...and Fun Was Had by All

Today has been an absolutely remarkable day. I had two awesome plays with Prin and Cricket, and they're soooo worth sharing about.

I started out this morning playing with Prin. Last night I got a round of inspiration to start playing with some Finesse again, for whatever the reason. I've been avoiding the savvy as much as possible because I tend to turn into a scary person when I ride with contact. I've been focusing my attention to the details and pieces of successful finesse since November, and it suddenly dawned on me that all of my primary pieces were in place at suggestion level. I also came up with some new ideas for ways to develop lateral maneuvers without a rail to follow (I felt brilliant!), and wanted to play a little with it, at the walk, just to see what we could get.

Prior to today, when I'd pick my reins up at the beginning of our session, Prin would be fairly heavy. I'd have to do a fair amount of suspension rein and duck-landing transitions before she would be light enough in her front end to even handle "coiling the spring" so to speak, and collecting up.

Today, I just lifted my reins and her head came in, when I picked up contact, I felt her ENTIRE FRONT END come up to meet my hands. Not that I didn't believe it was possible, but I've NEVER felt anything like that come out of Prin before. It was exhilarating and we hadn't even moved yet!

We rode some figure 8's, focusing on keeping zone 5 closest to the barrel (focusing on keeping weight back and HQs flexible), and she felt REALLY solid. Did several more figure 8's with leg yields through the middle, and then played with the weave pattern, doing haunches and shoulders in through the cones. This all went really well, the neatest thing I found was that she was actually a little TOO flexible in her lateral stuff--it used to be that she couldn't do haunches and shoulders because she was so braced and locked up. Though she's still not 100% correct, I consider over-flexibility to be a HUGE step in the right direction for her. And the best part was, neither one of us ever lost our patience or our confidence. HUGE HUGE HUGE. It was awesome, and a huge success!

Next, I played with Cricket. I'm in the process of developing her into my lesson horse troop for 2010, and so I've been playing on developing her knowledge for patterns in online/freestyle up to Level 3. She's doing really beautifully online, especially, but recently she's been getting a bit presumptuous about the circling game, and has lost a lot of her play drive. I'm sure I've just drilled her a bit, is all, so today, I set out to make it right and bring her curiosity back out.

I used the touch-it game as my motivator. Cricket is innately a very dominant LB horse, set into some very resentful, almost RB-esque patterns from poor previous handling. I chose touch it because it allows for a horse's dominance to come out through the nose, something Left-Brain extroverts especially have a tendency for.

At first, she wanted none of it. Though she would touch the cones, she would do it with a "Why would I WANT to do that?" expression on her face. But as the game progressed (cones, barrels, round corral panels, tree limbs, etc), her curiosity started to take over, until she was getting a bit playful. Below are a couple of photos I snapped as we played toward the end of our session. The photo with the barrel was taken right before we quit. She had knocked it over, and had pushed it about 10 feet, before settling in to bite it. The one with the cone was taken just before she knocked it over, and then picked it up. Isn't she just the cutest?


BITE!



"I'll knock it over, then bite it!"


As you can see, we had fun :)

Alright, off to bed. Savvy on, folks!

Oh, So THAT'S What Productive Feels Like!

Hi you guys!

It's been a very bizarre week, hence my slight drop off the face of the planet. Physical exhaustion, coupled with major disorganization, and a rather unkind man-made knock to my confidence have all taken a toll on my horsin' around these days. So anyway, I figured you all were due for a bit of an update!

As I mentioned, it's been slow here, and the tension within MY MIND has been building slowly, and got to the point last night that I COULD NOT ignore it anymore. So last night, I broke, and went "I'm going to LISTEN to my body for once! I want sleep, I want to get up early and enjoy the morning, I want to stay hydrated, I want to stop eating crap at random times, I want to read, I want to get back to my learning frame of mind, I want to spend all day at the barn and love it like I used to. I'm going to get organized, and I'm GOING to do this." So I did. I was up early this morning, actually ate breakfast, made coffee, drank 3 glasses of water before I left. I cleaned my car out, then headed to the farm and had my first round with the horses--an hour and a half long session with little Sunny.

