2 Down 1 To Go

AHHHHHH Finals... I hate you finals, and love you at the same time. You make my brain feel like an over fried piece of... something. At the same time, semester is nearly OVER. Tomorrow by 4:00pm I will be DONE. Finite Mathematics exam is done today.. Finished my bogus Intro to Excel class last night that I took for the lousy 1 credit so I was considered 'full time' student. Tomorrow is Accounting exam which should be a piece of cake. The fact I'm comparing my Accounting class to cake is a miracle in itself since I failed my online attempt the first try and had a horrid instructor the second. I guess third time really is the charm and equals a 4.0 (YAY).

Monday night I got everything done and had both horses in. I started with Dakota first... It was super muddy and gross so I let him in the arena to let him run mud free for a few minutes and he was super happy about the opportunity. I think I saw 10-15 bucks and he had to of jumped 5-10 times over the non existing pole between the cavalletti stands. Typical Dakota dorky fashion basically. Cooled him out and returned him to his dinner.

Echo I decided to take her in the arena and have grooming time in the arena so she doesn't associate the arena with being bad. She loves being groomed so I figured it was a good chance to take since she was caked in mud. I bribed her into the arena with 'cookies' - yea probably not the best way, but it worked. She was a bit antsy at first but calmed down and let me groom her and she started to stand really well toward the end.

Last night I got to the barn earlier than normal so K and I decided to go for a ride. Worst part? It snowed the night before and was only a high of 35 yesterday. Second worse part? We rode outside. Yep, we're smart. I lunged the feisty 12yr old Dakota before I tacked up. It's been years since I've had to do this with him but he just all of a sudden seems to have this... fire in him and he's ready to go. If I don't lunge, it takes him way longer than normal to settle in and get to the point he's willing to work. We warmed up in the arena and after a good 10-15 minutes headed outside. Ground was a little firm from being so cold but it was soft / giving enough still we weren't worried about it being TOO hard. K jumped the log and big scary blue barrels a few times. I tried cantering again on Dakota, got a few good strides in but we were not connecting with each other last night at all. He was hungry and I was frozen. Over all it was a fun ride, but nothing overly productive.

Dakota's lessons have been cancelled for the coming weeks since his student broke a couple of fingers. Gives me an extra night to ride the brat and work Echo so it will work in the long run. However tonight the plan is give Dakota the evening off and work with miss Echo on some ground manners.