Girls just wanna have fun

Thank you, Cyndi Lauper. :) 

Going back to my *many* hours of MTV video-watching with that title! 

It's true of riding, though - I just want to have fun, and assume that Bestie does, too. But sometimes I don't feel like trotting in circles, or doing serpentines, or figure 8s, or any of the other patterns Bestie and I typically do in the ring. That's when we take a leisurely walk around the perimeter of the fields.

We lucked out one day last week with something new and different. Seems the barn hosted some sort of training and left all the little features set up. The arena was filled with them. It was fun working our way over the ground poles and colorful pool noodles, through the barrels and the little cone path, and winding around the line of vertical poles. Day 2 was even more fun because a team of drywallers doing finishing work in the adjoining new addition had Latin music blaring (and they'd occasionally belt out a tune). That gave our ride a festive feel.

The only "feature" that Bestie took a second look at was the grouping of four plastic pink flamingos laid out to form the corners of a roughly 20 foot by 20 foot square in one corner of the arena. Kind of funny. We did one round of backing between them, but I was worried about horse hoof meeting plastic, so we didn't do too much in that area. 

Today I swung by the barn later than I typically do and found that she had already been turned out. I went out to feed her the apple I'd brought and spotted bot eggs on the inside of her legs and on her chest. After getting the safety scissors, I put her halter on her and scraped them off while she stood quietly, with her mare gang clustered around watching. At one point Bey Bey started lipping my hair while I was crouched down. Too funny! Bestie seems pretty patient with her, I guess because she's a youngster. Hoping to ride tomorrow.