New Name!

So I kind of struggled with my blog name. I knew it couldn't be Riding Ms. Daisy anymore, with her gone, but I also had NO CLUE what to name it! I really started thinking today of what my life is about now, and trying to think of something that would mean something about what I do and who I am. So thus I came up with Riding During Naps! Lol, kind of sums up my problems trying to be a good horsewoman but also a great wife and mom, which are my first and most important responsibilities. Actually being the best child of God I can be is my FIRST responsibility which I fail at so miserably. I really need to put effort there.

I will probably move this from strictly a horse blog to more of whats going on in other parts of my life too. But not as personal as my actual day to day life like I do on this blog: His Goofy Woman.

So hopefully when this new name pops up on everyone's feed and you freak out, you know where it came from!

I got to work with Stormy Friday and Saturday!

Normal face, shes got those silly airplane ears, lol

I'm sitting here trying hard to remember what I did Friday, mama brain, good gosh. It was bad with the first one but now it's just MUSH after my second! I think what I did was went to town that morning for some errands then came back and parked by the round pen in the shade. Shelby girl was asleep thankfully and so I sneaked my four year old Chloe out quietly and we went off to catch grey mare. 

The FIL was there doing some things around the house so he came to see us for a bit. It was a lot easier to catch her this time. Of course having horse cookies does help! She hoovers those things up! So I swapped out halters on her and off to the round pen we went.

It had been a week since I worked her free lunging so I wanted to review that and get her more solid. She did really well again and I was happy to see her gimpyness (which I am assuming came from being kicked when we first put her out with Chatterbox?) was gone, or so I thought. After she worked a bit the other side she started limping pretty bad at the trot, sigh. Anyway, she did a few wrong turns but got it down pretty good. She hadn't worked much of a sweat up by the time I thought she was done, I worked her a lot less then I would have if she wasn't sore. Chloe was a good girl and sat in the shade watching youtube again.

We reviewed everything we had done last week on the lead and I added lateral yielding this time. She did very well. She moved a bit to begin with and every so often, but really softened up and was touching her girth line very fast IMO. She's not as relaxed at it yet as I want her to be, but she had a great starting point. She is still pretty stiff and sometimes bumps her nose up and down when I ask or right after trying to push against the pressure instead of give.

I also did some rope slapping. I thought I might get some fireworks out of her with this, she did move a bit to begin with, I think she thought I was telling her to lunge around me. But she settled down and that was it. 

Think that was about all we did!

Moving on to Saturday, which unfortunately I remember a lot better because it didn't go quite as well!! 

It started off kind of bad to begin with. I had left the two girls with there daddy that morning at the house and headed out there. I caught her easily again and headed on out to the tie post. I had asked the father in law if she tied the other day, and he said oh yeah! I picked her feet out just the other day. So I hooked the quick release to the bottom of the rope halter so I could look at her back leg and see how it was doing. Well it was fine, so I went around to her front to pick them up and check them. She is a major PIA to trim/shoe (the farrier puts a lip rope on her every time if she even starts to act up, probably doesn't help -_-) so I thought I would do some desensitizing while I was there. I smacked on the bottom of her hoof a bit, then went to put it between my two knees, you know how the farriers do? WHAM! She its the end of that rope so fast and jerks her leg out from my legs so hard she about bruises my calves as it swings past. Um, okay! She thrashes around at the end of the tie for a few seconds and then decides she's not getting away I guess, and stops. Good grief! To say I was surprised would be a bit understated!

So I was pretty ill to say the least. I know I shouldn't have any kind of negative emotions around horses, but it doesn't take much to make me mad period. I untied her and made her back up quite a ways then walked back up to the tie post and inspected my halter. She stretched out the bottom lines of my rope halter pretty good, so the knots on her nose are kind of wonky now, but the longer I worked her the better it seemed to get. 

I needed to get her calmed down about being at the post and actually teach her something. So I would walk her up to the post and act like I was putting her back on the tie rope by fiddling with it under her halter. Then I would go to her side and rub and scratch her. If she tried to move off I would back her up pretty fast and then walk right back up like nothing happened and repeat. She finally did calm down and stand still. I did the opposite side and then went on to the round pen.

I found out pretty quick she was still lame, ughh, so I tried not to work her too hard.

Here a few screen shots from that, I have a video but having trouble getting it onto my comp so I can edit the boring stuff out.

Trot trot! She is a pretty nice mover

Got artsy with this one

Roll back to come in and face me, shes pretty quick!

So when I got her working like I wanted we walked back and put her halter on. Again reviewed all we have been learning, adding in the lateral yielding which she was even better at, and the rope slapping. I then did some rope slapping in front of her to each side and then over my head on either side of my body. No problem, mahn!

So then I got the bright idea since I had someone watching the kids to teach her something new! I can't work on the hindquarter yielding that I want to because of her sore leg, so I decided to start her on forquarter yielding. Yeah, that didn't go so well. Part of the problem was the FIL had showed up again and was feeding Chatterbox, which she was quite concerned about. I never had her whole attention but a few times. So trying to teach hr something new was rough. I got a few steps on one side and then proceeded to her off side. She never really gave me much on this side, its her hard side anyway and she just got frazzled and at one point tried to bite my hand and/or the leadrop that was up by her face. NO WAY JOSE! I sent her off quick at a good lope and made her do changes of direction ever quarter or half way around the pen. After that we went back to work. Still didnt get a whole lot of good but finally found a stopping point and quit that exercise. 

I tried to do some things she was good at after that but still didn't have a whole lot of her attention. Hopefully the more we build a partnership the better that will get when distractions come. I quit her after that and we walked back to the pasture. I worked her a little bit by there too so she didn't think she got to come back and and do nothing right there, and then put her back in.

Screenshots from this part:

Obviously scared of the whip, lol

Yielding

March back up

One of our forequarter successes

So I was kind of dissapointed for a few days, but I realized we all have good and bad days. It can't always be awesome! I haven't been out since last Saturday, but hoping to work her either tomorrow or for sure Friday.

Until then!