Switcheroo

2024 has been a ROUGH year.  Our family was thrown into the deep end again when my Uncle suddenly died and my Aunt had to be admitted to the hospital for heart issues.  Cue a massive scramble across the country, and once again feeling like my feet were swept out from under me.  I cannot write more about that, but suffice to say, I needed the ponies more than ever.  And one of them showed up and one of them took advantage, and no it was not who you think.

Lew has been an absolute angel.  He is back into "full" work: 2 in hand days and 2 or 3 days of riding a week.  He is getting to be SUCH a dude. He still warms up really stiff and almost lame - it is entirely in his neck and shoulders.  He is just SO stiff that when he starts off making the 20 meter turns in our little arena it takes a bit to loosen the neck.  After a few stretchy circles in walk and trot, he is 100% sound.  Every ride this takes less and less time.

We also are back to walk, trot, and canter.  PLUS we are adding in cross rails and trot poles.  And my goodness is Lew showing up for me!  We had a light bulb moment this week when I figured out that posting the trot right now makes him very worried - if you go into a half seat he thinks he is supposed to canter.  If I sit deep and just float my hands at him, he trots off super soft and starts to reach down and round.

We are also trotting cross rails.  He is SUPER about it - not careful, but not bothered about it and super forward thinking.

MEANWHILE....

Uno has been an absolute SPAZZ.  He hacks out on the buckle like a champ, but the second you start faster work he is LIT.  It is super balanced and nice, but dang man I cannot ride this correctly at the moment. Also, the neighbor moved freshly weaned baby calves in.  Uno has been super distracted.  He gave me a really dirty stop at an oxer this weekend, but I honestly think he was just staring at the cows and didn't even register the jump.  Yesterday we jumped again - cross rails, gates, and verticals, and it took me 4 or 5 jumps to be able to see anything from his new forward movement without holding.

I know that he is just feeling well and always gets spicy this time of year as the cool weather comes around and he finally has the energy to just GO GO GO.

It is also DRY AF - we need 7 inches of rain this month to get out of drought status. I do not know if it will rain, but to be honest I feel like we are just waiting for it, physically and spiritually.  We need a good refreshing hard rain to bring stuff back to life.