Short note and apologies ahead of time for there being no pics from yesterday, was home alone today...but here's a pic of us from a ride at the end of December 2009, with Lyra's filly, Rogue in the background, very exciting way to ride, having her tag along. Xandra was out with us that day as well. I DO NOT recommend riding with loose horses, it definitely poses some unnecessary hazards, that said, I had a lot of fun doing it. Good to have Lyra to myself now though and able to go out for riding sessions without Rogue.
I took Lyra out yesterday, first time without Rogue (her five month old filly), third time since last March. Our first two rides were just walking about, calmly ignoring her child romping about, enjoying her freedom on drier footing. We finally started getting down to business though. Spent the majority of the time at the walk. Lyra started off with her head straight in the air, resisting, wanting to go back to Rogue. However after a great deal of resistance didn't pay off and required her to work more, she finally settled down to a nice, relaxed, very forward, swinging through her back walk. After getting her really comfortable and relaxed in this forward walk, we worked on some bending around my leg exercises and then moved into some bending going from my inside leg to outside rein, which I've never really worked on with her before. We finished off with serpentines through seat and leg cues and a very forward walk, bending beautifully right around my leg and springing forward again. All in all, this was, possibly, the best, most in tune to each other ride, Lyra and I have shared to date. I am so excited for our next ride, hopefully soon, was low 40s and pouring rain today, ugghh :-(
After riding I groomed everyone else, was nice to have a dry day where I could scrub all of them, get their hair all fluffed again and admire their lovely curls. Riot, Star's fourth month old colt, has recently decided to go through a rebellious stage where he doesn't like being caught, so he earned himself a drag line, which his sisters (Rora, Ravyn, and Rogue) along with Xandra immediately thought would be immense fun to grab in their mouths and head off in different directions with. Not sure how that's going to work out, I did request that while it was fair to give him a hard time about it, if they could resist actually hurting Riot, that'd be appreciated. They promptly ceased playing tug of war with his line and he took up, trying to pick his own line up and somehow finagle removing it from himself, he's smart enough, I won't be the least bit surprised if he figures that one out. He's yet to keep his rain jacket on longer than an hour.
After working some with Riot and reminding him just how wonderful it is to have me near him scratching all his itchy spots (ie his entire body), I worked with all of their hooves. Seems to be an ongoing thing, the more it's done, the easier it is,and the less time it takes. All of them were exceptional about offering their hinds without any effort on my part, their fronts they were good about but not quite so much on cue. I was happy with all of them being so easy about it though, they were loose, so could have walked off instead of playing my little stand around on three legs game. I think they new the quicker they did what was being asked, the quicker their reward of wonderful scratches would be in coming. I finished the afternoon standing quietly with Xandra, my cheek pressed up to her neck curls, just breathing in and out with her; observing the babies romp with each other, glad to be alive and so well blessed with the Curls in my life.
I hope everyone else is getting out and enjoying their Curlies. :-)
Best Wishes,
~Heather
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