We're Still Alive!

Yikes! It's been over a month since I last posted. Gina and I are still alive and kicking, although we've been doing a bit less lately. The shorter days have killed my riding time on days I work (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) and I've had a veritable horse buffet thrown at me over the last month.

The center's current director, Linda, (who is the founder and previous director of the program at which I work) has lots of horses. Since she's 62 and has a bad knee, she offered just about all of them to me to ride. There's Heidi, a 5 year old Appendix mare; Atut, a 24 year old Trakehner gelding; Xeta, a 4 year old Oldenburg mare; Doc, a teenage Quarter Horse gelding; and Annie, a twenty-something Quarter Horse mare. Linda also has six elderly Thoroughbred broodmares who are enjoying retirement and seven miniature horses of varying degrees of pigheadedness. Linda offered Kyla and me board for our horses in exchange for feeding and mucking stalls a few days a week and keeping her horses in shape.

It's been a busy month of riding new horses, cleaning stalls, and generally have a good time. I've managed to get out and ride Gina a few times- she's doing well and having a fun time being a fuzzy mess. We're headed to a hunter pace with Kyla and Cal this weekend; I'm not hoping for best behavior. I'm just hoping for reasonable behavior. Gina is then headed to stay at Linda's farm for the foreseeable future. Linda's setup is great- a nice, cozy barn, an arena, large pastures, and about 30 acres of galloping space. I'm pretty excited.

I'll be sure to get some pics at the hunter pace, but in the meantime, here's a picture of Heidi being a goober.