Another lesson

I had another lesson at 8:30 a.m. today.  I drove out to the ranch, which is north of Indio, CA.  It sits right along the San Andreas Fault and one can look out and see the palm tree oases along the fault.  I can almost touch them!  So, today Annette, my instructor, said, "What would YOU like to work on today?" and I said, "How to correctly lead a horse!"  This may sound simple to some of you, but I never REALLY learned how to to it correctly and I especially never learned how to correct my horses should they run out in front of me! Scout just runs over me.  Cali and Sunni lead quietly and right with me.  Gigondas is pretty good, too, and so is Quad.  But, Scout for me has always been an issue.  And, believe me, I've had people show me and THEY can do it, but I just can't.  So, I got an hour-long lesson on leading today and I'm plumb wore out!  I took Annette's young mare and led her and walked her over the tarp and over logs.  Of course, she's well trained.  But, I DID learn how to make a horse keep its distance and how to prevent her from walking ahead of me (...I THINK I did...I still need to practice!).  Then Annette and I cleaned up horse poop!  It was a good morning and it was refreshing to get out and do some "horse chores" and be at their ranch.  There are 27 horses there, and most of them are rescues which have now been retrained.  I'll have some "homework" (i.e. some practicing) to do which involves leading each of my horses.  Like I said, all of them, except Scout, are pretty good and she's the one I'll REALLY need to focus on.  Here are some photos I took last night at the ranch here in the desert of some of the horses there. It's so beautiful in the late afternoon with the sun setting behind the San Jacinto mountains and I'll post some of those photos for SkyWatch Friday later this week.