Monday, November 22, 2010

A Little is Better Than None

Saturday was cold, drizzily, and rainy all day. I had to spend the day doing chores and cleaning my office, catching up on filing and the boring crap like that. It rained quite a bit in the early hours of Sunday and the pens were a mess by the time I woke up. The forecast was for rain most of the day although the sun was trying valiantly to break through the clouds.

After breakfast, I did my best to clean the pens. I pulled Jessie out and picked her feet and brushed her up. She was quite the mess, too. The wind kicked up and the clouds moved and chased me back inside. About half an hour later it settled down a little and I did some yard work. The sun would come out for a bit and I would take my jacket off, then it would get cold and I would put the jacket back on.

Around noon I decided it might be stable enough to ride and I got Jessie out again. As I was getting her ready the wind came through again. I decided I would opt for some groundwork. There's a little area out back that we could work in and if it started to rain we could end the session quickly. It's under some trees with dirt ground that was still damp (but not muddy) from the rain. We started with just some simple exercises, circle driving, and lunging for respect stage I. We were doing the lunging at a walk because the area required a small circle and the ground was a little slippery. When I switched to stage two, the tree branches blowing above our heads, the freshness of the day, and the antics of the nearby horses got Jessie all jacked up. We did a lot of direction changes and she kicked up, but finally I thought she was paying attention.

Then for about half an hour we just fooled around doing stuff we hadn't worked on much before. Side-passing toward me, backing in a circle, changing eyes stage two, lunging a figure eight around some cones. Our last de-sensitizing exercise was clipping her fall whiskers. She was perfectly happy to stand still for that. So, while it wasn't a ride, at least I felt like we got some work(for her/play for me) in.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

2 comments:

Tuff e Nuff said...

Should I be reading between the lines here? :) Glad you had a chance to get Jessie out.

John Harrer said...

I can't remember anyone ever labeling me with the characteristic of subtlety...no matter how much I try I cannot get a grasp of it. ;>)

Just know it is meant as encouragement, not a criticism.