Pop, pop, pop

I am trying to get more pictures of this mare under saddle, but with the twins it is not always easy to have a photographer on hand. We did have some fairly good workouts over the weekend though.

Saturday morning the farrier was out and Miss Aruba is now sporting size 5's on her front feet. For anyone who hasn't seen shoes that size- hold your hand up, spread your fingers out as far as you can and imagine connecting the dots of your fingertips and you will come pretty close. She has some Huge feet! I would rather a horse have bigger feet than not.

She wasn't actually due for a trim for a couple more weeks- at least on paper, but looking at her feet as I picked them out before a ride- she was due. The farrier agreed we weren't going to get away with a trim again for a while. Although he tried to explain some things about what and why, about her shoes, he didn't really get to as we kept talking about other things and getting distracted. Lucky enough though, I get it. Without him having to explain it I understand he had to bring the shoe back some under her foot- putting it where it should go to help things get sorted out as far as balancing the hoof.  No problem here and fine by me. 

As it goes, life happens and I wasn't going to be riding Saturday night since my sisters birthday party was right in the middle of when I would be tacking up. I did manage to slip in a ride on Thursday night. She did ok considering. She started off a little fast and really responsive, but as we worked she leaned on my legs, hung on the bridle and got exceedingly lazy.

What was really funny was that one of the neighbors to the north of us was shooting off fireworks. At first it caught her off guard. She sorta startled and stopped. When she seen the sparkles in the sky in front of her, she looked up, ears pricked and was interested.  I told her they were for her because she was doing so well. That was all it took.  Every time we came around the end of the arena looking towards the fireworks, her head came up, ears forward and she looked at her fireworks. Not scared at all, interested and curious, but not afraid. 

Last night as I fed, the neighbors to the west of us were shooting off fireworks.  Aruba couldn't be bothered and as the hay was put in front of each of them, the rest of the horses became less concerned with the sparkly sky and all the popping noises.  It's nice to know that if I am out riding and get caught out in the neighborhood after dark, that my horses won't be rattled by fireworks.