Where the Wild Mares Are

I haven't ridden in almost a month, thanks to a combination of spending 80% of my weeks in the law school from 9-9, the the other 20% either desperately trying to catch up on work or desperately trying to convince my renegade horse to stop being an asshole and just come close enough for me to catch.  Daytime turnout sucks.

"Stupid human... I am feral now."

Finally, after a solid month of not being able to catch her, she actually let me grab her on Saturday.  Of course, she immediately started acting like she hadn't been handled in years and didn't understand simple things such as: going through gates without trying to bolt and run over the tiny human, respecting the human's space while walking, not spooking at trees and other innocuous objects, and standing to be groomed.  I had, before even going up to the barn, decided that I would just lightly lunge and do groundwork.  I mean, it's been a month, I would have felt bad just getting on and expecting her to work.  I figured a groundwork refresher would be in order.  Well, the minute we got into the ring and I asked her to walk off on the lunge, she took off like a rocket.  A rocket that had apparently forgotten how to not yank my arms out on the lunge line and be polite.  After she careened around for awhile, I got fed up, made her stop, unhooked her, and decided to free-lunge.  Go figure, the minute I decided to free lunge, she decided she could stay on a perfect circle around me.  She zoomed around for awhile longer, but eventually settled and trotted around like a semi-adult individual.  She even did some halfway decent in-hand work.  It was not great by any means -- she was distracted and still pretending that she had forgotten 90% of the things she's learned -- but by the end she was at least being polite and responding correctly to the questions I was asking.

Dare I think that I might actually get to ride this weekend!?

Insert Lawyer Joke Here...

Ok, well, I've been a bad horse mom lately.  School has been out of control and it looks like it will be awhile before miss thang and I can hang out.  That said, I got a few texts from my bestest friend (of 15 years) today about a show she was working, where lawyers were playing live music (I think she said battle of the bands).  Here are the relevant highlights:

"Your world and mine should never mix."

"I understand its charity and these people paid way too much to rent our club, but when professional people can't make you sound better it's awful."

"You may all have money, but lawyers are a sloppy drunk."

Thanks, friend.  haha.

Apparently I have all that to look forward to.

Spin Cycle

This sums up Dee's general reaction to being cuddled.

Beast was good today.  She's turning into a fizz-ball, though, and the heat has been making her a sweaty, disgusting mess.  Poor beast.  At least she's still in good spirits.

Showing me where she would like us to go... outside!  

Unfortunately, I'll probably see little of her this week... thanks to this:

The dreaded brief... with the dreaded word-limit... which we are currently over 3000 words OVER.

Today, Today

For reasons still mostly unknown today, Dee's breeder decided to name her Today.  Me and this name have had a tumultuous history, but I think it's grown on me.  Yesterday, after my ride, I patted Dee and said "You were so wonderful today!"  At that, I had to smile a little, because it really works both ways: she was wonderful that day, and she is Today.

Yesterday, she managed to do little canter loops, which are basically a way to introduce the counter-canter.  A month ago, she couldn't do those at all.  The whole canter crumbled because she wasn't strong enough or balanced enough.  Yesterday, she was like "oh yeah, no biggie mom, I got this."  No fuss, no muss.  What a good baby!