The Quick Trip around the State

Last week, I had a dear friend come to WSU with her horse to get an MRI. Alayne Blickle, creator and director of Horses For Clean Water, and her two beautiful dogs stayed with me in my humble one bedroom apartment for the week until they could return home with her horse, Bob. In order for this to work, however, I had to leave my car on the west side of the state and pick it up this past weekend. I flew home on Friday evening from Pullman with another friend, Tess, who planned on driving back to Pullman with me on Sunday.

One Saturday, it rained and poured constantly.... so, no riding. It was trying to snow throughout the day so we just super groomed the horses and put their blankets on.

Since it was so icky out, we also decided to search around for new scratching post for Tiki and Chai, our Norwegian Forest cats, since their current one is pretty torn up. Additionally, we have a new love seat being made, sooo....ya, we need their energy going somewhere else over than the new furniture. This is what we found, which they really seemed to be enjoying:

On Sunday, we were able to go for a short loop by the lake before I had to leave to pick up Tess ans drive back to the east side. This was Mercy and my first time wearing my new Outback gear, so I wanted to make sure we took it slow and steady. It was sunny out, but it was really wet too. Leaving the property, Mercy decided that she forgot how to yield to leg pressure and ended up slamming my knee into the metal gate. I haven't looked at it today, but I bruise easily, so it probably isn't pretty. After she did that, I took her through the gate a few times until she would walk through quietly while yielding to my legs. Once we really headed out Mercy was moving at a pretty fast walk and Star was poking along. They had received their second round of shots (which pretty much confirmed the rabies shot was the probable culprit from Star's vaccine reactions) on Friday, so Star was still a little sore. We got to the grassy spot by the lake and let them have a few bits between pictures:

When we rode off, Mercy got more and more hyped up. It was difficult for her to walk, at any speed, so we ended doing lots of circles to slow her feet. This was good for Star as it gave her a chance to catch up. After a while of that, a group of people with a not-so-horse-friendly dog was coming our way (we have meet up with them before). So, unfortunately, we had to cut the lesson short because I didn't want to deal with that. (BTW, is it really that hard to keep your ill-trained dogs on a leash in a public area? Really? Really!?! Grrr....) Mercy was quite 'bouncy' on the way home, but I finally got her to walk. I really didn't care how fast, I just didn't want a trot. I think she finally figured it out because she walked all the way home, even where she knows we usually lope. Going back through that gate was no big deal, thank goodness, cause my knee wouldn't have handled another hit.

We got back and Mercy was still 'up' so I took her out to the gravel road that leads to our house and let her walk a while. She didn't really slow so I asked her to speed up into a nice jog. We did a few nice small circles and I asked her to whoa. She stopped square and true so I jumped off and called that good. Tee hee! Look at the tail! And I have been working on making her mane lay over more. It is long enough and her neck looks soooo much better when it looks cleaner. The eating of the trailer will be fixed this summer. I just didn't have the time cause I had less than an hour to get on the road and I still had to pack.

All in all, it was a challenging, but at the same time relaxing ride. I *wasn't* planning on coming home this coming weekend, but it's Mom's Weekend here in Pullman and I don't really want to stay here for that. If the flights look good, I will blast out of here in a heartbeat. Plus, it's the King County 4H's first gaming show on Sunday at the Enumclaw Expo Center and I wouldn't mind seeing who's doing what this year. Should be interesting!