That was an adventure. I had a wedding to go to yesterday, and so little Sunshine got the day off, which was fine, she had earned it, but she must have spent the day plotting her next playtime with me! Today's session revolved around all things porcupine. When she arrived here, she was very unconfident in zone one, and made up for it with confidence and dominance in zones 2 and 3. All last week revolved around getting zone 1 really nice and friendly, while keeping her ribs and shoulders where they belong--not on top of me ;)

Today was quite the opposite, she offered some of the most beautiful correct trotting circles she's given since she's been here, but she was very snotty and pushy with zone 1. Talk about swinging the pendulum! Anyway, We played with porcupine pressure on the poll, leading by the chin and ears, as well as by the legs. She was a little resistant at first, but really caught on quickly, and by the end of the session was leading all over the place by different parts of her body, and offering to put her head down, around, or up, depending on what the situation called for. Really cool stuff!

Afterward, I hopped on her back. I'd been on her twice before, and really focused on getting her to accept my existing there, lots of friendly games, etc, and she's been a champ, so today I started teaching her the beginnings of HQ and FQ yields. At first there was a little brace, which was more my not having my weight correctly distributed, so once I fixed myself, she picked right up on it. I think she's going to be just wonderful! Pictures and VIDEO to come, I promise!!!

I headed home, and ate a healthy lunch (I have developed some really unhealthy sporadic eating habits this summer, and that's something I am determined to correct now), caught up on some reading, and then headed back up to play with both Crest and Cricket.

I had a really fun and educational online to Freestyle session with Crest, involving lots of play with a flank rope--how interesting. I followed an interesting path of indicators to get there, and let's just say his take on the whole concept has changed a bit since I last played with it. But it ended well, and I really want to include some of that good stuff in a video of us. He's awesome ;) The Freestyle riding was an entirely different story (For me anyway!). I opted to ride bareback with a carrot stick today and really start developing and progressing towards L3 Patterns. This was interesting for two reasons. One, I haven't ridden Crest in almost 3 weeks, and two, I haven't carrot stick ridden on him in who-knows how long. The main lesson I took out of it was that I need to do it FAR more often, and that I use my reins to balance on him A LOT. Yikes! I'll be playing with that in the near future! Overall his response was great though--much more responsive than I anticipated, and I got gutzy and rode with just a savvy string for a while (hackamore for safety net), and I actually felt very connected with him, which is super cool. More to develop there soon, I'm sure.

My session on Cricket was very rewarding. First of all, I took the time and shimmed her up in my fluidity saddle, which is huge, because when she came here, my 32 cm Stubben Roxane (WAYYY narrow) was too wide for her. She uses less shims in the super-wide fluidity than Crest, now! Gotta love her for that little Arabian rib cage! Anyway, I had a really really nice freestyle ride on her. We played in the round pen first on isolations (HQ and FQ), and then playing with follow the rail and transitions which she did magnificently with. I can't wait to develop her futher, she's going to make someone a PERFECT partner, I just know it!

Anyway, that's all for now folks. It's now 11:00, and I'm going to pattern that whole "early to bed" thing this week! Savvy on!

Cricket Update

Hey All,

Just some pix of Cricket from the other day, I wanted to show off how chubby and wonderful she's gotten :) We've been playing with solidifying our L2 ground stuff, as well as preparation for under-saddle. She's proved to be a horse that transfers every detail from ground to saddle, and so the catch is, I have to be careful about what I reward--for example, I used to just reward her circling because she had a huge mental block about it, and since I've realized that helping her find rhythm and relaxation is much more important than the actual circles (hence why I'm playing on about 6 feet of the 22 line at some points in these photos), because otherwise she gets very bracy undersaddle.





