Julie and I usually arrive about a half hour early for lessons. We've done this every time we've had a lesson so far. I didn't last Friday, but that was only because I thought she had someone scheduled directly before me. However, when DeDe got there, she seemed surprised and irritated that we were there early. I guess she has been stressed lately. She is sort of in limbo with her housing situation and is currently looking for a place to live. In our past couple of lessons, she mentioned it, but she was still her usual peppy encouraging self. But today, she definitely brought it all with her.
Julie and I kind of expected to ride today. My heart sank when DeDe said we were going to be doing groundwork. It makes me really nervous and uncomfortable, frankly. I know I need to get over it. I want to have horses one day and it's something I need to know how to do. But... I guess riding, in the end, gives me a confidence boost that groundwork does not. I know Julie feels the same. Probably more so, since I seem to understand the concepts of groundwork a little better than she does.
This time we each had our own horse to work with. Julie had Lola, and I had Luca. The reason we haven't ridden Luca yet is because he has an abscess on one of his feet. I was a little confused about why we were taking Luca out today. For one, he makes me nervous because he is young and a bit nippy, he has been cooped up in his stall and has a lot of energy. For two, he has an abscess. The vet said to hand walk him bit I felt like this was putting a bit of pressure on me. He was fine leaving his stall, but on the way to the round pen, he decided it was time to jump around and get excited (spooked?), and I freaked out a little. It was a bit embarrassing, really.... I didn't exactly scream, but I definitely squeaked and dropped the lead rope. He's just a bit too high strung for me still, I guess. DeDe took the lead rope and took him into the round pen and lunged him for a little bit, let him roll in the dirt and whatnot, but in the end he was too lame for her to be comfortable with it. She put him back in his stall and brought Porsche out instead. I didn't really understand why we tried him in the first place. He scared me quite a bit and it put a damper on the rest of the lesson for me.
Julie had a lot of issues with today's lesson. I don't know if it's just because she was being a butt or didn't understand her or something, but she had a lot of trouble getting Lola to do what she wanted. I felt bad. I felt like the lesson ended on a really sucky note for Julie, and she seemed really bummed about it. I did a teeny bit better, but I'm not sure if that was because I understood better, or because Porsche was more willing to listen to me. I still wished that I felt like we accomplished something besides being awful at groundwork.
On a brighter note, we bought some black licorice, which is Pandora's favorite treat! She was really excited about it. Julie snapped a couple of really cute pictures of me with Pandora, and one or two with her super-sweet next door neighbor. We couldn't take pictures of each other doing groundwork, since we each had a horse. Which is a good thing, I guess!
She let me pet her for all of about one second.
I kept pulling her over, trying to get a picture holding her head, but she was not having it. She wanted to know where the rest of her licorice was!
Silly Pandora! It's all gone.
I love this horse. She's amazing. One day I'll be able to really ride her!
It's really bothering me that this picture is a different size from the others, but Julie took it with her phone and it's just sooo cute!
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