So, my first job when I arrived was...  Feed sacks, of course XD  It's become almost routine.  

Then my trainer told me to take the red hay rake, and muck out the trailer.  She didn't want me to use a wheelbarrow, just put it out on the ground behind the trailer. 

Personally, I really prefer using the big shovel to muck out.  But my trainer had told me to use that, so I did and did the best job I could.  I got about half way done when my trainer told me to go catch Cordell and Mariah.  

Oh, exciting news!!!  THE HITCHING POSTS FINALLY GOT PUT IN!!!!!  They don't have the rings for tying up yet, but they are in!   Set in solid cement.  I tell you, I can't wait until I'm able to cinch a horse to one and not have to worry about them escaping.   

After catching those two horses, my trainer had me grab the flag from the trailer tack room.  She was working on loading with Moose, but right after I grabbed it, he loaded in.  She was going to have me get around behind him and wave the flag to help coax him in.  

She said that many people assume that big draft-like horses, like Moose, can withstand a lot of pressure.  Thus, they'll literally just stand and pull until they load onto the trailer, then say, "That went really well!"  because the horse didn't try to back up or spin away.  But that's not ideal, and so my trainer will be working on that with Moose.   

I'm back on Mariah again for lessons, she's recovered from her gash, at least as far as we can tell.  It's scabbed over, and I think I was the first person to ride her because my trainer indicated that to me when she told me what to do about it. 

She didn't, of course, want me brushing or currying it.  But she thought I'd be alright riding her, because while the side of the saddle would be over it, my leg or seat wouldn't be on it.  If I noticed anything that was not normal Mariah, I was to tell my trainer.  

But I didn't, Mariah was grumpy while tacking up, but that's just usual Mariah.  I would even say she was less grumpy than usual.

For the first time in awhile, we rode in the outdoor arena because the day was quite nice.  'We' being me, Trainer, and Val on Cordell.  I don't know if you remember Val, I think I only mentioned her once in my other journal but I've ridden with her several different times.  She rode Cordell in a western saddle.  

I got on Mariah with no problems.  The first exercise my trainer told me to do was to do lots of halts.  She wanted me to pick a pattern (halting every 4 fence posts for example) and stick to it.  

Mariah's halts were pretty good.  Sometimes she'd try to step forward and I'd have to put her back in place.  But apparently I was still letting her barge through the bit too much.

So my trainer told me that I needed to be more alert and aggressive about that, waiting to ask Mariah to move off until she'd accepted standing still.  

I did some more halts this way, but my trainer still wasn't quite satisfied because they hadn't improved much.

So what she told me to do was when I halted, to hold the tension on the rein until Mariah backed up.  She said I was 'bringing the bit' to Mariah, and that was making it too easy for her.  She didn't want me to add more pressure to make Mariah back up, she just wanted me to hold the pressure on the rein I had until Mariah took a step back.  

I had a bit of a misunderstanding about whether my trainer wanted me to get Mariah to step back or not, but once we figured that out, it was good.  

Sure enough, this was way more effective in teaching Mariah not to barge through the bit so much.  She started halting easier, and catching on quicker to what I was asking.  I could also feel she wasn't 'leaning' on the bit as much when I went to halt her.  

This was basically a method of teaching her to give to the rein.  We're doing more of that with her now.  

After all of these halts (there were a lot), my trainer had me switch to walk - trot transitions.  Again, she told me to pick a pattern, suggesting that I do trot circles in the corners, with one transition to trot on the long side.  

I'm a simple person, so I just took her suggestion and did that.  To be honest, I could have done better at this, but  I let a little of that niggling anxiety about her staying in walk slip in.  Thus, while we had some pretty good transitions, with some nice, slow trot from her at some points, at others we had some not so great transitions and her jigging into trot.

My trainer told me to not stand in my stirrups so much when asking her to come to walk (bad habit I've gotten into), and that if I needed to halt her and back her up, then I needed to do that.

These things helped, but I do feel I could have done so much better if I'd been less anxious and set my foot down a bit better.  

