Last weekend my husband and I went up to Maryland and I got my yearly lesson from Karen Fenwick at North Fork School of Equitation in Jefferson, Md.  I found this long trip (around 1,000 miles round trip) totally exhausting.  By the time I got to North Fork I had been traveling for three days and I was not in top shape physically because I was very tired.  But autumn has finally come, North Fork is in the foothills, and it was cool enough so I could wear my deerskin…

I did not get to ride Sunday because Shannon had hurt her shoulder.  Then on Sunday my son cut a gash across one of his knuckles (2 stitches) so he could not help me with Mia on Monday.  My husband was home so he kindly took me out to ride Mia, but he had strained his hand so I had to do all of the currying, brushing, hoof rasping, tacking up and applying fly spray.  My husband did manage to clean out the hooves and put in the thrush medicine.  By the time I got to the ring…

This week I experimented with my Western woolen saddle blankets on the Arabs I ride.  The previous three weeks I rode Mick with just my triple-fold woolen Western saddle blanket.  While he showed great improvement with relaxing the muscles in back of the saddle he was not too sure about the front of the saddle, and he just was not moving as freely as he did when I just used the Corrector pad.  I came up with the idea of putting the Corrector in between the top and bottom of…

Last Sunday was not and miserable, so hot and miserable that the rest of the herd did not come when Shannon caught Cider.  Cider was NOT happy at all, why should she be forced to work when her friends were back in the coolest part of the pasture?  I was not doing too well either, the night before I did not sleep well so I was planning to just walk.  I am glad I was not more ambitious.  When we went into the ring Cider looked around for her buddies and NO ONE WAS AROUND, and…