I am away from Iowa City now, for a week. And I will definitely miss my wonderful horse while I’m gone. However, before I left I did manage to video myself! riding! Steen! Well, to be honest, it’s not that exciting. We were mostly cruising with no steering on my part, walking and trotting, with… Read more »
indoor ride
Still Cruisin’
Today Steen and I had our first real indoor ride at the new barn. And I must say, things went pretty well. When I first brought him inside he was nervous, as he’s been lately, but a little better than the last couple of times. He was also very clean and very fluffy, so grooming… Read more »
Third Gear
I’ve had a good week of trips to the barn, in spite of lots of rain and sogginess. Tuesday it stormed all morning, but Wednesday I went out in the AM and found Steen covered in mud but other than that in a pretty amiable state. I watered down the indoor arena before my ride… Read more »
Never a Dull Moment
Yesterday I had an interesting trip to the barn. We’d had rain so it was a little muddy, but Steen came to the gate to meet me when I went down to the pasture and we went inside. While I groomed him, I was really pleased with how he looked. His spine is finally a… Read more »
Balance
It’s been an interesting week at the barn. On Sunday the weather was great, and I went out to see Steen with the intention of finally riding in one of the pastures. The herd is now free of the mud lot, and I found Steen and his buddies grazing in the field I had intended… Read more »
The Mud of Spring
On Wednesday I went to the barn to find the mud lot truly living up to its name. I could not be more grateful that Steen comes to the gate to meet me now, because even walking into that soup of muck that covers the ground from fence to fence would be difficult. On Wednesday… Read more »
One Year In
Saturday was spring-vet day. Steen got his vaccinations, and was exceptionally well-behaved for the vet, always nice, particularly since many of the other horses at the barn are a far cry from easy to handle. This weekend was also the one-year anniversary of my purchase of Steen. I’d say it has been a pretty satisfactory… Read more »
Sprung
Today I arrived at the barn and did something I hadn’t done for a while. Instead of going to Steen’s stall, I went out to the mud-lot. There I found Steen, rather dirty but seeming quite at home. As soon as he saw me, he left the hay he was eating and came straight to… Read more »
Grief
A couple of days ago a horse at my barn died of colic. This horse happened to be Steen’s best buddy in the stall-horse herd. Yesterday I went out for a ride, and Steen’s behavior made me wonder (as I often do) at how closely horse emotion can be related to human emotion. It is… Read more »
Dumped
Well, it happens to all of us from time to time. Yesterday, due to a string of fairly unintelligent choices on my part, I fell off my horse. It was my first fall indoors, and I must say plopping off into the deep sand of an indoor arena is not bad at all. Also, as… Read more »