Since Then...

Well now, I seemed to have dropped the ball in posting [again].. mostly because the weather has somehow, wonderfully, amazingly, turned gorgeous again. Its warm, its sunny and is Indian Summer, for which I am eternally grateful. I was definately not ready for winter in September!

Since the clinic, life has been busy! Filled with ponies and lessons and life. October has been a delight, to say the least. After a ridiculously rainy September, the first bit of October was rainy too, but mostly sunnier. Or at least just over cast. The weather cooperated long enough for us to take our second cut of hay off the fields, so that was nice too. I feel very lucky that we can get our own hay. Yes, its a lot of work, but with hay prices sky high from the drought, it makes life a little more bearable with four ponies to feed through the winter! I never thought I would be doing hay wearing my carhart jacket though! The first bit we did was a fairly chilly day [and Im a wuss about cold anyways] so we were fairly bundled up! I usually picture doing hay in 47 degrees and everyone melting and sweating... even our first cut was lucky, before the super heat wave set in. It was just high twenties instead of high thirties! Hopefully we get just as lucky next year :)

So the hay is in, the ponies will be fed this winter on minimal budget and life is good. Mo is on again/off again feeling better. She had a really good couple of weeks, during which time I started playing online with her again and she was full of rambunctious energy. I was trying to start slow with her, and not push her to hard, but she was all "LETS CANTER EVERYWHERE" and super playful. It was really cute. Our cantering sideways has completely formed into existence as a communication now, instead of just me accidentally throwing to much energy at her during trotting sideways. Too cool! She looks so fancy when she does it to, very collected.

The last few days she seemed iffy again. I dont know if its because I am cutting her supplements down [Im supposed to] or what... but since we backed down to every other day, and a smaller amount she seems to slow down again. Not to sure whats up with her. Im going to play around with it some more before calling the vet out again. Poor Mo :( I wish she could just tell me whats wrong so I could fix it! Also, I just want my super partner back! We had one ride back, a week ago when she was all super amped, and it was amazing. She just reads my mind. I love it. Especially stuff like gate opening. She makes it so easy. I think it, and shes there. I love Mo.

In Roni news, he is a superstar. I had a little break with Gambler when Mo was sick and there were two clinics back to back in the area that I attended. He didnt take well to that. His RBI part of him came back out and we almost started over. I felt so bad :( We had been making so much progress and he had been getting so much more confident and into his true LBE self. Luckily, it didnt take very long to build his confidence back up. Once I realized what happened [thanks to Avery! Gotta love that 7th key... SUPPORT!] I was able to slow way down and get the positive expression and confidence back, and we have been making leaps and bounds ever since.

Online we have been playing with four poles on the ground at 3/6/9/12 oclock as a test to see how mentally present Gambler is. A lot of times, he can move his feet and look connected without actually thinking about whats going on. These poles are a SUPER tell, because if he is disconnected he will knock the poles around. If he clears them all, he is mentally connected and ready to move on to other fun stuff. We have been playing lots with figure eights too, and transitions on the circle, and obstacels on the circle - I have a line of three logs in a row, and I make it his responsibility to seek the line.

Under saddle things have been getting better and better. Lots of transitions, lots of question box, point to points, and yesterday we started the cloverleaf, with a canter transition when we came down the centre line. We have also been playing with gate opening, since that is one of those super handy skills that just naturally teaches a horse a lot of different things, and Gambler is getting really pro at that. It started out really messy, but after lots of practice on just the round pen gate, we are getting pretty slick with the pasture gate so we can go out and play in the fresh cut hayfield.

Yesterday, my SMART PAD finally came :D Of course, it was after I rode Gambler already, so I just *had* to try it on Indy! I tried it with a shoulder shim, and she seemed to like it. I like how simple the pad is. Its pretty too :) I also tried it on Chance, a horse I ride for a friend, and she did amazing in it. She is one who hated the theraflex, so I had been using just a normal pad with another folded pad to shim the front [she is really downhill] She was WAY more willing to maintain the canter and make transitions and read my body with the smartpad. Very cool. I cant wait to try it with Gambler - he is another one who didnt like the sticky theraflex, so hopefully he will rock out even more in this one!

Zephyr is growing like a weed, which is awesome. I did the old 'string test' on her the other day, and she has at least another 4-5inches to grow! We had a great play yesterday. She is so much fun :D

:)
S