Adventures Await

This week I'm gearing up for some time away from TC. I basically go to this conference, come home, stay home for two nights, and then I leave again for vacation. So it's kind of a mad rush to get everything ready to leave.

Really wish it was this kind of an adventure

Tuesday morning, TC wasn't having it, which is fine. For the most part I ride two or three days in a row before a day off and Tuesday was day number four. So TC was like really. Again, he's not like that often, so I turned our ride into a tack walk with Peony and Spot, which was super fun! Peony has been working crazy hours so I haven't seen her much. It was fun to catch up and just ride our horses together!

Wednesday morning, we had to actually do real work. He felt super good. A bit quiet, but happy to get in front of my leg when asked. We mostly just hung out in those gaits for a while, riding serpentines and circles and all that.

We played a little bit with the half steps. At this point anything resembling them gets scratches. Some days he's better at it than others, and Wednesday wasn't bad at all!

Switch our expressions in this picture and that's how we both
feel about half steps

Thursday he was again feeling a bit blah like he was on Tuesday. I think that being itchy and sweaty all the time is really getting to him. I wish I could hose him off in the middle of the day on those hot days because by the time I get to him the next morning, he's all crusty and gross. Thursday morning was especially bad in the itchy department, it was HOT on Wednesday.

He's still a good egg so even though I could tell he wasn't in it, he still mostly tried. My backline was super sore from my new gym routine and that taught me a valuable lesson- I can't ride this horse well without my backline on! It's like the backline keeps his energy from oozing everywhere, so even though I felt like he was generating a lot of energy, it didn't have a lot of direction. That got both of us a little frustrated. But we still got some great work. I think he'll appreciate having a bit of a light week when I'm gone. I don't want him to lose his enthusiasm.

I think TC needs this view again too

This morning he just got a walk because I've been sleeping like crap and was really tired + had to go to work early. He'll get ridden Saturday and Sunday and then I'm off on trip number one! The first one is short so TC will just get one day off. I think he'll appreciate it. I have some queued posts so I can take a short time off of the blog too.