Due to truck (yay! [Milton’s Chariot]), driving derby (yay!! [Show Report]), and several guest posts (yay!!! [Sights][Friendships][Why I Ride]), the home team was absent from the blog for most of February. The last Rodney post was on February 6 [Rodney Objects]. The last Milton post was at the end of January [Counterbalance], plus a mention in association with the truck. So, up to what have they been?
Same old, same old. Nothing bad, nothing brilliant.
I have been riding sitting on Rodney whenever we are home on the weekends. We are up to about 20 minutes of walking. We mosey along. We do big figure eights. We go big. We go slow. All on a long rein. He still curls up like a shrimp if I touch the reins. OTOH, he has (seems to have) mastered statue. He will stand in the middle of the ring and relax instead of stand and fidget. This is good. We have been needing a reset button. An iota of progress.
Groundwork during the week has not been as progress filled. I get frustrated, give in to despair, lose my motivation, and settle on taking them for walks [What Is Work?] instead of taking them into the ring for work. I know that if I were to be more motivated, I would have less to be frustrated about. It’s a circle with me in the center being vicious.
Anyway.
Both horses came through our local winter hay shortage thinner than I would like. (In January, they seemed ok [Rodney’s Hillwork: Horsekeeping note]. They haven’t changed weight as much as I’ve decided I don’t like where they are. The eye of the master & and all that.) The hay we could find was not wonderful, and we supplemented with hay cubes, which they did not love. Now that we can go further afield for hay, …
… it’s time to chub them up. Hay snacks for everyone!
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 