Ditto

Rained again last night and today and probably early tomorrow morning. What does that mean? No lessons or riding. On a good note, it is supposed to be sunny and nice for the next 9 days.

Kid has been hoof-picked, curried, brushed, and fly-sprayed. He looked gorgeous.

No Lesson Today - AGAIN!

Due to the extreme rain that started late Sunday and continued after midnight on Tuesday, I did not have a lesson today. Instead, I took pictures of Kid sleeping, standing, etc. They didn't even turn out very good.

My First Trail Ride

I went on my first big trail ride yesterday and it was wonderful! I pushed myself to ride in places I didn't think I would be able to do. I took pictures with the iphone and some are a bit wonky but they give you an idea of what we rode through.

One of the guys at the barn and his daughters riding ahead of us toward the gate.

A meadow on the east side of the property.

The new Cowboy stadium to the east. We are really high up.

Another meadow with cows. One of the wonky pictures but the hill is still mildly steep.

Riding into the trees.

The picture is blurry but is of a very rocky, narrow path I was uncomfortable going down. I got off Kid and walked while someone was nice enough to walk Kid down and then help me back on.

We are looking at the side of the property we entered on. I actually rode up that hill! You can tell how much lower we are on the west side.

The green grass below on the left is the land where the barn is.

The other hill I wasn't comfortable going down. After walking down it myself, I would be okay going down on Kid next time.



An old wagon at the bottom of the sandy hill we just went down.

The land where the arena and barn are.

An icky picture of me as we were riding down the shoulder of the rode to get back to the barn.

The new gate which has been set back from the road - yeah!

Riding Goals

I'm going to set some goals for riding. There are so many things I want to do but until I meet the basic goals, I can't move forward.

1. Ride as much as I possibly can!
2. Get on Kid without using the block
2. Get comfortable trotting
3. Lope

Number 1 isn't going to happen until I lose more weight. I've got to practice on Kid even if it is just putting my foot in the stirrup and my hands on the saddle and then hopping.

Are the 40 days and 40 nights almost up????

It's raining - again. I think we are supposed to get up to 3" today which means no riding tomorrow or probably even Friday. The ground is so saturated even the grass squishes. All the horses are tucked up in the barn all nice and cozy.

When I got to the barn after work today, I found out Kid had about a 4" gash on what I guess would be his lower flank (I'll take pictures tomorrow). He didn't seem to be in pain and let me groom all the parts as always. When I was done, he got more antiseptic spray put on the area. Apparently they had sprayed him earlier too. Both times he tried to kick with his hind leg but never made contact.

The barn was reorganized today with all the boarders on the east side and all the ranch horses on the left. Now if I want to get Kid to back in the corner it puts me on the wrong side - grrrrr. Oh well, we'll figure something out.

Barn Sour

Apparently Kid is barn sour - the stubborn kind of barn sour. I've mentioned before that whenever he tries to get back to the barn I have to stop, circle, and kick him in the direction I want. Sometimes we have to do it several times before he gets the point and then we will head to the barn. Today we got close to the barn several times and would then turn and ride away. After a few times, Kid had enough and stopped and no amount of kicking would make him go. I actually started to worry that he would rear up or buck if I kept going on (he didn't). I learned a lot today and know we will be working on the barn sour issue.

Riding on My Own

Saturday evening I rode on my own for the first time. Because the round pen hadn't been dragged since it dried out, there were deep spots and chunks which meant we just walked. I didn't care - I was on my horse and he was good. When I flipped the cinch back over the saddle and started to walk to his left side to remove the saddle, Kid did a big shake which caused everything to fall of his back on to the floor - in front of lots of people too. Sigh...