Trying to be on the mend

This is what he does within seconds of me attaching
one crosstie: smell everything in his vicinity

So in some ways I am feeling much better but in others I am still pretty under the weather.  I went out to the barn today anyway, even though I knew that the dust and cold air would continue to irritate my nasty cough, but I only rode for 35 minutes because of it.

We didn't do too much because I kept stopping to hack up a lung, but I did work on some halt to canter transitions which weren't that bad, after he got the silliness out of his system (i.e. after he stopped trying to see how much trotting he could get away with instead).  We didn't really do that much cantering because he wasn't feeling particularly frisky, and I continue to feel so wore down from the week.  We did maybe a couple circles in each direction, a couple half circles when we were doing the transitions, and a few loose rein circles.  Nothing to write home about.

Even though I was still feeling yucky, I decided to throw up a crossrail.  Days ago, when I thought I would be better for today, I was going to put up two crossrails to practice with, but since I barely had any energy, I just kept it to one.  We trotted it a couple times each way, and I cantered him a few times as well.  For the first time ever, he actually took the jump from a long spot (or this is what I assume happened since no one was around to explain it to me!) and I now understand why it is a good thing to learn distances.  Poor patient pony may have got jabbed in the mouth on that one.  But in my defense, up until now, if he didn't think he could make it with as little effort as possible, he would just break into a trot and go over it so I really wasn't expecting him to go for it.  In a way, I guess it means he's warming up to the idea of jumping.  He's starting to feel braver!

Because I only rode for a short amount of time, I decided to turn him out in a little paddock with one of the horses that has the heaves and is currently living outside to manage it.  The horses didn't get outside today simply because my trainer had an appointment and was rushed for time, but there was no reason that he couldn't go socialize.  While he made friends, I did part of the chores so that there would be less to do when my trainer's husband arrived to feed.

Also, as you can see from the photo above, Walker now has mismatched fuzzies.  I don't know if any of you use fuzzies on your halters, but I find that the halter rubs Walker without them.  He had lovely bright blue ones but he must have got a little rough with the other horses because he broke 2/3 of them.  My friend got him a green halter for Christmas so we got green fuzzies to match it.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the halter doesn't fit (even though it's horse sized and Walker is by no means a giant).  So I had to improvise and use the two green fuzzies with the blue one.  After all, I couldn't put three green fuzzies on a burgundy/red halter.  Christmas is over. :P

Well, hello there, handsome.