I have been a bad blogger, totally and completely failing to update about anything.  Rather than try to do coherent, well-written posts about the past month, it’s all going here or it will never get written.

July: burnout
Fetti and I had a spectacular May/June where we worked on stuff and rode hard and conditioned.  We kept that up through the first week in July.  When it was determined she wasn’t going to Fireworks, we rather abruptly quit with the Serious Work.
– She felt burned out.  I didn’t have my high-energy, enthusiastic trail pony.
– We were fighting about forwards in a big way.
– I had concerns about saddles.
– Friends were off work and available to do mellow trail rides with a new horse.
Two weeks of generally pokey rides, no big trots, some turnout.  She was content to go slow.

So.. slow it was.  We walked a lot.  We jogged some.  I did a fair bit of bareback riding and stayed tuned in to how she felt (answer: content to follow the new young-pony on trails).

Toward the end of July, I hopped on for what I had come to think would be a polite, mellow walk around the barn.  Instead, she had a big walk and leaped/flounced her way into the trot.  Vacation was over.  She was ready to go back to work.

Oh, but there was one eventful ride.

You will have to embiggen and maybe squint to find it, but there is a helicopter in this photo.

Eep.

Pony was Not Impressed: this was not our usual helicopter that lands-sticks around-leaves.  There were, evidently, two, and they were landing-leaving-landing-leaving-repeat perhaps indefinitely.

I evaluated the (rapidly dwindling) number of cookies I had, and the (not very rapidly dwindling) amount of helicopter we were likely to continue to encounter, and we politely turned around and walked our way back home.

Upcoming posts:
– saddle fitting and the results
– product review: leather cleaner/conditioner