Sunday, May 16

Today I am grateful for:

A truly beautiful early-summer feeling day. The poplars are leafing out in fresh, "spring green" leaves, the willows are blossoming and all kinds of bees are clustering around, and the smell in the air is wonderful.

I went to see River. First I had to hose his legs off because he's supposed to have support boots, but I can't put them on if his legs are all muddy. There is a wash bay at this barn, and he likes it better than the one at the other barn (it was a closed in room, and very claustrophobic). He was fine with having his legs washed.

We worked on the outdoor obstacles, and then I asked R if it was okay to ride in his pasture, and she said yes. River's pasture (that he shares with other horses) isn't huge, maybe ten acres, but it has some bush, and some trails through the bush. As I've said, it's not epic in terms of a big trail ride, but it was still pretty nice. There was one good stretch of trail in the bush that at least gave the feel of some of the trail rides I used to go on as a teen on the farm I grew up on. He initially wanted to go to his friends, but he settled down and it was nice. We also found a flat spot on the pasture to do some circle work at trot/canter, and one corner of the pasture has a good hill that we went up and down a few times because it makes him use himself properly (gets him to use his butt).

This is pretty much the first time I ridden him on a trail by ourselves. I did a few trail rides at the other place with other people (and they were longer rides). It was nice.

I took the goats and ponies out into their pasture for a while, right at dusk.

I came home and watched "Battleship", a movie that got a bad rap but was actually decent enough.