Goodbye, Glorious October, and Hello Holidays!

We had a glorious October, lots of sunshine and moderate temperatures. I was able to get out on a few rides with Tweed. We worked on obstacles and basic trails, with an emphasis on going up and down hills.

We've also had our weekly lessons, or couples counseling.

We had an interesting session this week. After doing the groundwork in the round pen and then some in-saddle work, I went to open the gate with him, but Tweed knows that job so well that he started to do it himself on auto-pilot. My trainer asked if he was doing it, or if I was asking, and I said he's doing it. That was a no-no for a few reasons. First, he wasn't doing it well because he was practically slamming my leg into the gate. Second, he wasn't in vertical flexion, and third, he was getting worked up.

She told me to stay in the round pen and do more work with vertical flexion. In particular, she had me shorten the reins and bring my hands together to stabilize them while Tweed found his balance in that sweet spot. It took a bit, but we finally had it at walk, trot, a little at the lope, too, and were ready to try the gate again. This time, she wanted me to be more specific and concentrate on where I asked him to go and where to stop. She didn't want him to take one step that wasn't a deliberate ask. 

Out on the obstacles, we put that same concept to work at the balance beam, but she found another mistake I was making. I was sitting too far forward, and not back on my pockets, when I asked him to take a step onto the beam. This is a natural mistake when you're nervous about what your horse is going to do--it's that whole movement toward the fetal position. When I sat back on my pockets, it did truly engage him and give him the confidence to go forward. He jumped it, but he had a beautiful smooth, movement and came to a nice stop. We did it several times, and he jumped it each time, but my trainer was happy that he was going forward, and we ended that obstacle on a positive note and moved to another.

***

In other news, my husband continues to make progress on the sitting room/tack room, but there is so much dividing his attention that it is slow going. 

I was able to locate some salvage tin for the ceiling of the room, and we're using tongue-and-groove pine boards for the walls. The lower 45" will run horizontal and the rest will be vertical and meet up with the tin. I'm definitely going to stain the bottom portion the same color as the stalls, but I'm thinking about a turquoise blue stain for the vertical portion. Something like this.

What has been keeping us busy is that we also worked to fix up and sell our daughter's horse property. (Which is a blessing for many reasons--a fresh start for her and not having to maintain two properties through the winter). She was able to put it on the market in mid-October. She got a full price offer within a week, which is amazing in this market, and for that price range, since interest rates are so high. The people who purchased it wanted it in a month, but she compromised on December 1st....which is coming right up! Soooo, we will be in moving mode again! Yay! 

For the time being, she and our grandson will be coming here to live until they have time to sort things out and find a place of their own. It will make the holidays more special to have them with us.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, our favorite holiday. It is so good for the soul to give thanks in the most difficult times. No matter what is happening around us, there are always these spectacular moments, sprinkled with a few signs of, you're not alone.