Addy-Tude

After our wonderful success last weekend at O's inaugural dressage show, we've had another good week of work mixed with some days off. She got Monday and Tuesday off, quite rightfully (not that she worked hard on Sunday at ALL, it was easy-peasy compared to her usual, but I did feel that she deserved it anyway!), and then she was back to work on Wednesday with a nice long hack. It was dark by the time we got back.... there is part of me that wants to gripe about that, but it means that cooler weather is coming, so I guess I can't whine too much!!

It was back to work on Thursday with a very light dressage school. Our flattest area on the property, which I use for my flatwork, is unfortunately also currently full of rocks, all of which seems to have sprouted after our last massive rainstorm. It's a bit tricky to do anything serious up there because of this, and I didn't put O's boots on, which was not a smart thing to do. We got some very productive walk and trot work done, but that was about it, and I called it a day after a short but very successful session. 

O also made a new best friend....

S's little niece was there visiting, in all her precious cowgirl attire. She is 4 and she was in loooooove with O. O has really become super gentle and quiet since I've had her, and was more than willing to follow the tiny little human around wherever she wanted to go. 

Kind of reminds me of another little mare and her pet kid...

Gogo and my old boss' little 6 year old son, who did in fact carry his Hobbes around with him everywhere. Gogo doted on him and followed his every move... seriously adorable.

Today was supposed to be another easy hack, just because I was enjoying the cooler weather so much and wanted nothing more than to just toodle around, but that didn't work out quite the way I was hoping. We set off down the road, but O gave me a little bit of a sour face when we turned away from the barn. It wasn't any outright misbehavior, but she had her ears pulled into that not-quite-back-but-not-quite-relaxed position, just a little bit of attitude about having to leave the barn. I gave her a minute to change her attitude and legged her on, but when she continued to be just a little balky and crabby about leaving (not doing anything wrong, just moving out a little stickily and turning her head from side to side like she'd really rather turn around and go back home), I booted her onward and we took off down the road. The entire reason I got this mare for so darn cheap was because of her totally unchecked bossy attitude, so anytime she gives me ANY grief of ANY sort, no matter how subtle, I put my foot down. We had a decent workout after that, trotting and cantering back and forth up the road, but I never really felt like her attitude was totally 'with it', if you know what I mean. She was obedient and didn't do anything wrong per se, she just wasn't particularly amused by it. Sorry mare, we were supposed to just go for a nice walk, you know!

Tomorrow, she gets the day off..... BECAUSE OF THE AECs!!!!!!!!!! That's right, they are right here in Tyler, TX for the next three years! It's about a 2.5 hour drive from here.... I'm going up for the whole day to spectate and have fun and shop and enjoy myself!!!!! The goal for next year... COMPETE in it! 

I also have some news.... some very big news. Some very very big news! Some of you guessed on Facebook already.... but.... I am going to make you wait for the official announcement until next week when it is official! Let's just say that finding little cheapie fixerup projects might really be my calling...