Where is my Weekend?

Weekends are so unfair.  I always have these grand plans and thoughts about everything I'll accomplish on two whole days off from work and in reality they fly by and I get nothing done.  I taught lessons both Saturday and Sunday and then rode afterwards so it made for a very horse-oriented weekend.  My lessons on Saturday were interesting as I got to work with some new people and horses.  One of the boarders where I teach is a first time horse owner and while he has some decent riding experience his horse is definitely a handful.  He rescued a 7 year old Standardbred who in his 7 years of life I don't think was asked to do much.  As a result he acts like a baby who has seven years of pushing people around under his belt.  It was really fun to do some ground work with a horse again as I don't do it with Mollie often, and I really look forward to working with him again.  The horse is really quite smart just very distractible.  Once I got him tuned into me I really felt like he listened and tried hard though, so that was rewarding.

After lessons both days I went over to Mollie's barn where everything is under 6 feet of mud.  Granted, the entire state is, but I'll stop complaining because it was 40 degrees today, and my ice coffee didn't freeze while I rode.  Score.

Hello servant.

Got the beast from her paddock, quickly groomed and tacked up only to realize the lesson that was going on in the ring was running a good 20 minutes behind.  So we stood, fully tacked, in the grooming stall and my horse legitimately fell asleep while we stood there.  Please see around 12 seconds in the video below where she literally starts nodding to sleep....

Thankfully she woke up in time for a decent ride.  It was pretty short because I was tired and I like excuses.  If I had anything to complain about she was a little strong but she's had 5 days off so I'm not about to make a fight out of it.

Sunday was take two and I headed out to the lesson barn early for 5 hours of lessons.  Rhode Island decided it would be very foggy.

I'm really enjoying teaching the lessons and have been able to work with some more experienced kids lately which is fun.  As much as I love the little kids it's nice to be able to talk about bending, collection, and even do some jumping lessons.  It makes me wish I was 12 again.  Oh the nostalgia.

Out to Mollie's barn afterwards where I witnessed the most adorable thing I've ever seen.  Any one that knows Mollie in real life knows that she doesn't allow another horse to so much as look at her hay.  Yet somehow her miniature donkey neighbors have convinced her to allow them to eat out of her hay bag.  Feast your eyes on the cuteness below.  The mini donks are named Apple and Tumble and I cannot get enough of them.  Evidently, neither can Molls.

My ride on her today was even better than yesterdays.  Warming up I put her together right away and she was great at the walk but I had trouble transferring that "togetherness" to trot right away.  I decided to let her cruise around at the trot a bit but she was just heavy and not on my aids, which is pretty unlike her.  I decided to some halt/trot/halt transitions and that got her back on my aids relatively quickly.  I'm finding lately that the half pass is a really telling exercise for us.  Sometimes I feel like we have our act together but as soon as I ask for half pass all of our issues become apparent. Heck, I can usually tell that something isn't right just by the turn down the centerline, never mind the lateral movement.  When we finally do get all our pieces lined up however her half passes are getting really nice.  Like, I might not even cringe next time we have a lesson and the instructor asks to see them.