The Good Through the Bad

I've awaited the weekend with mixture of things going through my mind. Somehow adrenaline seemed to over power fear in the hours that I waited. With the weather too cold for Saturday, we opted for Sunday. I shouldn't have waited. I should have gritted my teeth, froze my ass off and did the deed. But I won't be toughing it out until some one starts putting windshield wipers on glasses.

I guess it was deemed to be my luck that, it be foggy and misting all day yesterday, that was kind of depressing, as all dreary weather seems to be. But hey, at least it was warmer! As it turns out, Shadow wasn't going to have a good day either. The shoer also came that morning.
-Dun Dun Dun!- Like usual, Shadow played the "Catch me if you Can!" charade, but with a little feed, she was quickly subdued, baited, caught, and stalled. She behaved, pretty much, but Shadow has always been weary of farriers and her hooves. A couple of years ago another farrier had trimmed her hooves too short, it left her to bruise when she tried to walk. She barely tried to walk for weeks after that. She's been touchy about her back hooves ever since, but thankfully her hooves are back to the healthy stage they need to be. But don't think for one second we don't darken the other man's reputation when his name is brought up.

Well, we let her loose, of course she takes off like a bat out of hell. Short horses can run when the want to! Trust me on that. I'd been watching the mist and cloud cover with some anxiousness, and thought it best to wait until the misting stopped. I happen to like to see where I'm going. So I leave her be for a couple of hours. The sun finally begins to peek through the clouds, The weather warms up even more. Ah! Things are looking great and I'm getting excited. Nice lovely warm day. Well I drag the tack to the porch and it's time to go fetch her. She might as well have told me to go to hell with her evasiveness, but this is nothing new. Onward to the feed bucket. Might as well get the horses fed then just take her from the stall when she's done. Simple right?
Er..wrong! We get everybody to their perspective feeders, but Shadow won't come to the barn. She just stands there. Like "Heh, this horse won't hunt." She had wised up to us!
But with some coaxing, she finally went into the barn and we quickly stalled her up.
Never underestimate the mighty power of 12 percent baby beef feed with corn!

We go inside, to get some drinks while we're waiting for her to finish up eating. The wind starts to pick up. I can't help but give an inward groan at that. Fierce winds and horse ears don't exactly make a happy horse, but eh. They usually live with it. Well we go get her, hitch her to the front porch to get her groomed. She's very well behaved, even relaxed. so I started getting high hopes. My brother tacks her up, and starts to warm her up for me, but slowly and surely her tune begins to change and she doesn't want to cooperate and she's fighting him the entire way. She's in heat. My brother shakes his head. And basically tells me, that he didn't think it would be a good day to ride her. It wouldn't be a good time to try and build my confidence. And as much as me an my brother disagree on about everything, horses keep us on a common ground. And I trust his judgement, he wants me to ride almost as bad as I do. I guess he's tired of riding by himself and just wont admit it. =)

I grudgingly agree, but now I can't help but be disappointed, but we've had shadow put in a corral, so she can get the work she so desperately needs. Which, yes even I will say there is a lot of ground work she needs. With some work every day, we figured by next weekend, when she's out of her heat that's she'll be even better and more geared to working. I can only hope to be logical.

Today however, does mark a new beginning in some way. Not only is today my 21st birthday. I also bought myself a very big gift. I wrote the check out for Showdown's Valentine this morning. Despite my set back I somehow feel uplifted. Today is my first day of ownership.
I can't wait to send off her papers and see my name in print. So strange how happy that makes me, despite the dreary rain.

I did record some video of my brother giving her the warm up, I'll post that as soon as I can figure out my video program. I've had this computer for a little over a year and I've not once ever touched Windows movie maker. Like Shadow, this is bound to be an interesting feat.