got her dinner and everyone settled in for the night.

I am very glad I played in the rain!

:-)
S