Positives

We have a kitchen bench and the dishwasher is plumbed in again but we don't have running water in the kitchen yet.
The bench looks fab, actually the whole thing does, but of course will be even better once we get some taps!!

I was able to go for a ride on Sunday thanks to my good friend Jan. She borrowed back Nugget and let me ride Shadow which was great. He parks up beside anything so I could easily get off without moving my shoulder at all. It was great to get out for a couple of hours. Another friend came out with us too on his young mare.

So it got me thinking, if I can get Chief to park beside things already so I can climb on, how quickly can he learn to park up so I can get off.........

You guessed it, Sunday I put my plan into action and after much pleading, my wonderful husband spent some time getting on and off Chief, just cementing the whole stand still thing and then started getting him to park up and use things to get off on.
He started with the mounting block as Chief is familiar with this. The first time he did it, Chief's wee goggle eyes were most confused looking but then he caught onto what was being asked and even walked up beside the bike trailer and let him get off onto the tyre.
It's so nice to see his brain engaged again. I was beaming from ear to ear.

And then I had to do something with Summer as the very patient saddler was wondering if we were going to be purchasing the saddle we have had here for 3 weeks!

I put Summer on the lunge as she is light and good to lunge. Interesting exercise. She started off with horrid mincing strides and then after about 8 steps, started to lengthen out. In the trot she was the same but after the first 6 strides, she was back to doing her extravagant, toe flicking trot, something that hasn't been seen for some time.
Summer has amazing paces and has won best movement in her breed class at the North Island Allbreeds when she was younger. It was a class of 17 horses, so something to be proud of.

So I guess that means she is comfortable with the saddle. She didn't trot like that with the Treeless saddle.
Then I had a wee ride on her. She too parks up beside everything, so much easier on these more experienced horses, but was a nightmare to ride in the howling wind. Spooking and leaping sideways so I wasn't up there long. Feeling quite vulnerable with only being one armed.......