Pic at right is from a Winter 07/08 ride.

Anyways, happy to report that Spirit and I went on our first solo trail ride last weekend and it was wonderful. I led him away from home and didn't get on until I was on the trail. Went for a twenty minute trail ride. Yahoo! No problems at all.

One l'il balk that some gentle doublin' took care of. Yippee!

Then two riding buddies met me at the trailhead and off we went. Because we were doing so well, I didn't push it. When I thought there may be an issue coming up I just got off way before and walked. So beautiful in the forest. Cold, though. My legs were numb when we were done. Long johns next time :)

Yippee! Bonding with my boy Spirit

Spirit and I went for a ride with a friend and her boy, Hank, yesterday. She showed me this great schooling hill to practice cantering on and it's also a great place to work through the freak-out factor that happens when horses leave Spirit behind on the trail. Went for a ride on the pretty forest trail at the top of the hill. It was the perfect riding day. Sunny and crisp. Shades of brown and orange. Misty in the trees. Misty greens and blues. At the top of the hill I could see the mountains in the distance. I felt like I could take off and fly!

Anways, it was definetely a schooling ride. I can tell that Spirit is more responsive and I am being more present, instead of being a lazy-bag-of-potatoes rider. Let me be clear 'bout this though -- I know there's nothing wrong with a relaxing ride, they're lovely and I adore them but I now realize that I was only have those types of rides and was missing out on a different type of ride. I am now enjoying building 'contact-rapport'. I'm sure there are definitions to explain what I am talking about; I just don't know them off-hand. Soooooo, basically I am trying to support Spirit with the reins and my legs during the whole trail ride. Now, after working with him this last while, I barely have to move my reins for his response. I had to laugh at myself though because on the ride I was showing my friend what Spirit was doing when I was unsnarling his mane from the reins and she said, 'you could use that movement of your reins as your *go*, you know'. I had not been thinking of that, but it makes all kinds of sense :) Also, on the trail, I am working hard on actively choosing where I am going, instead of meandering along. This process is reminding me of what it was like when I first got Spirit. I did tons of groundwork. Lots of connection with him on the ground. Now I am building on this connection while in the saddle. I am going to be learning ground-driving from a friend this weekend to help with this connection.

Perfect Weather - Imperfect Fit

Here's one of my favourite pics of Spirit. Every once in a while I get that 'ole photography bug. Anways, I took this one a couple of years ago, so I think it's about time I got back 'out there'. I have always thought that he looks vaguely elephant-ish in this shot.

A couple of days ago, I tried my daughter's western saddle on Spirit. He was such a good boy as I was leading him around, stopping, starting, turning. We are really building that dance, that side by side, you-stop-I-stop in tune with each-other-ness. I LOVE IT.

Anyways, I rode over to a friend's house across the street and she noted that the saddle was too tight in the withers, etc. Another friend was passing by on her motorized scooter, so I got off Spirit and walked with her. She was walking her dog and the long lead kept zinging back and forth across the road. Spirit balked one time and I said, 'nu-uh buddy, if I say it's okay, how 'bout you give it a try'. So, then I sniffed it and blew and he sniffed it and blew. And off we went with nary a moment of trouble. Eventually walked home in the darkness. Crisp, clear, and not one freaky moment from the amazing-Spirit-dude (or from me either LOL). Geez, just reread what I wrote and what we were doing doesn't really translate easily to the page. So, dear reader, you are going to have to stretch yourself past the goofiness of it all and get on up and ride on down the road with me :) The next day, I tried on a friend's western saddle (she has a Canadian) and it was too wide in the withers. As soon as the cinch was tightened and I sat in the saddle, you could see it poke behind his sholder. Once again, Spirit was the height of patience with all the poking, prodding and leading about.

Herd Watch AKA Broom Pulling

Yesterday was sunny and crisp -- a perfect riding day. I remember thinking so a couple of times while hacking away at the broom-infilitrated pasture where we were having our Herd Watch. Now, I know you are saying to yourself, 'why weren't you riding' ;) but one way that we access trails is with the permission of a neighbour. Yep, we ride through her yard and out her back gate. In thanks for being able to do that, we went to her place to have our Herd Watch and to clear her pasture of broom -- well, not to clear her entire pasture but we cleared about 60 square feet. We would have been there all day and more for the entire pasture! You can see a 'purdy' picture of the annoying stuff, at upper-right.

