My SECOND weekly post!

It has been a beautiful week for being outside. We spent time working horses at home and on outside rides.  We did get a lot of rain overnight Friday night but not enough to cause more mud than we could work in.

Laura continues to tune up ponies and work on her Hugo's buttons.

She also makes sure MJ gets her "little girl" rider time. I love this little mare.

Terrence is training a Standardbred for Steph Teeter.

Saturday I took several photos of Derby under saddle. The first photo of her is my favorite because she is so soft - two fingers light.

Ted had to take time to do a bunch of tack repair/modification this week. All indications are that he will have to keep doing that for awhile. The demand for tack is increasing!

On the note of increasing tack demand; Kathie checking out different saddle options for Chloe. Laura happily assisting. 

One of the best things about this week - I am finally riding again! I mostly rode Cowboy this week (and Cruiser once to go on a conditioning ride with Kathie and Chloe) but Beth ground worked Flint for me and Terrence rode him for me. I am planning to get him conditioned over the next couple of months. I want to be sure he is in shape to take me on a few 25's with the little girls if we are able to fit them in. 

Terrence spent time working on Cruiser's tricks. I didn't get photos but did film. When Terrence has a Cruiser montage together he will put it on our FAB Horsemanship youtube channel.

Beth continues to work on Cookie's training. She has a client horse scheduled to show up next weekend but for now she's busy enough with Cookie, Clay, MJ, Flint and helping Laura get Ardreth and Snip all tuned up. Snip and Cowboy are slated to take spots in the kids horsemanship lessons along with Clay and Ardreth (and MJ if she is has not sold) this spring and summer. Beth also purchased another saddle to use in her classes. 

Saturday Steph Teeter and Carol Brand came out to drop off rations for their horses and to spend a little time. They were able to stay long enough to watch some training and to execute a lay down with their horses. 

Steph with Derby

Carol with Pyrite

Some of the other events of this week were;

We closed the driveway gates and let the horses tear all over the property and clean up the excess growth around the shop, etc. 

We bought some more hay, the kids picked it up in two loads, and stacked it into the little shed. An inconvenient building to stack hay into but we are thankful to have a place to put it under cover. 

Terrence took a sample down to the lab and they ran the wrong test on it (again! Query; do they really think a dairy would be testing orchard grass hay?! or do they just have a hard time conceiving that horse owners really need all that trace mineral information?) However, it is nothing more than a minor inconvenience as we are so fortunate as to have a lab in town. 

Karen Bumgarner came over and did a complete bodywork job on Clyde. He seems to move quite a bit freer after that. Matt continues to offer him stretches each day, Clyde is noticeably more flexible and wanting to stretch further after his massage.