Building up on relaxation


this is how it transfers--more like 18 feet of line here, and much more soft and relaxed.


Stretchy circles are becoming a more commonly seen thing, which is super cool--fluid rein from the ground :)


So darn cute :)


Isolate, separate, and recombine--zone 1 porcupine games to eventually lead to less brace both online and undersaddle.



We really love this girl, she's proven to be such a wonderful student :)

Busy Busy!

Just a quick update because I'm a bad blog host. I'll try to get some real information up soon, but for now, just a general update will have to do :)

It's been pretty busy around here. We've had several days of crappy weather, with several days of nice weather. Fortunately, regardless of weather, I've been chained to the computer arranging things for something I'll mention in a minute.

On the nice days, I've been able to play quite a bit. Cricket is doing extremely well with her riding, and has been enjoying daily brushing, online play on the hills, (actually, much to her dismay) and a little bit of light riding here and there to get her conditioned. I plan on taking her on some longer walk/trot rides on varied terrain to get her in condition starting later this week. Prin and Crest are keeping me busy and progressing in the patterns. Prin and I are smoothing out our Zone 5 long line driving patterns in the hopes of auditioning for not just L3, but possibly L4 online. Also, today we uncovered some interesting porcupine games that need some play. I'll report back on that as it goes. Crest and I are just having a fantastic time progressing for once. Every session I've had with him within the past two weeks has built higher and higher. He's a super horse!

My lessons have really picked up now that there's no snow and it's not 20 degrees, too. I'm having a blast teaching and learning from my students and their experiences, and I'm really enjoying being back into my routine. Let me know if any of you want to get back into lessons and training! Always looking for more contacts!

The vet was out today to do vaccinations and pull Coggins, etc. All went fairly well, we've got a few that need some play with needle prep, though! Some of these horses hadn't been handled much at all in the past year or two, let alone vaccinated, so that was an interesting time. I also had him do an exam on Cricket's weird leg, and he diagnosed it as mild string halt that wouldn't get better or worse, and confirmed her totally sound for riding.

Also, recently, (as referenced to in the previously-mentioned computer bondage-hehehe) I've been pulling out all the stops to organize a private lesson day with my primary instructor, Farrah Green. She'll be passing through Pepin on her way to the Midwest Horse Fair, and asked if I'd be willing to set a day up for her. That'll be Wednesday April 15th, weather permitting. I still have two spots available, Cost is $115/90 minute lesson, and well worth every penny. Farrah's incredibly knowledgeable and ready to share! If anyone from our area (MN/WI or otherwise) is interested, please let me know!

Other than that, life is good. Plans are slowly but surely coming together. I'll try to keep this as UTD as possible as we go along here.

Until next time, savvy on!

Awesome times THREE!

I had a busy busy day today, and of the three real sessions I had (I played with a 4th, but only to keep him occupied while the others ate their grain) were absolutely FANTASTIC. I haven't felt that productive with my herd in a VERY long time. I played with Crest, Cricket, and Prin, and I think the easiest way to summarize will be to just go down the list.


Crest:
I've been trying really hard to get into a consistent schedule with Crest, since he thrives best when he's played with often. So, since the last time I blogged, we've actually played twice, not including today. Anyway, we've been playing with really progressing in the patterns. The ground was too hard by the time I got them last fall, so I only got to introduce them to him.

All I can really say is HOLY CRAP, this horse is a speed-demon learner. I knew that about him from the start, but he's now blowing my mind more and more. I started playing with these patterns at L2 two days ago, and today, he was consistently offering me L4 with everything. He kept pulling flying changes out of NOWHERE, he was cantering like I've never seen before, and his circles were GORGEOUS, and amazingly rhythmic!

