I've been busy

I'd say I've been busy doing all sorts of school-related things, but I really haven't. I've had this really strange thing called a social life lately, and it's kept me from a nice quiet night at home for almost a full week now! It's been great catching up with friends, but my house is a disaster and I need to study.


Of course, I've made time for Jasper. We've been working on a few things in the arena, and I've convinced Lacy to condition her little QH gelding for a 25 miler in April. We've done two outings on the roads leaving from the barn, and Jasper isn't as well-behaved when he's being asked to leave home. There've been no incidents, however--he's just fresh and more than willing to go real fast when we start heading back. The first day he was a rocket--he'd had three days off and the sun was shining and he wanted to GO! We did a very quick five miles, and I'm sure he could have done another five without much of a problem at all. In fact, he hardly broke a sweat. I, on the other hand, broke quite a sweat trying to keep him from running us to Montana.

We're doing a little schooling horse show next weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't decided what classes we'll enter, but probably a trail class and then some English pleasure type classes for fun. We're just doing it for the exposure and the fun of it, and so I don't have any high hopes for anything. Today in the arena we worked on backing around a corner and sidepassing to open a gate (which I've heard they want you to do in the trail classes). We had a great time, and it was a nice change of routine for us. Afterwards, I pulled off his saddle and bridle and put on a rope sidepull that I'd bought for Cricket a year ago. I had been talking to Lacy the night before about switching him to a bitless, and she thought he'd take to it really well. I had another one of those dorky girl moments riding my horse around in the arena bareback and bitless, but he did really great and understood exactly what I wanted immediately. No resistance whatsoever, and he really seemed to enjoy the change. We probably spent about 10-15 minutes walking around and bending and doing all sorts of fancy footwork before I called it a day and hugged my horse and hitched my legs up on his rump while he just stood there dozing. I love this horse!


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In other exciting news, my friend Kristen has decided to buy a horse! A woman had emailed about wanting to find a good home for her horse, and we went up to Spokane to take a look at her. I had accidentally woken up at 6 am on Saturday, and so started looking around on Craigslist and Dreamhorse for other inexpensive horses for her to look at. I found a cutie patootie chestnut mare and a couple of so-so looking paints (she's into the stock breeds), but only the chestnut mare's owner got back to us. The "free" mare, it turned out, had been foundering for the past three months or so, and the owner had NO IDEA. Kristen was a little disappointed, but we held out for the chestnut mare. It turned out she was perfect for Kristen, and we go up on Friday to pick her up! I'm so excited for her!

Kristen and "Olive" on her first ride!