We’re pretty much back to full swing around here after Presto’s summer break! Over the past two weeks we’ve worked our way back up to mostly “normal” rides (have been keeping them a bit longer on the hacking and shorter on the working, since it’s been hot) and I think Presto is delighted to be back in his program. He requires ATTENTION and was real salty when he didn’t get it.

We haven’t been able to make it for a lesson yet, which I’m really itching for at this point because I had some things on my list that I really wanted to chip away at over our summer off season. Mainly getting him quicker off the aids and improving my leg position in the dressage saddle. I’ve been working on both at home, but ya know… a keen eye would help a lot. Maybe this week? We’ll see.

We’ve continued doing lots and lots of poles, too, particularly raised poles at the walk. Presto is not the best at poles (they require focus for longer than 2 seconds but are also boring – the ultimate Presto conundrum) but he’s gotten a lot better and I’m seeing and feeling a difference in his hind end strength. That’s a naturally weak area for him so I think going forward we’ll continue to incorporate lots and lots of raised walk and trot poles into most of our rides.

Last week Holly was in town, and we jetted over to Majestic one morning for a nice long hack. Presto was dying for a change of scenery I think, and was very happy to go exploring. Holly rode Henry, who is such a dolphin right now that he even managed to dolphin his way up a tiny upbank at a walk. Never change, Henny.

This week I think will finally be the week that all the babies go out together in the same pasture. Everyone is big enough and well-socialized enough in herd dynamics now. That should be entertaining at least, and I’m sure the “littler” kiddos will be happy to find themselves in a much larger pasture.

The only other interesting thing that’s happened is that last Friday one of my crowns (the tooth kind) fell out. Just… fell right out while I was chewing a sandwich. Granted, that thing is like 18-19 years old so I guess it had quite a good run. I haven’t established a dentist here in FL yet though so it was great times trying to get an appointment booked that wasn’t like weeks or months from now. I got something for tomorrow, thank goodness, but we gotta go through all that new patient shit before we get to the crown. Hi hello yes I have an exposed root canal nubbin of a molar just CHILLIN IN THE NUDE in the back of my mouth, if we could fix that asap it’d be really cool. Chewing sucks. The most annoying part though is that is so freaking expensive to fix tooth stuff and it’s not even a fun thing. Being an adult is dumb.