After being thoroughly mind-boggled by Crest's ground play, I decided to hop on and do some stuff. We started out just walking around and playing with walk-halt transitions, which he did flawlessly. We toddled around the playground a bit, w/t/c and playing with obstacles, and then I somehow got the idea that we should play with turns on the haunches. It started out a little bit rocky, being that it's physically challenging for him, but we played through it slowly and persistently, and by the end, I was getting some LOVELY pivots, and twice got what I think were pretty high-quality spins. He's truly a very athletic horse, he just needs proper guidance, etc.

Cricket:
Poor Cricket is going through some difficult things right now. I'm just starting to get her back into riding, something that hasn't been kind on her in the past. She's basically been taught nothing but to resist, and unfortunately, has been punished for a lack of understanding. The result is a very skeptical, very unsure, very unconfident horse in all aspects of riding. I've spent the past couple weeks getting her friendly to the concept of being saddled. I pulled out Prin's original saddle for the job. It's a cute little general purpose Trainer's brand saddle, pretty narrow, but has decent weight distribution throughout the panels, which is why I chose it. Coupled with the Theraflex, it does fairly well.

Anyway, today, for the 3rd day in a row, we've played with bridling. Cricket must have evaded bridling really well in her days prior to my riding, because she knows practically every trick in the book to get away from it now. Today went fairly well though, we only had to "discuss" yielding to poll pressure for about 3 minutes, as opposed to the 15 and 5 we spent the past two days.

Once we got bridled, I hopped on, and proceeded to play with fluid rein. I've got her in the confidence snaffle because of the rough handling she's had in her mouth previously. Three days ago, When I'd get on, she'd turn her neck inside-out to get away from any sort of pressure on her mouth. Today, we made HUGE strides with fluid rein. Though a bit skeptical (and astounded!) that I really wanted her to stretch into the bit, Cricket finally got the idea, and we spend a half an hour walking and trotting around with Cricket's nose barely above the grass, exhaling and blowing almost every stride. Talk about a pressure release! It's going to be a long road, but she's going to make a LOVELY riding horse. I'll be continuing this journey, so keep checking back :)


Prin:
Today's session with Prin will be dubbed successful simply because it was short, sweet, and I totally blew my horse's mind. I had originally planned to tack up and take her out for a long trot up the road, but after I heard gunshots coming from Dusek's, our neighbors up the road (the 3 brothers shooting pigeons, no doubt), I decided that we'd better not. So, I hopped on bareback, and took her for literally a 5 minute ride. We cantered up the driveway, to the top of the hill, stopped, backed up, did a roll back, and cantered home. Once I got back, I took her to the tackroom and I groomed her from head to tail, gave her a cookie, and put her back. The look of astonishment on my horse's face was fantastic, and I know I left her wanting more because she followed me along the fence line as I walked out.


So. All in all, a VERY productive day. I love spring, I love my horses, and my life is going very well. I'll hopefully get the camera out this week sometime if it's not too nasty (they're predicting freezing rain/snow on Tuesday), and will keep progressing along.

Keep it natural, and I'll post again soon :)

One Picture

Sorry guys, this is all you get today. I was a poop and didn't do much. Curse this gray and mushy weather.



Cricket and me playing with trot poles a couple days ago. (Photo is from the session I last blogged) The poles are one of the things we've been playing with, along with hill therapy, and now we're also starting some riding. I'm hoping to keep somewhat of a photo diary of her progress this spring and summer, and keep posted on here. She's a very special girl and her journey is going to be worth noting :)

Savvy on, I'm off to go read some more Outliers, which is a FANTASTIC book, by the way. It's on Pat and Linda's reading list, and for good reason :)

Tis the Season to be Naughty...

Short blog today, but I thought I'd share what's up at least.

Spring has sprung, and along with lots of rain and mud, we've got a herd full of SASSY horses. I headed out to the farm late in the afternoon, let Prin and Cricket into the west paddock and went about my routine of mixing feed, etc. Got everyone fed, and decided to play with Cricket, simply because I'd played with Prin for a while yesterday, and it had gone well.

