Monday afternoon diary – Recapping Sunday! 😉

I started to write my Sunday diary several times yesterday – but every time I wrote a line or 2, I was up and about tending to my boys – or the newest little addition to our barn family – a 5 month old little pig named Nacho Pig.

This past weekend, and even today, has been brutally hot. Hot and high humidity. I got to the barn super early on both days to help out with chores. The mornings at the barn are so peaceful. The horses have just been turned out and there is a calmness in the air. I pull into the driveway and see Alfie, his mane and tail blowing in the breeze, happily grazing. I roll down my window and call to him. He picks up his head, knickers at me, gives me his usual head nod which is like our version of a high five and gets right back to grazing. Oh how I love him so much.

My lesson on Saturday with Copper went well. Watching my trainer Kari ride him is such a joy. He knows so much, and figuring him out is exciting.

So I decide that I’m going to do a totally solo ride with Copper on Sunday. I briefly rode him solo last week but ran into the not being able to go left issue and instead we do beautiful pirouettes lol. After my trainer rode him she figured out to keep him from doing that, my inside leg has to be positioned in front of the girth and my outside leg slightly behind the girth. Copper doesn’t seem to be doing the pirouettes out of spite, my hips aren’t totally aligned perfectly so my seat is giving him the wrong cues. I get him all tacked up and into the arena we go. We start in the better direction where I don’t continuously hit the pirouette button lol. We work on circles and then cross the diagonal to change direction. And there goes my hip…I stop him from pirouetting, and try to figure out the exact position my legs need to be in. Somehow I managed to do it and look at that we went left!

I then figure ok, if I did it once I should be able to do it again, right?! Wrong…I tried a few more times to just get it right and couldn’t. So I decide to change direction again and do some trotting – I will come back to the “left”. We do some nice trotting, I’m in the correct diagonal and we even trotted over poles! The last pole we trotted over I felt my seat come up a bit and I swear he did a little jump over it. All I could do was laugh and chuckle and I said in my giggling voice “that was so much fun Copper!”

My trainer comes in to make sure all is ok and I’m back at attempting going to the left. She comes over and physically moves my leg into the position it needs to be. I feel like I’ve practically got my inside foot literally in his shoulder area but my trainer says to just go with it so I do. He walks to the left with no issues at all, so now I know exactly where my legs need to be.

Our ride ends and I give him a huge hug. A solo ride on my new horse – who’s only been home for a week and a half. Look at us go.😊

With all the changes at the barn, Alfie has been going through a bit of stress. New neighbor – Copper lives next to him, new species living in the barn – the pig and of course ME, spending time between 2 horses now. So to help make him feel just as special and as important as he always will be, I’ve been spoiling him just a little extra these days with his favorite types of treats. Not all horses are as sensitive to change as Alfie is. Alfie tends to be more bitey when he’s stressed or upset. By the time I left on Sunday evening, he was much more like his usual self.

Tomorrow marks the 2 week anniversary of picking up Copper. I am really so excited about what the future holds for us. I hope he enjoys being a part of my family as much as Alfie does.❤️🐴