February 3, 2009
No Nova update - he's still hanging out in the pasture. Waiting patiently for our farrier to get back from Antartica to come trim him! Hopefully soon.

So seeing as how I haven't been working with him, I finally decided to edit some video from back in November.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uO_eJCFROz0

(That's only a small part of the entire lesson that was videoed. Mom's computer is being stubborn and this is the only part I can get off of it so far.)
First off, I was able to dig out the other part of the video from Mom's computer, so here's the link for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glMGBYSr59s


February 22, 2009
I think today was the weirdest day I've ever had in the entire 3+ years I've owned Nova.

But before that, we took him and Rhythm to the arena for a romp. As it turns out, they weren't so keen on running today... Shoot! But I did manage to snap a couple decent shots of him.
But now to the interesting part! So, I decided to be brave (aka stupid) and ride him back home, bareback with a halter. I've done it before, but something was telling me to maybe just walk my own butt home. Anyway, I put him up beside the arena fence, scrambled on, and then we hung out for a few minutes watching this lady with a stroller walk down the road past the arena. As we started up towards the road, he got kind of excited in the deep snow (which is what my initial worry was), and half took off on me. (I don't mean a bolt, but he started trotting and had no desire to stop when I was tugging on the 'reins' to get him to stop.) So I decided to do myself a favour and bail off before I fell off. So, I leaped off and rolled into the snow. He, of course, continued onto the road and down it a little ways before he stopped. I start walking after him, figuring he would just stand and wait for me... Nope. He watches me, then turns and trots off down the road... Making a beeline for the lady with the stroller! He literally trotted and then walked down the road right after her. I think she eventually heard him coming because she stopped and once he got to her, she was petting him/trying to keep him from being too curious about the actual stroller. I finally got there and apologized like crazy for him, then turned and walked back. I was half laughing at him because it was just so weird! It makes me wonder if part of his enthusiasm through the snow was because he could see the lady with the stroller walking past us and wanted to investigate.

Anyway, Mom gave me an awkward boost back up on him - and he stood like a rock of course. She then kept a hand on the leadrope as we walked down the road. After 10 feet or so I told her to let us go, and of course he walks home like a 30 yr old been-there-done-that kind of horse. I didn't ask him for much, of course, just to walk calmly down the road. But the couple times I did kindly ask him to move over a bit off the icey part of the road he did. And that was using mostly my legs and a tiny bit of the leadrope. I also asked him to whoa twice, and he did so with relative ease. (You know, there was no stroller to chase!)

So, I think my horse has a curiousity streak a mile wide which is cute... Except I'm not sure the poor lady thought so! And we ended the day well and he proved that he does have a sane side! Haha.