Day #2

Today was my first lesson with Emmy and it was weird. I'm supposed to be riding Ranger! Cantering is supposed to be mildly hard to sit through! But Emmy didn't make everything easy. Today, I made good friends with the dressage whip.

When we started trotting, it went about like this:

Drag, drag, drag the feet, AH I got kicked to go forward! Medium-slow trot for two strides, drag, drag, drag.

Then when I got him to be collected and after doing some serpentine from the wall to the quarter-line, it was time to canter. First we started to the right and I asked and immediately I received! Hooray! Kelsey's hard work yesterday payed off. And we cantered for a while too! Drifter is a slow poke, so we kept catching up, mwahahahaha. So cantering to the right went well!

Then we switched directions.

Where did my well balanced horse go? Ahh! All the times I've previously cantered Emmy, I must have started with going to the left and then went right because I had never really noticed before that his canter to the left was weird. However, it's something to work on! Maybe it will be fixed before Jessica gets home? I can dream.

Then we got to jump! WOOHOO! Thank goodness for the mane on Emmy's neck. It saved my butt the first couple of times we went over! First we started with ground rails, and initially Emmy wanted to drag his feet over those. But! I didn't give up on him and eventually he started to pick up his feet :D Then Kelsey moved the cavelleti to the medium height and we trotted over that too just fine. Then it was moved to the largest height. And then Emmy jumped. OMGEEEEE! Ranger does not feel like that when he jumps. Here's why I say that: When Emmy and I trotted to it, I was hesitant and so the length of his stride was short and we were not where we were supposed to be after the first ground rail. But! Emmy is smart and thought, "I'm supposed to jump after the ground rail! Even if I'm not quite in front of the jump! Here I go!" So he leaps, and I say OMGEEEEEEE! If the same thing were to happen to Ranger, he would say, "But if I jump it now, that's so much work. I will trip over it instead. And now that I think about it, I have to pee." Thankfully, I got more confident, got Emmy to lengthen his stride and the jump was much easier to handle, and almost... dare I say it... fun?

Pictures! HOORAY!

Emmy did not want to be still for the photos. Munch munch munch!

Food! YUM!

Ah-oh, Emmy's mouth is empty.

FOOOOOOOD!

Kylene-auntie!!! Yesterday, I gave him peppermint treats, and he was pretty keen about those. :D

Finally, a semi-decent photo. I don't think I'll be winning any awards for my photography skillz yet.

And finally, the kitties! Hooray! Callie-cat is front and center (well... center at least) and Earl is the grey lump cleaning himself on the left. What pretty kitties!

Ahhh! I also went on a trail ride with Kelsey after the lesson! Emmy walks too slow compared to PJ, but Emmy was a good, calm buddy for PJ when PJ started freaking out on the way to the barn. In PJ's defense, if he were good at everything, he would be boring and would have no friends. I bet no one would even pet him, and that would not be great. So win-win for Emmy and PJ! YAY!