Much has happened in all our lives down here in Florida. We've seen a fantastic farm that has great prospects to be THE farm, the holidays came and went, and a new member of the household has arrived.
Before the holidays things got somewhat hectic, as both my mother and I were going to be away (in two different places no less). Arrangements had to be made to take care of all the fur babies since I would be in New Hampshire as of the 26th and my mother would be staying in Naples (where we spent Christmas day) with our 'other' family until the 28th. Because of this (and a rather irritating cold that decided to make an appearance during my least favorite time of year), I only got to see Ellie one last time before we left. Andrea had given her shots that morning, so I didn't do much with her in the way of pen work as she was pretty sore through the shoulder. I can't exactly blame her, the last time I got a tetanus shot in the shoulder I didn't really want to move it either. The benefit of this however, is that I got to spend most of the morning fussing over her, bonding and desensitizing her to having her feet picked up, mane pulled, sprayed with a bottle, everything she wasn't so keen on over the last week I'd been working with her. While clipping her bridle path (something she doesn't like... I have no luck with horses and ears) I made sure to step up and down off the mounting block (plyometrics in the barn, boo yeah! ... I know, I'm a nut... I'll go back to my tree now...) as much as I could to get her used to the motion next to her head and shoulder. She seemed less than bothered by my fussing with her, so, being the fool that I am, I decided to see what she would do if I leaned my weight across her back. I had done this once before for a very brief period of time, but she only felt about half of my full weight. I decided to see if I could get her to bear my full weight. Tossing my 5'9" frame over her back was not exactly easy to do in a slow and gentle fashion (long legs, don't fail me now) but I managed. After slowly easing myself on and off her bare back I pulled myself a little further over, and eventually she allowed me to pull myself completely over her back, sack of potatoes style. Hooray for small victories! She bore my full weight, no complaints. She even went so far as to take a few steps when asked to back up! Note: I was not alone during the venture, Laura was there getting CiCi ready for her last ride before she left to be a hunter pony at her new home. I hung there like a fool with my butt in the air for about an hour, getting on and off a few times, and by the end she was allowing me to completely hoist (read as: half throw and haul) myself (in a far less graceful manner) across her back and pat down her sides with my arms and legs. One step closer to being on her back! Yay!
Yule, and then Christmas, came and went. We spent Christmas down in Naples with our second family, the Walkers. I helped reptile-sit (I now want a bearded dragon even more than I did before...). Bearded dragons are pretty cool little dudes. This particular guy had a mug that made me think of a mobster-type, and I kept waiting for him to pull a mini tommy gun on me.
Mobster Tambo.
You leave the mealworms or you sleep with the fishes. Capiche?
He really is a cool little guy, we chilled for awhile each day I was in Naples. Maybe I'll get one of my own one day. Not until all this moving business is over with though.
Like I mentioned before, I was up in New Hampshire for a few days after the holidays, and after a lovely 24 hour car drive back to Florida, I was back in ye-olde-warm-weather on new year's day. Oh seventy degrees... how I missed thee. Twenty... is too damn cold. I saw snow... *shiver* Yuck. I'm spoiled already.
Now that I'm back, the farm hunt has continued, and we have a few prospects on the horizon. We have seen one, tomorrow we will be seeing another. We shall see how this pans out, as it does affect the continuance of my work with Ellie. See, I was getting to the point. I'm not long winded for absolutely no reason!
The first day I saw Ellie after getting back consisted of nothing new. I mostly wanted to see if she would remember me and anything we had done before the long hiatus. I was pleasantly surprised as she seemed to not only remember me, but once again seek my attention, as well as remember everything we had worked on. She was very quiet as we lunged (still only walk-trot, I haven't pushed her to canter yet, she is still very out of shape and I don't want her to hurt herself) and we simply worked on transitions and staying nice and quiet on the lunge. We walked... we trotted... we did some rope-sacking... I stuffed her face with carrots. It was nice to see how smart she is in that she hadn't forgotten anything, and I made plans for the following days. More on that in the following post.
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