These bolts are making me nuts!

I spent most of the day helping Robert moving stall doors from the outside to the inside. Hopefully that means that when the doors are closed, and the horses push on them, they'll be pushing the doors against the frame rather than against the aluminum tracks. It was extremely cold and I spent most of the time hunting around the hay barn for nuts to go with the bolts we had. Apparently there are two different kinds of threads so even on the same size screws the nuts wouldn't necessarily be compatible. Anyway, it was totally maddening.

In horsey news, I got Colonel out. He was totally OK with the idea of a good rub down. The saddle part he felt he could take or leave. I lunged him a bit first since he hasn't been ridden in forever. I think that actually hyped him up a bit, but not too bad. His steering is horrible so we worked on that. Basically my plan is to ride around on a totally slack rein, when I want to turn I pick up one rein, hold it out pretty far away from me and wiggle it until he turns. It was so cold that the wiggling was rather uncoordinated and looked a little more like a small seizure than anything else.

Its nice to be back in a situation where I'm just able to make training things up as I go along. It feels like more of an adventure, and it gives me something to think about while I'm riding. My theory with the wiggling (I wont even call it a half-halt its just not nearly that controlled) is that he will start seeking a release from the annoying by moving his head and the rest of his body. Then I'll work up to more controlled pressure but he will still look for the release from said pressure rather than pulling back. Not that he doesn't sometimes try to pull against my wiggling, but it doesn't matter.

One thing he did once he figured out how to make the wiggling stop was to massively over-achieve. Tap tap on his mouth, he turns 180 degrees. I'm hoping that if I get a little faster on my release he'll eventually figure out that he doesn't need to do that. As it was we just serpentined around nearly at random.

Riding on a slack rein at a trot was a little nerve-racking; but I stuck to my guns and left the reins loose, I did not pick them up for comfort or to ask him to slow down. When I got uncomfortable with the speed we did a circle. This resulted in some bucking but nothing too severe.

I am cautiously optimistic, and doing my best to remember that this will be a slooooowww process. I cant wait until we can start doing this at a canter, I've really been having a case of the go-fasts lately. (Yay?)