Laughter is Poison to Fear

You know what makes me laugh?

Sitting on top of Simba while he tries to figure out where the hell to put his legs. We're just getting back into the swing of things now that his evil girth rub is healed, and after nearly two weeks off, he went "WHARGLBLARGLE I HAVE LEGGGSSSS LET ME SHOW YOU THEM!" I was far too busy laughing at his uncoordinated flailing to be worrying about the fact that he could potentially fall on his face. Thankfully, neither of us ate dirt!

This makes me laugh too. *wheezy breathing* Luuuuke, I am your faaather!

After riding my coworker's spicy little Paso Fino mare, Tica (big post on that coming too, eventually...), I was all excited to ride...so, ride we did! Simba and I explored the trails on the other side of the road last weekend, and ran into some literal and figurative roadblocks. All of a sudden, puddles have become a Big Scary Monster in Simba's little pea brain. To monkey our way to the trails on the other side of the forest, we have to pass by/finagle our way around a pond. There are small streams we need to cross, no more than glorified puddles. These mean we turn into a  big, snorty, wide eyed palomino fire breathing dragon. He tiptoes across the water after some encouragement, but it is terrifying and he is sure that something is going to eat him.

Needless to say, nothing ate him.

There is much exploring to be done on the trails over there, and explore we did. There was bushwhacking to be done due to recent storms and though I could tell he thought I was batshit insane, he did what I asked without too many questions. It was a good long ride due to how much exploring we did (read as: I got us horribly lost and we wandered aimlessly until I got back to a part of the trail I knew...whooops) and we were both knackered by the time we got back to the barn.

Fortunately, during our "exploring", I found some LOVELY trails at the bottom and we played with gait and canter. I spent a lot of time checking him back from a hard pace back into something that resembled a four beat gait. Like most gaited horses with a slightly longer stride, I'm finding that he has a hard time holding his gait over uneven ground. Gaiting is a lot harder for horses to do, period, so I'm not surprised, especially where he is not the most naturally gaited critter on the planet. He also does not have any semblance of "self carriage", and with his hatred of being micromanaged in any way, I have a hard time finding the balance between making him work and pissing him off completely. I am contemplating calling out Julie Dillon, a local gaited horse guru, to see if she can give me some solid pointers for helping keep him in gait and some general collection pointers.

"Rawr I EET YOU!"

His canter, however, has come along in leaps and bounds. He has put two and two together and associates the "kiss" noise with canter, so I hardly have to use leg...and he's been much better about self-rating in the canter lately. The long, grassy trails were perfect for a good canter, so I sat back and let him do his thing. We cantered around on a loose rein like old pros, and he only tipped an ear at a scary bird in the woods (don't blame him for that). He has either become quite a bit braver or has decided I'm trustworthy, because we have not had a day of true tense pony ridiculousness in quite some time, even if he hasn't been out in awhile. Thankfully, he's never been dangerous, but I really hate the feeling of having a bomb under my ass. We spend much more time riding on the buckle lately than anything else. Part of it is probably my doing as well -- I know him better, so I'm slightly more relaxed and spend more time laughing. More laughter = less inclination to be growly over his ridiculousness.

He does make me laugh, the silly little blonde beast. He's also tolerant beyond belief of me and my antics. Another coworker came by on Sunday, and she helped me chase the ponies around. It was good fun for us and the horses got some exercise.

SNORK.

Zooms. I haz dem.

Fabio! Wish this picture was in better focus.

Handsome pony is handsome.

One for the baby Flynn fans.

Theennnn I did this. How to Make the Internet Mad 101!

Pose shamelessly stolen from Dom. He was a superstar for letting me climb on him in a halter and leadline and plunk around. Disregard my gross feet...I helped move hay and then did stalls in flip flops. More ways to piss off the internet!

Then he made friends with Pepper the Pig! "Wat R dis?!"

He has also decided he knows how to ground tie? Okay. I'll take it!

We are having a good time and have come to a tentative truce with one another. A truce is better than nothing, so I'll take that too. He is still for sale, though I've had very few nibbles from qualified owners.

Off and running on another busy weekend -- headed to CT tonight to spent the night before going to NYC for my second Sara Bareilles concert of the week. I haven't had any time to even think about seeing the silly yellow horse this week, so hopefully Sunday we can play!