Frustration

Today kind of felt like banging my head against a 1200 pound wall. It was just a weird, kind of sucky lesson.

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!

InstaPonies

I'm kind of addicted to instagramming pictures of my buddies.

I have about 45 pictures on my instagram, and probably a quarter of them are pictures of horses. That doesn't sound too bad, except that there have been 8 in the past month... and I really don't think it's going to slow down. I feel like the only really exciting thing going on in my life right now is this. And I've been trying to take lots of pictures.

I thought I would share some of my pictures. I enjoy looking at them and playing with them to make them pretty for instagram. 

Some of them are pictures I've shared before. 

Some I haven't. My accidental pictures of Luca are some of my favorites.

I took these two before I met DeDe and started riding. I find it so funny that I thought he was so cute that I posted both of these!

It's actually gotten so bad recently that some of my friends have been asking if I bought a horse. I wish! I'd love to have a pony of my own to love on all the time!

But one day... I will :)

A Pain in the 2600 lb Butt

Pandora... Oh, Pandora.

She's super pretty, and really sweet... but she's a butt. She gave me a really hard time today.

Grooming her was kind of an adventure. She's just so tall! I could barely reach up her back. She was great while I was grooming her, but she really didn't seem happy about tacking up. She kept trying to walk off. Not only that, but we had to put a different bridle on her, because hers was all weird. The bit was hanging way low for some reason. She seemed really unhappy about all that.

I was excited to ride her, but honestly I was also really nervous. Pandora is just so huge! It's a little scary. DeDe took her around the round pen a couple times first, to show me that I really needed to push her, because she's so strong and so huge that she can easily do her own thing if I didn't show her I was in charge.

That's something I have a really hard time with. I want to ask the horses nicely to do things for me. I don't want to kick them, I don't want to yell at them. It works with some horses in some cases... like Porsche and Lola. They want to go forward. But Pandora really really doesn't. Pandora needs to be pushed, and hard.

I was constantly kicking Pandora, through my whole lesson. I just couldn't kick her hard enough to get her to pick up her feet. DeDe told me that part of my issue was that I pulled on the reins at the same time as I kicked her, so I confused her. Eventually she got me a riding crop to smack her with, but I couldn't seem to do that either. I don't know if it was just the way I was holding it, but I couldn't hit her very hard. More likely it's that I was afraid of hurting her... which is silly.

Getting her to stop was an adventure. I had the same issue with the reins that I have with the kicking and the crop. I had it with Porsche and Lola, too. However, because Pandora is so strong and so big, I got over it quickly. I feel much more comfortable with yelling at her to "ho"and pulling hard on the reins now.

I trotted for the first time today too. I was a little (read: a lot) nervous about that. The last time I trotted, when Lola took off on me, I felt really insecure. I definitely felt insecure when I trotted on Pandora, too. DeDe said that Pandora has a pretty smooth trot, but still... all that bouncing makes me feel unseated. I kept wanting to hold the horn, but then I couldn't steer or stop, which was kind of scary. I felt really proud of myself for stopping her on my own, with the reins and yelling at her, while trotting. I that may have been my biggest accomplishment today.

Or it might have been getting her to trot in the first place... I had to keep wimpy-smacking her with the crop and kicking her and yelling to get her to go! I really want to work on my confidence and my take charge-y-ness over the next few weeks.

I don't have as many pictures today, since I didn't have anyone to take them while I was riding, but I did get a couple of Pandora in her stall.

Since it's Friday, I hung out for a while at the stables. DeDe gave me some extra time in the saddle since it took so long to tack Pandora up, and then I stayed and watched to next lesson, helped the kids groom Lola, helped lead Luca from his stall to the round pen and back. We had a little bit of an adventure with Lola, too. She used to be abused, and we assume that they whipped her face and head, since she has scars there. When DeDe was taking her out of the cross ties,  she freaked out. She pulled back and practically sat down on her hindquarters until the cross tie broke, and took off running to her stall. DeDe went and caught her, and everything was fine after that. She said Lola doesn't like things around her face, probably because of the abuse. 

On another note, I hurt myself somehow! I think I scraped my arm on the saddle while dismounting. Pandora's so tall that I guess I was clinging to it a little bit.

Oh, Pandora... You're so pretty! Why are you such a butt?