Hoof Blogs

Flossie's 91st Lesson

Today's lesson was a duplicate of yesterday's lesson with Flossie. Again, she was a
dream. Again, the weather was superb. Again, I scratched on BamBam and, again, to his
utter delight. He tried to throw his head back to groom me in return a few times and I had
to get firm with him. He can't be doing that to me! He was standing under a tree when
I first approached him and there were branches hanging down over his back and sticks all
over the ground, so I stepped into a clearing nearby and called him over. Don't you
know he responded! He sauntered right up just like a puppy. He truly has a wonderful
horsenality!

Blaze, on the other hand, although he's still friendly enough, he's a bit more
standoffish. I can touch him on the head and neck for the most part, but if I want to touch
his back or shoulder, he has to be in the yard with me on the other side of the fence.

As I type this email, I can see into the yard beyond our backyard. A bulldozer just went
by. If I were standing at our fence I could have touched it. There go our trees. There
goes our glorious wildlife. Here comes another neighborhood.

Just as the trees are making way for civilization in our backyard, the same is happening to
the fields and pastures beyond Flossie's paddock. As I rode today, bulldozers were
tearing down trees and clearing away the underbrush. I could see the start of a paved
street from the saddle as I rode past the fence. Again, goodbye nature. Hello cement city.

While we were driving downtown today we spied our 'old' neighbor, Sarah. She was
walking down the sidewalk so we pulled over for a little chat. We exchanged email
addresses. She didn't have an address to give me before she left, and even though I had
given her mine at that time, she had misplaced it, so I was happy for the encounter today.
I think about her often and wonder how she's doing.

I'm trying to think if there's anything noteworthy to add to my ride this morning.
The only thing I can think of is the fact that I'm always finding ways to improve on the
exercises I've been doing at home and they seem to be helping my seat. For instance,
when I brought Flossie down from one of the best canters in the world, she broke into her
terrible ultra unfriendly-user trot and there I was sitting it as if I had been born to it.
It happened automatically and I had just been thinking, only moments before, there's no
way on earth I'll ever be able to sit this mare's trot! I give the credit to the
exercises. I really do.