Horse Camp

This Thursday I picked up my niece from the airport. You may remember her from last year: http://journeywithadancinghorse.blogspot.ca/2015/07/irish-gets-new-minion.html. She enjoyed herself enough last year that she came on her own this year for our own Aunt-Niece horse camp.

One of the ideas I had was for my daughter Amanda, Caelen and I to go to Ontree which is a treetop adventure place with climbing ropes, zip-lines, tightropes and general swinging things- all up in the trees:

from the website. this was much harder then it appears 

I've wanted to do it for a long time. It was so much fun. And much harder then I thought. We did the last one and my arms were done, my core was sore and my legs were not speaking to me anymore. But each scary obstacle that was finished made you feel accomplished.

After we grabbed a lunch at the local pub and headed home. Part way into the drive we had to turn around- the road was closed because of a vehicle fire. This made the drive home almost twice as long.  We fed the horses and had a brief rest. Then Caelen got Irish ready and I gave her a short lesson. She was doing well so I left her in the ring and went to grab Carmen. She was pitching a fit at being alone but not as bad as she used to do (it takes time to get used to being left). When I came into the barn she looked at me with wide eyes
Thank god you're here. Some little sprite has stolen Irish! 
Calm down, he's having fun up there. 
No you don't understand- he's been STOLEN. We must save him. 
You will see it's okay. Just stand still while I get you ready. 
Hurry up! This is a rescue mission, not a spa treatment! 

I brought her up to the ring (impressed with how well she was behaving despite being clearly excited). She looked at Irish happily going around and gave a big sigh.
Well it could have been an emergency. 
Carmen was not on her best behaviour. This time the trolls were up at A (they are moving now). But I can get her to work through it more and more easily. I can't wait for when it's all no big deal. It can get a bit boring to have repeat the same 'yes I know it's waving around, no there's nothing in there that will hurt you, yes you still have to listen, no we're not running away'.

After our ride we gave the horses their night feed. Caelen filled up Carmen's water bucket. At first Carmen ignored her then her curiosity overcame her and she came over to sniff her over.
You're not going to steal Irish, right? 

When I came into the house I realized that I might have overdone it. We ate a small supper and then pretty much vegged on the couch until it was a rational hour to go to bed. Thank heavens that I don't have such busy days planned for the rest of her visit.