Sit Red, Sit

Friday evening we had company over, Yvonne & Brooke. They had come over from Spokane to have Derek repair Yvonne's car that Brooke had dented last summer! :) They are the wife and daughter of my x-coworker Greg. I miss having Greg around the office, he now has a job over in Spokane so it is very unlikely he will ever come back to AWS :( bummer...

I had planned to bake up some cinnamon rolls on Friday evening for our annual horse club Dessert Auction on Saturday evening. I had 2 frozen uncooked batches leftover from the ride a couple weeks ago; however the dough was not rising as fast as I expected it to and come 11:30pm, I said to heck with it, they're goin in the oven! They rose up just fine while baking, but did turn out a bit browner/darker than mom's batches, my oven must run a little hotter.. I hope they tasted just as good, they looked a little overdone. My house smelled really good at midnight though!

Saturday the girls borrowed our truck and went shopping at Alderwood for the day while Derek finished up with the car. I decided to take advantage of the weather and the free time to go riding with cousin Shana.. :) I had already months earlier convinced her to help with our auction, so it was super easy to get her to come over earlier so we could get the horses out. She is really happy that she gets to continue to ride Edgar! We decided on Lords Hill, it was close and easy. I opted to ride in Derek's saddle to give it another try. I am happy to report that Red had ZERO soreness after our almost 2.5hr ride!!!!!! I was using Shannon's very thick wool pad (I have already ordered my own, that was a big ouch) but I am relieved to know that Derek's saddle was a great fit. For now I will ride in his saddle and he'll have to ride in my old saddle until I can find a saddle like his to buy for myself and give his back. Gerri, you cannot take Red anytime soon cuz I dont want to fight saddle fit on a new horse for a long time to come, I feel like this has been an ongoing battle for about 2 years now between the 4 horses we've been riding over the past couple years.. lol

We had a great ride, I am still getting used to Red out on the trails. He is pretty solid but he has his little ways.. My biggest issue is getting used to his wayward feet! His feet are huge bells.. they actually are the same size as Edgar, which is a size 3 shoes, but his feet are shaped much different and I feel like on the mucky trails, I am riding a horse with skiis on his back feet. He really slides around a lot in the simplest of mucky areas. I will feel his left back leg cross over to his ride side and his right back leg cross over to his left side.. maybe it's not as exaggerated as it feels, but it's a lot of movement. So when we are on slight downhills I sit much tenser than I probably should and he tends to not rate himself going downhill, meaning he has this really big stride and can walk pretty fast at times, so when going downhill he walks like he's on a flat area whereas I want him to slow down and take smaller steps to avoid any chance of him falling by taking large steps that will cause him to loose his footing.

So we are going down this hill, it is hardly mucky at all, just a little slick from recent rains. Anyways, he is walking a little faster than I want, I'm in the process of asking him to rate himself down to a slower walk and his back legs start to go. I literally think of bambi on ice, legs just going any direction. I dont know if that is how it was, but he was sliding and he couldnt get his back end to stop, and I probably pulled up just a little (I know I did NOT jerk) but his head went up and his back end just dissappeared, I screetched.. I'm sure Shana was up ahead thinking what the hell is going on back there.. lol As I am screetching and thinking oh crap what's going to happen next, I am pretty sure he was basically in an almost sitting position, I was leaning way forward to keep from coming off and after what felt like eternity, he figured out his footing and did not go over.. once he stood up he was pissy and wanted to walk out right now! I wanted him to remain calm and collected, so we had a little 3 second "issue" moment of him feeling like he wanted to be a terd and get cranky, he was trying to veer off the trail into the brush and didnt want me on his face at all, but I didnt give in, he needed to remain collected and we walked out of that and I gave him big pats when his attitude went back to relaxed. ;) It was a little unnerving for sure, I dont like feeling so out of control and I am hoping as time goes on, he will start to learn to rate himself in mucky situations and will start to learn better foot placement for better stability on icky trails. If not, I will continue to show him the right way by asking him to slow down and using my legs (a lot) to keep him where he needs to be on the trail.

Gerri, I do not want you to think I am complaining because that is NOT what I am doing, just talking through my trials and experiences that he and I need to still work out. :)

After the ride, I had walked him up to the truck and tossed his leadrope end into the bed of the truck while I uncinched him. He stuck his head into the bed of the truck and before I knew it, he had his halter hung up on part of the truck bed railing. OH SHIT! he pulled back of course in a panic, his face was basically "tied" to the truck. He pulled back and then realized it got him nowhere, so he stopped moving with full tension on the halter, I tried to unhook him but it was just too tight.. then he started pulling again but quickly stopped and dropped his head just enough for me to quickly unhook him.. WHEW!!! Boy did I feel like a big dumbass! Poor guy, he was a little spooked after that (I dont blame him!), I rubbed him and talked to him, apologized up and down for my mistake.. I was happy to see that he did not go completely bonkers in the situation, he could have made it a whole lot worse, injuring himself and the truck. Aside from 2 mishaps, Shana & I had a great time and it was fun getting out with her again, I invited her to come to the ladies ride with me later this year.

After our ride, we cleaned ourselves up and headed to the dessert action, which went really well. Eric & Andrea came and brought Tony & Amanda with them. Heck I hadnt seen them in well over a month, my brother that is! Dena (my aunt) & her fiance Paul came as well, bringing friends and then my parents were there. The people that I brought in for the auction, including ourselves, bought 25% worth of the sales! and my guests totaled 45% of the non-horse club attendees.. :) I am proud of those numbers. I always invite all my friends/family in my email database because you dont have to like horses to LOVE dessert!!! and I think it is fun for anyone AND we are a great club that I am pretty passionate about. I may not always be on the top of the political ball, but I do my part I think.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a downtime day for us, just ran a couple errants, OH we did take our bikes in for a tune-up, they have not seen the light of day in atleast 3 years.. but I really want to start riding a couple nights a week atleast down on the Centennial Trail, so we should get them back by the weekend. Yeah! and I am super excited for our trip to Easton next month.. I want time to speed up so I can get to all these things I want to do, yet it needs to slow down cuz 40 is approaching way too damn fast..