Good day

I managed to make it out to the barn today to see my horse.  It was a gorgeous Colorado late fall day, sunshine and perfect temps, not hot and not cold.  The past two days had been a glimpse of the upcoming winter with high winds and a dusting of snow.  This weekend and the upcoming week are supposed to beautiful though.  This is a picture that I coerced my husband into taking on our way to the feed store.  The mountains are so much prettier in real life, I can never seem to capture how beautiful they are on my camera.  Oh well, I guess I will just have to keep trying!  One can never have too many pictures!

Back to the horse.  I haven't been able to do much with my little Rosie since she arrived here in late September.  She was only here a week when we took off for Maine for ten days, then there was of course the requisite vacation hangover.  Mostly though, it stems from not having any child care during the week.  Then the weekend comes and my husband and I both have things that we want to do so sometimes it works out that I can get out to see her and sometimes it doesn't.  Today it worked out.  This morning I was able to get to the feed store to get her a halter and then after lunch I headed over to the barn.  

When I arrived at the barn she was in her stall thankfully.  She has kind of been a pill to catch out in the large pasture with all her friends.  One of her "friends" in particular has been giving me a headache by ducking under the wire for the pasture fence after I take Rosie out and then coming down the alley behind me.  I think that he thinks I am taking Rosie to the barn to feed her and he isn't about to be left out.  The fence is electrified but I don't think there is enough juice running through it to bother good ole Thunder.  I have told the barn manager about it so hopefully the situation will be fixed soon.  

Today we just did mostly a review of what Rosie already knew to make sure she still remembered it.  After brushing her and picking her feet out we worked on turns on the forehand to the right and the left then turns on the hind end also to the right and left.  She tried to get a little pushy while working on the forehand.  We hadn't been working on that as long in Texas and she had some trouble at the beginning trying to figure out what I was asking her for.  After reminding her that she COULD NOT put her head on top mine and push me out of the way she figured out to cross her front legs one over the other and then I would leave her alone.  I really don't ask for much, just do it right a couple of times and I will leave you alone!  We also worked on giving to pressure on her poll and bending her neck around to both sides to create a soft neck.  We had worked on giving to pressure on her poll before but I realized I had only been doing it from her left side so surprise, surprise when I tried it from her right side today she did do it but not as well as her left side.  That will give us something to work on in the future.  She did really well with the soft neck exercise which we had never done before.  I had wanted to lunge her but all the arenas were in use and I didn't feel like hanging around to see when they would clear out.  On a side note, the indoor arena that is being built where I board is coming along nicely!  Nearly everything on the outside is finished so I guess they will be moving inside to put in the sand, sprinklers, and lights pretty soon.  The estimated completion date is December 1st and it looks like they will probably make it.    

All in all Rosie did really well for all the commotion that was going on.  If nothing else boarding her will give her exposure to lots of different things.  Today for instance, where I had her tied, there were kids getting horses ready for lessons, a cherry picker was working on the indoor arena which was about 150 to 200 feet away and the barn manager had a new green horse in the round pen that he was trying to work about thirty feet away.  The mare had decided that sniffing and squealing with the horses pastured on the other side of the round pen seemed like a productive thing to do.  She's getting an education just by being tied outside!  Lucky for Rosie when we got back the hay fairy had shown up and left her dinner in her stall!

This picture, which is also my profile picture was taken a few weeks ago when I actually did get to lunge her. We had finished up at this point and Rosie was about to get a cookie.  By the way, I hate the pants I am wearing in this picture.  I bought them after my daughter was born because my pre-pregnancy jeans didn't fit and I wasn't about to wear maternity jeans three months after I had given birth.  So I bought these at Old Navy and while they are jeans they have a lot of that stretch material in them and they have stretched in weird ways.  I am just hoping to destroy them so I can get rid of them.  Why don't you just throw them away you say?  Well, did you notice the last part of the title of this blog?  The part that says Yankee?  Well, the word Yankee is code for can't throw anything away, ever, if it can still be used.  That would be a waste and we yankees just don't waste things!