Hoppy Easter!

Work is really weighing on my mind as of late.  The only way to force my mind onto something else is to go to the barn.  "The barn" has always been, even when I was a teenager, the place where all the rest of the world melts away for a while.  I get really annoyed when people at the barn ask me about work.  I know it's because my job sounds super cool, and it really is, but it's still WORK and it's not what I want to think about at the barn.

So I have been trying to MAKE barn time lest my brain implode from the constant rattling of to-do lists around in my brain.

Today I went out and it was a really nice day.  VERY windy outside, but I grew up on the prairie so it's not so bad... except when it blows the driveway into my face.  Yum, crunchy.

We worked on the basic stuff: working trot with a lifted back and relaxed topline, keeping a cadence, working deep corners, trying to keep my body in the "proper" posture and balance.  We did some cantering and some lead changes.  I need to work with somebody on that.  Sometimes he changes beautifully, sometimes he surges forward and changes changes and changes back and sometimes I have NO idea what his legs are doing down there, but I know it's not good.  If I do too many of them I can't get him to stop changing so it's not something I spend a lot of time on.  I'll put that on our list for our lesson in a few weeks.... er 11 days.

He was being very cooperative.  We went over the bridge a few times, did some pivots and turns on the haunches, then we let ourselves out of the arena by working the gate.  I've only worked this gate 3 times and this time he was darn near perfect.  He likes to do everything fast, which is okay for the Cowboy Challenges, not for arena trail class, but we have no aspirations of that.

Then we took a stroll through the property, including the "trail" (ha ha) behind the grass fields.  Mom, it makes the trails at the last place look like a national park.  But it's better than nothing and any exposure to trees (especially in the wind) is good.  We even have a pond, and though Junior was NOT willing to go any where near the pond at the last place and snorted at it constantly, I got him to get his front feet in this one today!  I would have taken him further in, but I was alone and didn't think today was a good day to get dumped in a cold pond.  But he gave me hope that we will go in much further this summer!

After our good ride I presented him with an Easter Basket of sorts.  He was very excited.  I let him eat most of it in the grooming stall, but he started pushing the grass out to eat the rest so I took him back to his stall for the rest of it.