a Horse Friend Network

http://www.equestrianlife.com/ - I joined Equestrian Life today and built a mini-profile. Right off the bat, I saw an article regarding leg yielding which was interesting and well written. Cruised around the site a little, and it looks like it might be fun to try.

Then, inspired, the gang and I went outside to ride. Kale on Sunny, Ivy on TC, Alaina on Diez and me on Splash. After yesterdays gully washer rain, the arena was still to mucky to do anything more than trotting. So, we wandered around the place ducking tree limbs and leaving big muddy hoof prints. Lovely afternoon and all the horses were good.

Sadly, we were rained out of the party lesson yesterday, so Splash didn't get any real work. Cindy is in town, so we met for lunch at Ron's in Claremore - (Cindy, Donna, Patty, Carol, Paul, Kathy, and me). We dilly-dallied and snarfed on Spanish fries. Yummy. Since Donna and I have some time off this week, we plan on a lesson/lunch on Tuesday. Splash's vacation is done.

Happy Holidays!!!!

From the Cullens at Christmas time. A christmas picture. We're off to the All Academy Ball tonight in OKC but I got in some ride time yesterday. I worked both LB and Lakota in the round pen then road Lil. Lil was awesome, responding to every cue quickly and accurately. I even got some nice trots with just a squeeze of the legs. Well I'm off to get ready now, until our next ride- Happy trails! Marsha

'Twas the Day after Christmas

The pictures of the current conditions are very scary. So, here is one from the Night Before Christmas when Kale Santa was in charge of the annual reading.....

Merry Christmas to All and to all a Good Ride. xxxooo c

Artic Air and Patty's Arena

Winter is really here and I am already ready for warm spring days and green grass. Splash is making incrementally slow progress but one ride a week is not really adequate for him at this stage. The weather on Sat. was supposed to be relatively nice with front coming late afternoon. The front blew in before 10am and we raced to Patty's to try to beat the real cold and get our party lesson in time. Patty's arena really helped block the wind and only Patty was really cold during the lesson.

Marsha rode Pico, Kathy/Casper, Amanda/Missy, Alison/2-yr old dun palomino, and me/Splash. Pico was a good boy for Marsha and Marsha did a good job with him - got a few nice canter transitions too. Casper settled down for Kathy after Amanda worked him a bit and Alison's new baby was great - even did a little spinning w/ Amanda after the lesson. Splash is still a slug. Spurs and the infamous german neck stretcher help and we had some decent trot work (still need more energy) but our canter transitions are BAD and keeping the canter is hard too. We did some leg yeilds at the walk and trot and Splash is very hard to keep moving forward. A little better was the excercise with "collection" along the short end "extention" along the long side. I might need bigger spurs.

And I sure wish I had a picture of our waitress's face when she heard about the German Neck Stretcher..... She imagined a rather wild scene. Think of what she could imagine with the 2-whip tango and bigger spurs...

Mystery Elf

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Future YaYa Riders Turn 10

Ivy and Alaina are practicing their yaya skills and are excited to be getting older every day.....

Dirty Santa

So now I have to wait a whole year until I can play dirty santa again. Last night the GCC-ODS party was lots of fun - Ivy and Alaina and Miranda were the big little Junior winners and they were very excited. Denise and Jurgen and Patty and Silka and Patty and Danta got goodies too - Nicole and Elvis took Pico and me in First but they deserve it and we came in a happy 2nd. And, most exciting, Larry Couch won best Husband Volunteer. Way cool. It was so fun to see horsey friends and re-live the fab moments of 2008. Now, on to 2009.

Although the weather wasn't to cold today the wind was blasting out of the south which made for difficult lessons on Pico and Splash. Every now and then a blast of sandy wind would give Patty and me dermabrasion treatments but I don't know if that helped our complexions or just hurt. Pico had a spook right off the bat but then did really well while we worked on simple changes on serpentine and then on canter departs from the walk and downward transitions to back. To the right, Pico did pretty well even managing to change leads a couple of times a stride after taking the wrong one. Our downward transitions were very sloppy. Left lead, another story. Very difficult canter departs about 1/2 the time on the wrong lead. But we made some improvement and stopped for the day. Splash was not thrilled with the neck stretcher but did some fairly good stand/trot transitions. Canter caused displeasure and he bucked several times but the wind was so strong by that time that several dust'nados made riding difficult so we stopped as soon as we got canter without buck. Then, out of the wind Nancy, Patty and I went to Graham's for the usual good food and fun talk. Yaya.

YaYa Get Together

Well, the first holiday weekend of Dec. is behind us and Sherry outdid everyone with her dirty Santa gift. It is a good thing we are all "farm girls"... oooooolala! YaYa's got together without horses at Kathy Burrows' place and ate, drank, made merry, and talked and laughed and plotted our next ride. Sherry orchestrated a beautiful portrait for Jurgen for Rita as a token of our appreciation for hosting our rides all year long. And the Food! we all know how to cook. yummy. The dirty Santa game was fun and no injuries were reported. Thank you all for your friendship - I look forward to many years of YaYa's with you all. BTW - we really need to work on our yaya names soon. If you don't already have one, be thinking. Mine is the Empress Equine Obsessed, so if you remember your yaya name, please post. If you have suggestions for any un-named sister, chime in....

So ride time; I did get a little on Sat. morning before the 4-H banquet. I went to Patty's early with Pico and Splash and worked Pico first. It's been a while since he has been worked, so we were just re-acquainting. Then, Splash. We started without the neck stretcher and saw a little improvement but put it back on so I could work on pushing Splash out without fighting with my hands. We had a good lesson and although slow, I think some progress is happening. So, until next weekend. YaYa.