Gloomy Weather, Good Horse

The weekend weather was predicted to be cold and rainy, Saturday and Sunday. Oh, yuck. But hard to complain too much when we have had some very nice spring days already. So I wouldn’t complain. I’d just try to have the best time possible with Buckshot, despite the weather. By the arrival of the weekend, the obviously-horse-loving weathermen had changed their prediction: Rain to start late Saturday, lows in the thirties. A dry day, but cold. Brrr.

At the barn on Saturday, it was as predicted - gray, gloomy and cold, but not rainy. Oh, goody. We can ride today. I got Buckshot groomed, and created a huge pile of mostly-white hairs in the stall. I carefully lay them to the side to throw them out later, wanting to leave the stall as clean as possible. Buckshot munched non-stop on the special alfalfa hay I had put in the stall. I’m pretty sure he was saying “Hmmm, yumm…yumm” but I can’t be sure. When I began picking his feet, he decided to lift his head, poke his head out the stall door to hear the conversations in the aisle, meander around the stall, and step, just once, very squarely on my foot with his hoof. Ouch! I eventually got all hooves cleaned, got him tacked up, and we went out to the arena.

We didn’t have time to work on the gate opening work, so we got started walking our warm up. Twenty minutes. He had pretty good energy. I started chatting, telling him about a new horse on the farm, what his name was, where he came from, what his age was, and so on and so on, and all of a sudden, Buckshot whinnied loudly. Goodness, I think he just said, enough of the incessant chit chat. So I said well I guess I am talking too much, and maybe you don’t want to hear all of this, oh yes, I’ll just, forget it, and we silently continued (inside I was laughing!)! But maybe he is in a bit of a grumpy mood. Oh, well. We continued and then after twenty minutes, moved to trotting. He had good energy.

Then it was time for the class to start. The only other rider was my sister. She brought her school horse in the arena and we began walking around the arena. We rode some patterns at the trot and did some nice cantering. Then we did a trail ride, with the new horse walked by the BO. A nice day, except the barn cats (I think) ate through two of my plastic bags! One had a new fly mask in it – they didn’t damage it. The other bag held the last third of a roll of paper towels. The roll had a big, quarter sized hole in it! I didn’t think cats liked to eat paper towels! I’ve got to think of how to hang my bags next time so they don’t become food!

On Sunday, the horse-loving weathermen changed their forecasts again! Rain and snow in the morning, moving out of the area by mid-day. So Buckshot and I did groundwork in his pasture instead of riding. He was very enthusiastic about each of the exercises and tried his best. The one we are having trouble with is the sidepass. When I press my hands on his side, and say “side right” he moves forward and around me, doing a very nice small circle. So fluid and smooth. I hate to say “No, that’s not it” when he did try to do something, and it looked very nice, so I gave him his treat anyway. Another new exercise is backing in a straight line, which he does well. Then I follow that with backing and turning a few steps. This is harder, but he got it pretty well in one direction. Overall, I was very pleased with the groundwork.

I then took him out to graze and just wander around the grassy areas, not taking a particular route. He enjoyed being able to eat grass to his heart’s content. It was a nice time. So, there, you weathermen! We can have a great time with our horses despite what you throw at us! I felt like I had cheated them out of their bad weather! Ha ha! Horses are worth it!

Hope you had a good weekend with your horses also!