Todays weather was just stupid. And mean. Cruel even! And bipolar! It was supposed to be raining all day originally but then they decided they really had no clue. I managed to get Dan ridden and not get stormed on, despite the radar saying we would. Yay for that. But good golly the humidity was awful. It was just steamy!! So when I got home.. I came inside and ate lunch and then... every time I went back outside to check the weather.. it was like... almost hard to breathe. It was so still and heavy and thick. It was awful. And then the radar kept showing possible bad storms... but the pop up kind. So Sharon and I debated on whether we wanted to go ride at Ashland or not and finally decided not to. It was just too freakin' hot and miserable.
So I stayed inside and did some things... fixed Dan's bosal... finished my amazon order to make his bosal pretty and green. And did some laundry and dishes. But I kept going outside because... I wanted to ride! Until I got outside... then NOPE and right back inside. Ugh. But finally.. around 5 pm... I went outside and... it was bearable! There was a big cloud cover (of some fairly intimidating looking clouds) and a breeze had picked up. I had kept waiting for it to storm like they kept saying it would, because I figured that would help break the humidity. So I just decided to go ride then. I figured it was worth a shot and since I was riding at home, if it started raining... then we'd just come in and call it a day.
I opted for Funny since I had ridden Dan this morning and then I want to take Lyric to Ashland tomorrow. Plus since Funny had jumped cross country yesterday, she could do dressage at home today. So that's what we did.
We headed up to the arena and saw our deer couple. Funny was a good girl and didn't get spooky or squirrely. We had a decent ride. She was good and we had some good moments and overall, it's so much better than it used to be. It's just... still not where I want it. I tried to focus on what my body was doing when she felt good, so I could keep doing that with my body. I did realize that if I open my outside leg/thigh, especially tracking left, she was more willing to bend correctly and go into the outside rein. I think I'm blocking her. But then I got frustrated because she was bracing in her neck again today and not soft in her topline. And I was trying so hard to make sure that my inside rein was soft and giving, but... I don't know. It's hard. I want to "put her in a frame" with the reins because.. .she's not going there off my body. Well, she is, but she's not staying there. Ughhh.
We played with some canter serpentines. She gets quick when we turn back to the rail. We worked on our canter and my seat and me trying to lift her back up and get her more compressed via my core lifting. Maybe it was better?? We played with some spiral in and outs, which... did help. And we did the drums. She got better the second time. We did some leg yields too. And then I decided that I needed to work on square halts, because... I could gain points there. So we did that. And then we did some trot walk trots, which... I still cannot get any better! Sigh... Then our walk fell apart too. We did manage to finish on a good trot to halt.
We hacked back to the barn and the skies were getting a little darker. As I was hosing her off I heard a rumble of thunder and then, as I was done and turning the hose off, Dan went cantering off in the field and she scrambled and ran into the barn. Luckily she ran into the barn instead of down the driveway to the road. And then she turned and I was able to catch her. But then there was a huge thunder boom, and she was about to jump out of her skin. I managed to get her into the stall and turn her loose and she carefully stepped out and then took off to join the others as the bottoms opened up. It came pouring down! It was a quick storm.. maybe 10 minutes. But it was intense. So I'm really glad my timing was so good today!
After the storm finished I went back out to try to feed them and they wouldn't come. They were running amuck up by Jean's cabin and Jean's horses were being silly too. I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong, and I needed to clean the water troughs anyways, so I walked out. Nothing wrong... they were just being silly. So I cleaned the troughs and they settled. But man... there was some big lightning flashes in the sky and some big loud rumbly booms. I was getting a little nervous being out there to be honest. And I don't usually get nervous. So I headed in and luckily they acquiesced and followed me. It didn't really do anything else after that, so phew!
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