Maybe I should just do ski specific training all the time... but I don't. I am visiting a friend from Whitman who lives near the twin cities, Whitney Heyvaert. Today she taught me how to ride a horse, well, she started to teach me, I still have a long way to go before I would consider myself a competent horsewoman. I rode Major, a Norwegian Fjord breed of horse and a horse who clearly knew much more about riding than I did and thus had no respect for my authority as his rider. Whitney had me practice in the arena before going for a trail ride. I managed to walk easily & could convince Major to turn right or left. Whitney explained posting to me in the arena but I didn't get it until I got to watch her more and practice on the trail and road. Posting is how you can choose to ride a trotting horse to make it less bumpy. Whitney also had me lope on her horse, Doc, on a lunge line in the arena. That is when the trainer, in this case, Whitney, stands in the middle with a whip to crack with the horse on a long rope and has the horse and rider run in a large circle. I did get a little dizzy because I had to concentrate so hard on how I was sitting and keeping my heels down and squeezing my legs that I only looked at the back of Doc's head and let the rest of the world spin around me.

This horse stuff is not all fun and riding though. After our ride we shoveled the horse manure out of their pens and fed them so they would produce more poop for us to shovel tomorrow.