A full day

That sure was a pretty full moon- a super moon I believe, closest point to the earth. My camera battery on my Nikon was dead so I didn't get a photo. It is spectacular when it peeks over the mountain ridge, putting the trees in silhouette  before it sails majestically across the night sky. It's still out as I write this morning, but is shrouded in clouds; there is rain in the forecast. Hope I can get some horse time before it starts.
I have been trying to do something with each one of the horses every day; grooming and picking the feet on Beamer and Belle, taking Beamer out to hand graze, working Drifter or walking him, and riding Gussie or at least grooming her. We went for a ride yesterday, down to the swimming hole again. I decided to wade her across the shallow end, the water was so beautiful and clear and I figure spring runoff will be starting soon enough, so might as well get some water time while I can. At first she was not too impressed, but persevered (my key word for the year!) and as you will see in the video was quite happy to turn around and head back.

I am going to have to do more work on that saddle; the fenders lie too flat and the leather is quite thick so even though I put the twist on the straps they don't stay in position. My ankle gets quite sore from that. So today I will be soaking the fenders and putting a curve on them so only the back of the fender lays against her sides. If that doesn't help the saddle will be going up for sale. It's a good stout saddle and we have a roping club here so it shouldn't be too hard to sell if I go that route.

Then it was Drifter time. I did the round pen liberty work; I had done some You Tube research and came across a good video from Dan Steers that gave me some ideas to get started. I'll be checking out the second video in the series too. He uses a square pen, but since the round pen is what I have that's where I'm starting. I didn't longe him or do any other prep work, just went straight into the liberty work. It was a little ragged, there were some places where I had to help him, and some places where he totally lost his attention, and one place where he "thought" about giving me a little nip but didn't, so over all I think it was a good first session- for both of us! I'm learning as we go too!

Riding day 10