September!

Yikes, how did it get to be fall??? We've had a perfectly lovely stretch of two weeks, scheduled to end on Saturday with incoming rain as the hurricane leftovers move up the East Coast. Oh well. The stretch gave everyone a chance to get some hay in. I priced hay in Jericho yesterday: $4 for a bale of first cut, $5 for a bale of second cut. I plan on buying at least three to start feeding out to Dude and Bestie as the cold weather comes in. Here a flake, there a flake, when they're looking bored and grumpy on cold winter days.

I rode Dude around the field yesterday. I used Bestie's Western snaffle, which Dude loves, but really doesn't have enough "influence" on him when I'm riding. It's a fight to get his curb bit in his mouth, at least when I'm doing it, so I decided to use the snaffle yesterday. Slipped it in with no problem.

He seems to like going around the field much better than being inside or in the ring. His ears were perked and he was looking all around. The only time he got a little bouncy was as we went by the horse graveyard. He's always a little jumpy there. There's a cross in the pines where our barn manager's horse is buried. Funny how he's always a little goofy there.

They didn't mow the side part of the field in between the pines and the trail this year so the grass is really high, belly high on Dude. Great for birds and deer to lurk, but since I wanted no critters making a sudden appearance, I sang down that sretch. A couple renditions of "Red River Valley" and Brookes and Dunn's "Only in America" served as fair warning that we were coming. Good country songs to serenade Dude the Western pony with!