It's Beautiful Outside!

Mmm.... I can almost see Fall peeking around the corner!

It is so nice outside today! The weather is just perfect! Sunny, clear, windy, and cool! And no humidity! Yahoo!!

So today Eddie and I played out in the pasture. We played with some small things to warm up, and now the majority of our play sessions are riding. So I'm really excited about that!

After we warmed up, I hopped on with some new reins, and his sidepull and we just went! I learned something pretty valuable from Chris Irwin's book. It's an ok, book, I wouldn't call it one of my favorites, but he has some good tidbits for collection and control. He said that a horse is like a river. And we're riding the waves. Our legs are the banks, and the power comes from the hindquarters. Our reins are like a dam, controlling the water and directing it. I thought that was a really good analogy! So we played with that, and also Mark Rashid's ideas of being clear, and direct.

I would ask Eddie to back up, and I tried to make it feel like I was stopping a canoe. It worked somewhat well, but I think we need to play with it more. It really made me want to ride again this evening! ;-) But we did some of that, and I had to come up with a list of things I wanted to do. We went sideways a few times, worked on our backing up, and having him just listen to my ideas. It went really well, and I think it's just going to keep getting better from here! Yippee!!

~Lea & Eddie~

Psalm 119:130

The entrance of Your words gives light;
         It gives understanding to the simple.