Never Boring

There's a very good reason that my smart phone is never far from my hand: because it's my camera, and without a camera handy you'd doubt my retelling and I'd probably doubt what I'd actually seen at times. Like, you know, when Scrappy starts fetching sticks at dinner time.  And trying to feed them to his fellow Rushcreek, Rory. As one does.

Oh hay, just hanging out with my stick, no big deal

c'mon, try it, it's good

Scrappy and his stick cigar..

Of course it'd be a shame to miss the doings of the Beggars of Kitchen..

..or a noble wiener on water

the sunrises rock, when not fogged in!

Meanwhile the weather has still been playing at coastal here and there, but Scrap and I (and the girth!) made it out to the lake for some miles the other morning. My mind was on moving out forward, focused, and even, with all body parts committed, and more or less in a straight line. 

The terrain of our regular riding doesn't permit a whole lot of sustained mileage trotting unless you really make it, and in the last few months I've been very aware of (and slightly entertained by) how difficult it is for us both to hold it together in unison for prolonged rated trotting. So that's what we practiced, along with my endless pursuit of remembering to be consistent in diagonal changing throughout.

sluurrrp

I suppose it's a fair enough time to say that we have sent in our entry for the Eastern Mojave XP 4 day ride down South, only about 3 weeks away now. Hopefully the pony gods will smile on us as I am so excited to get out and do some 50s and see some stunning country.  Cross your fingers for us on that! 

 Meanwhile, my girthless hike with Scrap the other day inspired me to spend a few hours this morning hauling Sheza to the lake and just cruising around with her on foot, taking in the sights and covering about 3 miles all told. She reassured herself with lots of eating, took an epic pee, pooped like a trooper, and just generally did all the things brave good little coming 4 year olds should.

trot out practice

 clopclop across the bridge

hmm, strange, better eat to be safe

so much to see

scary noises, better eat!

 back safe to the trailer greeted by my dog crew

As much as it should be raining to hopefully boost us from this drought, the weather really has been phenomenal and I'm pretty proud of my ponies. It's supposed to be even warmer over the next few days and my grand plans include baths for the herd and some quality time under the old oak with a good book. Wishing you all a happy weekend!