I haltered her up, just on the 12' line (my 22' is soaked and muddy at the moment)and played with getting her using her topline (it was circle pattern meets bullseye, meets hill therapy, oh yes!). She did wonderfully, I think she's going to be just a GORGEOUS English riding horse, she's got such nice floaty gaits, and she carries herself nicely.

After playing with Cricket, I had to put Prin back. She'd finished her cubes, and was on the "I'm going to play with you if it's the last thing I do!" path. So, away she goes, cantering and farting. Fortunately, though, she really did want me to play back, so I went running WITH her. Not after her, or chasing her, but with her. Almost immediately, she slowed, stopped, and turned to look at me, like "Oh...well that was my grand idea, what's the plan now?" and I led her by the ear (oh the humorous expressions on her face for that...) back to the paddock and put her in.

So all in all, a very wet, sloppy, and fun day. I'm looking forward to the rain stopping so I can start riding again.

That's all for now, folks!

Broke much?

Haha...

I made a really painful (BUT EXCITING!) withdrawal from my bank account today...The $350 needed for my savvy conference ticket! I can't believe it's actually happening! But, the painful thing is, the paying is killing my account, I've got literally $17 in my name at the moment, split between two accounts! Fortunately, I do have a lot of lessons, etc, scheduled for the week, and the boys go home on Friday, so that'll be another much needed $300, but still...I HATE being broke-lol

Other than that, didn't do too much of note today, it was really just very horsey. Tim came out and rode Buddy and played a little with Scoot (which went REALLY well), and then Micky and I rode Prin and Cricket down to Studebaker junction (A local trail down into the coulee, there's an old Studebaker pickup parked to rust down there) The spotty girls did wonderfully, including, *gasp* a nice long canter out of Cricket up the hill. She definitely enjoys being out, and a couple weeks of climbing that trail will get her all nice and muscled.

Also took Crest and Knighters out for a little hack-y thing. Crest, unfortunately, is out in his ribs again for whatever the reason (haven't ridden him since being home)but sitting on them to the side seemed to help quite a bit. Hopefully several rides and we'll have him straightened out.

Okay, time to go finish mowing the yard, ugh.

Busy Week

Sorry guys, behind, behind, behind. I'm exausted, and really don't have much energy to recap the week's events in great detail, so here's a small, jotty list, comment if you have questions.


*Cricket's abscess popped out on Tuesday, no longer a lame girl
*Virge arrived on Wednesday
*Farrah got sick, and couldn't go to tour on Thursday
*Thought I was going to take her spot on Savvy Team, but couldn't
*Left for tour on Friday
*Hung out with Savvy sisters/had a good chat with Linda, Nita Jo, and Jesse Peters on Friday
*Saturday of tour--Cranky and sleepless, took care of Maylynn, Nita Jo's mare, saw lotsa people, had a couple hysterical conversations with Linda
*Went riding with Lori Wegner on Saturday night...very fun.
*Sunday morning took care of Nita Jo's mare
*Great tour day, got used as a model, and will now NEVER let Pat stand behind me again with the intent to demonstrate how to get a horse to round it's back
*Drove home
*Filmed a new video on Monday
*Gave Scoot his first ride, which had some FUNNY moments...he's a little mother bucker...and yes, you did read that correctly.
*Ordered my Cradle Bridle on Monday afternoon
*Edited video today
*Got an AMAZING message from some one on the forum...Made me cry to think that I could inspire someone like I did her.

Watch my new video here:



If you have questions or want details on anything on that list, post a comment. I'm REALLY tired, and will try to get back on track tomorrow. Thanks loves!

Ugh Humidity

It has got to be 100% humidity out there. Seriously. I spent 2 hours giving a lesson this morning, we came back, and both my poor horses were just DRIPPING with sweat, and we hardly even DID ANYTHING PHYSICAL! That was okay though, because we gave them the water bucket treatment (Oh BOY did they like that!) and then we giggled as they rolled,and then Crest decided it was too much work to get up, and just laid there looking dumb.

