WW - Clippity Clop

Fuzzy before shot

First clip is the deepest

Posing fail #hellodistraction

Acting coy in her new pjs

Fuzzy before 

So much hair

I still have to tidy up her mane & tail 

#awkwardpose but cute pooch photobomb

Patented 😇 face

Make-up Monday

Apologies again for falling off the blogosphere, I'm afraid I just don't have much to share. Thankfully all is going well with the ponies. They moved in at night on Friday & got clipped Saturday so be warned photo dump coming...maybe for a wordless Wednesday 😈

Nancy's best bud F, Kika's lookalike

I rode Nancy in an arena yesterday for the first time in ages and she was lovely. A couple tense moments here and there but overall a good girl. She gets a little stuck in her head thinking about what might be asked of her next; but all I want is for her to work in a straight line - no lateral work. No biggie, we'll get there 😇
We did manage an amazing solo hack on a new trail last Tuesday as Kika made friends with the newbie on the field. Nancy and I haven't been on a purely solo hack (without Kika on a lead) in years. Nancy was a rockstar, didn't falter once nor was she anything but willing to move on with a happy swinging stride. Not an ounce of stress at being all on her own - I obvs don't count as company ... well not in Kika's mind 😂

Love the leaves on our solo hack 

Kika and I have been mostly accompanying people into the woods and have really worked on her "bravery". K likes to pretend she is a giant chicken and incapable of leading when strolling in the woods - however once she does get (ahem is coaxed) in front she marches on like a boss & actually leaves Nancy in her wake. Nancy does also slow way down when K takes over the lead so there are two of them in it as K does stride when in front lolz
We are getting better at keeping them both side by side for better chatting opportunities 😀

Big brave Kika leading the charge in the woods

Sunny Sunday

I have been both a bad blogger & a bad rider of late.
I think it has been 3 or 4 weeks since I last rode Kika 😶

I have haphazardly hopped on a friends horse that is rehabbing from a 9month layoff due to injury just to walk & trot as he can be fiery with her. Although knock-on-wood he didn't try anything the times I rode him. He is kind of cob sized & his stride is much choppier than what I was used to, but he's a fun sort. Very willing and takes correction better than my two. I guess that's the joys of geldings over mares - less drama 😂

I finally got around to lunging Kika in the pessoa yesterday, I prefer the re-engage her brain with that training aid than risk undoing things by hopping into the tack without making sure the marbles are where I left them 😁
She was brilliant on the lunge, despite an interupted warm up to give someone directions as they'd come to the wrong stable and then once we got going with the pessoa rigged up we wound up having to change arenas and work outside to finish off and she was ace. Good as gold to change arenas & didn't bat an eyelid once we did. She went straight back to work without fuss.

Nancy has been kept on her toes with PL coming three times a week to ride her & in fact a friend of PLs  (who funnily enough has the same first name) and has been helping PL on Sundays with lessons has expressed an interest in coming one day a week to ride. She is a better rider than I & once K is running again will have the choice of riding Nancy or Kika once a week so long as it doesn't clash with original PLs chosen days. But the one day a week leasee will pay as she goes as she does have niggling injuries and may not be able to ride weekly so we'll just play it by ear and see how things go.

Eep - sorry this is getting wordy again when really I was just posting to share a video of Kika & I "jumping" a fallen log in the woods today. I am all over the place in the dressage saddle, so please forgive me Kika - but it was fab fun & hopefully I'll find some time to pop her over some poles in an arena again soon. I don't think we've jumped in prob close to two years 🙈

Also, as of yesterday I have become obsessed with Words with Friends!
Do any of you play?  😇

Facial Features

Mine...not the horses. Kika's noggin made contact with my schnauzer last night as I was going to give her a kiss when she got a fright and caught me with an almighty wallop in the snout. Having never broken my nose I worried for a few moments that I perhaps now had & wondered how I might know for sure without having to go to A&E.

"I meant no harm!
Your face just got in the way of my fear"
- Kika

As darkness was falling & I was on foot, I decided to go about my business and give them their hay for the night before making my way home and seeing how I felt in the morning. If i had trouble sleeping and/or panda eyes when I awoke I would make my way to a medical establishment. Thankfully despite some swelling I do not think it is broken, perhaps a little sensitive and I'm very glad to have contact lenses and not have to rely upon my glasses for sight as they are a little uncomfortable when I put them on.

