RAIN - again

Well guess what?  It is raining - - and cold.  What a surprise.  The ground was starting to recover from the past onslaught of water/snow/etc. but a new system brought more rain last night and most of the day.  Full creeks, soggy pastures and flooded arenas are back.  But the weekend was not a total lost cause.

Friday afternoon Alaina rode with Dawn D and both she and Sunny are looking good when in the small arena under Dawn's watchful eye.  Hopefully, the show next weekend will not result in to much backsliding- but we all know that Rome was not built in a day.  Then, Sat. afternoon, Ivy got a lesson on Pico and Alaina joined in riding Jetter.  Ivy and Pico are making progress although Ivy's lesson on Thursday evening was really good.  Then Kathy B and I had the 3:00pm slot with a 4:00pm deadline so K and R could get in to Tulsa in time to see Reba. 

Splash was so hateful right off the bat that I had to dismount and longe him for 15 min.  He bucked and carried on as if he resented the end of his winter retirement.  Back in the saddle, we had adequate trot and canter work although it took a lot of effort on my part.  Our horsemanship was really bad.  Canter departs were either non-existant or wrong lead, headstrong and difficult stops, and worst of all sloppy geometry (we were back to fighting over who was driving).  Yuck!  Call and Kathy were LOTS better.  So, I made plans to return Sun PM and work some more. 

After our rides, Pico and Splash got some pre-show trimming including shaving off all the white on all 4 of Pico's stockinged legs as well as bridle paths, ears, and whiskers.  Rain was coming in but the temps weren't bad. 

Sunday, Alaina and I went to Owasso and Alaina rode Sunny and worked a little showmanship.  Then we trimmed his white foot, ears, etc. although I had to resort to twitching to get that pesky left ear done.  While we were at Dream  Maker, Heather gifted the girls with some hand-me-down show cloths!  The girls spent Sunday evening trying on outfits and both girls lucked out since there were western and english items in their size with some bigger items for future use.  WOW!  THANK YOU HEATHER! 

Then, home to pick up Diez, Splash, and Ivy to head to Inola to work the boys down there.  Alaina just wanted to play with Diez - she cantered 'no-hands' down the south side doing a 'dances with wolves' imitation.  Splash was MUCH better than yesterday, but still needs lots of work.

Some Very Sad News is that Bob Heidlage (senior) died on Tuesday and his funeral was Sat.  Bob was a pillar of Rogers County and Oklahoma 4-H horse activities and he will be very sorely missed.  Bob announced all the local, district and state horse shows when Jaime and Diez started their horse show careers.  When Jaime didn't ride well enough to get transitions in the very early days, Diez would take verbal cues from announcer Bob.  I feel very lucky that all four of my kids got encouragement and equine and character guidance from such a wonderful man.  Horse shows will never be the same.