Busy weekend completed

The weather was fabulous this weekend resulting in the ability to get a ton of outside stuff done.  We ended up with a list of 32 items we need to do "at some point" and we got 17 of them accomplished.  Also finished some things that were not even on the list, go me.  What did we do?  Well....  Powerwash horse trailer which includes removing/washing the mats and put it back together, use the chipper and clean brush from flowerbed, clean out flowerbed, reinforce chains on arena door to prevent donkey escapees, grade driveway, dump poo box, clean arena of poo thanks to turnout, trim/start pruning the overgrown apple tree and much much more. 

I had a really good lesson again yesterday, jumped both boys and I was impressed with each.  I wanted to slowly introduce new types of jumps to Sinatra so he wouldn't be too frazzled when we go XC schooling in 2 weeks.  I brought a big tree branch in to jump as a start, we also jumped a corner for the first time and set up a mini course.  He was so great about going over all these new things without second guessing or doubting his ability.  I was quite impressed when we went over the corner the first time, since we hadn't done a "real" oxer before I was nervous of him handling it.  He went to it, looked at it hard and jumped it.  He had the ability to run out to the left and chose not to.  Great boy!  The biggest downside of our ride is we were having our randomly spooky moments and once I almost came off.  We were riding down the long side at a relaxed walk and suddenly he was a couple feet away from the wall.  Stayed on but it was interesting.  He got a good hosing and a good roll afterward.

Chip was pretty good as well, he loves to jump but was being lazy.  We were attempting to do raised cavalletti in the form of bounces on a circle.  He was only giving half attempts, not always cantering/jumping through them but instead trotting or just cantering and not actually jumping thus knocking them down but in the end we got some good efforts.  I also had her put up a 2'6" jump for practice since I haven't jumped that in forever.  He seems to have his old habit back of hanging his legs instead of bringing his knees up.  At one point I, again, almost came off, Chip majorly over jumped the jump after meeting the distance incorrectly.  I was slightly ahead, he over jumped, trainer thought I was coming off but I was able to stay on.  We went over the jump a few more times and made it a wide oxer until he was jumping correctly and called it a day.  He also got a good hosing and a good roll to finish the day.  It looks like high bounces will be in Chip's near future to fix his hanging legs, gotta get more standards!