This has been a WET week down here in Stanly County, N.C., we got 2 1/2 inches of rain!  Bad for riding, but still wonderful news because we just got put in the extreme drought category.  Again.  The years long drought is predicted to continue this year, so I am grateful for every drop of rain that falls.

It had rained around an inch Tuesday night, so I expected lots of puddles in the riding ring when I got to my lesson with Debbie on Wednesday morning.  Mia had voluntarily come into the barn and was in the aisle happily munching on the round bale (in the pasture she often has to fight for a mouthful) and I thought, hmm, maybe it won't be too bad today.  So I tied Mia up while Debbie finished mucking out a stall and started grooming her.  Mia is out 24/7 and some years it is a big struggle against the fungus in her coat.  This fungus is a smart fungus, it waits to appear until the weather is too miserable to give a bath.  So everytime I see Mia during the winter I go over her coat with a "slicker brush", a pet grooming tool with lots of little, thin and angled steel wire teeth.  Though I have to use it lightly since it tickles, I manage to keep the coat fungus under control during the cold wet weather.

When Debbie, Mia and I got out to the ring an amazing sight met our eyes, the whole rear of the ring was under inches of water.  Debbie groaned, she had spent and hour and a half the day before getting the ring all level and perfect.  All her riders had complemented her on the job.  Now a quarter of the ring was under water, a nice little lake to match the pond right over the fence.  So she called Daryl, her husband, to bring the shovel out and open up some drainage channels as I walked Mia through the slop.  Mia was quickly becoming disgruntled, she wanted to go back to the barn and finish the round bale, she did not like the footing, the super wet sand shifted under her hooves aggravating her joints, and I was insisting that she walk through all these puddles since there was no way to avoid all of them.  Then Debbie decided that we better use her auxiliary ring.  When she opened the gate Mia remembered her round bale and I had a discussion with her before she agreed to follow Debbie.  Then another little discussion got her through the gate into the other ring.  Mia and I followed Debbie around as she surveyed where we could ride without harming the footing of the ring.  Then a gust of wind blew the loosely fastened gate open and Mia saw her way to freedom and that wonderful round bale in the barn.  More discussions as Debbie closed and secured the gate.

After all this Mia finally consented to stride out at the walk and she reached for contact.  This lasted around a minute.  Mia remembered that wonderful instant when the gate blew open and she was expecting it to happen again.  So I applied my leg aids and got back into contact.  By the third time this happened Mia decided that all of a sudden she needed LIGHT leg aids, and that she was the one who determined how light my legs had to be.  If she decided my leg was a little bit too strong she broke into a few strides of the trot and if my leg aids were a little bit too light she dropped the bit and started gazing at the gate hoping it would blow open again.  I think if I had let her Mia would have gazed at that gate the whole lesson.  After all that round bale beckoned.

When I succeeded in getting Mia's attention she did pretty good.  She gave me a decent turn on the hindquarters the one time I asked and she consented to back up four steps.  However out turn on the forehand was comical, Debbie was laughing because within two steps Mia had gone from a turn on the forehand, to a turn on her center, and finished with a turn on her hindquarters.  I think that Mia was trying to tell us that her joints hurt too much for a turn on the forehand so I did not ask for another one.  So I played with the speed of the walk and did some circles, then my 30 minutes were up.  Mia ALWAYS knows when my 30 minutes are up!  That is when her wonderful forward impulse turns to fretfulness as she tries to get me to look at my watch.  We went around another minute, then Debbie opened the gate and Mia and I had another little discussion, this time about the proper speed for leaving the ring.  After we got through the gate and I made her stand for a minute with loose reins I got off and asked Debbie to lead Mia back to the barn while I hung onto the fence and hobbled over to my canes.  Debbie asked if I felt like I couldn't handle her and I told Debbie that I was sure I could handle her but I did not want to use the bit that strong right now since Mia was finally accepting it.  Sometimes it pays to quit when the horse finally obeys even though this time it meant I had to slog through the mud.

When I first started riding Mia two years ago we had many discussions about open gates and the proper speed for exiting the riding ring.  I hadn't had any problems with this for over a year.  I had even ridden in the auxiliary ring before in equivalent circumstances with perfect harmony, impulse and obedience.  But Wednesday was different, due to a combination of a flooded ring, the suddenly warm temperatures (I had to take my jacket off it was so warm), the sloppy footing, the gusting wind, and the fact that Mia had finally found a round bale that was ALL HERS, Mia and I were not in tune with each other.  It happens, and all I can do is to stop riding when I am ahead.  Next week should be better.  Much colder though.

Have a great ride!