Start with Walk

We beat the heat this morning.  Brett and I were both awake at 5:30.  We were mounted and in the arena at 6:30.  The sun wasn't yet up and it was a very comfortable 58 degrees.  I planned to just walk Lucy.  I had set up some of my cavelletti blocks to mark out a small dressage court.  If I do enter one of the Interdressage online shows, I will need to ride my test in a small court.

Mufasa took one look at the blocks and snorted.
I'm not going near those things.  They weren't here last time we rode and they probably harbor horse-eating monsters.  Uh-uh.  No way.
Brett worked with Mufasa in the lower end of the arena, far away from the blocks, turning this way and that so Mufasa couldn't brace.  He eventually settled, relaxed and went past the blocks.

Meanwhile, Lucy (who was a jumper in her youth) was not impressed or even interested in the blocks.  We wove through them, doing our version of a slalom pattern.  We worked on some rein back, some leg yield and lots of circles.  All at the walk.  She became supple, relaxed and through.  Her walk got bigger and any hint of hiccup in that front left completely disappeared.

What the heck, I thought, let's try trot and ride through the test.

Lucy:  I thought you'd never ask.  Enough of this walk stuff already.  Let's move.

We headed down center line and rode the test.  She was awesome.  Not perfect, mind you, but awesome nonetheless.  Her trot was forward and through; her canter transitions were smooth as silk; we even got a few strides of extended trot on the diagonal before we came back up center line for our final halt.

And then we did chores.  The sun was up by then and it was warm, but I had a big grin on my face as I flung manure into the muck cart.

Too Hot to Move

This morning, Brett and I were a bit late getting up.  I am exhausted by the end of the work week and I just couldn't wake up.  It was 7am by the time we got ourselves outside and started chores.  The sun was already up and beating down on the pastures while we mucked.  The air was very still and moist.  We were sweaty by the time we finished up at 8:00.  Our plan was to go to the farmers market and run other errands in the morning.  We would ride in the afternoon when their was a breeze.

Or not.  The afternoon temperature climbed past 90 and the breeze never came.  Brett stayed in the house where it was cool.  I refused to go inside.  I am stuck in an office all week and the last thing I wanted was to be inside.  So, I sat outside on the front porch, next to a citronella candle burning and smoking away the mosquitos, sweating.  We never did ride.

Our injured chicken has recovered although her neck feathers still look pretty mangy.

It's hard to get a picture of her; she is always on the move.

I decided to let the chickens out so they could scratch and peck at the ground, eat grass, and be too busy to pick on little Amelia or any of the other hens.

They started out hugging the chicken run for safety.

Then they discovered the cool dirt next to the stream bed and dug themselves in.

Lord Byron, our Blue Andalusian rooster, stood guard.  Isn't he gorgeous?