Thursday, June 26, 2008

Today we all watered the garden and the greenhouse, and then Shawn, Laura, and I cleaned the corrals. Then we each got a horse, groomed him, cleaned his hooves (all four this time), and sprayed him with fly spray. Chaco got sprayed about a gazillion times because he kept running away from Pat like he did with me. But, she had him in a small corral so he couldn't get away.

After everyone was cleaned up and ready to go, the horses that is, we led them down the road and into a meadow across the street. We walked quite a long ways allowing them to graze every once in awhile.  Everybody behaved, and we had no trouble at all with the horses.  We got back to the house, and turned everybody back out into the corrals.

Later on in the afternoon, we caught JDancer and everybody took a turn riding him bareback, and making him whoa with just your legs and seat.  It isn't easy!  I didn't really get it when Pat said that we should use our hips like playing a grand piano, but when Laura said pretend it's a thigh master, it was a little easier for me!  Then we had to close our eyes while JDancer was walking, and say which front leg was moving forward . . . left or right.  Then we had to close our eyes and say which hind leg was moving forward.  That was interesting, and difficult!  I've only just walked so far, but I'm feeling a little more confident on the horse.

It seems I'm having more hands on experiences since Laura and Shawn arrived.  They are very nice, and everything is working out great!