it's HOT

But after minus 18 in February, I am NOT whinning.

My non-horsey sister Trisha and her favorite husband Jim are in OK for a visit so I am trying not to torture her with horsey activities - to much.  They arrived in the Intruder (very large RV) Saturday afternoon - after our party lesson.  Jim and Jason had hunted carp in the creek at Ray Ranch in Sapulpa and Trisha brought marinating filets with them to the WOR.  Pretty yummy fried up and served with newish potatoes.  Also stored in the Invader freezer is ground gator meat which made good SpaGattor. 

You can see that Trisha is trying to distract me from my horsey obsession with food.  Good plan.

A small contingent of the YaYa's rode at Rita's on Wed. evening (the coolest day of the week) - the four of us (Rita, Sherry, Judy, and me) had a lovely ride out the gate through College Park and beyond.  We feasted on Tetrazinni and fresh fruit salad including Glenbrook raised raspberries (Rita), chicken salad on cresants (Judy), and spicy cheese ball (Sherry) and garlic bread (pathetically me).  You can see that various foods are diversions from going outside in the heat.

The girls - Ivy, Alaina, and Roxy - had their lesson at 10 concentrating on equitation.  Then Mallory and Raffles joined Splash and me at 11.  Splash warmed up nicely and we worked trot and leg yeilds before concentrating on canter.  Mallory and Raffles make those transitions look easy although Mallory is trying to slow the canter down.  Splash was having trouble with leads so we worked on rollback exercises.  Splash does well with right rollback/right lead depart but has difficulty with left.  Perhaps there is a link between his right hind issues from last year (shortened muscles and habitual protection?) so that the pivot to the left gets bound up and he hold the right bend and gets the wrong lead.  Very hard for both of us but we got some improvement.  During canter work, Splash had a pretty big stumble so hopefully no re-injury will show up this week.

LAL was at Ron's in Claremore to avoid the crowds in Inola for Hay Days.  Fun until next weekend when we will ride again.  YaYa.