Happy New Year everyone. I hope it will bring only good things.
:-)
The weather was SO lovely the past week.
New Years Eve was quiet and very cozy. I enjoyed horse stories from a book that Sharon gave me during the X-Mass dinner we had.
I ate a nice supper and later I had a very tasty but filling dessert of ice cream.
My fire was roaring and the radio played really nice music. The animals were all lazy and sleeping.
I wanted to watch some stand up comedians on my phone later in the evening, and then watch the fireworks on the phone too, as you always can find them live somewhere, but wow, at 10 pm I was SO tired, I had to go bed and sleep. I’m getting old. Hahaha. I slept great, and got up all rested. Ready for the new year!
Saturday I had a short ride on Flicka. Sheri came over to see if we could fit the cinch better on Flicka’s saddle. It was not too bad. Good enough for a calm walk and trot. Ah, Flicka is such a great riding pony. Even when I leave her for months in the pasture, as soon the saddle goes on, she is in riding mode and just her calm self. I rode a bit on the paths I had made , let her step over poles, did some trotting and then my toes started to get chilly. Hahaha. But then Sheri rode her also for a while. I cleaned out Freya’s feet while she was riding. Ah, sweet Freya. No halter, no rope, and she just stood so nice for me to clean her feet out. Soon it’s time for their trim again, but their feet don’t look too bad really. They must wear off a lot on the frozen ground in the pasture.
It was a lot of fun to spent time with Sheri and the horses.
My neighbours daughter, Sierra, came over to ride Flicka on Sunday. She is also horse crazy, and has some experience with horses so I asked her if she would like to ride Flicka. She loved to.
I think Flicka and her just clicked. Flicka was doing so well and I was proud of my little horse. I let Sierra ride Flicka on the lunge line first, so Sierra could get a feel of Flicka. Walking and a little trot. It went great so off the lead line and on the bitless bridle.
Sierra rode her for an hour, just walking around the arena and letting Flicka step over poles I had put down here and there. The weather was perfect. No wind and sunny, even though the arena is in the shade during winter. But neither of us was cold.
While Sierra was riding I spent time with Freya. Brushing, cleaning her feet and lunging her a little.
When Sierra was done with riding, I gave a demo of clicker training, because she had never heard about it. She loved the clicker training and was amazed I could let the horses do things without touching them. Flicka was showing off her side passing, and Freya was wonderful during free lunging and showing a beautiful natural collection.
Both horses had a great workout and loved all the attention.
It was such a fun afternoon and time just flew by. We had a break with apple pie and a tea. I gave Sierra 2 clicker training books to read.
During winter Sierra will come on Sunday morning but as soon the days get longer, she can come after school too.
When Sierra went home, I fed and watered the horses.
In had cooked a nice meal and Paul came later for supper. It was so nice to spent some time with him again. We talked and laughed and ate until we were both stuffed. Hahaha!
Yesterday I went to Sheri. She wanted to work with her horses and asked me to bring some things for desensitizing. So I brought a foam noodle, a foam mat, a large plastic bag, a pillow case filled with papers (so it makes noises) and a laundry bottle filled with pebbles.
One of the foals, now around 5 or 6 months, let us scratch her all over. Really amazing because normally she will shy away when you want to touch her body. But now she discovered how good a scratch feels. It was so cute!
We had lots of fun and were outside for a long time, working with one of the mares, the foals and putting some eye drops into the eyes of another mare.
After we went inside and had a nice hot chocolate with whip cream by a cozy fire.
A great end of an horsy afternoon!