We had our second dressage outing today, and went to the third spring dressage day run by the Waitemata Riding Club. It was pretty quiet at this one, not sure why, perhaps because it was on a Saturday - they are usually held on Sundays.
I entered Oscar in two training tests, which meant - eek - attempting to canter in the arena. We have been working on our canter but just can't get the left canter lead. Driving me nuts. Had a ride at Ellie's on Wednesday night as adult ride was cancelled, and we just about did a 20m circle (ok it was v egg shaped but still...) so it gave me some hope! Only on the right rein of course...
Anyway today Sarah came along with her old boy Em and did the same two tests as us. He was great as usual, although Oscar was very clingy and spent all our warm up calling out to him. We did have some nice moments in the warm up so he was definitely better than last time where our warm up involved tanking trot, jig jogging and not much else.
Second test warm up was marginally better and we even had some really really good (for him) trot-canter transitions. Steering was a bit crap but that's not unusual. He is quite funny though - he can be a complete twit outside the arena but as soon as we go in he settles right down and in his second test particularly he did some really nice trot work and I was very pleased with his free walk. Bit bummed that his right canter flopped a bit - he did the transition but then went back to trot. I think a big part of it was me not giving him enough rein but ah well that is what training tests are for I guess.
So this leds me to believe (and was suggested by Ellie) that Oscar does in fact have a burning desire to be a dressage pony, given his love of the arena. Fine by me :-) Although we are going to attempt an ODE at the end of the season. Gulp.
We have had some good growing weather here in the past week or so, with a bit of rain and then sunshine. The tanks are full and the hay and garden are growing well. We even have some peas ready!! Stoked about that. Had my first couple of pods straight off the vine the other day, was lovely. Lots of flowers on the tomatoes too and the zuchini and cucumber plants are also doing well. Have a few zuchinis coming along nicely.
With our tank now pretty much full we have discovered that our tank stand needs reinforcing. There is quite a bit of bowing in the wood which is a bit of a bugger. There is no way we will empty it at this time of year so hopefully it will last until the end of summer and we can sort it out then.
I thought the whole thing was about to come crashing down the other night when I heard a cracking and popping noise. Ran outside but the stand was still there, and couldn't see anything else. It sounded like gunshots so I thought maybe the neighbour was off shooting possums again. But no - it's a rather large branch from one of the trees by the driveway. It has split off the tree and is currently resting on a tree on the opposite side of the drive, about 15 metres above the ground. Don't think it is going to come down of it's own accord so will have to get someone in to chop it - it's waaaay too high for Ben to get up there. Just don't have the gear really.
The piggies are doing well, and are pretty happy now that we have got loads of veges for them. We can get 4-5 big bags of vege scraps each day from the fruit and veg shop up the road, which is almost a bit much for them to get through! Although they really don't like raw onions so there are a few of them lying about in the pen.
Hopefully they will be ready for killing in a month, they are still growing well but to me just need to get bigger butts (don't quite look roast size to me just yet....)
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