Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy

This past Sunday my friend came out to visit her gal Marie and the gang. She made the mistake of bringing a bucket full of carrots. As you can see here, my cheeky monkey Be-lined for the bucket like a heat seeking missle.

Hmm. What's in your mouth, Be?

Be getting chatised by Marie

The new girl, Pam, also got her shoes pulled and is now out with the others. The four of them are playing nicely. Left to right, Pam, Chewie, Be, and in back is Marie

Our round bale feeder. Its so big :)

The Beave knawing into some freshly snowed round bale

Pam and Be burry Chewie in hay

Where the hay comes from :)

I have bronchitis for the second time this winter. However Monday was another staycation day for me and I didn't care how sick I was, I hooked up the trailer and took Be for our jumping lesson and rode until I couldn't breathe anymore. Of course, Be was a hot little firecracker and wanted to run off from the trot, so my first challenge was speeding up but staying at a trot, then regulating the trot, long before we could do any canter work. Mostly working trot, move into extended trot, down to collected trot, and finally a good canter. Instructor wanted me to sit back back back on her so I finally sat the canter, what the heck. I've a western background, I can sit on my seat bones. So of course then I got nipped at for hugging with my knees. I don't win. When we moved on to jumping, Be tricked me.

She was behaving so nice, got the gears where I wanted them, came in a nice collected trot, let her have her head so she could spot herself and the witch kicked it into a gallop to the jump, cleared it high enough for twice the height and spun the turn hard enough to give me whiplash. So now I had to repeat the jump (which was pretty nice, aside from the takeoff and landing), but pull her UP to a walk or a halt after the jump. It was like stopping a locomotive. Second time I pulled the right rein straight up and the light went on, no more shenanigans. She was much better behaved after that. But we cooled out about 10 minutes early because I was starting to hack up a lung :(

While cooling out, we did a fun photo shoot with the Christmas gear.

Yes, we rode with this stuff on as well!

I doubt there will be another update before the holiday is upon us, so

Merry Christmas!
See ya after the holidays!

~Jenn & Be