Oh hello spring!

The last couple of days have been just gorgeous and perfect for spending lots of time with the horses!
We made friends with a fellow who moved here to work on a beef ranch, and we all went for a trail ride with him on Ice, Shayla on Rose and me on Gussie. It was the first ride for Ice in the bush, her previous trail rides were on a gravel road with not too many distractions; this was a step up. We all rode down to the river and then back along the dyke and through the bush. Ice, of course was perfect!

He didn't know what to expect when he rode Ice into the river; Gussie and Rose waded right in and Ice just kinda followed. I think he thought she would paw and splash or lay down! He also complimented Shayla on what a good job she did with Ice's training; Ice was a lot more advanced than he thought a horse with only about 20 rides would be.

After a bit he and Shayla switched horses, and she was pretty happy with how Ice handled this new experience. First ride in the water including wading through the swamp.

The next day, we worked Mesa first. Ground driving time! At first she was a bit confused that someone was walking behind her as it is very different from longeing.

I had Shayla come in and walk by her head so that Mesa would follow her; that worked very well and Mesa quickly figured things out.

She is going to be so easy to ride! She also learned to back up with reins instead of just shaking the lead rope. Very nice, Mesa!

We are supposed to be in for a rainy week, but if it isn't too bad we will continue with the ground driving and then get Shayla on her guiding with the reins; I'll have a longe line on her too but we should be able to take that off fairly quickly. 

Next ride it was ponying Drifter! He still needs to learn more manners when it comes to ponying; he tried to rear once and several times he was nippy, but it's all about being vigilant with these young'uns and not letting them complete the undesirable behaviour. Over all it was a fun ride with him! He also got to go in the river for the first time.

Rose did a very good job of keeping him in line! Drifter seemed to really enjoy this new experience.

Later that day we saddled up Gussie and Ice and went back down to the river just for fun and for Ice and Shayla to have another trail ride. 

The water looked really blue in the shade! Made Ice look blue too.

There is not a lot of snow left up in the mountains and the river still is low. It will be interesting to see if it's a drought year or if we get a lot of rain to make up for it..

Riding day 29 & 30