Things are heating up!

Well, not literally...

I just mean at school. Exam season is starting again, and I've had enough already. But instead of studying, I took some time to work with Sage tonight. So I saddled her up. Neither of us seemed up for a ride, but that was okay, because we needed to work on the ground a lot more. After all, the horse you ride is the horse you lead, so things should be good on the ground.

One thing I really wanted to work on was teaching her to neck rein from the ground. We've done this several times, but I really wanted to to be second nature, so we did quite a bit of that. We also worked on moving off "leg" (hand) pressure at the girth, backing, and bending her neck. All of these things she is quite good at, but a little stiff to the right. So practice was good.

I begrudgingly got her to trot a bit around the roundpen, but this was a lot of work for me (kicking at the dirt, snapping the lunge whip, ANYTHING to get her motivated). Still, she was better than she usually is, and I don't blame her for not wanting to move out with a big baby in her belly. (Although, yesterday she was content to run around the arena with Brandy all on her own--which is something she doesn't usually do. I know they are feeling excited because it's been so wet lately and they've mostly in been standing in the barn. So there has to be energy in there somewhere, right??

Afterwards I tied her up to one of the arena posts, and she stood tied for 25 minutes or so while I cleaned stalls. She was excellent--despite me looking away twice only to find her untied when I turned back around. She was quite the patient girl, and I can tell she gets the concept. We'll work on this more. Usually I don't need to tie her for anything at home, but of course she has to learn if we're going to go places.

In other news, I was able to find some beautiful, locally grown orchardgrass hay--it's still expensive when you have to have it delivered, but it's really nice looking and they love it. It's nice not to have to worry about hay anymore!

Here's a picture of the girls from an afternoon outside yesterday: