Rodeo Days

Oh yes, Wednesday the rodeo came to Litchfield and I was the not-so-happy sole participant. Granted, due to the weather, a lack of indoor and absolutely no time to get out to an indoor, Dee has basically just been sitting around for a month, so I wasn't expecting her to be an angel. I WAS, however, expecting her to NOT act like a tempermental herdbound COW.
Almost immediately after I got on, she was totally out of control and I'll tell you something... Horse can BUCK and she's crafty about it, too. After she spent time carreening around doing her best impression of a saddle bronc and nearly landing me on the floor, I finally got her stopped long enough to jump off and promptly threw her on the lounge. Now... normally, I don't lounge unless I'm trying to look for lameness or doing something productive, because I don't like to put that kind of stress on their joints if it isn't necessary, but considering that I could see no way for me to stay on her if she continued her antics, I relented. I was glad I did. She performed some pretty impressive acrobatic feats that I was very greatful didn't take place while I was on her back... and that was just her TROT. She broke into a canter twice and REALLY acted like a wild woman, but I tried to keep the canter work to a minimum (as much as was possible, anyway).
Once she'd gotten her kicks (literally), I felt safe to jump back on. Of course, at that point, I didn't feel right making her do much more work, so I just asked her to walk around quietly and do some trot circles in each direction. That was a much greater success then my first time in the saddle that day, but I was dissapointed with how awful she felt. She's going to take a LOT of strengthening work to get her going well... that hind end is just mush at the moment, and it was VERY obvious at the trot (though it didn't impede her ability to buck and twirl with the best). Oh well... all in good time.
On a brighter note, she's getting much more manageable on the ground. She now lets me brush her without trying to take my head off, and she has been almost... dare I say... FRIENDLY towards me.

Then... on a not so bright note... I had a bit of bad luck on Wednesday. My computer's harddrive crashed. Brilliant. Just what I wanted to go home to. Now, it's holed up at the mac factory getting a new harddrive. Yay for paying a left arm to get a new harddrive!