Living up to the title of the blog, heavy on blathering.

I officially have bronchitis, and I officially have a new doctor. I think my main hesitation in going to the doctor has been due to the fact that my old doctor had an average waiting time of close to 3 hours for your appointment. I am not kidding. So, why should I waste hours of my time for 10 minutes with a doctor who just throws antibiotics at me and sends me on my way? Meh. I did have to wait an hour at the new one, but afterwards I got profuse apologies from the staff, telling me that it's so unusual to have to wait so long and thanking me for my patience. At the old place I just got surly looks. I should have changed sooner, but if it's related to my health (vs my animals) then it's at the bottom of my priorities.

I'm feeling much better now, but not 100%. Rick, Anne-Marie, and her hubby are at the new Legacy site, helping string electric fencing, but I'm staying home because:

1. It's a Saturday. I need to fucking sleep in.
2. They're calling for snow today, and I don't need to be standing out in this kind of weather all day while getting over bronchitis.

I plan to go to the barn later, and part of me is trying to convince the rest of me to ride alone into Fair Hill. I don't know what part's going to win, I think I have to see how well I'm breathing when I'm there before I can decide. At least at my barn, all of 20 minutes away, I can decide that I feel like crap and come home vs. Legacy at 2 hours away.

Rick would flip his lid at the thought of me riding alone on trail....

While picking up my prescriptions, I saw that the Christmas candy was all on sale for 10 cents. I picked up 2 boxes of mini candy canes, 80-some canes each, for 20 cents. Peanut will be happy. He doesn't like the starlight (I think that's what they're called?) mints, but he's ga-ga for candy canes.

Ga-ga treats are great. Peanut's are apples, granola bars, and candy canes. With them, I can teach him patience and manners since I can demand that he be respectful or else he won't get them. This is how I taught him his stand command, in fact. At Legacy, I'd give him his apple on the way from the pasture to the barn, but he had to stand still and not even look at it before I would hand it to him. He learned quickly. We're now working on the "mommy is allowed to put her hand in her treat pocket without your muzzle following" concept the same way. If he even looks at me when I go to my pocket, my hand comes out, a finger touches him on the cheek and pushes his head away while I quietly say no, and doesn't come out with anything or even hands it to him unless he's looking straight ahead or the other way. He understands the concept, but needs reminding. It is cute in a way, because he'll do his best to ignore me but his body will shake in anticipation. It's the same way he starts shaking when he sees me pull out a clicker and my dressage whip, right before he starts offering bits of every trick he knows.

I was reading the bitless link that Funder gave me (what do you go by? Elizabeth? Beth? Eliza? Bess? Betty? Liz? That has got to be the name with the most variants), and it made me think how I also get looks when I pull out the bitless. Once, a bridle in the tack room appeared with Joan's bridles, and she asked us what ours look like in case it might be ours. We just said that ours were the bitless ones, and I realized that we are oddballs. I often get comments that people are too afraid to try such a thing on their horses, since they can't imagine having any control in them. Bah, I've never had any issues, except for times when Peanut's marbles rolled out of his ears. But hell, any horse gives you issues when their marbles vacate. Besides, my horse can't grab the bit in his teeth and run.

The more I think about it, as I've learned to ride, Peanut and I communicate less and less with the bridle anyway. I stop him with my voice and body more than anything, and I often turn him with my legs. I usually ride with completely slack reins (a no-no in English), so when I actually go to use them I have to pull in the extra first.

I'd love to try riding him bridleless, to see where we really are, but I can't even ride him in a halter. The pig just looks for the best grazing and ignores me. So, I guess I mainly use the bridle to keep his nose out of the closest food source. Pig. Well, and for when his marbles are starting to get jostled and I need a stronger form of communication to break through the commotion in his head.

Hmmm....

Well, enough blathering. I think I'll take my new camera today and see if anything seems photo-worthy.