Off to England...

In a spectacular bit of bad timing, instead of spending this coming weekend at Tevis, pft and I are flying to England for ten days to go to Dan (my younger brother) and Gina's wedding.

Super-bummed about the timing of this, but once I'm on the plane I'll get over it and it'll be really fun to see all the family. My older brother Dominic and his partner Lisa are coming from Australia so we get to see them too. Hopefully I'll be able to follow the ride through Twitter and online web pages on Mumma's iPhone.

Everyone's being left in the good hands of Kaity who's house-sitting for us while we're gone. *She* gets to go to Tevis .

I still need to pack and I still need to have a quick few mins with the pones before we leave at ~7 am.

Update on Jackit

Got an update this evening from Jackit's breeder - now trainer - on his progress after one week:

I wanted to let you know how week one of training went with Jack. I let him settle in on Sunday, Monday a.m. I started evaluating him. I really had to just start from scratch since he just didn't seem to want to do much of anything I asked. He does pick things up very quickly and once he understands what I want he is willing to do it. I liked how he was acting so much I decided to saddle him which he seemed unaffected by the saddle at the point, I moved him around and lunged him which went fine. I like to leave them saddle on for several hours so they get used to the feel so I left him in the arena with it on but when I got to the top gate I turned around just in time to seem him with all fours off the ground, rear up, fall over on his side and proceed to buck like crazy. That boy can buck high!!! He put on quite a show. When I went back to work with him again he did much better, just a couple of little bucks at that point. Tuesday a.m. I did the same things as Monday. I was very happy with him and even got on him while he was saddled. However, I did not ask him to move around yet. Wed a.m. we worked on the same things and I taught him to move his hip away when asked, I have him moving around nicely and staying out of my space which he likes to be a bit pushy sometimes.I introduced him to the bit which he took very well. Overall I am happy with the way he is acting. This week I plan on continuing the lunge work and respecting my space and LOVING the saddle. If he shows no more signs of bucking I will start riding him. I'll let you know next week how it all went.

How glad am I that she's doing his training, not me ;-)

Where to start? July is half-over and nothing is written which promptly causes writer's block from looking at a blank page.

So much in life is attitude. This week has been stressful, but when I look back there's no particular reason for this. Sure, I have stuff to get done, but haven't reached the critical "oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, I can't possibly get it done in time" stage. However, I do feel a bit like I'm juggling a bunch of balls and having a hard time keeping my eye on them all. Take a breath, Lucy, nobody died.

So what have we achieved this week?

• Got stung by my bees, but it wasn't unexpected or unwarranted (story here)
• Saw the queen bee - that was quite exciting. I knew she was in there, what with the hive being full of grubs, but it was cool to actually see her
• Got hit in the head by Fergus who was overreacting to me inadvertently touching his ears while putting on his flymask. I have since been banned from dealing with flymasks (this after Hopi ran me over on 4th July weekend in the dark, causing many contusions and sadness - all because I tried to take his flymask off)
• Took Jackit to his breeder's to be saddle trained. The general consensus is that Jackit isn't going to have the best time over the next couple of weeks
• As a result of Jackit being gone and visiting Kody's arrival on Saturday, Roo got put in with Provo (Roo's about the only one Provo doesn't bully), and Uno, Hopi, and Fergus are in together. The resulting herd dynamics are quite peaceful - I can still lock Uno up for him to get his goodies, and do short clicker sessions with Hopi and Fergus (who muscled in on the action... although the following day having discovered you had to work for the treat, he was less eager to join in if it meant having your ears touched ). It's very quiet without Jackit around :(
  
• Mucho sewing has gone on in fits and starts. I now have a skirt to wear for the wedding. Unfortunately, I neglected to overlock any of the seams, so I'm now frantically zig-zagging them to prevent further unravelling

That's enough for my first post...