Beautiful Hope...

I'm a genius.  A complete genius ;).  A couple of not-so-good things have happened lately that I'm not allowed to talk about (except with Sonny ;} ) so I came up with a way to cut the feed bill in more than half or even annihilate it ;).  I have it down to (for four horses, two milking goats on a 28.00 a bag feed, 2 labs, 1 chihuahua, and 2 cats.  We are also going to have a couple of baby goats in the next month or two) 338-400$ :).  It used to be 1,000$ a month!  I figured that if I have 5 students a week at 20$ a hour (half of what everyone else charges per hour) I can cut it down to 0$ :).  I think I can maybe get 5 a week I may be able to only get 2-3 at first but Sonny and I are in boot camp starting tomorrow and I think in 2-3 months we should be able to get students :).  Especially for 20$ a hour.  That's how much most people charge for a half hour down here :).  I'm really excited though!  It'll be cool to be able to help pay for my own horses (and everything else's) feed...  I also hope to be able to get Sonny's liberty up to par fairly quickly.  He already does walk/halt/backup stick-2-me fairly well without any prior OnLine work.  Once he's in shape I'm going to work on our Finesse a bit more.  But why don't I talk about my session yesterday?

I walk out with the purpose of cleaning up the barn and putting all of our tack on the shelves, hooks, and saddle stands that the guys had made earlier in the day.  After putting everything up I head out to where the girls and the neighbor twins and their little brother were playing volleyball.  I watch for a couple of minutes before heading back to the barn to grab Sonny.  I walk in and grab my featherlight. Letting myself in through a stall I walk around to about 8-10 feet from his head.  He acknowledges me and I ask him to join me.  He declines and goes back to his wisp of hay.  I start to arc around to is hindquarters in a crouched 'stalking' position.  I take my rope and carrot stick (which is now my tie-dye stick) and ask him to move his hindquarters and join me.  I slowly up the phases and when I hit phase 2-3 he moves his hindquarters and comes up to me and 'stick-2-me'.  I loop the featherlight around his neck and tie it off.  We step into the stall, I open the door out into the main aisle of the barn and we step out.  He starts 'hay-diving' but when I gently remind him of his previous lesson he shapes himself back up.  We head out to where everyone is playing volleyball and I gently ask him out onto a walk circle.  He obliges.  He walks for a lap before I ask for a change of direction.  When I ask I make sure I get both eyes before I send him back out.  He and I have always had issues with our changes of direction but he's gotten a ton better now that I do the 2 eyes thing and have been working in the cordeo.  I ask for one going the other direction before I ask for a trot.  His trot is very connected and very sane.  After 1 lap I ask for a lap going the other direction.  When he completes his lap I ask him in and walk out to the volleyball area.  They were breaking up to eat dinner so I head to the front yard to let him graze and let me think of ways to bring down the feed bill.  We're out there for a couple of hours before the neighbors come back over with around 6 more teenage boys for the manhunt game my siblings and the neighbors were going to play.  I put down a couple rules (I was the designated chaperone *rolls eyes*  I greatly dislike manhunt...  Especially with people I do not know and who act like these people do ;P) and hop onto Sonny.  I play around, go over a few jumps and just make sure everyone's behaving.  I get bored before long and head back to the barn and stick Sonny in his stall and sit in with Toby.  After a while they come and get me saying that I have to go over with them to Cameron's house...