Weekend Goals

I've been silent lately - well, not really, but my fingers haven't been talking much! It's been hectic around here, and I just haven't had much horse time. Other than the basics like getting grain dropped off and trying to track down the farrier (note to self: must call him AGAIN!!!), I've been reduced to patting noses and counting legs. Nice, but not terribly satisfying, that's for sure. :(

They've sure gotten a lot furrier in the past week. (New fuzzy pictures soon, promise!) We had rain Saturday and Sunday - a nice warm fall rain, which brought the grass back just a bit. They look good.

Since it doesn't look like I'll have much time the remainder of the weekdays, either, here are my weekend goals:

• Fencing
• we took the remains of the alley fence down earlier this summer - now it needs to be replaced.
• divide the hill pasture back into two pieces - that fence the deer took out last winter, and it needs to get put up, with new gates
• Riding
• I will not get sidetracked. I will actually take the saddles out of the car and ride Sunny!
• If it's nice I'd love to actually get a short trail ride in with T
• Tack cleaning
• Fall round of saddle soap for all the tack, even the stuff I haven't been using

That's enough to start. I suspect the fencing will, as always, turn into a bigger job than it's supposed to be.

Visitors! And a plan for the week

I'm a horrible correspondent. I like to write, don't get me wrong; I've started more letters to various people than they'll ever know. I'm just slow to finish and usually fail to send them. Cards for birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations are routinely belated.

Since I also loathe, detest, and despise calling people (although I love it when they call me...), I'm just not very good at staying in touch.

Which brings me to the visitors - a couple of weeks back I had a letter out of the blue from a very good correspondent, who also happens to be my college roommate. She writes lovely long letters, which I read, enjoy, and to which, with great frequency I generally fail to respond (guilt, guilt, guilt!).

Long story short, she and her family are coming to SD, and stopped in for a visit. We're just on the far western edge of their loop. They're doing a Laura Ingalls Wilder-tracking trip - how cool is that! In the process they've covered multiple states (all the way from Massachusetts).

They camped (in a covered wagon) at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet - their three girls, who are absolutely adorable - were fascinated by the giant Percheron teams, the calf, the sod houses, and especially taken with the kittens :) M, their middle daughter, starts school this year. She was thrilled with prairie school, ringing the bell, slates, and carrying your lunch in a syrup pail. As her mom said, the first day of modern school may be something of a shock, but hopefully not a disappointment!

After joining us in Mitchell for a supper and a quick (and damp) visit to the (World Famous!) Corn Palace in the pouring rain, they headed back for camp and one more day in South Dakota before trekking homeward. It was wonderful to see them, and I've renewed my vow to be better about writing.

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Tonight the farrier comes back to finish the four untrimmed horses. Hopefully, he'll be on time and I can get a ride or two in post-trimming. Here are my goals for the rest of the week:

• Sunny: continue working across ground poles, and on circles & bending & transitions
  
• Lace & Pennie: clean up manes & thorough grooming, and some good pictures
• Riding
  
• Star: thorough grooming & some good pictures.
  
• Thunder & Amyra: "post time" saddled & groundwork

Ideally, I'll actually accomplish most of that!

Sometimes you have to gamble

Sunny is my eight year old half-Arabian gelding. That's him pictured off to the left as an hours-old foal a few short years back.

I've been wanting to try this whole blogging thing for a while, and am finally getting around to it. I was inspired by FuglyHorseoftheDay and her It's a Really Long Way Down, which I highly recommend checking out, by the way.

Anyway, in the last few years I've been having fun working with the horses at a friend's farm. She refers to me as her horse "handler" -- my term since I'm definitely not knowledgeable enough to call my self a trainer! She breeds on a very small, selective basis (1 or 2 foals a year) I do groundwork with her foals & young stock.

I bought Sunny from her as a two-year-0ld. It had been a long time since I'd owned a horse -- over 10 years. I hadn't even ridden much since scrimping and saving for lessons on school horses in college. (More on that later.)

At any rate, I tend to get sucked in to doing more of what comes easy - groundwork - and less of what I approach with more than slight trepidation: riding. This year I'm setting a couple of goals, and this blog will document the process of (hopefully!) achieving them.

Goals: 1) Ride more.
2) Worry less.