All photos taken today

I have to admit that I had never realised how much ones nose moves at every twitch/eyebrow movement/smile & I have to admit I fear the need to sneeze!
Thankfully I was not prohibited from a delightful hack in the woods on Kika while PL rode Nancy. We even discovered a new trail that I had never taken before which also branched off with other new trails which I hope to venture onto soon 😊

Lest we forget her adorkable
 face without mask

All going well with the beak tomorrow I hope to play with Kika's transitions in the arena while PL has a lesson with Nancy. Having been inspired last week by a Horse Listening canter article I read about using transitions to improve the horse's gaits. Neither the horses nor my fitness would be up to the 10 transitions suggested, so I shall aim for 5 between halt-walk/walk-halt, walk-trot/trot-walk & trot-canter/canter-trot. We didn't quite manage 5 in each direction last weekend as it was super hot, but those we did manage were a mixed bag of nice & fussy. In saying this however, i did notice that my concentrating on setting us up better for the transitions meant little to no flailing in our canter work. Here's hoping I can improve upon them tomorrow - funny how paying more attention facilitates such things 😆

Stellar Surprise

My family are awesome and sneakily organised for my aunt/godmother/Nancy's breeder, her husband & kids to come for a surprise visit for a week. I had hoped to sneak in a lesson with my aunt, but we got up to too many other things. We did go for a tour of the stables & they loved having a poke around getting ideas and seeing the two monsters again.

Fancy Nancy this evo

Also surprising is that I have managed to log more saddle time recently. The family arrived Monday evening and surprised me at the stable as i was finishing up with the girls. Nancy had spun on the walker for her day off while i lunged Kika in the pessoa.
Tuesday, PL rode Nancy while Kika & I got reacquainted under saddle. She was grand but looky at a drip falling from the ceiling 😬 which lead to some shenanigans when we cantered - but one dolphin leap and no flailing is a win in my book as she pretty much settled down again after if you discount her speedy gonzalez/road-runner canter on the next transition...but I chalked that up the shenanigans hangover. Thursday my cousin & I went for a delightful stroll in the woods - see pic below, before a family outing to the WWI battlefield memorial @ Verdun in France

Tandem trail riding ftw

PL rode Saturday & the barefoot trimmer came to tidy up their tootsies. Sunday I had hoped to sneak in a lesson on each from my aunt but it wasn't to be as we toured the city and then watched the Olympics SJ so still horsey *ahem* 🙊
Monday PL had her lesson as it was a bank holiday here so yay long weekend & she rode again Tuesday evening. Wednesday was a day off for Nancy & she repaid my generosity by breaking out of the field and proving my suspicions right about the lack of power from the fencer. 😲
Luckily a fellow boarder happened to be walking her dogs, witnessed her bid to escape & called the stable hands to help fix everything back up. This is after, Monday evening when the pair of them busted the fencing on the "winter" turnout which i actually also use in the summer afternoons to offer them shade on hot days as their summer turnout field has none.

Worse photo of me, but Nancy is still cute

PL had to cancel this evening so I got to have a go and see if I could put some of my Olympic dressage inspiration to good use...the answer was sorta 😶
The two nice photos shared in this post were taken at the start of my spin so it started off nicely but then we hit a bit of a rocky patch after some canter. This is not unusual and I was perhaps a little mean starting with canter work on her harder side while she had enough pep in her step/energy to somewhat carry herself. The arena had also been recently watered; I'm not sure how I keep managing to ride in it soggy at the moment. It is deff not Nancy's favourite type of footing, but after plenty walk breaks and mini-circles to re-engage Nancy's brain at the trot we finished with some lovely floaty trot followed by a stroll and a catch up chat with a friend around the property 😈

Mute Monday - Mini Monster No More

Nancy's "fear" of the Mini-Monster is
hopefully no more now that they are buddies

Don't Eat the Fern

"Don't eat the Fern" was one of the more common refrains I used while hacking Kika in the woods on Saturday. PL took Nancy and the four of us went for an hour and a half stroll along trails i hadn't been on for quite a while.

An adventure of sorts as it would take me till each next bend to remember if I'd been on that trail before. However I figured so long as we kept turning in the same direction we'd eventually get back to something I recognised. #mapgoals
I obvs inspiring confidence hacking options with moi 😈

First casualty
#RIPearflap

Failed artsy sunset pic