Winter Music

  Today was a fun day. Mostly. Well, the bugs tried to ruin it. But mostly fun. I met Sharon for a hack this afternoon. We decided to go to Charlie Elliott for a change of scenery. And because my morning lesson with Funny lasted so long, this saved me another 15 minutes of driving.    When I pulled Lyric out of the pasture today, she was in the farthest end. She came up to me for a cookie and started to walk away.. then changed her mind and let me catch her. Yay! But she was soaked in sweat. Ugh.. it's soooo miserable out. I hosed her off and noticed she was missing a hind shoe. So I grabbed the shoe pulling tools and tossed her in the trailer. Luckily I had her scoot boots already packed. We met Sharon and I ended up pulling her other shoe as she only had 3 nails left anyways. And I sort of wondered if perhaps maybe barefoot was better than shod because of the NPA? I don't know. But at least this way she was symmetrical and would have both scoot boots on vs losing a shoe...

  Lyric is such a good girl! And a weirdo! Hee hee. She's become one of us!!  So.. yesterday when she was in for dinner she was stomping her foot. Her bellboot looked like it was maybe stuck up on her fetlock some so I went to pull it down and it wouldn't budge. Somehow the girl had gotten a pinecone wedged between her shoe and the bellboot! Girl!!? What on earth!? And like.... the pine cones are WAY up by the arena... I don't think we have any anywhere else. So the poor girl carried it the whole way down to the barn. Doh! I relieved her and she was like "thanks mum". Gracious! Also... I was tempted to try to ride her last night... just to see how lame she was. Because she looked pretty good on the lunge. It was soooo hot though. So hot. After I fed them I went in and ate myself and went back out. It was getting close to being dark, but.. maybe it'll be cooler! Except when I went to get her she was literally soaked in sweat. I don't know if the horse flies...

 Awwww.... Lyric has been sweet and snuggly lately. And good about being caught. I'm guessing she's getting a little bored and maybe feeling a little left out??!! She was lame Saturday so I didn't ride for very long and she got Sunday off... and then today too...  We were supposed to have the vet out today but she had to postpone til Thursday. Drats! Oh well. I did lunge Lyric today in the roundpen very briefly and despite being a slug, she looked pretty sound. So.. maybe??? Oh and this morning, I went out to catch Funny for a ride and apparently they had been running like fools because they were all blowing hard and Lyric had another nose bleed. :(  I do love her.     

 What's the Irish saying when asked how one is? "Upright and not crying".... except I've been adding "currently" under my breath. And today... not even. Heck, I was so tempted to NOT be upright too. After my ride with Funny which had me worried again about her... I got Lyric. We tacked up and headed to the arena. I started with some circles around me in hand, focusing on bend, engaging the inside hind, and staying square and upright on the front feet. Then I got on and we did the inflate and deflate thing. Deflating is way easier for her when she's in this mindset. So then we picked up the trot and worked on the contact. And... she took a few lame steps. Mostly obvious when we changed directions or first picked up the trot, but it seems like the longer I rode, the worse it got. It felt like right front to me. It was almost worse tracking left initially. The right front is the shoulder with the puncture, but it's been a week. She's tender if you m...

    Ahhh... today was a good day. And I'm grateful because it had the potential to not be. Well... just to not be a day off. ;) But, it was and I was still able to see one horse for a hurt neck, do Da Feng Men in one horse, and do my neuro checkup. AND... ride both girls, shockwave Dan, and have the girls get worked on by Lexi. So yes, a good day. AND.. the rides were great too!   I rode Lyric first and she was good. She walked up for a cookie and didn't try to leave when I put the halter on. Yay! We tacked up (after playing dress up with Kelli's saddle pads) and headed up to the arena. I warmed up with a tiny bit of pillar work and then hopped on. In the beginning I started with Tik's energy thing. Where you exhale, go soft, and almost collapse in the saddle and they halt. Then you bring your energy up, like right before you get out of a chair (lift your sternum, bring your energy up, inhale, tighten your muscles) and they should go from halt to walk, or walk to trot, ...

      Fun day! We had a lesson with Jacel along with Laura and Smarty. I got there a hair early and we took a short hack to the cross country field to warm up. I tried trotting her over a baby log and she swerved and was like "What?! ACKK" but then jumped it. Seriously girl? Maybe she was just surprised and not ready. ;) We hacked up the hill and headed into the arena.  We warmed up and she felt good. She was fancy! I think the elevator bit makes her extra fancy. After we were ready Jacel had set up a 4 jump one stride. They were super high cross rails but she dropped them all at first except the first one. The other 3 were groundpoles. We trotted in and cantered out. Each time we went through she added another cross rail until we were jumping 4 giant cross rails in one strides. And Lyric was brave! She got a little confused and was a little weak at first, but she got brave and was doing the 4 one strides and jumping nicely. Jacel had us halt at the end on a straight...

  I'm so proud of Lyric. And a little bit of me too.  Lyric and I went to the Tik Maynard clinic today at Pascova Farm. Bless her because my dumb self didn't pay attention that the start time had moved up 30 minutes until after I woke up this morning. I had wanted to get there to listen to the first lecture and watch the first group of groundwork but more importantly, Allisa told me I could park in the barn area and put her in a stall for the day so I had to get there before everyone else so I could get the trailer in before people started parking and clogging up the area. And of course, on Thursday I didn't feel like getting gas on my way home because it was hot and figured I'd do it later, forgetting I was going to have to get up early to go to the clinic. So this morning after I woke up and was getting ready I realized I was going to be running late. My plan was to leave at 7, to get there around 8sh and get gas, but... that was when it started at 8:30. Now that they...

  So... I need to remind myself that two nights ago I sat outside on the driveway watching the sky and fairly quickly after I got out there I saw 3 shooting stars in a matter of 15 seconds. I like to think that it was God's way of telling me that my three kids were gonna be okay. I had a moment of panic about Flecky... show me a 4th shooting star please God, but... I think because I was most worried about the "girls"... He sent me the 3. I know that Fleck is getting older and struggling more, but, despite his abscess and maybe his tooth issue, I don't think I'm worried about him at the moment. Anyways....    I rode Lyric first this morning because it was actually fairly pleasant out and I thought she might be happier going earlier rather than waiting til it got hotter. She had already walked to the arena edge to graze so I had a long hike to catch her. And she almost walked away from me but she didn't. She did try to change her mind when I brought the halter u...