Today was a good day. I won a gift certificate for Trafelgar Square Books from the Backyard Horse Blog (thank you so much!) I promptly ordered three ebooks, “Know Better Do Better”, by Denny Emerson; “What Horses Really Want”, by Lynn Acton; and “Distant Skies”, by Melissa Chapman. I also ordered a hard copy of “Fit and Focused in 52”, by Daniel Steward. Hopefully I can use these last dregs of winter, before it’s safe for work parties to start cleaning up closed trails, to dig into these.

On the barn front, Tarma loaded right up into the trailer today, no hesitation. She’s a bit worried still and backs off very, very carefully, but willing. We have a Mountain Trail lesson this weekend so this was very exciting! I pressed my luck by riding in the arena…at dinnertime. Tarma had opinions about this but we did some good flatwork nonetheless. I’m learning how much contact she wants and she’s starting to pick up on my seat and very deliberate leg cues.

Then we fed her, and all was right with her world. Happy mare, happy kid, less stressed mom lady.