Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Another Day at the Pond

We are on our way to the pond!

In the pond together
One Sunday, our whole family went back to our neighbor's pond for more water adventures.  Annie rode Buddy again, I rode Poco, and Daddy rode Jack.  Momma was with us, too, but she didn't ride.  I am beginning to think she doesn't want to get wet ... However, she did take lots of pictures.

Poco and I were swimming

Poco is a great, confident water horse.  She marched right in and went swimming with me.  Her previous owner told me once that she used to take Poco swimming and use her for a diving board.  After the fun I had riding Poco on Sunday, I can definitely picture that.




Daddy didn't take Jack into the water, because he had his saddle on.  Daddy has never ridden bareback, and Jack wasn't about to get into the pond without quite a bit of convincing.  Daddy was afraid that something might go wrong.  He did take Jack for a gallop across our neighbor's big, open pasture, and they both seemed to enjoy their run.  Jack can sure stretch out and run, and he is really fast!


Daddy and Jack

After Daddy had ridden Jack for a while, and Poco had become bored with the pond,  I stripped off Jack's saddle and rode him to the edge of the water.  Several minutes later, after many attempts, Jack hopped/slid boldly into the pond.  To his surprise, he liked the water.  Jack amused himself by dunking his whole muzzle into the water up to his eyes and blowing bubbles.  Then he pawed and splashed a bit.  I decided it was time to try the deep end, so we headed that way.  I was a little worried that I was about to repeat Annie's experience of the first day, but Jack did quite well.  He always has to do things differently than the other horses, so he didn't swim at all.  Instead, he let his legs hang limp and floated, bobbing up and down with the movement of the water.  He makes a good raft.  We drifted over where his hooves could touch the bottom, and he waded out of the water.  Good boy, Jack!

Jack likes to stick his nose in the water and splash!
 In the meantime, Annie and Buddy had an adventure again.  As I was walking Poco out of the pond, she stepped in a patch of soft mud and made a hole.  Buddy, who was following right behind her, got one of his legs stuck in the hole and jumped to get free.  As he did so, -well, I'll just let you see what happened by watching the video!