Ramblings

Things are continuing on here as per normal. I'm currently reading Equine Fitness, as recommended in Nicole Sharpe's excellent post about horsey fitness. Ms Bridget is the most naturally unfit horse I've been around in quite some time so I definitely need all the help I can get. So far, I quite like the book - it's a nice blend of (not over the top science) and good schooling exercises. I have a few other equine fitness/nutrition books, but they are geared to more advanced horses - this current book is good in that there's a starting place for even the Bridgets of the world. I hope to have a proper fitness plan written up for her shortly, to accompany my previous post about my own fitness goals for 2015. Ginger is super active and spends her free days running around the pasture while Bridget watches. She's permanently fitter than everyone, so she's just going to have to wait for us all to catch up!

Random from earlier in the week to break up the text wall

Riding wise, we put in two more 2 hour trail rides with friends, one on Thursday, and one Saturday. A quick Google Maps estimate shows we're covering about 15km/ 9 miles, telling the story of lots of long slow miles. The immediate area around the barn is actually fairly level elevation wise, but the trails this time of year are full of mud holes and running water, not to mention downed trees and the ever present tree roots to trip over! Slow and surefooted is the name of the game. I seem to be permanently wearing bruises from where we don't quite fit between trees!  In the summer, the trails improve a lot, but I think I'd need to trailer to a different area to able to accumulate some faster miles outside of the road edges or ring. At any rate, I'm feeling pretty happy to be able to ride outside all winter, and priveleged to have good company to chat with (and good ponies to ride! Seriously there are NO interesting/noteworthy happenings on our rides pony wise - they both just went out and did their jobs without any fuss or drama.)

I swear we weren't drinking. I can't seem to take a non blurry camera phone picture when it's raining!

Two giant fir trees. Apparently these are aged at around 1000 years old, which is a bit mind boggling..Even though we live on the west coast and the stereotype is giant trees, oceans, and mountains, this size of tree is pretty rare (outside of parks) in our area - sadly they were almost all logged back in the 1920's due to our proximity to the big sawmills. These guys escaped somehow and it's pretty special to be able to ride near them.

It's been a few weeks since I had a lesson and I'm itching to get back to some more ring work. On one of our rides, my trail riding friends were discussing how boring ring work is, especially with babies, and I was a bit surprised. I actually really enjoy the whole process and find it super interesting. I can easily get so absorbed in at I lose track of time. It's a balancing act, I guess. I did miss the trails when I was in Alberta, although not as much as I currently miss having a giant ring and lessons twice a week! Hopefully coach S will have weekends free again soon. For now, I'm going to set up some of the exercises outlined in the book I mentioned and play with those, along with that pesky right lead canter of Bridget's.

Our clinic this month has been put off until next month, but I'm going to try to look at it as a blessing in disguise. Maybe by next month we'll be ready to throw in a proper jumping lesson on the final day rather than only dressage all weekend.

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