Riding!

Today was our fourth or possibly fifth ride. We started out carefully with 10 minutes, after which I would hop off and we would walk down the road, and people going by would think I had fallen off my horse. Especially when we went past a scary place and she reared up and I made us go by it over and over with not as great success as I would have liked. One person kindly asked if I was okay, for which I am grateful but I said I was just fine as heartily as I possibly could. Now we have had lots of snow and cold and the road is slippery, so we have gone out on the path in the woods two or three times. We go back and forth, and practice going by the turn to the barn without having an argument, stopping and starting in both directions, coming back toward the barn at a relaxed walk. Today we worked on stopping straight, which we have never really worked on, and we actually did pretty well on. Also backing up straight both towards and away from the barn. However, I was horrified when we got back to the barn to discover she had been walking on ice balls on her hind feet, the size of tangerines. I had brushed oil in her hind feet but apparently that has no effect.