Soaked Cricket's foot in the evening, she seems a little better, but of course still lame. Played around with Prin for about 40 minutes, I let Dawnelle (Cricket's previous owner) and Richard both toodle around in my fluidity saddle, which I think I'd better lock up, for all the people who want it. The quote of the evening belonged to Dawnelle, with regard to riding in the fluidity: "Who needs FURNITURE when you can have a SADDLE like THIS?!" A very good question indeed!

G'night, hopefully won't be as so stinky humid tomorrow.

Lameness, Lessons, and Learning

HA! Do you know HOW LONG it took me to come up with that third "L" word to finish the alliterative (I think I just made that word up!) title? HUZZAH!! Anyway, back on topic, while I can still hold my eyes open.

Lameness: POOR CRICKET! She is still unbelievably sore. I have NEVER seen a limp this bad in a horse before other than a founder case in all 4 feet, but this is only one leg. We poked and prodded and wrenched her poor leg around today, TRYING to find the source of the pain, and we're having little luck. Her foot isn't hot, it's not cracked, she's not swollen anywhere, and there's no evidence of abraision. We did find a little hot pocket in what would be considered her "armpit", but it's not tender to the touch, so we have no clue what happened. I'm hoping it's not a fracture or something more serious, although I would guess that would be more than a little tender to the touch if it were the case. Anyway, she's gimping around, we let her into the north paddock to fill her belly in peace (she's low on the totem pole and they push her around on that leg) and also, we tried to get some bute into her as well, to at least make the pain more tolerable. She's pretty sore, but man did she fight the syringe going into her mouth. For having a bad leg, she did surprisingly well.

Lessons: Gave 2 lessons today, both of which were very successful. First came Phoebe. Such a talented rider in such a little package. She rode Princess in my Wintec Wide ("It's actually pretty comfortable" she says!) and had her first (That I know of) cross country gallop, completed in two point, with her whooping and hollering, and Princess looking sheepishly proud (she loves to teach kids, whether she'll admit it or not). I was impressed with the pair of them!

Next came Cynde and Shashi. They had a HUGE breakthrough, and it made me feel wonderful as a teacher. The breakthrough was fairly simple, and that was that Cynde interrupted a RBE blasting circle VERY assertively (but neutrally), then brought Shash in and stroked him with a friendly look. For Cynde, this is HUGE because she's got a fear of being firm with Shash. For me, it was a wonderful breakthrough, because I was the one shouting "INTERRUPT THE PATTERN!" and she listened and acted on it. Makes me feel effective and VERY proud of my students.

Also had some good effects with "Breathing while you act"...Something Farrah REALLY emphasized in the clinic was how important breathing was as you played with a horse, especially with a tense person/pair. From the second she mentioned it last weekend, I realized that breathing, as well as possibly singing (LOL... Farrah, if you ever read this, Cynde was ready to stab me after singing the ABC's 3 times!) while she played would greatly benefit Cynde, because of how tense and nervous she is. So whenver I saw her get tense, I'd just lightly say "Breath while you do that..." and she'd exhale and say "Thank you, HOW can you see that?!" and then she'd get WAY more confident. Interesting, eh?

As far as learning goes, I'm referring to Princess, here. We did some learning of new actions in 3 separate short sessions today. First we played with lifting and placing a single leg (Prep for Spanish Walk and bowing/lying down) and then we worked on getting more energy underneath us in the back up, and then we played with "How SMALL can we canter?" when we went on a trail ride. Prin's doing really well with the bowing, backing, and tiny cantering (Richard was teasing Amigo, saying "Why can't you just copy her?" as he jogged along beside us as we loped like seasoned pleasure riders) but we're still sort of struggling with the concept of picking up a foot and holding with the driving game, though I'm sure it'll come, since she's sort of getting it.

