Finally, Outside!

Despite all of the rain that we've had, in most places the ground is pretty dry. The ditches are full of water, there are little lakes in the farmer's fields, and some muddy puddles in low lying areas. But the flat areas are nice and dry.

Sunday brought us a beautiful sunny sky. I was determined to take advantage of it and ride outside. A proper ride, not just a toodle down the driveway. Looking back over my posts, the last time I rode outside in the field was May 21st. Two full months ago.

Let the ladies through, Cisco.

I saturated Cisco and myself with fly spray to ward off the mosquitos. I got on inside and headed out to the field.

And he was super!

Really relaxed, not spooky (well, there was only one splat), and was listening really well. Plus he was trying to be really good and reach into the contact. We also did our first intentional canter out in the field - our steering sucked, but hey, it sucks inside too, so no big surprise there.

A couple of riders finished up their ride inside, so we all went for a walk down the neighbours driveway. Cisco was even being the brave horse and led for a bit. It's somewhere he's been before, so he wasn't that brave, but I was happy that he was able to lead the way and didn't resort to needing his nose up someone else's butt.

I'm really hoping that Cisco's shedding is the "it's finally going to be warm and I need to be fully nekkid" type of shedding and not the "summer was last Tuesday so it's time to start getting fluffy" type of shedding. 

Next up was Phantom. I let her pick the direction at the beginning of our ride - she turned right down the driveway. That was our warmup, and returned to the field to do a quick real ride since it was her dinnertime.

Unfortunately, I was not happy with how her breathing sounded when we picked up the trot. She had had her dose of Ventipulmin a couple of hours earlier, so it should have been doing its job. This was the first warm day in a while, and it was pretty humid after the rain that we've had, so maybe that's why she wasn't great.

So Phantom really didn't do much more than walk. We'll try her again tomorrow and see how it goes.

There's like a 4" square completely missing on the shoulder of Cisco's fly sheet suit of armor. 

I'm going to have to put fly sheets on the ponies I think. I grabbed a horse for someone else and her neck was covered in bites - I actually thought she had hives at first. I put Cisco's suit of armor that he's been wearing over his other blankets all winter on - I don't know how much fly protection it's going to give him since it's got a bunch of big holes in it. I just ordered him a new Kensington that I found on a sweet deal to replace the dented one. Hopefully I can keep it as his summer fly sheet and get the other one patched up to go over his winter wear.