Week 7 on the Ranch

On Monday and Tuesday, we did a lot of gardening work. In the morning, we first covered a mare, then went riding, and then into the garden. We made some progress with the edging, and the rest of the time I spent mowing the lawn. I finished just in time before the thunderstorm came on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I helped Rob with the horses, trimming their hooves. We took a break from gardening because of the rainy weather. I brought one horse after another from the pasture, then made sure it stood quietly while Rob worked on its hooves. Once he finished, I took the horse back to the pasture and brought the next one to the stable.

Saturday was a relaxed day. In the morning, after feeding all the horses, Tanya gave riding lessons and Rob participated in a car race organized by his club. In the afternoon, I watched the final of the NRHA Derby with Tanya. NRHA stands for National Reining Horse Association. Reining is the western riding discipline that Tanya rode and sometimes participated in shows herself.

On Sunday, Tanya and I attended a reining show. Tanya had helped organize this show as a member of Reining Alberta. In reining, you had to ride various patterns that were then judged by a two-person jury. These patterns included galloping on two large, fast circles, then transitioning to a small, slower circle. To transition from the left circle to the right, you made a flying lead change. A typical move in reining was the sliding stop and spinning. During the sliding stop, the horse stopped on its hind legs and slid with them through the sand while continuing to move with its front legs. It looked like the horse was sitting down. During spinning, the horse turned around its own axis, with the hind legs staying in the same place and the front legs moving in a circle. We had to drive for three hours because the show was near Edmonton. The day started at half past 5, and we started our journey back home at 3 o'clock, even though the show was not yet finished. Because we still had two mares waiting at home that we had to cover before we could finally go to sleep.