Is This Weather for Real?

Lovely Morning Lunge

It was cloudy and cool in the morning when I went out to feed, so I decided to take advantage of the "before bug" hour and lunge the Boys.

This time, with an appropriate treat, Tucker was quite happy to be caught so I worked him first. Nothing special, but I did use trotting poles just to give him something to think about. Don't know what was up, but he was super obedient to the commands. His trot was nice and forward and his canter prompt. Because of that I had him do a lot of trot/canter/trot transitions. He was super. Now if I get out of my lazy phase about dressing him all up in the bug armor so it's safe to ride, perhaps I will get into the saddle tomorrow.

This time Chance played hard to get. Not a serious effort on his part, but he did walk away several times. Once I got him into the arena on the line, he simply did not want to trot and he kept breaking into a canter....on the right lead when he was on the left hand. Strange, since that his his less favored lead.

Then I had a brainstorm. He only has one leg strap on his fly sheet, as the other one was broken. I disconnected the single strap and tied it up out of the way. Off he went in a nice trot. While I am not 100% sure that was the problem, the difference was enough to make me think somehow the strap was bothering him.

Either way, after that adjustment, he was really good. He trotted the poles, lengthening his stride to make the difference, and was nearly as obedient as Tucker. But, I didn't ask him for the same kind of repeated transitions I asked of Tuck either, so his grade will have to be weighted accordingly. It's still an "A" but not quite worth advanced placement credit.

I did manage a swim in the afternoon. It was only in the low 70's F with a bit of a breeze. Actually the water and the air were pretty close in temperature....check that, the water was a little cooler. It was one of those, "Well, it feels good once you get wet," kind of days. Needless to say, I swam rather energetically just to get my blood flowing.

Darn if it didn't feel really good. I am considering signing up for a membership at the University pools still, so perhaps I can keep up the swimming all winter.

Muriel mentioned my trying to get some kind of indoor for riding. That is a no go here as it would cost a good fortune and I certainly don't have the money to do anything like that. Getting a building permit would probably also be a major hassle. I can pay a fee to a barn about 20 minutes from here where I could trailer the Boys if I wanted to. I'll just have to see how the weather goes. Last year I was mostly inhibited by not being able to ride during the day when things tended to thaw out...or I when I could ride out in the woods while it was still light.

We'll just see how things go. At this point, riding seems to be much more casual for me than it ever was before. Since I have no overwhelming ambitions, I guess being stopped by the weather is no crisis.

As I've said before, Time will tell.....