For the past couple of days, I have just been enjoying my chores and little play time I have with the horses. Although we have not been very busy, it is COLD COLD COLD. There was the snow, and then there was the ice, and then the snow again... And now it finally started melting, but then it froze over again, and NOW it is frozen slush. Yum.

Nevertheless, I did get to play with the horses this morning a little bit, each of them being in their own Horsenality and me just directing their energy to my ideas and turning my ideas into their ideas. It was quite fun. With Cherish, I took her out with the hay and we walked slowly together and stopped whenever she seemed to be nervous (the ice seems to make her worry). When we reached the pasture, I dumped the hay in a couple large piles and stood with Cherish for a while, just stroking her. She rather enjoyed it and I was happily occupied myself until Hope and Finale began to whinny from the barn.

When I took Hope out, I noticed that she was very very pushy and all she wanted was the grass. I started playing with her and giving her a focus point by giving myself a focus point. Every time we got to the focus area, I would stop- and either let her eat grass, pause and move on, or play. She began to look to me for direction, wondering what we were going to do next... Acting like a partner. I soon took her back to the pasture because she had learned what I wanted to teach her and Finale was whinnying for me, demanding that I had taken enough time. I played with Finale less than the other two but I did play with her, getting her to pay more attention to me. She is so smart that it took her very little to begin to act like a partner and ask me questions and being soft, so her time was naturally the shortest. I had had to play with both Hope and Finale a little on allowing them to leave- they both wanted to rip their head out of the halter, which is very unusual for any of our horses.

It's almost time to go out and take care of the horses again....