Broom! The story goes that a Scottish immigrant brought and planted a broom plant to remind them of home. Understandable - but wow - Vancouver Island is becoming infested with the stuff. Of course, (almost) more importantly, we brought a delectable assortment of stuff to eat, included braised pear with brie on crackers, baked apples with brown sugar, goat cheese with bread, a yummy spread with bread, homemade banana muffins and homemade chocolate chip cookies. LIFE IS GOOD!

Herd Watch Memories

Oh yah and here's a little reminder of how much fun Herd Watch is, or if you've never been herdwatching with the gang of us, welcome afield (digitally speaking). For those that don't know, this version of Herd Watch is regular meetings with a group of like-minded people and horses and hanging out, eating gourmet food, etc. in fields in the neighbourhood. FUN!!!

Connected Ground Work 11/16/08

This pic is Spirit from a couple of summers ago. Such a dude. Anyways, I was going to do a short schooling ride with Spirit today, just him and I, but I ran out of daylight - freakin' Fall! But that's okay cuz I found an article in an August 04 Equus magazine that had a call out box titled 'Connected Ground Work - The Cheek Press'. Anyways, I started to work with Spirit on this instead of the ride and it was wonderful. Here's what I did, basically... Stood on left side of head, placed left hand on bridge of nose. Making a loose fist, right hand, positioned it in centre of the cheek with my wrist straight. It says in the article to start by trying to rotate the head barely one or two degrees, with the front hand encouraging the head to come towards me and the back hand encouraging the cheek to move away from me. Said stuff like take a deep breath and wait, then slowly release the pressure on the cheek, take hands off horse and observe him quietly for 20 seconds or more. It says to repeat the exercise two to four times with the key being to give the horse the suggestion of movement and then allow the horse to willingly yield from the pressure on the cheek rather than to force the movement. I tried it out a couple of times on one side, to check it out. I ended up laughing at myself because I was expecting to have to work hard to get him to release. Was thinking to myself, 'don't have over-expectations Hal, just try and see what happens.' HA. He responded by bending to pressure as if his big old head was a little tree branch. Bending gently to pressure. Relaxed, just the way it was meant to be, with his lovely eye looking into mine and his ear tilting towards me as if to say "Well, you're a wierdo but if you want to push my head around, I'll sure let ya." My big, ole sweetie pie. Until I do groundwork, I forget how much I just LOVE the trust building. The connection. The fun. The communication. Anyways, I am going to use this exercise again this week, more completely and also from the same magazine 'Connected Groundwork - The shoulder press.' Yahoo.
Oh yah, a little aside. I was talking with a woman at a tack shop about the 'freak' that Spirit does and she said that maybe when he was a pack/trail horse that he got into trouble when he didn't keep up or that maybe with his background that he was spur broke. More stuff to think about :)

Fall Schooling Ride #2

Been wanting to create a blog for a while now and my need to school Spirit (the beauty-boy at the right) and as well, the challenges of not being able to have weekly Herd Watch 'meetings' with my riding buddies (due to Fall and Winter weather and short days) have melded into the creation this blog. Don't know if I can keep it up but I thought I'd give it a try.

Anways for those of you who don't know, I have decided to work with Spirit on a couple of things this Fall.

One. His herd-bound-ness during my attempts to ride with just him and I. Apparently, he misses his herd-of-one Taz. It's such a struggle to get him going. Anyways, this will include lots of groundwork, which I love, and learning how to ground drive, from my friend, Shauna. I think I'll love that too.

Two. His occasional hey-if-you-all-are-running-away-from-the-cougars-then-I-should-too (buck&freak) on trail rides. Did I mention, his impeccable timing in doing this on muddy, rocky hillsides. This is soooo not fun. But what is fun, is that my daughter, Siggy, offered to come on schooling rides with me and we had our second one today. Kept to a walk and a trot. She would ride away, out of sight, going longer and longer each time and Spirit and I stood, and walked, and doubled (ala Sally Twelveponies) and rode away from Taz. We did this about ten times in the 'back 40' where the problems have occurred. He was wonderful. Only one freaky moment and that was dealt with by doubling. Anyways, then we proceeded to have a wonderful Fall ride. Crisp, sunny, all the shades of orange and brown that you could ever want. Coming home with clothes smelling as fresh as they ever could. Yummy!