I Hate City Folk and New Year's Eve

Fair warning. This post contains lots of rage, venom and other similar adjectives. That being said, I'll now elaborate on my new-found hatred of City Folk and New Year's Eve. Earlier tonight, we noticed lots of cars showing up at my next door neighbor's house. Looked like they were having a party. Random neighbors had been firing off fireworks around the neighborhood, so we would occasionally go our and check on the horses. To their credit, the horses were very relaxed about the fireworks.

Fast forward about an hour or so, and all of the sudden, we heard a crash. I jumped up, and ran outside to investigate, and discovered the horses running hell for leather around the pasture, and some kids jumping over the back fence toward the creek. I yelled at the kids to get the hell off of my property, and went over to check everybody. There didn't seem to be any injuries and nobody came up lame, so I proceeded to walk the fence line. I'm glad I did, because I discovered that the gate between the front yard and the pasture was open, and had a horse-shaped dent in it. Zhi and I managed to get it to close, and used some of the spare chain we had to tie it closed for the night. Tomorrow, I'll go see how bad the damage is, and whether or not I need to replace the gate. At this point, the assholes who'd whipped my horses into a frenzy attempted to sneak back towards the pasture. Since they were all wasted, they were about as stealthy as a brick lobbed through a glass window. This time, I watched the horses while Zhi ran over and yelled at them again.

That seemed to work, because they all made their way back over to the neighbor's house, but at this point, there was no way in hell I was going to go back inside. I spent about an hour trying to get the horses calm, and kept watch for more drunk stupid people. While I was debating on calling the police, almost on cue, 6 Williamson County Deputies showed up and began dispersing the party. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see a police car. Zhi and I took turns keeping an eye on things while the crowd dispersed and the vast majority of them seem to have gone home now. I'm freaking exhausted at this point, but I don't know if I can sleep. Thanks a lot, City Slicker Assholes.

Are You There Epona? It's me, Foxfire

Bless me Epona, for I have sinned. It has been 7 Months, 11 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes, 31 seconds and 1259 nanoseconds since my last confession. I have coveted horses out of my price range, I have eaten before feeding my horse and I have neglected to give my horse treats when he commands. All of these are grievous sins to be sure, but I fear today, I must confess to a far greater transgression. I hate to mention it, but I must.

I have attempted to hose off a horse's head while it was tied.

A most serious transgression indeed. And what possessed you to commit such an act?

Well... I did it to Zigs while he was--

Stop right there.

But, I didn't think th--

Exactly.

But...

SILENCE MORTAL! Lest I smite your ruin upon the GAG course!

Please don't.

That depends. Will you do it again?

Hell no.

Alright, no smiting for you. This time.

Thank you Epona.

Do not thank me yet, mortal. You have yet to hear your penance.

*gulp*

I demand the following: 10 minutes of sitting trot without stirrups every ride for a week. The training level A and B Dressage tests ridden entirely in Two-Point once per week. And there is one final thing.

Name it, your ladyship.

Clean your horse's sheath. I swear, you men ar--

Not a problem,

..What? No squirming? Not even a flinch??

Already have the Excalibur.

I see.

Um... can I go now? I need to turn Ziggy out for the night.

Run along.

In seriousness, Sonata was wearing a breakaway halter, and neither she nor I were hurt. I feel really stupid for doing that, and I know how lucky I am that was the case. You can rest assured I won't be doing that again.

Now that that's taken care of, I can actually discuss my lesson this evening. It started out a little rough, and I was really having to push her forward off my leg. but that's sort of par for the course. At the walk, we practiced getting our horses to stretch down. Due to the way Sonata was trained, there was only so much I was going to get, and she made me work for every inch I got. ;) The trotting went pretty well, and I think I'm getting a lot better at my half halts and keeping my heel down when I have to give strong leg cues. Canter was also quite good, I got it every time I asked, and I did a much better job at immediately fixing the trot and getting her balanced, rather than what I usually do, which is trot around in a hot mess and try to get a walk.;)

For the last part of the lesson, we did leg yields. I think they went OK, but I think that I was letting Sonata pop her shoulder and just walk to the rail rather than cross over. I do, however, have an epiphany to report. One of the things my trainer is constantly saying to me when I'm doing laterals is to "half halt with the outside rein to fix her outside shoulder". It finally made sense today. I don't quite know how to explain what I did, but I sort of thought of building a wall with my outside leg and rein, and using my inside leg to move her hindquarters over to catch up. Tomorrow, I'm headed down to the Houston area to look at a few horses for Zhizhu... It should be interesting. Of course I will make a full report tomorrow.