Woo hoo!

Good news! I just found out that both my entries for Draft Horse Classic (The First of Spring and Oregon Wade) were accepted, and that I have been accepted for a booth as well. Yay! I really enjoy that show, and I'm so honored to be a part of it again.

We had a couple days of decent weather but it's 103 right now, and that's pretty indecent as far as I am concerned. Looks like the horses will get the day off, and maybe more... Shylah's been doing quite well over all. She's definitely getting more responsive. E cantered her for the first time the day before yesterday, and then got a much more sustained canter last night (several laps around the round pen each direction). Shylah throws her head around quite a bit though, she's pretty obviously irritated about this whole forward motion thing, but then she seems to realize that head-tossing isn't going to do the trick and then she settles down and moves more nicely. She does go through some hard-headed annoying phases though, and she's in one of them now. Last night she refused to walk into the barn (she's only been in there a million times). I think it's her work-avoidance plan, like if I can't get her into the cross ties then perhaps I won't be able to saddle her up and make her move. Well... since forward wasn't working well, I turned her around and backed her into the barn. After about 20 feet of that she was standing in the cross ties and you could just tell her expression was "oh crap, that didn't work." I took her back out and tried again. No problem. :-) I'm not too concerned about any of this stuff, she's made SOO much progress overall. After the serious riding we take Shylah and Gwen out and just ride around the pastures for a bit. I've been riding Gwen while E rides Shylah (or vice versa). Seems to inspire forward motion a bit to have Gwen in there working too. No riding tonight though, too hot.

Shylah is pretty good at untying herself too. Ugh. Gotta be careful tying her with a slip knot. B.H. was here this morning to trim/shoe the horses and while he was working on Gwen I realized Shylah had untied herself. I fastened her to the fence more securely, and a few minutes later I noticed that the tail of the lead rope was in her mouth. Gah! So now the cool leather poppers on my EXPENSIVE 14' lead rope are all chewed up. Great... To Shylah, everything is edible... I'm not sure how she did that, she's chewed up poppers on another rope so I now make sure they are hanging well out of her reach. She must have somehow pulled up all the slack til she got to the end. She's got talent, gotta give her that.

I hung artwork at a dentist office in Sacramento earlier this week. The work will hang for two months. It's part of a program that the Elk Grove Artist club does, hanging work at local businesses. I've never sold a piece doing this (I wonder if anyone has) but oh well at least it gets it out there.

Ok, back to drawing, or anything else that keeps me in the air conditioning til much later today!