As I've been driving around on the mail route it's been unescapable to notice how beautiful people's gardens are around here. Artistic, lush, poetry of herbery- I have been envy with green!
So I decided to put some hope into my Gardens of Despair. Some positive thinking. Well, as postive as you can be commiting genocide among the weeds.
And it was making me feel good.
Until about 11 this morning. I started getting a back/hip spasm. It was quiet at first, so I ignored it. It got louder, so I took some ibus.
I thought it best to sit down for a while for a tour the grand interwebs. Looking through the UDBB, I found a wonderous video of a demonstration of canter position. A HUGE lightbulb went off. "So THIS is what Meghan has been trying to get me to do for the past eon!" I was pretty excited to get into the saddle to try it out.
In the meantime the spasm became even grumpier. I gently stretched. I gently hula hooped.
Ow frikken ow ow OW!
I decided to get my loudest polo wraps out for Ian, figuring that they would blind me from the pain. :) No way I wasn't going to ride. Taxi cab checkered polos it was.
As a side note, have you ever realized how hard it is to remove one horse from the pasture when a very determined to escape for greener grasses mini is around? 10 minutes later and a walk with Ian down the road to retrieve said pony, (HIS pony, I might add) I was limping even more.
While tacking up I wrap his legs as I sit on a stool. Fully aware that as much as he was looking like an 80,000 euro horse what with his shining coat and vibrant posture, I was looking much like a decrepit, broken and beaten underling of a human.
Still, no way I wasn't going to ride.
10 strides down the road as we're heading to our crop circle, Ian spooks. Oh lord did it hurt! I let the tension go by releasing it as an interminable string of foul language that wilted every plant within hearing distance. Hope the neighbors didn't hear!
Ian didn't blink an eye. Guess he's become desensitized to it!
We get to the crop circle and we suddenly have company. *sigh* There's a deer standing in the pasture. Typically he's good about the deer, but I figure today is the day he won't be (that positive thinking again, eh?!). He hadn't noticed the deer yet so I quickly face him away from it and start to sing loudly- "Go away, stupid thing...GO AWAY!" Maybe a Lady Gaga tune would have been a better choice because when we turned back the deer hadn't moved a hoof. *sigh*
I decided to try to ignore the deer and put Ian to work. Of course, he barely noticed when it flagged and bounced into the woods.
The workout hurt like a sumbiotch. But it was worth every minute of it. He was stellar, the position I've been working on so hard in canter was SOLID. The video had helped me "see" it better and be more solid in maintaining it.
I am THRILLED! Ian got a pound of cookies, and I'm drinking from a wine glass so large it can hold half a bottle. Life is GOOD!
Post script- the wine is making the pain go away....
