How wet was it?

No horses since Christmas Eve. I have had my family here for the holidays. Everyone went home last night and I was exhausted, but I knew before my head hit the pillow that I would be headed to the barn today come rain or come shine. As it turns out it was wet. How wet was it? I have never seen so much standing water around the barn. One side of the mares pasture was flooded and water was running across the entrance to the facility and into a field on the other side of the road. On the drive out I passed through instances of water on the roadway to numerous to count. On the drive back the water was even higher.

Boo's pasture was pretty muddy, but at least the horses were standing on high enough ground that they weren't sinking up to their fetlocks. Of course Boo wouldn't come to me at the gate. No, I had to hike all the way to the back of the pasture to get him. Once I had him inside and had his blanket off I was relieved to see that even with all the wind and blowing rain he was relatively dry. We were cleaned up and tacked up in no time. I had cleaned his feet by leading him through every mud puddle I could find on my way into the barn. It made short work of the mud on his hooves and my boots too.

Trainer Tracey was there as usual working all the horses she normally rides. I think there are 6 of them that she rides most days of the week. That's not counting when she has to get on one of the horses belonging to her lessoners. Like Baythoven. Some of the other boarders were there too. Still there was plenty of room in the arena to ride Boo. We are still working on connection...sigh...I think we might be working on connection forever. It did end up well though, and we did work in walk, trot, and canter. I have fleeting moments where I am doing something right and Boo responds to that and it feels beautiful. At the end of today's ride I tried to do some work without stirrups. It is evident that I NEED to be doing this kind of work. I was unsteady and unbalanced. Especially in the stops. By the end I finally got ONE stop where I didn't pitch forward in the saddle. Geez! How long have I been riding? This stuff should be old hat by now.

I am going to work 2-point and without stirrups every ride until I am secure with both. Assuming I don't fall of first and break something.