Literature and Adorable Ponies

I didn't get my planned post up yesterday, so here is the non-horse-related exciting news that I have to share!

One of my 2014 goals was to publish my long-time-project novel.
Well... its happening, and Rebellion Under the Stars will be released on Amazon on December 18th!!

In case I didn't write that correctly....  I'm going to be a published author!  :D

I don't put a lot on this blog about my other projects besides horses, but if you're interested in more, then you can go to my author blog and/or like my facebook page.  A little more love is always awesome, and you might even find some cool things along the way.  :)

I'm really excited about this!  :) :)

 In my horsey life, I've ridden once since Thanksgiving so far and that was last Saturday.  The horses also got turned out in their new pasture that same day and they actually have some grass and hay now! Yay for fences :)  I also exchanged the blanket I bought on Black Friday for a smaller size and it now fits Lady. She wore it last night for the first time and looked quite happy this morning.

I had a friend of mine over for the day on Saturday, so I got to test some of what Lady and I have been working on lately. Lady can be very people oriented and in the past I have found it very difficult to work properly with her when there are people watching or in the arena because she gets glued to them.

Anyways, I was very happy with how everything went. She was much more focused on me than she usually is in this type of situation and we only had a few minor problems with pulling and wanting to go "her way."

You get older pictures because I don't have new ones...

Our trot work just keeps getting better and better. We played with some light contact, which is something I haven't dared to do yet because my posting isn't good enough and I end up jerking on her mouth, but since we were in the rope hackamore and we were really working well together, it seemed a good time to play with it. I'm not asking for any kind of frame, other than not hollowing her back or throwing her nose in the air. I just want a very soft connection for right now and she is learning to give me that.  :)

We don't have that much green anymore.

She was so absolutely awesome that I went ahead and asked for the canter. The transition was a little unbalanced, but we settled into it and had a good few strides before coming back down the trot.
The second time I asked for the canter was heading back towards the gate, which sometimes isn't the greatest idea. I still had slightly shorter reins and sometimes she resents that in the canter too. So I can't say I was setting her up for success, but I asked and she gave, and instead of her usual "run for home!" we had the most amazing canter yet! It wasn't completely balanced, but she was listening to me and wasn't rushing and it felt so cool...

Later on, while flipping through one of my riding books, I came across the idea of asking for the canter in the corner because the bend makes it easier to make the transition. Genius idea, and one that I knew, but hadn't put into practice. Guess what we'll be doing next time we canter... ;)

After I was finished riding, my friend J got on and rode for a short while. She still isn't very confident with riding, so it made me very happy that I was able to sit on the fence for the first time and just watch. She trotted around on her own for the first time in a long time and enjoyed herself. I was very proud of her for doing that and also a very proud horse mama because Lady took such good care of her.  :)

Horsey play time again this afternoon, if all goes well.... :)