Trash day

yesterday chris and I decided to ride at 9:00 as she had a baby shower and I had jessie's graduation party later. it rained the night before so I figured the woods would be soaking wet and buggy and muddy, so we decided to do the 5 mile road loop. mile hill road and green street are so quiet and it was early enough there wouldn't be much traffic. hahahahaha. what a nightmare. sereele was nervous anyway, but was good as usual. until we came upon our first trash can piled up about 10 feet high (really!) with trash. that was almost scary enough for her to fall down at the sight of it. I got off and she cat walked past and was fine. we made it down linden pretty well, looping away from all the garbage cans. one big noisy truck pulling a trailer uturned in front of us, but no big deal. she saw her reflection in some big windows on a house that sits right on the road and apparently thinks she is pretty scary looking:). socks was taking a bad step here and there so chris was worried, they just got shoes on thursday. all was fine until a 4 wheeler came scooting out into the street and past us, but they were pretty good about that. then a huge garbage truck was coming towards us and we had a steep cliff on the other side of us. the guy actually turned off his truck and coasted slowly by! very nice. then going down green street we heard an extremely noisy vehicle coming up behind us fast an no where to go. we made it to a drive way in time for another garbage truck to barrel ass past us. this one scared them. ok. than ANOTHER garbage truck poking along toward us trying to be nice, but actually going so slow and noisy that socks said, "I've had enough" and chris scooted him backwards to a driveway. this upset sereele so I had to follow and probably pissed off the garbage guy. phew. we start walking again and a guy tells us to wait a minute and he will get his truck and trailer out of here and not scare the horses. so glad he did, it was the noisiest trailer I've ever heard. so then we just had to go past one attack dog and then the woman who let her dog out of the house to "sic" us and we were home free. I think. I may have blocked some things out. Oh yeah, crackers the dog tried to eat us also, but that was nothing. probably doesn't sound bad, but it wasn't a fun ride:). both horses were actually excellent, got scared but never freaked out. Then we made up for it today. went down linden to the main trial and up the ledge trail to north lookout and around and out at MW. Sereele was the best she has ever been. felt like a normal horse, no nervousness or skittishness. just perfect. she is moving so much better in shoes, no ouchiness, tripping 90% less. and her brain was calm. very happy with our ride today!
Indy leaves tuesday for a 2 month lease with option to buy. making me sick to think about it, but when I see him staring at me when I take out sereele, it breaks my heart. I hope this woman has a nice place and loves him, he deserves the best.

Sereele's first ride off the farm

Chris and I took Socks and Sereele to Stow today! figured a nice relaxing quiet ride on good footing since Socks threw a shoe and Sereele is very ouchy on the rocks. When we got there, there were 2 other horse trailers with horses getting ready to head out and bikers and hikers and dogs, oh my! so I started off leading Sereele, a black dog came around the corner and scared poor socks, he's never seen a dog before you know. then a bike, all fine. Sereele was totally calm so I got on and we rode around for about an hour. Sereele was amazingly good. I think socks spooked more than she did. we passed the horses a couple of times and they were both fine. of course socks wanted to meet them, but he controlled himself. we trotted quite a bit (for us) and they were both tripping and gimping, can't wait for shoes thursday. we had a few good laughs at sock's expense, like when again he almost went head first into a tree and got mad when some people didn't pat him. Sereele went first and second, was brave and not hyper at all. I almost got us lost, but figured it out and got back to the trailer and let them graze for a few minutes. then went to load and Socks was an ass. had to get the trusty broom out and beat him. not really, but we both wanted to. he finally went in and sereele hopped in. Socks was pawing on the way home and all sweaty when we got here. sereele didn't sweat (anhidrosis still). so now our newest worry is why socks is not happy in the trailer. he was out of hay, hopefully he just got himself worked up about it.
We have a lesson with Claudia monday! will be good for all 4 of us. I am SO happy with how well sereele is behaving and handling everything new. next adventure is overnight camping at Myles standish in 2 weeks!

The Show!!!!

I've been in such a fog that I forgot to post about my escapades at the dressage show on the 3rd!!! Loading in the trailer was relatively simple, took two tries to get Socks on and voila, he was on. Sereele got on nicely as well. Everyone traveled well although Socks was a little bit sweaty when we got to Weston but not too bad. Got signed in, got the kids off the trailer and both Socks and Sereele were pretty "normal" and not completely losing it like he did at my last show. YAY US!
Got him tacked up with the help of all my grooms.....Lou, Becca, CB and Mary. You gals rule!!!! Socks and I ventured into the practice ring with about 4 other horses in there. He was a bit "up" but calmed down and even had some really nice moments. I only practiced for about 10 minutes or so. Socks tends to have meltdowns so I didn't want to push him. Sereele was great and they didn't even call each other that much if at all. =) CB did up his hair just before the class. He looked good.........
My first test was up and I was the very first rider in our first class.....UGH! All in all, he didn't do so badly. He didn't spook at the judge and was ok with all the crap going on on the outside of the ring and in the woods. He did, however, decide that circles should be egg shaped and tried to elongate our first circle..bad boy....and my correction was less than stellar but we managed to not leave the ring.
I was third for the next class so the pressure was off a bit. I was horrified to see that there was a lady riding this beautiful Friesan that was clearly beyond walk/trot level but whatever....I was really there to get Socks out and about and if we won something..........well bonus! He did try to leave the ring in our second test and again my corrections were very obvious but hey, we got through it.
We got a 52 and a 54, not great but certainly not horrid for our first time back in the ring with only about 2 weeks to prepare.
As I was leaving the ring, it started to rain......what timing! Socks didn't want to go back on the trailer but eventually, he decided that was a good idea. Sereele was good and went on too. Wasn't a bad day and I definately would like to go to another show this summer!!!!!!