Spring is in the Air!!!

Wow, what a difference a year makes.  Not only was there very little snow this year spring made an early appearance this year.  And you know what happens to young girl horses when spring is in the air?  Our thoughts turn to boys!!  I don't know what came over me but I had this overwhelming desire to be in the boys pasture so when the electric wasn't on I blasted through the electric ribbon and joined them.  After the second time of doing this and making a mess out of the fence Jackie was more than a little bit upset and she moved us girls to the front pasture where we couldn't even see the boys.  I think she overreacted a little bit especially since I really didn't have any desire to go visit the boys anymore after a few days.

I didn't get a chance to be mad long because nice guy called Eric Dierks came to the farm along with a bunch of people and other horses and I got to do my first official jumping clinic!  It was a lot of fun but I got to tell you that it was harder than it looked.  The first time I went down a line of 5 jumps in a row I couldn't figure out what to do and I was wiggling all over the place and hitting fences but Kyle kept encouraging me to keep going and to 'figure it out'.  Well I have to tell you that was down right embarrassing and I certainly wasn't going to do that again!  The next time I figured out my footwork and timing and it was a piece of cake.

The second day we were suppose to do some cross country but we had a heavy rain in the morning so we stayed in the ring and did more fun exercises.  I was really getting the hang of things and having a lot of fun.  Eric made some comment about me almost being too brave.  That seems funny, how can being too brave be a problem?  Anyway, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot and I can't wait for Eric to come back in the summer.  If you want to read more about the clinic and see pictures and videos check out this link, whatever that means.

Tika & me napping. Ruby is the one standing

Here I am multitasking ...eating & resting at the same time!

Well a few weeks have gone by and the girl herd has grown.  There is a nice young filly named Ruby who is here to get started.  I hear she's getting  to hike all over the pasture with Kyle behind her with to long reins on either side.  I can remember when he did that with me.  Then Laura got a new horse called Tika.  I guess she has some fancy jumping pedigree. Pedigree shemdigree; that doesn't give her the right to run at us with her ears pinned back and turn around and kick at us!!!  Well Margee and I had to explain the rules to her if you know what I mean. Things are good now; I even share my favorite napping spot with her.

Well after a month of being in the 'isolation' pasture we were moved back to the big pasture.  It was nice to have more room to roam, but then I got that funny feeling again and my old friend Jethro and I started hanging out next to each other.  Darn that Jackie, she got the electric fence working again and that's all the closer we could get; hanging out with a fence in between us.  Then I heard them talking that they thought it was time to check me to see if I was ready to be bred.  Well I won't go into the details because it is rather personal but since Monroe went home a couple of weeks ago I got the 'man in the can' version of Monroe.  See it  has his name on it Blue Ridge Monroe in the blue can.  Kind of funny.  Anyway he's kind of cute and everyone thinks we make a good match.  Check out is video of him jumping.  Not bad for a little guy.

Here's Monroe with Laura all braided up.  He's kind of cute

Well enough about that.  I have some more exciting news.  I get to do my first Event (not sure why they call it that) next month at the Winona Horse Trials.  And the cool thing is that I don't even have to leave home to do it.  I remember watching some of that last year.  It looks kind of interesting and fun!

That's it for now.

Jill

Well as usual Jill pretty much has things covered except for the 'man in the can' part.  Sorry I don't understand what that's all about.  But she was right about the Eric Dierks clinic, it was a ton of fun.  Since I have done more jumping than Jill I got to do more stuff and we were lucky enough to go first thing Sun morning before the rain so we got to do some cross country AND I had a new rider on Sun.  Kyle asked Karen Chandell if she wanted to ride me.  She's a very nice person and rides nicely but it took a little bit for her and I to understand each other to get the canter with just the right amount of energy.  That's when Eric got on me and showed her what he wanted.  I knew what Eric wanted but to be honest I was a little tired from the day before and I was having a little trouble waking up.  But when I did wake up we did great together and I got a lot of 'good boys' from Karen (with Eric's urging) and I heard Eric say: 'I love this pony!! and he's the green machine!'  The tone of his voice sounded like it was a complement but I'm not a green pony; I'm a bay horse.  Check out the video and see what you think.

      

 I also get to do the event too!  It sounds like fun, but I'm not so sure about that dressage stuff.  I'm still not 100% relaxed with the bit in my mouth but I'm getting better.

Well I guess that's it for me too.

Jack