Oh my.

Wow. I really suck at writing this blog in the summer hu?

My husband had surgery last week. It went well, and he is now in a walking cast. I spent last week hanging out with him so he wouldn't be by himself. He SAID he'd be fine, and I'm sure he would be. I hate being home alone.

Saturday we had another work party at the center. I am now "officially" in charge of facebook and e-mail. I LOVE my "job" and really enjoy talking to everyone about the NWESC. We cleaned out manure from the one pasture. My husband's truck became a wheelbarrow and we filled it up (and over.) It was a ton of work, but productive. One woman has a Belgian/Warmblood mare in her pasture who is sound and sane and needs a job. She had mentioned to me switching horses with her.

Denali was funny. Before the work party started I needed to move the herd from their pasture into another pasture. I opened the gate, and everyone went running into the other pasture. Everyone but Denali. I yelled for her, and she looked up at me, ad went back to grazing (the other pasture is really green and flat and she LOVES it.) I was confused but yelled for her again (she was about two football fields away.)

Nothing.

So I walk the ENTIRE WAY over there and give Denali her personal invitation. Sometimes I think she hates when I treat her like "all the horses." She followed me over to the other field and then went to it eating grass.

After the work party I opened the gate and the whole herd took off running into their clean pasture. Denali started to run, but turned and came running at me (which scared the shit out of me.) Then she stopped, walked up to me, put (not making this shit up) her head on my shoulder and pulled me towards her, then sighed. It was so cool. It makes me so freaking sad that I don't have my "own" horse to ride, but I could never NOT own Denali. She is part of me, and every time I think about finding her a new home, something happens that tells me that I can't. It's weird and has happened a lot.

After finishing unloading my truck of crap I moved the rest of the horses around and the arena was empty. I decided to take the moment to actually work my horse. It's been a long time. I wanted to see what her thoughts where of me getting on her. The last time, as you may remember, she bucked me off in .3 seconds.

I took Denali (who was not as thrilled to see me when I had a halter, I got squinty eyes) into the round pen and warmed her up. She is still super lame on the left at the trot. Makes me sad, but she's happy. Then I decided to get the mounting block out. I put her on a long rope and got up on the block. She USE to remember how to come up and stand at the block. I stood on the block and moved her around me. She did "okay" and then after a while I decided that I probably wasn't asking her so she understood. I got off, moved the block, and stood back up. I figured that if she moved off the she would know what I was asking and I could correct her.

She was so good. She stood so still and I touched her all over, pressed on her back, and played around with her, stretching her neck and such. She is so stiff. Poor girl, sucky owner. I would have leaned over her, but didn't have a helmet and WE ALL KNOW that of anyone, I would be the one to fall off and get kicked in the head.
When I got off there was SO Much licking and chewing, and I decided to stop there. We took a walk to the grain room (her favorite room) to get some carrots and then I took her back up to her boyfriend who spent the 45 minutes we were gone screaming for her. She was less than excited to see him.

Today I went out the the Giant Warmblood Barn. There is a new sale horse in the barn. He was a 6 figure imported Hunter and at 15 they are selling him to a home that plans on keeping him through retirement.He's learning dressage in the meantime. I got to watch him be ridden. Can I say HOLY SHIT! Sigh. He is amazing. He is so solid and he knows EVERYTHING. I wish I had $40,000 laying around. He is what I want (doesn't need to know as much) but he is just solid, been there, done EVERYTHING.

Don't know how much I will be around this week. I'm sponsoring the Champion Rescue Horse at the S.A.F.E. show this weekend. I am taking my tail bag business on the road and I'm also running a Duck Pond for the rescue. Busy week of organizing. It should be a fun weekend. Ophie's mom and pretend dad are going to be there too and we are camping out.