Royalty and Popular Songs

Liv and I have been keeping busy this month with all sorts of activities, from school/homework to Girl Scouts, swimming (at our local Y's indoor pool), riding, and Pony Club.

Liv and I are quite proud of her improvement this past weekend at her riding lesson. She's been working on learning how to post the trot, and yesterday while riding Prince, she was really getting the hang of it! (Posting is, in the simplest of terms, rising and lowering yourself to the beat of the trot - a horse's two-beat gait - up on one beat, down on the next beat, up on the next. . . .) Once you get the hang of it, it oftentimes seems easier than sitting the trot. This is very exciting, as it shows great improvement. Plus, she'll be able to get tested for her first U.S. Pony Club rating (D-1) within the next couple months!

Pony Club is a great organization that teaches kids proper horsemanship/maintaining horses' well-being/learning to ride in a safe, smart manner. D-1 is the beginning level. Each level is standardized and has certain expectations that they must meet or exceed in order to be rated at a certain level, and they build on the knowledge these young horsemen/women learned in the previous levels.

Here she is, mid-lesson giving Prince and herself a breather after having maintained a posting trot for a few minutes. This is the first time she has been able to use a couple gifts from "Santa" -  her new "children's length" (shorter) stirrup leathers (that are still a little long so we had to roll 'em, anyway) and safety stirrup irons, which have a thick "rubber band" type thing on the outside that will release if she were to fall off, preventing her foot from being stuck in the stirrup; if her foot were to get stuck in the stirrup during a fall, it's dangerous, as she could get dragged around.

Prince, by the way, has been enjoying the weather. It's been in the mid-40s F here in eastern Iowa during the day these past few days.

Needless to say, the paddock where Prince is kept has a muddy spot or two. And he thoroughly enjoyed rolling in a "nice" gloppy spot not too long before we arrived for Liv's lesson. When we got there, his neck and head were COVERED in mud. Her instructor had said he had been perfectly clean not two hours earlier!

So Liv and another young girl at the stables worked on getting the mud curried off of him (at least his midsection and rear end were covered by his blanket, and were relatively clean). If you click on the pic, you can see that he still has some remaining dried mud on his mane (neither girl was quite tall enough to get that part thoroughly cleaned).


Another fun thing she's done this month is art. She had received a gift card from "Santa" from the local art studio, The Dreaming Bear, where she loves doing artwork. A couple weekends ago, she made a fantastic piece of art (a winking fox). She based her paint scheme on a song that's been popular somewhat recently:

To tell you the truth, I'm still not sure what he says.