Friday, November 20, 2009

I wanted to ride.

After a pretty rough week, between work and my accident in El Paso (I'm completely fine - all that trotting, no doubt), I had carved out a pocket of time for today.

Then there was this.


and this.


That's us, in the yellow. Sigh.

So I decided to at least visit my horses. Brushing, rubbing and just plain being. When I got to the barn there was a brief parting of the clouds, so much so that I contemplated going on a ride. But it did look only like the briefest of reprieves.

Instead we went on a walk.

Cibolo was at the fence, ready. Actually everyone was, but the gelding melted away while Cibolo waited for me to push the others around.

I've been trying to do the crazy walk with Cibolo that Kate describes. We're not doing it at liberty, but I find that Cibolo seems to follow my lead pretty well. He matches me step for step on backing, moving forward, but is a little slow picking up the trot. We worked on it a bit, then walked through the woods. We trotted through a few places, I pulled up some branches, we plowed through others.

I really do like walking with a well behaved horse - one that leads well, which Cibolo does. It's fun to have this huge dog running with you, skidding to a stop when you stop, backing up if you do, turning on a dime.

We got back to the barn before the rain started again, the blue veiled again by gray. Cibolo backed a step for his cookie and maintained his manners throughout.

It's supposed to be a pretty day tomorrow...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like fun! And you got some work done even if you couldn't ride - that's inspiring to me!

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Oh to see where you live on a map! You live in a beautiful area. We've driven through that area and did some letterboxing in Kerrville on the way to Houston. I love that Texas Hill Country and had even considered moving there one day. Lucky you!

And even with the rain you are lucky. We only got 3 good rains all year. We are so dry and dusty here and had no real grass for the horses to graze on at all.

I enjoy playing and walking with Baby Doll at Liberty, too. When I stop, she stops and then we circle all around the trees and walk up and down together. I ask her to stop and not move until I do. It was a challenge for her at first at dinner and breakfast because I'd have her stop and go and stand all the way up to the barn as we walked together.

And everytime she would go on without me, I would turn around and walk back down the hill to the paddock gate. Then she would stare at me, take a deep sigh and walk back to the gate with me. And we would start over again. After the 4th time, she got it down and never moved a muscle until I did or until I told her to. I was so proud of her! And it is so fun!

I've not yet tried the trotting as my knee would probably buckle when I land on it. She's so lazy, though, I bet it would be a challenge. hehe!


~Lisa

Unknown said...

Lisa - Your ground work with Baby Doll sure has come a long way!