the other day with billy blaze was really neat.  i had plans to go into the outdoor arena to practice excellence while doing the circling game, followed by some horse trailer play.

so i went and met billy at his gate, haltered him up, put the 22 foot line on him and off we went!  they had brought some new things into the outdoor arena so he had to check those out quick, then he dropped down to roll (of course…).  when he got up i asked him to back up until he was at the end of his 22 foot line, then sent him off on the circle.  we made it two laps before he wanted to roll again.  i asked him to keep going for one more circle then decided it wouldn’t hurt to let him roll (might be good for our rapport!), so disengaged his hind end then knelt down.  he stood for a minute, then i asked him to lower his head and he went down to roll.  while rolling he rolled onto his back and just balanced there for a second or two digging his back into the sand.  when he was done rolling he just stayed down.  so i sat in the sand about 12 feet from him.  i sat and sat and sat.  then i started to get cold and decided to sit closer to him so i crawled over to him and leaned my back up against his shoulder.  he seemed content to just lay there!  once in a while he would reach around to nip at me and i would offer him his lead rope or i would play with his lips.  we sat like that for 15 minutes!  it was wonderful.  as we sat there i was thinking “when is he going to get UP so we can play with our circling game?!”  then started to think about how some of the things billy and i can do have become so common place that i take them for granted.  it made me laugh that i WANTED him to get up!  how many people get the chance to sit with their horses while they lay down and both are content?  how many?  i do take for granted the things that billy and i can do, wanting to do more or bigger and better things when the things we can do are pretty big and great!  i want to continue working on our relationship so we can grow more and become even more amazing!

after we laid around the arena i decided our rapport was so great that we could go right to the horse trailer.  we had the MOST relaxed and wonderful time!!  it was awesome!  he walked right in, ate the oats, stood there, played with the bucket that bothered him a little, but he kept offering to play with it   then i backed him out slowly, stopping him with his fronts in the trailer, briefly.  then asked him back into the trailer where he ate the oats again, cocked his foot and hung out until i asked him to back out again.  then i asked him back in for a 3rd time, he was calm and happy the whole time!  i was really happy with how he backed out and loaded him.  how quiet he was as he stood in there.  even if i moved around outside the trailer he was quiet!  we spent an hour with the trailer and it didn’t even feel like it!  awesome.

today i took big B and little L with me to the barn.  when we got there we were informed that billy was loudly snoring in his stall, laying flat out   how funny!  i walked down to his stall and he just laid there.  i went in and brushed him all over his one side while he laid flat.  then the boys came up to see him and he sat up a bit.  Logan climbed the fence and took these pictures…

what a silly billy!