*phew* Busy!

I very much intended to post both Saturday and Sunday, but I ran out of time. My weekend has been very busy...

Saturday morning I went down to Birchbury to ride Grady. I met up with Missy, a girl a couple years older than me who events. (Almost everybody at the barn events... That must be why it's an eventing barn!) You can't go on the XC course to jump by yourself, so we decided that we'd go out together. She would pop over some jumps and I was just going to walk/trot/canter Grady around. He did pretty well and didn't spook at any of the jumps as we went by. I could tell that our lesson the previous day REALLY helped. I had more control over him and was able to push him past moments of potential naughtiness. I'm very proud of him.

Saturday afternoon I cleaned around the barn and deep cleaned my horse trailer. I scrubbed the walls and pulled out the mats and scrubbed the floors. I also took everything out of the tack compartment in the front and swept it out. Then I went out and did some arena maintenence with my dad.

That evening I rode Isis and something rather baffling occured. Isis, my wonder horse who automtically goes on the bit and is solidly training 2nd Level, wouldn't go on the bit. It was very, very odd. Her neck was down and her head was on the vertical, but she WOULD NOT stretch to the contact. It was a weird feeling, like the horse that I know and love just wasn't there. I rode for over an hour, just keeping my hands steady and doing lots of changes of bend, changes of direction, and transitions. She was very rushy to start, also something that is not normal. I simply kept riding with steady hands and a soft rein and just kept going until she finally came around and was working properly on the bit again. It was a weird and discouraging experience, I even cried a little bit because it kind of felt like I was riding a vacant, distant horse. Atleast she came around...

It was very rainy on Sunday. The original plan for sunday was a Pony Club meeting where we were going to watch a hunter/jumper show and discuss PC rallies. I was really looking forward to this, but with the rain it got called off. So I spent the first part of the afternoon cleaning my room. It ended up into more of a ribbon re-arranging session and nothing else really got accomplished! The plan changed into riding Isis and then going to Birchbury to ride Grady. Then Peg, a good friend of mine and client from my old barn, called me up and asked if I'd be willing to help her for a "half hour" with putting a few fence posts in. Being the nice person that I am, I agreed to help. We ended up starting off by setting up a large round pen to get the panels out of the way for where the fence posts were going to go. Then we started to dig the holes. We had a two person, gas powered auger so it really wouldn't have been a difficult or time consuming task if not for all the rocks!!! We'd go a few inches then have to stop and dig out rocks. Then another few inches then we'd stop to dig more rocks. It took FORever (a couple hours) to get 8 post holes dug. Not to mention that when I was handed the auger my arm hit the exhaust hole and it now has a two inch long burn on it. In addition to the burn, Peg was lifing a post and lost her grip on it - it fell directly on my head and I now have a painful lump. I told her that she is never living this down... I agree to come help and all she does is burn me and hit me on the head with boards.

SO I ended up riding only Isis at 7:30 in the evening. She started out weirdly vacant again, but I just did the same thing. She came around quite a bit quicker and her work was quite nice by the end. But all I was doing was basic walk/trot/canter with a few simple changes. Nothing even close to 2nd Level work, not even really 1st Level work. She WAS working VERY nicely by the end and if she STARTS that way the next ride (like she normally does) we'll be able to get back into working on more advanced stuff again. I am quite baffled on the cause of this, and I'm curious to see how she starts out the next ride. I wont be able to ride her until Wednesday because of my work schedule, but I'll let you know how it goes. As a side note, Isis has her teeth checked twice a year and her saddle was professionally fitted and still fits her quite nicely. I really don't think this is a physical issue, I think it's a training hiccup, even though I have no idea what the cause is.

This morning I had a jumping lesson on Sackett and it went quite well. We worked over low cross rails the entire time and focused on my equitation. I wasn't sitting up enough inbetween fences and I evidently have a tendency to roach my back a bit. I improved a TON in the lesson and Rocky was very pleased. Grady also got his first trim from his new farrier today. This farrier does most of the work at Birchbury and I'm impressed with his work. I also saw Lindsay this morning and gave her my fall schedule so that she could work on figuring out lessons for me. We're going to talk tomorrow morning because I'm hoping to squeeze in a lesson later this week.

In other news, I have decided to drop my Biology class and pick up an online class with equal credits. Then I'll be taking all online classes, which will greatly increase my available time for riding. I really enjoy graphic design and computer work. My first semester I took a class on Microsoft Office and did really well. I am going to be tutoring the subject this semester, so I've decided to sign up for the super advanced word processing class. I've got all the pre-requs for it and I think it will be alot of fun. A four credit class on Microsoft Word! Woohoo! My friend is taking the basic class that I'll be tutoring, so I'm going to borrow his text book for the next couple of weeks to refresh my memory on the class I'll be tutoring. I figure it will also be good to be activelly using the programs I'm going to be teaching anyways, so I'm excited about the class change. I am going to go Wednesday morning to switch classes and get my text books.