After that, we switched to trotting serpentines.  At first, it went well, but...  She started getting crooked.  I know it was partly my own crookedness, but also it was her being Mariah.  She'd especially get crooked going towards the west long side of the arena.  

I was pretty sure my trainer would prefer us to be slow and straight rather than fast and crooked.  So, in the end, I came back down to walk and we just worked on that straightness.  My trainer didn't mention anything about this, she was pretty focused on helping Val while I was doing this.  But I'll take her silence as her saying I made a good choice in this instance.

After that, I was told to go back into trot, but to do it on a figure 8 in the middle of the arena.  The goal was to slow Mariah down enough I could do some sitting trot on her.  I picked out a railroad tie jump thing as a place to mark the center of the figure 8.  

Mariah got a little testy with me as I tried to figure out where exactly the figure 8 was going to be.  But once we got that sorted, things went pretty good.  Eventually, my trainer told me to sit the trot.

It wasn't bad, especially for Mariah.  I just had to remember to not tense up against it.  My trainer told me to bend my knees and stop pushing against the stirrups, as well as to try rocking from side to side with her.  

This caused Mariah to go even slower, and so we had some nice moments of sitting trot before performing a lovely transition down to walk.  It was the nicest moment of the entire lesson, and we ended on that.

I really don't have a lot to say about this lesson because it doesn't seem a lot happened in it, compared to others at least.  I think there was two reasons:  one being that Mariah's just coming back into work.  The other being that my trainer focused a lot on helping Val out with Cordell, and I don't mind that.  

So yeah, there you go, that was it for my lesson.  Oh, I did hear my trainer say to Val, "You're like Abby, you have a lot of things you know but you still have to really think when you do them."  Which is true enough, I know how to do a lot of things on a horse now, but I have to really pay attention when I do them. 

After untacking Mariah, my trainer lined me out on my next duties.  She wanted me to finish mucking out the trailer, then go and fill the horses' water tanks.  But then she remembered that the big, huge tank in what used to be the donkey pen (the hot wire still isn't back up, so it's just one big pen now) had dried up.  She wanted me to grab the big shovel and scoop out all the muck in the bottom of it. 

She said, "Oh, you poor abused thing" right before she assigned me this job XD

But first I had to finish mucking out the trailer.  Moose was still in there, but a divider separated him and me, so it was all good.  I have to admit, I'm a little fond of the guy XD 

I've never cleaned out a tank with a shovel before, but there's really nothing to it.  It didn't stink as bad as I thought it would.  The sludge was all black and dark green, it smelled like algae usually does.  I threw it out on side of the tank and it made the ground all black.  Later, little red centipede like things came out of it, so who knows what those were.

While I was mucking out the tank, I was also filling the other waters.  I let the less horse tanks fill, then the two tanks in Mistletoe's and Riggs's pen.  But I couldn't muck out while the tank in Tidbit's pen was filling, because they would try to mess with the hose, so I had to stand guard over it.  

The bay filly really wanted to play in the water, she even went so far as to try to stick her front leg in and paw.  A wave of my hand was enough to keep her from it.  It surprised me that the red roan filly also tried to do it.  

What was frustrating about cleaning out the big tank was that I could never get it all out.  There was still a slight green film on the bottom, and to get rid of that I'd have to wash out / tip the tank over.  Which, even with my trainer helping, I don't think could be done, and furthermore, it might damage the tank.  

So, I finished that up, and by now Carol had come for her lesson.  I asked my trainer if she wanted me to fill the big tank up, she said yes.  So I stuck the hose in.  

Trainer then told me I could ride either Cordell or Mariah.  I chose Cordell for several reasons.  One, he was right there handy.  Two, he wouldn't glare at me as I tacked him up.  Three, I wanted to work some more on that self-carriage stuff with him.  

I only got to ride him a little bit, because it was time to go soon after I got him tacked up, but  I think I could tell my trainer had been riding him.  He gave to my hand so nicely, it was absolutely wonderful!  

And yeah, there you go.  

Actual lesson 3/14/2022