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Oct. 6th, 2004 12:17 pmWe had a hard frost this morning. I had to scrape the windshield so that I could go play horses.
The bridle thing went well, very low-stress. I decided that not only did I need to work with Thyme on bridle skills, I was tired of Nick throwing her head up and away from me in the middle of bridling. I do not need to be chasing after the horse's head. Horse heads are heavy and boney. When a horse slams her head into your face, it hurts. This is unacceptable. So, Nick and I have to learn how to put on a bridle better than we currently do it. It is not *enough* to get the bridle on the horse's head. That is insufficient. It was once okay, but we can do better than that and we SHOULD do better than that.
So, I practiced bridles with Thyme and Nick today. Thyme did well and Nick's a little better than she was before we started practicing. Tomorrow is another day, we can work on it again. On the plus side, Thyme remembered all about the sheets of tin and didn't give me any hassle about them at all when we reviewed that today. Nick and I also did some lateral work as per the game plan from yesterday. Damn, she's light off the front end. (It's really easy to steer her front legs around her back legs as in pivoting.) The back end doesn't do so well around the front, but we can practice that more tomorrow. I'd like them to be equally good. We also worked on backing up and stopping, both of which went very well. She does need to arc/bend better than she currently does, and I think I know a way to get that working better, so it's on the agenda for tomorrow or the next day.
Half of the worry, here, was that she'd jump out from under me if I put any leg on her. Turns out she was a lot less worried about that than I was. Applying some leg does not make the horse leap out from under me, particularly not leg applied calf-first in a sensible, workmanlike fashion. Right. (I haven't tried jamming my heels into her belly because there's really no call for that sort of thing and I don't ever do it when I ride and I would not blame her if she got rather pissed about it.)
When I got home, I split some firewood for tonight. Those little 14" pieces split a hell of a lot more easily than the monster (28") pieces I hand-split last year. *sigh* So much for my buff, Xena-like physique... this isn't enough work to get me to look like that.
The bridle thing went well, very low-stress. I decided that not only did I need to work with Thyme on bridle skills, I was tired of Nick throwing her head up and away from me in the middle of bridling. I do not need to be chasing after the horse's head. Horse heads are heavy and boney. When a horse slams her head into your face, it hurts. This is unacceptable. So, Nick and I have to learn how to put on a bridle better than we currently do it. It is not *enough* to get the bridle on the horse's head. That is insufficient. It was once okay, but we can do better than that and we SHOULD do better than that.
So, I practiced bridles with Thyme and Nick today. Thyme did well and Nick's a little better than she was before we started practicing. Tomorrow is another day, we can work on it again. On the plus side, Thyme remembered all about the sheets of tin and didn't give me any hassle about them at all when we reviewed that today. Nick and I also did some lateral work as per the game plan from yesterday. Damn, she's light off the front end. (It's really easy to steer her front legs around her back legs as in pivoting.) The back end doesn't do so well around the front, but we can practice that more tomorrow. I'd like them to be equally good. We also worked on backing up and stopping, both of which went very well. She does need to arc/bend better than she currently does, and I think I know a way to get that working better, so it's on the agenda for tomorrow or the next day.
Half of the worry, here, was that she'd jump out from under me if I put any leg on her. Turns out she was a lot less worried about that than I was. Applying some leg does not make the horse leap out from under me, particularly not leg applied calf-first in a sensible, workmanlike fashion. Right. (I haven't tried jamming my heels into her belly because there's really no call for that sort of thing and I don't ever do it when I ride and I would not blame her if she got rather pissed about it.)
When I got home, I split some firewood for tonight. Those little 14" pieces split a hell of a lot more easily than the monster (28") pieces I hand-split last year. *sigh* So much for my buff, Xena-like physique... this isn't enough work to get me to look like that.
