The barn almost-flooded over the Monday holiday last week. I went in to work – I can’t just take off every time it looks like it might think about flooding! – and refreshed regularly. Looks OK. Looks OK. Hm, kinda wet. Hmmmm. Uh, roads are getting closed. Umm.. it would take me 2-3+ hours to get home on my *one viable route home* because *everything else is closed* and the river is at 20 feet and rising. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my friend and her family who went in and hauled out the ponies up to their house that evening yet again.  I didn’t bother trying to get home that night.  It was incredibly reassuring that even as I watched the flood gage, the ponies were safe on higher ground.  That naturally guaranteed that it did not flood.  Which – well – is fine by us.  That makes three flood-camp stays in two months, and one actual flood.

This is why I haven’t been blogging. I haven’t been home, it’s been dark and/or raining every time I’m at the barn, and it is SO FREAKING WET EVERYWHERE.  Fetti came back to the barn on Tuesday.  Thanks to some bizarre work scheduling combined with crazy traffic, I made it to the barn after dark and in the middle of a fluke rainy cell.  WTF, weather.  The rain quit, I patted her on the nose and fed her, and went home. It was dark on Thursday when I made it to the barn; detouring to the city in the midafternoon will do that.  I patted her on the nose, cleaned her stall, and went home.  At least it wasn’t raining.

It was sunny this past weekend weekend before last. Sunny. Imagine that!  I woke up Saturday morning feeling fabulous and it is the best I can remember feeling in a long time.  Energy!  Not much pain!  Sunshine!  I turned out Fetti and the “baby” pony in the evening.  They went absolutely flying around the arena, running laps without too much encouragement, bucking jumping leaping ZOOM.  Dark by the time they finished and I opted not to get on.

Sunday, however.. Sunday, I rode!  First a bunch of bareback laps at the walk, socializing.  Relaxed.  No stress from either of us, and a nice big walk.  I hopped back on a bit later and worked in the round pen: can we trot like a normal horse and stay mostly on the rail?  Yes!  Not only that, we could do it without substantial pushing from me after a few laps around to remind Fetti how this is supposed to work.  It was a soft and relaxed trot.  I felt confident enough to work on my posture: shoulders back, elbows at my side, seat with the horse, core engaged.  I tried to work on not nagging, but didn’t do very well at that.  More work is needed; it’s my problem, clearly, and that’s something I can focus on.

And then, to finish off the evening, I handed the reins to one of the teenagers at the barn and walked with them as they moseyed along bareback.  Impromptu bareback lesson and discussion of seat-legs-core-balance connection.  It was a good reminder of more things that I should focus on myself, things I know in theory but haven’t really worked on in practice.  It was also a testament to how far we’ve come.  We’re four months past Quicksilver now, we’ve done barely any work all winter, and I still trust her enough to put someone else on her bareback in the dark.  Good pony!

Other February tidbits:

Confetti continues to shred her bale bag. I continue to patch it. The cats continue to help.

Life is always improved after a pony ride. February always sucks. Here’s hoping March goes nicely and uneventfully.