First Day Off

Did Some Work and Riding Too!!

Here is the basic costume. The gold is very bright gold. All over a black dress with "gilded sleeves" I have a cape and a witch's hat to go with it.

The snow broke a number of branches off my lilac bushes and one big branch off the maple in the front yard. I took an hour or two this morning trimming and sawing. I cleaned up one pile but have about four more piles of branches to get rid of yet. The maple branch is huge, but I've sawed it up into manageable pieces. Might need the tractor to move them.

Ate lunch and got a call from a good friend who's moved out to the Northwest--Oregon, so that was a nice chat.

Then I headed out to ride. Picked out the arena first and then saddled up Tucker.

We had a good school. I did some walk work with pirouettes first. Then did some trot with trot/walk transitions to a walk pirouette to a trot to encourage him to trot off on his hind end first. Then I did a series of trot/walk/trot transitions. Then I progressed to canter. He took both leads without a fuss. The only flaw I feel right now is that his balance is better on his left lead than his right. That has been a minor issue all along, and I was working on it before he became sore. Could be that work triggered the hock issues, but we'll see. For now I am just taking it a little easy and not being too demanding about the balance on that lead.

I worked the canter/trot/canter transitions a number of times, and then, after a break, did a long canter stretch to build him up. I took another break and then focused on some trot work. Shoulder in, half pass, and some efforts at lengthening finished up the session. By then, he was a little sweaty, so I headed out for a nice little hack in the woods.

I rode Chance on the same hack--opposite direction, though--next and just had a nice relaxing ride with him. He seemed quite happy so that was all I did with him.

Toby showed no interest in being worked so I just let him be for the day. Instead, I walked out on the trails to clear away some of the trees and branches that had falled out there. I had to take detours with both Tuck and Chance to get around some of the debris, so I wanted to clear it out. It was a fairly easy job and I didn't need the saw or clippers to do the work.

Fed the Boys and came back in to take some pic of the kitties. Not the best shots, but at least they can be Internet stars for the day.

From the top, DJ. Then left, Reggie, with Scooter in the background. And finally, Church, the gray kitty.