Wednesday, July 31

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

That it cooled off in the evening. It was up to about 30 C today, which is pretty hot for me.

Lots of nice sleep.

I didn't do much before my riding lesson, just the usual animal care chores.

River was doing okay with the heat, but his fly bites were pretty bad. He's been wearing a fly mask, which helps.

We went straight to working on trailer loading in our lesson, and he did well with going in and ground halting inside, allowing me to step back and move the divider over. He was very calm and relaxed, and we loaded and unloaded him a few times.

Then we worked on another upcoming pattern, and we need to work on yielding his hind quarters for this one. It's getting better, and some help from R today gives us some homework.

Then we went into the arena, because the sky was looking sketchy. We worked on (while mounted) a trot departure, regular trot to extended trot, then back to a regular trot a few times. We used a bridle for this, and he did very well. His transitions are so good compared to a few years ago.

Then we worked on getting a more collected trot at liberty, with me on the ground. It means I have to do al lot of running too. Whew!

So, a good lesson, and it's nice to work on something a little different.

My Sweetie showed up at the barn as we were wrapping things up. I really appreciate his involvement in my work with River at the barn, and he's there enough that he has a relationship with the people there, R and her family and the other riders. It means a lot to me that he's involved in this part of my life, and that everyone there knows him too.

We headed home, let everyone out of their pastures while we watched an episode of "Justified", and then I went out and worked with Wonder and Dandy in the nice, cool, evening air. They did pretty well today.

Comments

[ratunderpaper]

33˚C here yesterday. In a way, I appreciate the intense atmosphere of this kind of heat - you can say quite certainly that it's a hot summer.

I asked the denizens if they were enjoying the weather, as they always pine for it in fall or winter. No, they are not really. "But it's better than -30˚." Oh, OK.

[gottawonder]

There's that. There is the need somewhere for us to experience some real heat for a while every summer.

There was one summer where I don't know if it hardly got above 15 C for most of it, and that did NOT feel right.

[ratunderpaper]

I think we have to get tired of heat and humidity before we're ready for an onslaught of cold temperatures.

[gottawonder]

We do usually get just "moderate" weather after a hot spell. Back to the low to mid 20's, which feels pretty nice after the heat. I think my favorite is that beautiful autumn weather where its's just on the edge of being crisp.

[ratunderpaper]

We had an unexpected day of torrential rain, so humidity is up around 95% again, though temperatures are back down in the mid-20s.

It's all good for the lawn I seeded, and all the bushes in front have been trimmed, nicely, without my hopping up and down anxiously. The watermelon vine might like the rain, too.