Two out of three aint bad

[glenatron]

Today was not the conventional working day. Firstly we had a whole lot of new desks arrived from Ikea so we spent the first few hours of the morning building those, then as we got that finished a swarm of bees arrived and parked in the bushes by the front door of our office building so we got to watch hundreds of bees and then watch a beekeeper retrieve them ( one beekeeper and an office full of beepeekers ) which was really interesting. She had to use secateurs and loppers to cut through the branches of the bush they had settled in which was, to my mind, a satisfying blend of apiary and topiary.

This evening band practice was cancelled because of a lame shanks01 incident, and as I was feeling unpredictable I decided to break the mould and spend a couple of hours with my horse. By "break the mould" there I do mean "do the same thing we do every day." I don't feel like I'm repeating myself though, and Zorro doesn't seem to mind. Well, I say that, he was pretty feisty today- first he was full of playful biting which I have realised I'm going to have to come down really heavily on if it's going to get under control so there were a couple of moments where he found himself running backwards across the school after an ill-judged nip. He really was exploring the boundaries though- it was interesting to see and reassuring that he could clearly tell exactly what it was I was asking him not to do.

We did a little liberty, which was good fun- we had some really nice clover leaf shapes around blocks with me working behind him and steering by moving his hip with my body position. That went pretty well and then we had a bit of a play with the mirroring cow-cutting type work at walk and trot and I obviously overstated something as we had a full on explosion across the school with feet and mane everywhere in classic Furious Zorro style. Then he decided to graze on the hedge ( the scary one he couldn't go near for months ) and when I pointed out that he was still on my time and we were still working we had another lap of the school with feathers and feet flying. Made me wish I had someone with a camera on hand as it was very funny indeed.

After that we did a bit of work on the longer rope with which he was perfect and a bit of riding where I started to get some of my transitions in the direction I would want them, leading off my breath and life as much as direct cues. Then I decided we could try and tidy up the blocks I had put out by roping them with the 22' line and dragging them back to the corner. Although we did that at a clinic a few weeks ago, these blocks made a louder noise and they kept chasing us and it was scary, so the plan proved a little ambitious. I dropped the rope for safety and then Zorro wouldn't go near it so we played with building up forward and attentiveness until he could step over it and that seemed a good place to stop. We had some really good work there but there was certainly feist as well.

The ponies are spending the night in another field that needs a bit of grazing down and so Zorro went straight back in there and then I fetched Small over. Small was unimpressed that I had stolen his friend and when I put him out and Zorro grumped at him he had a bit of a spirited outburst too sproinking in the air and kicking out at Zorro then trotting off across the pasture. What a rubbish day for my camera to have flat batteries...

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, Zorro...he cracks me up.

He really is quite full of opinions and horsenality isn't he?

I've gotten into some overly ambitious plans with Sage too. Actually, getting him to go sideways over a ground pole a little while almost proved to be one of them...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

He's a very big character, but it did seem like we just had Team Punchy down at our yard yesterday. I think the hot weather was getting to everyone...

It's surprising what counts as ambitions sometimes isn't it? Who knew that the hedge of terror remains terrifying unless you are eating it. There's only one way that kind of vegetation can be controlled and it's through the power of Noms!

[half-a-cider.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a pretty good day to me.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Yes, it worked out pretty well all in all.