To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Seizing the day dry

I persevere in reconditioning Russell, even though my always-long to-do list and the weather keep interfering. We had another long-lining session last Thursday that went even better than the one before. Since then it's been pretty wet. We had quite the wind and rain storm last night, as predicted, with another one coming in this afternoon. But this morning was dry and partly sunny, so Brian and I went for a road ride. Usually when I suggest a ride and offer to get his pony ready, he turns me down. This time it wasn't optional. I will get my horse ridden!

Welcome to my world; this is the view from the lane that leads to our house (click to biggify):That's Mt. Hood due east, the clouds streaming from its south side looking almost like an eruption. Between us, the lovely Willamette Valley, the "Eden at the end of the trail" to the weary settlers who came west. On our hill, acres of wine grapes have replaced many other crops like prunes, cherries, hazelnuts and timber.

We had a lovely ride. I worked on suppling Russell, and Brian wanted to know how I got him to move sideways. After a short lesson, he was able to leg-yield Breezy, much to his delight.

Home again, home again, and back inside to finishing homeschooling and violin practice and bread-making and blog-posting....

1 comment:

A :-) said...

Michelle, glad to read that you're able to get Russell out and going again - I hope he continues to heal and that you'll get in some great saddle time this year :-)