Her bows were probably the high point for me, she REALLY got down low today, on her knees twice (and NOT because I pushed her, either) and completely LB andconfidently. So proud!

Anyway, off to bed. Pray for Cricket please!

Ahhhh...So cute

I had very limited time with my ponies today, unfortunately. Anyway, I got out there with the full intent to play with Cricket, only to find her limping obviously on her left front leg! EEK! Not entirely sure what happened to her, but I'm keeping an eye on it. If it's not much better by Monday, I'll call the vet, but for now, I'll keep her on bute and hope it gets better. Keep her in your thoughts please!

I couldn't decide who I wanted to play with at this point. I know that whoever I choose to spend time with, I always end up going longer than I should, so I wanted to play with someone who NEEDED the time. And thats when the answer nuzzled me on the shoulder. There stood little Knighters. So we haltered up.

Okay, let me just take the time to say that Knight is adorable. Really. He is. I managed to keep myself to a time frame, and honestly we didn't do anything too notable, but knight is just SO DANG CUTE that everything he did was wonderful. We did some circling, some yoyo, and some sideways without a fence (he's GETTING IT...such a smart little guy, it's only the second time we've tried it :)) Also did some stick to me, he got the canter today, and he does it all with this adorable "I'm cute and wonderful, and I know you just want to snuggle me" on his face. So after he did that, we quit. Pix to come soon of his cuteness.

This concludes another Knightly News update. And I'll keep posted on Cricket.

A Day of Excitement

It's been a VERY exciting day for me today. The excitement started when Richard approached me about Cricket. Cricket is the APHA mare that belongs to a friend of ours, who's been staying with us for the past 8 weeks or so, fattening up on our nice pasture. Anyway, Richard said he'd talked to Cricket's owner, who's DESPARATELY trying to find her a home, and that it was mentioned that if I wanted her, I could HAVE her for FREE. So...exciting news. I have a new horse! I'll probably develop her up and try to find her a home with someone just starting PNH. She's a very nice horse with a huge heart, and I feel like someone could really go far with her. She's so quiet and sweet, she's SO deserving of that wonderful home, and I'd love to help her find it, and in the mean time (however long that takes, I really am not wearing a watch here) I'll provide it.

I would say her only big downfall right now is her horribly atrophied topline. She's been undereweight, and now she's just sadly undermuscled. We started a hill therapy program tonight, and got through the first 5 minutes of circling, and then I realized that she really had NO CLUE how to pick her feet up when she moved. She'd stumble over some tall grass, or a small stick, etc. So instead of the second round, I pulled out some cavalettis about 6" high, and set 4 in a row up along the fence line. She started out REALLY clumsy, as I expected, but as we kept going along, (I kept the same time scale as if we were using a hill) her eyes got brighter, he feet got higher, and she started to REALLY use herself. I've NEVER seen something have that drastic an impact in one session physically before. It was remarkable. The last 30 seconds or so, she was prancing over those cavalettis like she owned them, and she was rounding her topline even on the rest of the circle. At the rate she's going, she'll have a topline like Remmer before the month is out-haha!

My second piece of exciting news is slightly less heartfelt, but I'm still PSYCHED! Parelli Collection called me this afternoon to let me know that my saddle is READY TO SHIP, and will be going out either today or tomorrow. OMG! It'll be here in A WEEK! Maybe in time for Farrah's clinic? I HOPE SO! God that would be PERFECT. EEEEEKK! I can't wait to have it :D This'll be wonderful. I felt giddy today after I got the call, I actually drove down to Winona and pathetically invested in a saddle stand especially for it to sit on. I'm silly. Anyway, REALLY excited, it should be here by Tuesday or Wednesday next week!

Okay, bedtime, I have to get up and water flowers tomorrow, oh joy.

PS, trimmed feet today, Crest's are like BLACK GRANITE...Need like, robotic limbs to pull that off!