DANG IT!

Ever have one of those days where the little things add up...and add up...and add up until the 'little things' have run together into a great big flood of gooshy stuff? Yeah. Me too. I'm up to my neck in it.

Basicly I'm at optimist. My nickname in school, eons ago, was Can-Do. I was always ready to dive into the deep end and test the water. I still am. But horses aren't water. They have their own itinerary. And, sometimes, that list of things to do or NOT to do doesn't match up with mine.

Today was pretty much like that between Lucky and I. He wanted to come out to play, but on his terms, not mine. And grass diving was mainly what he was focused on.

He wasn't agressive. He didn't strike at me or buck or bite or even try to pull away. But he didn't want to move either...lots more whoa than go. He was "Blah, blah, blah. Grass is much more interesting than you are." Sigh.

So my question to myself today was "When is it too much? What IS direct line thinking? How do I time this so he wants to play, finds me intriguing enough to leave the grass alone?" No easy set of questions to ponder, are they? And, the question that boggles all of our minds, how do I work with the Big Kahuna without taking his dignity away?

I'd love to give you a cheery answer with sparkles and stars and great background music, but the truth is I've been trying to learn the answers to these questions by myself and that's just plain FLAT OUT FRUSTRATING!

I'm whining here. No doubt about it. But sometimes you just gotta vent. So here it is : AAAUUGH! I more than earned my sweat equity badge today. It was super hot and super humid and weirdly foggy early this morning (and it's worse this afternoon when I'm writing this, so working this morning was the only option if I want to keep going forward). I was wringing wet and so was Lucky by the end of our hour. I'm tired of being out here by myself! PHOOEY ... BLIG ... and a whole bunch of other expletive deleted type words.

He's a gosh darn big Left Brain Introvert with grass on the brain. While I worked to get him healthy he was coddled and now I'm paying for it. FARDLES! The big lug has got my number.

So, first thing to do is to change the number and blow his circuits. I guess I'll do the classic Pat Parelli thing and do the opposite of what I think I'm supposed to do. But then the question becomes "How do I do the opposite when the opposite IS Parelli?" AAAAUGH!

Maybe I'm just thinking too much. I do have a tendency to suffer from 'over stuffed head' when it comes to the brains department. I ruminate and cogitate, do research, read, practice and work things out to death. Maybe I just need to do things WITHOUT planning? I'm an artist. That's the way I usually think anyway. You'd thing it would come to me naturally (funny how that word sneaks in to the conversation, isn't it?).

Hmmmmmmmm...what to do. What to do. What to do? I don't want to be boring, but I'm supposed to repeat patterns at least seven times and then come back to them as we learn new things, to make it easier, cleaner, more of a dance between the two of us.

I don't have a trailer. I've offered to park trailers here, clean them up and repair them, even to rent them! I can't afford one right now. How do I simulate a trailer? It's such an important part of their training. And all the nice folks I have for neighbors, the ones who have horses (and who have mulitple trailers sitting in fields with weeds growing up over them while no one ever uses them!), think I'm flat out NUTS! to even want to spend the time on it. So convincing them is like hitting my head on the wall over and over. Doesn't accomplish anything except to give me a headache.

So...work with what you have, where you are, when you can and do your best. Right? (See what I mean? Little stuff rolling into more little stuff and turning into great big waves of goosh washing over me. Hard to keep my feet under me and my head above water when it's like this.)

Well, at least we have grass to grow and space to move in and clean water to drink. And I'm healthy and so is Lucky. That's a very good thing. I still don't have a saddle (can't afford the one I want...yet), but he has a lovely wide back to sit on and Pat Parelli wants his students to ride bareback anyway...right? (I should email and ask if you can pass through Freestyle without a saddle).

Obviously I have some things to work out before tomorrow. Well, at least my brains work so I can do that...right? RIGHT? Anyone out there? knock...knock...knock (me knocking on the computer moniter) Can anyone hear me? sigh....

Never mind. I can do this. (See where the nickname came from?)

Nancy, smiling ... or at least working on it