55 posts tagged “merry”
Some pics I took of the four-feet in the snow this morning. Morgana & Myfanwy were playing when I grabbed the camera & went out, but once I got out there, all they wanted to do was follow me around.
Merry was worse than the pony-girls about wanting to be right next to me.
Just to prove that I can, in fact, still ride my horse:
It's been raining/snowing (precipitating) here a lot the last couple of weeks, so there's mud everywhere. True to form, Morgana is picking up her mom's bad habits, namely rolling in the mud. See:
And then there was Morgana's first snowfall:
For a brief period of time, Merry was just about the cleanest of the herd:
These were taken by the husband of one of my law school friends when they came down for Easter, and posted here with his kind permission.
Everyone was so fuzzy then! They've all lost a lot of hair the past couple weeks. Everything is much greener now, too.
Next set of photos posted will be of the new paddocks!
After I went and voted this morning, I spent the bulk of the afternoon in the barn. I'd taken the whole day off a) as one of my last chances to take PTO before the busy season at work kicks into top gear and b) because I really didn't feel like hitting the polls at 7 and then spending a large chunk of the morning stuck in the worst of rush hour traffic. Voting after work? Forget it.
Anyway, I ended up pulling Annie out of the paddock, tacking her up, and going for a very short ride on her after I'd cleaned a couple stalls. Since it's been who knows how many years since she's been ridden, I didn't want to tax her overmuch, so we just walked around the arena doing circles and serpentines. She would have trotted, had I given her any encouragement.
She's pretty used to getting her own way most of the time and is pretty pushy on the ground. Under saddle, though, she was great. After only having ridden someone who doesn't know much for the past few years, it was quite amazing to be able to just shift my weight like so, nudge with my leg there, close my fingers on the reins a bit and, voila, circle! I definitely think I could use her as a lesson horse when she's done having babies.
I had tried my all purpose and the Aussie on Annie the other evening. Both fit, but the Aussie, with its higher cut pommel fit her the best, so that's what I'm using here. First time I've ridden in it, actually. Toad's old racing bridle fit her pretty well, too. I was concerned that I might not have a bridle that fit, given her face is proportioned quite differently than my Arabs' heads.
Merry, of course, was a busybody and had to watch.
Annie really seemed to enjoy getting out for a ride. Sadly, with the weather we've got forecast for the rest of the week, I'm rather thinking this may have been my last ride until next spring. We'll see.
Today I took Gimli and Myf out into the arena together so they could get to know one another. I may start putting Myf in with Gimli at night. Annie can get a little cranky with her at times and a 12 x 12 stall is really more room than one little Shetland needs all to himself.
I had hoped for a bit that they'd both get a little wound up and play -- take advantage of the big space -- but this was the most action from either of them.
Meanwhile, other people were having snits...
It amazes me the way she respects that little fence even in full snit mode. She and Merry are two of a kind, though. Bossy-boots, the pair of them. In the end they were hollering back and forth to each other about how upset they were more than they were talking to their respective missing redheads. Gimli and Myf paid no attention to their carrying on.
While Gimli does play with the big boys, I think it's going to be nice for him to have a buddy who is, at least temporarily, his own size. She'll get bigger, but not as much bigger as Merry and, to a lesser extent, Zahr.
Got a couple of pics of Merry an me 'jumping' a cavalletti a couple of weeks ago.
He's a bit hesitant on the take-off yet, so I have a tendency to get ahead of him a bit, as you can see in the pics. (If you want to see pretty jumping pics, go look at the ones of me & Toad.) We're working on it, though. May have to try starting at the canter one time to see if the extra momentum helps him. We've been trotting over them (he really wouldn't have to jump them at all, though he does a little hop anyway) and he loses speed & momentum on the approach.
One time last weekend he took off too early and that made for a rough take-off & landing. He's trying, though. He might not always make the right decision about how best to make it over, but he's thinking about it.
