Stuff what happened

This past Sunday morning I hopped on Peanut, Anne-Marie hopped on Gene, and we were off.

Into the bugs.

Oh the bugs were so bad, unbearable even through Peanut's riding fly mask.  He would occasionally fall back, let Gene get ahead a bit, and start rubbing his face on the spotty rump.  Gene, being Gene, didn't give a flying fig and just kept trucking along.  We were riding dammit, and that's serious business to the appy.

We didn't go far, a mile maybe, before we realized that we were beaten.  The bugs were too bad, plus it was so sticky and sweltering even at 9am.  We turned around and, with the horses' blessings, tried to outrun the flies.

Galloping on narrow trails through the woods is amazingly exhilarating!  Not too long ago it would have terrified me, but I said "whee" more than once during our jaunts.  Gene was of course thrilled, as that horse loves speed (not the drug, dammit), so any chance to let loose under saddle makes a happy appy.

We even cantered through a 90 degree turn.  I had no clue how Peanut was going to handle it, but with a couple of leaps we were through without a problem.  I was in disbelief and Anne-Marie was quite impressed watching from behind us (Gene trotted through as Peanut's canter = Gene's trot).

So, progress.  It's all very slow because all I do is work work work, and this week that's combined with feeling like crap.

The "mountains"

Blocking in the "sky" and "stream"

Details, yo, details.

I probably won't get to work on this again until Saturday.