It Was a Good Day Today

It really was. Not a super fantastic great day, but it was a solid check in the Good box. Nothing extra ordinary happened. I went over to do my day of stalls this morning but I kept getting distracted by ponies... as is wont to happen fairly often. Mo actually watched me come in the laneway and then met me at the gate, which was adorable. Indy was in an attention grabbing mood to, so that was nice.

As it was warm out [hahahah sure, yea right, it was +1 C] I actually left the barn door open and was serenaded by the gate clanging as Roxy kept trying to reasure me that she would indeed fit through the space between the chained-closed gates. By the time I finished the first two stalls - one of which belongs to Indy - my princess was not so patiently waiting at the gate, so I got her some hay [she's dropping weight :-( ] and let her in to munch. She seemed pretty content to eat, even though being in the barn is not usually her favorite thing. Mo loves to be the only one inside, she gloats and carries on, Indy just wants to be outside again. Funny horses.

I finished all the stalls in a round about way and then went to see Mo, who was at the side gate again when I dumped the last load. Yesterday we played with backing out the gate because it is a tight squeeze with no turn around room due to the tractor being parked right there. When I went to just say hello and hug her, she obviously wanted to come in, so I tried to engineer a repeat of yesterday, but with the added challenge of being at liberty. Things didnt really fly so well and indy started making noise, so I just told Mo try-again-next-time and went to stuff some more food in front of m'dear noisebox.

Interestingly, when I popped my head back outside, Mo was still there and looking like she would please like to try again, so I offered her another chance. Lo and behold, she backed right out and pretty much all the way into the barn on her own. I will admit it was a little bit of an assumption on her part, but still pretty cool! I will have to work on that a little, change things up so its not always a super back up with no draw.

Mo got to hang out in her stall munching while I took out Indy. I shined her up and detangled her fair share of hair. Someone has been munching on it lately, so its all ugly and uneven now... she looks goofy. When it grows a bit I will even it out with the rest of her mane.... Poor girl.

After grooming her I grabbed the snazzy little gadget I aquired from the dollar store yesterday - one of those noisey three legged massager things. PERFECT clipping practice! I had intended to do this with Mo, but Indy was there, so I did it with her instead. I let her sniff it, then turned it on and walked away. She was a little skeptical of the noise at first, but her curiosity peaked pretty fast. It wasnt long before she was trying to get closer and closer and finally putting her nose on it, while it was on. Cool stuff. This is very similar to what we did in Ocala last year, so I am glad it stuck.

We progressed fairly quickly to rubbing her body and legs. She was a little concerned over her back at first but relaxed on the second try. She didnt do anything extreme, just flexed her back away from the vibration. The only thing the she actually moved her feet for was when I tried under her jaw. That was my fault. I saw after that I had blown through some thresholds under her neck and chest area, so I went back and worked with those and quit when she was ok with that and licking and chewing. We will tackle the jawline another time, she did awesome and I wanted a good note to end on since my fingers were losing circulation..!

In the barn I saddled her up with our new toy and off we went. I was VERY happy to see her blowing out and stretching in the walk. Indy RARELY if at all stretches and blows during a ride, and certainly not at the very beginning. That was a treat. We walked down the laneyway doing little transitions, freestyle, and little isolations of her fore quarters and hind quarters. I was a little miffed to find that they were softer and more precise than Mo's! How that happened, I really dont know... will have to see to that though! It was a lovely feeling though, the speed that she offered in the turn on the haunches was really fun to ride. I can see why people like to ride spins.

Another really nice part of the ride was the incredible light soft flowy sideways she offered. Sideways under saddle is usually really sticky for Indy, so that was a treat. I think the biggest thing for me to see today was the walk/trot transition. *Usually* going up into the trot, her head comes up and her ears get snarky - just a bit. Not today. Nope. Head stayed low, ears stayed happy. How interesting.

We didnt canter because the laneway was a little slippery, and we didnt make it to the road because we hit a big threshold that I didnt want to explode through, but we had a great time. It was nice to be able to hang out with my ponies two days in a row. Even if all I did with Mo was hug her and say hello [which is all I did]

I dont do well in the cold... Yes, it was nice out compared to standard fare around here, but it still wasnt summer, and I got cold and numb fingers, so after getting off of Indy I opted to go drop off Richard.

Like I said, it was a good day

:-)
S