Terrific Thursday

I had another wonderful evening with my girls today. It was a bit of a race against time & storm clouds as I hurried to the barn after work as the Guru & I had planned to go for a quick hack in the woods, but it has been bucketing down with rain all week. Thankfully however we managed to get out for a quick hour sans pluie! Happy days! :)

Upside to the rain however, was that I wore my jacket which meant I had my cumbersome phone in my pocket so I could snap some pics while Nancy & I pootled along on a long rein - she really is such a GOOD GIRL! *love*

<-I love this channel "through the rocks", I was hoping for a through the ears/through the rocks shot...but when we stopped mid-stride for the photo, Nancy had to check all was well with me! ;-)

She is such a sweetheart! We mosied on, and I snapped a few more pictures which will follow - another upside to all the rain that has spilled on us this week is more growth & beautiful flowers line the trails...

Sorry it's a little blurry

Can you see why I wanted to learn to plait
her mane ;)

Nancy & O also had to check in with each other to make sure everything was ok with the other :-)






Another upside to all the rain is puddles everywhere & I LOVE SPLASHING through puddles on horseback - Nancy was not so sure at first and thought me mental (understandably) but she got over it quickly and was happy enough to plod through them when she realised this compulsion of mine wasn't going to go away, hahaha!

Sorry - another fuzzy action shot

Kika is an angel and I like to think enjoys splashing through the puddles with me - I really am such a ginormous kid when it comes to hacking in the woods!

I think with some more practice Nancy will also be pretty blase about puddles before the end of the summer - especially as from mid-June/early July I'll be moving them from the yard to an off-property field which will have no access to arenas without first hacking through the woods or just forgoing arena work for a few weeks and playing in the woods every night...most likely solution. Unless the Guru & I get a notion and fancy the treck back on Wednesday evenings for a jump school. The world is our oyster (or at least these woods are) and the possibilities for summer fun are endless! :-)

Fuzzier again - action shot,
 but you can sort of see how relaxed she is!

To make the evening even better, we not only managed to avoid a single drop of rain (*happy dance*), but we made good time on our stroll so I had time to quickly pelt up to the field and haul Kika in; who was such a good girl staying on her own without an iota of fuss as the haflinger D had been brought in for the night cos her blacksmith is due tomorrow. Mercifully she was clean & dry, quick body brush where saddle and bridle go and managed to get a wonderful spin in on her in the main arena!

Unlike the last few arena spins where I've really had to push her in our initial trot warm up work, Kika was just *on* this evening and got straight down to work happy out.
I concentrated on transitions once we were warm, walk/trot, trot/canter and walk/trot/halt etc.

She was a pure pet, we didn't miss one strike off in canter! Including a walk/canter transition which I am slowly starting to work more into our schooling - it was such a pleasure to work with both girls this evening!

Unfortunately I have no riding pictures of Kika, but I did snap one quick photo when we were finished just before I turned off the lights in the arena and we finished up for the night!

Shiny-Tubby-Ponio...the grass is agreeing with her methinks - LOL!

PS - yes I was a lazy bum & in an effort to save time used the same saddle pad on both girls!
Oh the Shame!