Passing Time

 Black Friday?  I'd rather be riding...and I was.

Right now we're in that weird transient phase of moving.  Half here, half gone.  Most of our stuff on a truck in NJ, some of our stuff here.  One horse in NJ, two still here.  I'm ready to load the girls up and be on our way to our new home.  It still hasn't sunk in 100% that the ponies will be at home.  I can't wait.  Can. Not. Wait.  I am the self care boarder that is at the barn once and most days twice a day.  I'm the person that doesn't board because I want a babysitter for my horses.  Taking care of them is part of the fun of owning them, to me.

That's right the government pays for the round bale feeder, jump rails, etc... to get packed up too.  They just don't pay for the actual transportation of the horses.  That all comes out of our pocket every move.

The girls have been acting slightly oblivious to Wes being gone.  Little things let me know they DO care though.  The other day I had Mochi out and I heard Klein whinny!  That's rare.  She hardly speaks, so for her to care where Mochi was while she's at home is notable.  If Wes was there with her, she wouldn't care.

 

 Yeah...she pretends she's Ms. Independent but deep down, she loves him.  She is one of those tough girls that tries her hardest to never let anyone see her upset.

 

 Mochs and her bodyguard.

Meanwhile, Wes has adjusted to the daily routine in NJ.  He is already whinnying to his one friend when he leaves to haul out somewhere.  Luckily he has his other new buddy to hang out with.

 His morning roll.

 Enjoying cool fall mornings.

 Klein and I have been working on flying changes and enjoying some dressage work and hacks.  We schooled some 3' and 3'3" this week too.

 Working on flying changes, we definitely have the lift.

 

 Changing to the left behind.

Flying changes are something that we have never been consistent with, for no particular reason.  One of my new goals is to work on them consistently and cement them in.  No more intermittently working on them.  Klein's good to the right, but to the left we still have some trouble with.  She'll change up front, but not behind.  We have been doing some other exercises to help us.  Simple changes through the walk, changes over ground rails, etc...

On the dressage front Klein has just been KILLING it lately.  She is getting solid on her haunches in, building a higher degree of collection at the canter, becoming more sensitive to being ridden more from my core.  It's awesome.  What happened?  We used to dislike this stuff so much, now we have a blast.  We went out for a hack the other day down a dirt road and started off with leg yields back and forth across the road at the sitting and rising trot, then we were doing shoulder in to canter departs, working on our canter walk, working on our travers, and collecting and extending our canter as we went.  This was all down a dirt road.

And as always, 3' is easy fun stuff for her.

Today we went on a hack, because who cares about Black Friday.  That's a bunch of craziness that I want no part of.  I did check out all the online sales at SmartPak, Dover, etc... but I was pretty disappointed.  I have some particular items I'm about to buy right now and not a single one had a good sale going on for it at any store.

We hacked to the lake and galloped around it, scaring all the gators we could back into the water.

 This is what we have to cross to get to the lake:

 

This is how we come in from rides. I drop the reins and we just stroll home.

Always a good time on my Heart Horse, no matter what we do.