Awesome Immy

Phew! It has been a crazy, crazy month. I am tying up the last loose ends of my schoolwork, my practicum in Wisconsin has come and gone (yes, it was really, really snowy and freezing cold), and things are slowly making the move back to a normal pace. I should be fully complete with my schoolwork by the end of the weekend (I hope)... it has been a very long 2 years but I am finally at the end!
The mares had most of the past two weeks off - I was simply too busy with my practicum and schoolwork and a million clients to do. I lunged Immy here and there, and sat on P once or twice, but it was all I had time for. Thankfully, I flew back from WI on Sunday night, and the girls were put back to the grindstone on Monday. 

Immy is definitely starting to get the idea of the sidereins:

She is stronger going to the left than to the right, but she is gradually releasing on the right side. It just takes time and muscle memory! 

And she's starting to look pretty sexy if I do say so myself!

Spring is finally showing up in our neck of the woods (sheesh it took long enough), but we still are having a few nights here and there that are way, way cold. Most of the time the girls have been naked, but there have been some nights that were outrageously cold. I was complaining to S that all of my blankets are a smidge too big for her, but that I hadn't gone out to get new ones because I was having a hard time justifying buying a whole new set of blankets when they were only just a little too big. She and her hubs own a mobile tack store, so she pawed through her used blankets and found a 76 (all of mine are 78s). The problem? It was a closed front blanket. How in the hell was I going to get THAT on?

As it turned out, it wasn't hard at all.

She put her head up and backed into P at first, but stopped and let me toss it on. Once it was on, she just looked at me like, "oh... well, okay." It has been on and off a few times since then, and there was no more muss or fuss about it. 

She says, "lady give me more cookies!!" The closed front blanket isn't waterproof, so I tossed a sheet on over it, just in case. Also, it was in the 20's that night... in March, in Texas. I know.

Tuesday night was date night with Mo, seeing as I've hardly seen him in the past two weeks (and we needed to install our new washer and dryer, how romantic!), so the mares had it off again. On Wednesday, I got a text from S saying that her auntie and uncle were in town, and that her auntie wanted to go with us on a trail ride. She asked if she could ride P, and then her auntie could ride Rue and I could ride Immy. Immy has only been out on the trails once before, and that was when S ponied the two of us off of Rue.... it didn't go very well, seeing as Immy was way too hyped up to mentally deal with it.
I wasn't sure that it would go well, but S is a good/bad influence on me, and gave me her usual "just do it! She's a different horse now, she'll be fine!" So, we went for it. I had S pony us off of P to start, but once we had to go through out first gate, I had her let us go for a minute to see what would happen. To my great surprise, Immy marched right to the lead, and off we went. She never spooked, never faltered, never hesitated  and never gave any indication that she hadn't done this a million times before.

Look at her leading!!!

I look kind of like a goose with my leg sticking out in front of me (being defensive, and also partly crippled), but as you can tell I was pretty damn pleased with her. She even crossed a little stream! 

To top it all off, back at the barn she solidly walk-trot-cantered for me... what a champ!!!!!!

She was understandably tired yesterday, so we settled for a nice lunge in sidereins. She actually stopped outright and braced outwards against the sidereins at one point, likely because she was tired, but a little encouragement sent her back forward again. We kept it short and sweet - no need to push. A little bit of stretching and forward movement did her some good, and we ended with a nice full-body rub down and a whole lot of cookies. It's funny, I'm not normally a cookie-giver, but I am pretty liberal with the snacks when it comes to Immy. When treated too much, P turns into a giant butthead, so I don't give her more than the occasional cookie, but with Immy it helps to relax her and get her thinking positive thoughts about everything that is happening to and around her. When she's not in the mood to play with me, she clamps her mouth shut and won't take anything I offer her, so any time she readily takes a cookie from me is a good day in my book.

Today was swim day! I wanted to ride, but I figured that it would be good for her to loosen up her body in the pool.

She's really putting on some muscle, is she not? She is looking awesome!!!


I am exhausted, and there is more to write about... but not tonight. Tomorrow I have a huge announcement to make.... stay tuned for that!!!