Moody Ride

Thursday, August 7th  Left at 7:31 pm  Home at 8:27 pm  92°
Solo

A full moon between Morgan's ears

Bloody hot.  I am so sick of temperatures over 100 and we still have at least one, maybe two months left of this "delightful" weather.  Also, the sun is setting earlier, so now I have to leave the house as soon as it gets close to 90 degrees.  Weather is wreaking havoc on Morgan's mane ... she has dandruff. *sigh*

Mounting from a giant spool ... Notice Morgan's opinion? Yep, she's sticking out her tongue

Morg seemed interested in the spool that we got for the goats to play on, so I rode her over, let her sniff it, dismounted and remounted while standing on it.  She stood perfectly still while I stomped and wiggled it.  So we headed off the property for our ride.

The odd effects rain had on the street ... 

1st picture is from the left side of the saddle, 2nd picture is also from the left side, only 10 feet away.  Makes for some interesting footing

I asked her to trot through the desert parallel to the road so we could pretend bushes were poles or barrels and generally goof around.  The recent rains have had an interesting effect on the desert and washes that we normally follow are filled with debris, while new paths were created or older ones were deeper than last week.

Some of the delightful sights we encounter

We started to lose the light so we picked up the pace, but I was having trouble keeping her in a straight line.  She kept trying to stray to the right and wouldn't stay between my hands, she braced, so I made her stop moving completely.  Flex the neck a few times, move out in a walk, circle to the right, circle to the left, stop again, flex the neck, and then just stood for a moment.  Breathed nice and deep before asking her to move out.  Seemed to help her refocus.

Before and after ...

Just leaving the property the sun is shining, she's relaxed, and sticking out her tongue. Again.

On the way back, the sunlight has all but disappeared, she's dropped her head, and is moving along at a brisk pace

On the last stretch, she tried cutting corners and straying from the course I had set her on.  Took another 15 minutes to get her to move forward in a straight line.  We ended the ride by letting her stretch her legs and pick her path once we were back on the property.  

Looks like she may be coming in to heat again, or maybe it was the full moon, but this wasn't our best ride.... felt like we were fighting unnecessarily.  Might be time to ride Majesty for a few days and let her relax a bit.