Trot sets and riding lessons

Here is a picture of all the horses presently on the farm. The top is some order or Tiger, Tommy and Jack. The other three are Peggy, Runoff, and Dolly. There are now three dogs too. 

Both Tom and Debby were out of town over the weekend, so Lacey came up from Pullman to keep me company. She got out of the car and exclaimed “There is nothing out here!” When I said if I was going to be in the start of a horror film I didn’t want to be alone she replied that it was good I wasn’t surrounded by corn fields. The house actually has wifi and satellite TV, and there is cell reception on the top of the hill. Power is generated by windmills, meaning things that suck power need to be turned off when not in use. 

Trot sets over the weekend went well. I started to feel when my elbows weren’t soft, my leg shortened or fell back and paying attention to how I asked for leg yield. It feels good to build new muscle memory, and riding three horses a day will speed that along (as well as make it hard to stand up after sitting in a chair). The horses definitely feel fitter now. Ami even went out there and did some dressagey circles and serpentines and was just fine.

Lessons have been focusing on riding the horses into a stretchy rein, just from the leg. This is something Ami and I have never done, so it’s a foreign concept. Ami is getting the idea though, and because she is so much smaller than Runoff I find her rides easier, even if Runoff has been ridden like that her entire life. It's nice that Ami is a good enough horse that she is cool with the style of riding changing with out acting like the world is ending, even if I am at times struggling to be positive about the change myself. I've been trotting and cantering over rails, doing transitions, practicing sitting trot, making sure to maintain the bend, maintain the forward, and maintain the connection all with working on my bad position habits. I was told I was riding much better even just from my first lessons on Tuesday to my second lessons on Monday, which was nice to hear. 

Anyways, I stayed the night in Pullman, so here I go back to the farm.