Busy Weekend

We left off where the whole lot of us were feeling rather sorry for ourselves.

I had so much planned for the weekend, but felt kind of discouraged, and also have felt like I've been getting a cold for the last couple of weeks. Nothing beyond being tired and having a sore throat is actually materializing though, so for now I am winning.

And so, I powered through and got a surprising amount of things done! I had volunteered to set up version 2.0 of our spooky trail course, so I did that Friday night. The course ended up looking so fun I brought Bridget down to explore (he's currently in a small paddock, so I think walks are better than standing around, possible sore back or not).

Construction zone - ditch ahead :)

Since life is not perfect, she didn't miraculously feel better since a couple of days before and still felt a bit off at the trot. She also told me the saddle is not fitting well anymore. Story of my life with saddles and this pony. She's lost muscle over her topline, so it's an expected thing that the saddle would need adjusting and something I've been kind of avoiding by using shims as it's quite difficult to find someone locally to do it. If you recall, last time I had to send it away and it took a few months, by which point she'd changed shape again. On the plus side, I would feel bad, but it would be a simple fix if her recent soreness was due to her saddle needing an adjustment.

So I took the saddle off and popped on bareback and we walked around the trail course, because she seemed quite happy to wander around sans saddle. I trotted a little and she seemed content, but quite honestly I can't sit a giant cob trot bareback well enough to be fair to her so I did a lot of slower trotting and tiny bit of canter and went back to toodling around. Not a definitive lameness test by any means, but encouraging that she felt better. Don't worry, though, the vet is still scheduled to investigate further!

Car wash!

Sophie got a bit of a ground work lesson on Friday - she's learning to move body around as I would expect her to once she's under saddle. She finds her left shoulder quite difficult to yield. She's good about it though - not trying to avoid it by running through me or getting in my space at all, just sort of "Ugh. I am stuck and I am sure that shoulder doesn't move like you say it does" :) She's getting the hang of it though, it's just she needs some time to ponder the logistics on moving that one shoulder, where her hindquarters, sidepassing, and other shoulder are pretty reliable from the ground.

Their pasture is beautiful

Sunday, we went for a walk just up to the end of the road and back. I have no idea what Sophie's been up to (by all accounts from the barn owner and manager she's been an angel), but another boarder seemed slightly horrified I was going to lead her anywhere, let alone on the road. I think they had it in their mind she's half feral or something? They were asking a bunch of questions re: her history and training and doing that thing where they ask the same question again phrased just a little differently, like they think you're being dishonest or something and will give them the answer they want to hear ("OK, you found me out! She's a totally wild baby and is REALLY dangerous!") if they just ask enough. So, Sophie made me proud by coming to me when I called her and quietly heading out for our walk like the good girl she is, not even answering when the other horses called for her. (I was a tiny bit frustrated by that point, so Sophie probably wisely knew that it was not the time for dramatics, lol )

Stopping for a snack. Calm down Sophie, you're crazy ;)

Our road adventure was actually really productive. We saw:

-A quad bike
-A dirt bike
-Some really barky dogs
-Cows
-Sheep
-Other horses
-A person on a bicycle
-A big diesel semi truck
-Recycling bins
-Kids on a trampoline

She obviously had to stop and look at some of the above, but proceeded on quite bravely. She was uncomfortable with some of it, but she's very forward thinking and trusting, which is nice. Since our return trip was nearly identical to the outgoing one, she got to see everything twice and was a rock star by the return journey. Not bad for an afternoon walk in the country!