cold weather ponies

exercise: nope
fabric: yesterday and today (and tomorrow, just in case life is too crazy)
horse: lesson yesterday, Kaboose today

Awesome lesson yesterday. I'd left boots and helmet at the other barn, and showed up for my lesson in three layers of pants, six layers of shirt/jacket and mittens over my gloves. I got to ride a little tractor of a pony - a Haflinger about 9 years old, very fancy, with a mane and tail like a Barbie horse, all wavy blond and lovely. He was very fancy moving and quite smooth. Although I had to be fierce once or twice, and not let him get away with anything, he took less hand and leg than I am used to. I think my word for the next couple months is Quieter - and I shall apply it to my hands and legs and see if I can get to be more discreet with my aids.

I rode Kaboose today, after a mysterious back and forth with one of her other riders via email. It was cold, I rode bareback, she starts tight but loosens up after a bit. I did notice that if we walked until she had sneezed and coughed a couple times that she was markedly more relaxed during the ride. We working on doing a couple hundred transitions today, and especially canter transitions. I think we got some very nice work. When we were walking out at the end, I let her wander all over the ring, and she poked her nose into every bay, sniffing at poles, fake flowers and all the lawn chairs along the far wall.

I have to eschew riding tomorrow because I have a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day. But I have circus in the evening, and it will be fun.

odd songs from school

Kids bring home all kinds of stuff from school. Alice had several deeply mysterious songs including one where she stated she was proud to be a cow, and another about the stegasaurus (a funny looking dinosaurus). But I was very taken with a new one yesterday. Zeb, Serenity's son, was singing a song that went like this:

oh you push the damper in
and you pull the damper out
and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same
and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same
boom boom

And I realized there were not very many places in the US where your run of the mill kids in public school kindergarten would know what a damper was. It had to be Vermont or Alaska, or possibly Minnesota. This happened to be Vermont. Leave a comment if your local kindergartners would understand this song. Or if anyone has produced something incomprehensible...