I know, its been forever...

Well well, I know its been a while. Thankfully I have nothing too overwhelming to say. But no news is good news indeed. Last week I got 3 rides in. All were mediocre (thats a lie, I think Tuesday's was great and Thursday's was crap).

The vet came out last week ($$$) this time just for routine shots. But, I had his do an examination (lungs, nose, etc) just to make sure that Granite was completely healed. Reno has some residual snot and I heard Granite cough early last week. The vet gave him the all clear (and a handful of shots), the vet gave me a $150 bill. Blah! The farrier also came out. I LOVE my superfarrier. He said Granite's special hoof is looking great. There was also much less cracking as I have been applying pine tar to his hooves 3 times a week as instructed at our last farrier visit (the one where he had lost both shoes and his feet looked like hell). Granite did try to kick the superfarrier-- I was unpleased, so was Superfarrier. So Granite got nice new shoes (size 2 Light! yay for bigger hoofies), and momma got a $55 bill. Blah! THEN, Becky let me know that I owed her $155 for all of his meds over the course of the last month through his illness. So including board, Granite has cost me an arm and a leg this month and if he keeps it up he will cost me my sanity as well!

This weekend I brought TK out to the barn with me. Hes such a sport. He sits in the arena with Daphne and watches me and Granite do our thing (which is incredibly boring to a non-horse person bc all we do is walk and trot and turn and do more transitions-- nothing exciting or show stopping). This time, I threw him the camera to keep him entertained. And as a result, I share with you: new photos! The photos are from my ride Saturday. It wasn't great. Granite is chewing his bit non stop and really grabbing his mouth and head away from me and hollowing his back. I tried a new bit on Sunday and put him in the round pen under side reins and put him through his paces. About 1/3 of the way through the session he really started to soften and give! By the end of the work, he even stretched down a few times for me! I need to re-incorporate some on-the-ground work and see if it translates some of the softness to our under-saddle sessions.

Tacking Up (do you see how BIG he has gotten??)

 Not a great ride. Lots of bit chewing and back-hollowing.

 Sloppy hands on my part (trying to rectify the back hollowing/bit chewing)-- but lovely trot.

Me and My kids. 

<3 my family.

Well, thats really about all folks. I fed horses for the BO yesterday and didn't have time to ride, but plan to saddle up tonight!