I’M OFFICIALLY RETIRED 🙂 Yeehaa….onwards and upwards.
I’m going to miss teaching, meeting good friends and new students a LOT, but not the mental and physical acts of organising everything, of driving for hours or the stress of making sure everyone and their horses are happy, relaxed and ok to receive information. Email and video lessons will still be available but I can do those from anywhere 😉 🙂
These 4 are what my time will be on nowadays…..
Bella, Mark, Stormy and sweet wee Bodie Beau <3
Updates on what S&B get up to will still be ongoing 😉
Wed 3rd
Bella wanted to play this morning so we had a bit of liberty fun with a pole 😉
Great stradle of the pole
Then while still stradling the pole she cleverly walked backwards, keeping her feet over the pole 😉
Stormy then wanted to join in so I asked him to put a foot on some smaller pedestals 😉
Bella did the medium one too 😉
Then Bella uppped the stakes by going onto the large tyre pedestal,
2 feet then all 4.
Not to be outdone, Stormy put all 4 feet on straight away and then stepped forward with his front feet and left back feet on the pedestal 🙂 🙂 LOL
After their fun they groomed each other <3
Thurs 4th
HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY BIG STORMY
We’ve come a long way Mark, you and I and we’ve loved every minute
Love you to the moon and back <3
< Stormy as a foal with his momma
Stormy’s dad >
Just off the Gillie’s transport, he came up from Utoxiter, 2 days of travel with a rest in Kelso
He was SO tired and SO weak but HUGE at just 11 months old
He slept a lot (still does) and with good food, a safe home and a ton of love he started to blossom into the beautiful, kind soul that he is <3
Here, after 2 weeks quarantine in our garden, he’s meeting Holly the herd leader. She looked after him as a baby to about 4yrs old, he adored her and they were pretty inseperable.
Finding his feet more and growing. He grew until he was 8yrs old, now standing at 18.2hh tall.
Making friends, Frodo loved Stormy, they were youngsters together in our back garden 😉
More recent pics…he’s one hell of a dude…so kind, loving, cheeky, opinionated and our big baby 🙂 <3
Sat 6th
Had best friend Kat come up from the Borders for the weekend and Saturday meant horsey play time 😉 🙂 😉
She is not only a very good friend but also a student of mine but a student of the horse and an instructor herself so I trust her with S&B and that she knows the cues etc that I use with them. Storm and Bella have met her before so that helped too and we had a fun day together.
After playing online and at liberty around the agility course we then rode around the course together 😉
On Sunday I took Kat to see ‘the Witches Stone’ down the road on an estate we used to live on. It is a Scots pine coming out of a 7m x 7m boulder. The tree has not grown much over the years and is said to be over 60yrs old and the stone is approx 7m by 7m big 😉
New jods on here 😉
Sun 14th
Today Mark and I played on the agility course with S&B. It was lovely to have Mark play with Stormy and they were both in good form too. Here’s some pics of them playing at liberty together…at one point RUNNING together….go Mark 😉
AND THEN BELLA AND I HAD A TURN, firstly online but then when we were connected we did quite a bit at liberty. This is a really lovely way of knowing our connection is getting stronger as a few years ago, even last year, she would just trot off and do her own thing BUT now she stays with me no matter where I go or what I ask 😉 I love working at liberty with horses, it’s a really freeing and flowy experience.
Lovely new jods here…very comfortable and a splash of colour (Dark blue/Red and others on day before Black/Lilac) 🙂
And then I rode Bella for a bit, she was much happier in trot today and had a nice wee canter too 😉
Wed 17th
Farrier up to trim S&B tomorrow SO….back to home paddocks today AND a nice ride for me 😉 🙂 🙂
AND…..
We had to take them back to the big field at dinner time as the midges were biting a LOT. Poor Bella was stamping at her belly where they were biting her, very fidgity and restless and poor Stormy was quite sweaty from running around ;( 🙁
Hey ho, I got to ride to the house and back so always a bonus….they were quite calm going home as going northward there was a nice breeze and they knew they’d be back in their shelter soon so were happy to go back 😉 poor beasties <3
Fri 19th
Not horsey BUT very exciting….was sitting in my armchair watching tv this evening and just infront of the facing window this big beauty walked along our garden wall….I managed to grab my camera and take a couple of shots of it before it sauntered off….what a privilege to see this pine marten in the early evening daylight up here 😉 Buzzing 😉
Sat 20th
Been a while since riding Bella again due to a lot of drizzle and full on rain recently but today I did S&B’s b’fast duties and grabbed the chance to ride Bella while the sun was actually shining (for a while) 😉
Started with a groom then tacked up. Then we did some online exercises to warm up (she seems to do better after this attention to detail for her) 🙂
She ground tied beautifully while I took the pic
And then we had a short, but very sweet, ride around the large field area (which they’re off until Autumn) and so pleased she wasn’t snatching at the long grass 😉 She’s such a good girlie, she did get some grass as a treat for being so good 😉
Sun 21st
<3 HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE <3
Had a really lovely bareback plod on Big Stormy this morning. It was such a lovely day, warm with a nice breeze, so no flies. We just did some Point 2 Points and everytime we got to our destination he had a snatch of grass or a herb treat 😉 I love this big boy, he’s such a kool dude 😉
Sat 27th
Like everyone else in the UK we’ve been having some very hot days, sometimes there’s been a lovely breeze but the air in our ‘glen’ is very ‘close’ and everyone and everything is trying to just do nothing so as not to get sweaty. Little Beau is hardly wanting any walks and S&B are sleeping a lot during the daytime. SO, nothing has been going on with S&B as it’s too much to ask them to take me for a ride. Today, luckily it’s overcast and we had a small lighning storm yesterday BUT the air is still very close, tight and ‘muggy’ SO…..lets hope the rain that’s forecast will clear the air a bit for us all 😉
- Shelley – HorseSavvy.co.uk