Ring A Ling

On Sunday I was back over at the ring. Though the day had started out a little murky, the afternoon was really very splendid. First I got tied up at the hardware store with Brandon, who can spend hours in there buying little pieces of screws and hoses and things for all of his creations.

By the time I got to Bill's everyone else had been there for a while. Jackie was there with Pokey, Christine was on Yogi and Lilly was langishing in the pasture. I am sure she was very jealous of the other horses getting to have lessons in the ring. In fact when she saw me, she came running over, begging to be put under saddle. Ummm, not!

I watched Bill work with Pokey in the round pen a little bit. Pokey has a very nice collected lope when he wants to have one! Once I got Lilly tacked up, we worked on cantering around. And trotting with perfect cadence. When I was cantering, Bill informed me that I need some glue on my butt to keep it in the saddle. Guess I wouldn't do very well playing Sit A Buck!  Lilly was excellent at cantering, trying very hard to do everything I asked her too. Sometimes when we canter in smaller and smaller circles, she wants to slow into a trot. And my hands want to fly all over the place. Things to work on. After a while Lilly reached her limit and lost all desire to canter at all.  But she had worked hard for me, and I was very proud of her.

She is my best equine buddy.

Here is Bill seeing if before she is completely done she wants to lay down for him, like Ruby will. Christine and I watched why Bill coaxed Lilly to kneel and then flop onto the nice soft sawdust. She looked like she was going to do it(!) a few times...and then decided she wasn't going to at all. A for effort!