Big week!

Well it's been a huuuuge week for Oscar. Monday we had a lesson (in the pouring rain - discovered that my favourite jods chafe when wet, ouch), and we had our first proper bash at some canter work. We have had a few canters in the paddock, but our steering is not great. Anyway we had a play on Monday and got some hilarious leaping forward transitions into the canter to start with and then had a few lovely ones. Left canter is a bit rubbish but right canter is great.

Tuesday was a day off then Wednesday night was adult ride night and we cantered in a group of horses for the first time, and it was Oscar's best adult ride ever. He has been a bit clingy with his paddock mate who also goes to adult ride but last week he was so much better. Called out heaps (Bert the paddock mate was on the other side of the grounds in a different group) but was just fab otherwise. Had some lovely trot work and good canter. No left canter though, argh. Think part of it is me, I am quite asymmetrical with my hips (from being dragged a few years ago) and find left canter a bit tricky on a well schooled horse, so on a green horse like Oscar it's even harder. Have asked Ellie and Sarah to have a go with him (they seemed really keen for some reason... ) so hopefully they will help cement it into his brain a bit.

Thursday we headed up to Whangarei with Shelley and her mare (renamed Bitch Lips as she was in season, out of work for a couple of weeks, and on spring grass), and it was Oscar's first long trip on a truck. He travelled great and was quite impressed with the flash accomodation we had lined up for that night. A client of Shelley's lives just outside Whangarei and has a lovely property with stables etc so the ponies stayed in luxury accomodation that night. Then went to the A&P show on Friday, which to be honest was a bit crap as it was raining, then really muggy but Oscar behaved so well. I was really pleased with him.

Drove back on Friday afternoon, and he was pretty pooped when we got home. Had Saturday off then this morning we went to Muriwai and went for a forest ride with 8 others. It was a bit exciting to start with but all we had was jig jogging, apart from that he was a star. He loves to be in front which is a bit hilarious as he was the greenest horse there! Had a cruisy ride and he does seem to be getting fitter which is good to see. Although he did come home and have a big lie down and snooze - I have never met horse that loves sleeping so much...

After the ride this morning me and Ben did some fencing down on the creek boundary. We put a fence up there a few months back but then all the rain and flooding stuffed a bit of it up so we had to reset some of it. All good now so hopefully when the creek goes really low in summer the cows won't wander into the neighbour's place.

The garden is going great guns, and we should have some peas very soon! Have been eating the lettuce for a couple of weeks, very yummy! Some pics of our bounty:

Tomatoes - three batches worth, newest ones in front

Peas - one older row and two new rows from about 3 weeks ago. There are pods on the older row that should be ready in about a week, yay!

Lettuce - bit of a random variety with weeds in amongst them all for, er, variety.

Sunny checking out the carrots. The bigger ones are the ones that the chooks ate most of the seeds from, the others are much newer and were the ones we chook-proofed.

Courgette and cucumber plants - newer courgettes and some gherkins on the left

And then to top off a great day we have just been nibbling on some cheese and crackers and champagne. It's a lovely sunny early summer evening, we have some scotch fillet steak for dinner courtesy of one of the cows, and I can see the horses grazing in the paddock, pretty nice really!