First accomplishment, my jumping saddle is back! Oh, how I missed that lovely piece of leather. I appreciated my friends letting me borrow their saddles, but there's nothing like sitting in your own saddle. Particularly when you're as petite as I am. My feet barely reached the bottom of the Muppet's saddle and Dorkzilla's saddle left big bruises where the thigh rolls hit.
To be fair, Fiona jumped the cross rail like we were going training and the thigh rolls had a big role in keeping me on, but the point still stands. Ow.
Second accomplishment, Fi has decided that the Regumate is no big deal and she licks her bowl clean. Thank goodness. It does seem to have brought her down a notch and gotten her more focused. It's too early to tell, but I am pleased with the results so far.
She was also a model citizen for her vaccinations this year, which was a relief after the Wonder Mare and one of the ponies decided that intra-nasal was just not happening this year.
Third accomplishment: New graphics software! I'm sure some people have noticed that I haven't been drawing much. I had a bit of a falling out with my install of Windows and in a fit of annoyance installed Linux. Yup, I'm that much of a computer geek. Unfortunately, my graphics program didn't want to run on Linux no matter what I did. Today I found a program that worked for me and the tablet is back in action! It's going to take a bit to get used to the new software, but it's not longer a multi-hour ordeal to get a drawing done. Expect more cartoons in the future.
And the last accomplishment du jour: cantering through cones. Everyone seems to walk and trot through sets of cones when they're learning to ride. I weave Fi through them to give us both something to do. The trainer had them set up during our lesson and decided that we should canter through them. Erk. The princess and I were up first. Fortunately we've been working hard on our counter canter so it didn't take much for us to calmly canter through the serpentine pattern.
Then the trainer decided that was too easy and added a ten meter turn at the end so we would be going back through the cones without breaking out of the canter. My mare is just too ridiculously fancy sometimes. She weaved through the cones and when she got the balancing half halt, swapped leads and turned on a dime to head back. Then did it again on the other side of the ring. It was a challenge to hold her on one lead for the cones, but the flying change was a piece of cake. Go figure. It was very impressive, at least to me. I might be biased.
Tomorrow is Christmas and I'll be bringing her a bunch of treats before we take advantage of the empty ring to play with some grids. I'm pretty sure I'll be the only one at the barn riding. As much as I enjoy meeting up with my barn friends, it will be nice to have the ring to myself. My girl does enjoy puzzles, and I'm all about giving the Princess exactly what she wants for the holidays.
A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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