Busy Sunday

Two for Two

I sang the duet with Florence at the Methodist church this morning. It went really well and we were both quite pleased. It was a nice service too, not unlike the Presbyterian service I am used to with a few minor differences.

One of the psalter readings had a musical chant before and after it. And, the Lord's Prayer used "tresspasses" instead of "debts." The sermon was given by a lay preacher as the regular minister was on vacation. The story of Mary and Martha related well to modern day as an example of how to live each day to the fullest and best without worrying about the past and future.

In light of that, after a nice coffee hour, I headed over to the Presbyterian church where the service had started a half hour later. I didn't sneak in the church but hung out in the halls by the choir room until the service was over. My goal? To meet up with the choir gang to go to lunch!

I'm glad I did as two friends I haven't seen a quite a while were there and a nice gang of nine ate and chatted our way through a tasty lunch at a local restaurant.

Of course, by the time I got home, it was a good hot summer afternoon, so I decided to wait to work the horses.

Ah, well, once I sat down at the computer, I purchased and downloaded the Professor Fizzwizzle games and started playing. The basic game is a cool little puzzle game where you have to move crates, barrels and other objects in order to get the professor to move from one escape pod to another. It's kind of a combination of "The Incredible Machine," "Lemmings," and and a game I used to love called "Zeliard." I must have wasted a good three hours playing it, but it surely was fun.

I finally went out to ride at around 7 PM as the sun was heading towards the western horizon.

Tucker was first and I gave him a good hard workout. I did a good number of trot/walk/trot transitions, and another session of canter/trot/canter/walk/canter transitions. He was a good boy, but I didn't get the softer feel he can give me. I chalk it up to my hands being too still as I focused on my seat instead of thinking about how to get him to yield more. I needed to "play" with the bit more with my fingers to get it right. All, in all, the work was good, but not quite as good as it can be.

I rode Toby next and gave him a good workout too. He really is responsive to the aids for all the exercises. I did tours of shoulder-in to leg yield, shoulder-in to half pass, shoulder-in, circle, haunches-in, half pass zig zags, and a nice session of canter on both leads with flying changes. When I ride him, all I have to do is put on the aids, and there is the movement I want. He really is a responsive boy.

I have decided, for now, to just work Chance every other day until I see him develop some stamina. He certainly can run around and play with Tucker, but when I put him on the lunge, he runs out of energy quickly. If indeed it is a muscle problem in his hind end, the best thing I can do is try to get him fit.

I suspect that is going to take some time. I don't think either one of us is in a hurry.