Monday, March 10, 2008

questions from a reader

A longtime friend, Jo, emailed me some questions about this entry.  Since some of my other readers may have the same questions, I'm answering them here.

"I thought you said it was cold out.  I saw no sleeves on the dress in one of the pictures."
That was granddaughter Monica in the sleeveless dress.  The high temperature yesterday was 54 degrees.  Children and adolescents do not always dress sensibly when left to their own devices.  Also, it's always colder on horseback, for some reason, that it is just strolling around on your own two feet.
 
"Do you not ride Libby?"  I rode Libby in the round pen yesterday after I was done with Blue.

"I thought you paid someone to train her."
Indeed I did pay someone.  It isn't the first time I've wasted money on a horse.  Libby actually came home worse than she left, but I have her back to normal now.  Her main flaw has always been that she doesn't pay close enough attention to me; she is always looking around for spooks.  If I rode her outside the round pen and someone at a distance fired a gun, or if someone drove a motorcycle up our driveway, she would be liable to panic and run away with me.  She is fine with being saddled, and she stands nicely for me to mount and dismount.  She tends to half-buck with her rear end if a rider asks her to go faster than a walk.  My plan now is simply to ride her often in the round pen and see if she eventually improves.

"How are you going to be able to ride 2 horses?"
 
Well, I didn't plan to ride them both at the same time; I can alternate horses.  Actually, I have granddaughters who like to ride, and I believe Cliff would ride Blue sometimes if I ever got Libby really safe.   In fact, he keeps offering to ride Blue alongside me so Libby can get some experience, but I'm too old to risk being on a runaway horse if a deer or wild turkey should jump out of the woods and scare Libby. 


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are right to be caucious riding LIbby.  Something must of scared her at one time and now she needs to regain some courage and feel safe.  It sounds like Safety right now is riding in that ring. 'On Ya' -ma

Anonymous said...

54 degrees sounds like a heat wave to me *sigh*

xoxo

Anonymous said...

OH 54 degrees sound so good!  I can't wait!  I would be out in a sleeveless shirt too! lol  

Anonymous said...

Do some more of the spooky training ion her.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to read this. I do hope it doesn't take too long to get Libby trained. Have a good week.
Pam