Surprise visitor...
Saturday I went for my usual feeding of the horses at our stables. I was still laughing at some posts I read over at 7MSN and thinking how boring my life seems by comparison.Well, bull.Let me explain.It was a gray day, one

The first five minutes
The article in Horse and Rider said that your horse decides in the first 5 minutes of a ride whether or not you're going to be able to keep him safe. If, during those five minutes, your horse tests you and you miss it, then you've signaled you are not the leader of this ride.The article is on riding solo a barn sour/herd bound horse. And, as all these articles recommend, the advice is ground work.It's been a long time since I took Cibolo to the round pen. I decided I needed to see where we were.The answer was ugly. Several times he refused to turn until I really raised the pressure. His gaits were of his choosing initially.This was a mess. But

Thankful for shoeing, splashes, and wondering
Happy Thanksgiving!!!It has been so crazy at work I feel like I must be working at the same office as Nuzzling Muzzles!I haven't been able to do anything, including shopping for Thanksgiving turkey and shoeing the horses.So I just left for part of the day to get the horses shod - Cibolo lost his shoe on Tuesday and it broke quite a bit of hoof off.Because my last shoeing bill was so expensive, I asked the farrier if I could meet him and avoid a trip fee. I believe we call this the "tripping over dollars to pick up pennies" approach since I was gone for hours and had to work until 10 pm to get my other work done.But it was a beauti

On order
When you can't ride, shop. That's my motto.And since it seems like I can have fun on a horse, I'm committing by buying new tack. :)Here's what should be arriving sometime after the turkey leftovers are gone (the one in blue)....And one of these...

Back to the lake...
Today was the trail ride I was trying to get Cibolo ready for. Then we had that incident yesterday and I decided to give myself a break.I rode Lily.Lily has had some issues with the trailer, but she loaded right up. Then we went to pick up a friend and her Paso Fino/Arabian, Diego.Diego does not like trailers.I load Lily in the back section of the trailer, because she bolts out. (Remember when we went through all kinds of trailer issues?) Well, we're past them, but keeping her in the back works great since she can't work up any steam getting out. And she