Weeds are Purty!

I love when the back pasture isn't mowed and I can take my "Spring pics":-) Well it's May again and Lester celebrated yet another "Rebirthday". Can you believe that it's been 3 years since his colic surgery? Sometimes it seems like just yesterday I almost lost him...Even though I had to retire him from all riding this year I still don't regret my decision to do surgery. And I don't regret my decision of retiring him. I have found my peace with it and I am so lucky and so happy to be riding again even if it's not on my favorite horse.

My little ray of sunshine:-)

As a friend pointed out on Facebook, here's an "Action shot" LOL.

OK, now for some REAL action shots. I know what you guys are thinking, "He's retired?!" I was kinda thinking the same thing that day. But through all the bucking and running I can still see his stiffness, compensation and head bobbing. He really did learn to compensate well and trick us all into thinking he was really sound. Just the other day I walked him out of his stall and he was holding his head really stiff like he had a crick in his neck. I took him into the barn and he about fell into my arms while a massaged his neck and back and it seemed to help. I still can't believe how stiff and hard he was on his right side all through our riding days. Riding other horses correctly has really been a challenge for me because it was always about softening that right side of him- take, take, take -GIVE! Now I give to the other horses too much and don't hold a steady contact- but I'm getting better! For the last 2 months I have ridden on average 4-6 times a week and on several occasions 2 horses a day. I still can't believe I'm riding again!:-) I didn't even know how much I missed it really, I'm just so

lucky that all these opportunities have presented themselves when they did. I'm still riding the 2 Arabians and have started taking a weekly lesson with the owner on one of her boys. I've improved alot if I do say so myself:-) During one of the lessons she gave me such a wake up call. I never realized I didn't have my (inside) leg underneath me and at the girth, I know I've been told in the past to put it at the girth, but I never realized how far back my leg was and rending it pretty useless! I hope to have a video soon.

Ya I don't know what to say about this shot nor how I actually captured it! I'm usually too early or too late!

This pic makes me laugh because Less is actually scratching his on leg with his other foot and it was making him do the lip stretch and head turn of "Oh yeah, that's the spot". He is so freaking cute. Course I eventually had to put the camera down and scratch it for him and you know what happened next? He "dropped" on my head:-x Yeah, exactly what you're thinking. I was scratching his ankles and ending up crunching under him and then felt "something" hit my head. At least I was wearing a hat for protection! LOL

I know I have been a terrible blogger!:-( Both reader and writer! I'm going to try and do better I've just been so busy! I am never home anymore, just ask Matt, he reminds me of that everyday. He still won't let me forget he had to eat a bag of popcorn and a can of black beans one night.

When it rains it pours...

Do you ever have a blog post in mind for days, weeks even months and just never get the time to get it down? Even though you've posted other things in the meantime?! Well this is one of those posts...

When it rains, it pours. Even though it's rainy for the next couple of days I'm not just talking about the weather:-) Last month I emailed an old instructor of mine, Gigi of Touch n' Go farm (she has a great website and stories of all the meaningful horses in her life) and asked her if she had anyone I could come take a lesson on, that I just didn't have anyone to ride. Like most dressage training barns she has no lesson horses, but she said I could come ride her daughter's pony and take a lesson on her. So I did this about a month ago! My sister Jen and I used to take lessons all the time with Gigi. Every Thursday she and I would trailer our horses (Lester and Kate) nearly 2 hours away for one. The ironic thing is that when I moved Lester down to Newnan-only about 20 minutes from Gigi's is when I stopped taking lessons:-( Backwards huh? But I didn't have a trailer, so, so close yet so far syndrome. I did take Less over to her place for a week of training back in 2005. It started out like a marriage counseling session because I had taken him there for her to help me ride through his spooking, but of course once we got there he didn't spook at a thing so we got to do something actual training... I must really ride differently in front of an instructor verses on my own:-/

Anyway while Gigi's daughter, Cassidy, was helping me get her horse Hanna ready to ride, I was greeted by their flock of dogs and I said "I remember this black dog that would come up and spit a rock out at my feet". Cassidy pointed down and said that would be "Dasiy", I couldn't believe it that was over 13 years ago that I had first met that dog! They even still had their boy goat named Eddie, again I first met him over 13 years ago. I just think it's so cool they were still around... so I took a lesson and both Gigi and Hanna worked my butt off! OMG my face was so red and my muscles ached so bad. Miss Hanna takes a LOT of leg, but she's a cute little horse that knows her stuff so it was a good lesson. I plan to take some more lessons on her if "life" would ever work out and let me, but between the rain, work and our schedules it just hasn't worked out...........but in the same weekend a boarder at our barn asked if I would start riding her horse, Basonge...so I've been riding pretty regularly lately:-) He's green, but a solid little guy that's pretty laid back. Like Hanna, I felt like I had to beat him with my legs at first just to get him to go, but he's respecting my legs much better lately and I haven't even been wearing spurs...

I hope to take him to Gigi's for some lessons soon, just need to talk to the owner.

So meet Basonge...he's a 6 year old, Arabian. I do feel a little top heavy on him though:-)