Rain rain go away!

I debated just going home and staying in but I thought it'd be pretty quiet at the barn in the rain on a weekday. I was right, the place was deserted. The boys were standing half in the lean-to and half in the rain. When I went into the little barn to get Cody's food I could hear them nickering, but instead of coming up to the gate to wait for dinner they just stood in the lean-to and nickered there. They both really wanted to come in when I went to get Cody.

Cody took his time eating his extra food and he didn't mind the MSM I had snuck in the bucket. I tried to dry him off a bit with a wool blanket and groom him a bit. The barn wasn't too loud with the rain but I turned on the radio anyway. Cody lunged pretty good and seemed to be paying attention, though he was paying attention to the gate. My guess is that's just where he wanted to keep his eye on in case the rain got scary or something. He wasn't too happy about standing at the mounting block so it took a few tries before he stood for me.

We worked on some trotting in circles, Cody is having a hard time bending, especially to the left. Even with the clear circle wore into the footing he had a hard time staying on the circle (it's time to get some cones). So we kept working on that for a while and worked on keeping in the trot until asked to do something else. At least he was moving pretty well and I didn't have to carry a whip at all. We got a pretty nice but a little fast canter to the right. To left took a lot of tries as he kept picking up the wrong lead. When he finally picked up the correct lead it was kind of unbalanced but since that's what I was asking for I let him stop. We trotted a bit more so we could end on a nice note. Sometimes after the canter he gets a little strung out so I wanted to make sure he'd go back to a nice easy trot. Even with the noisy rain he was calm.

After he backed up when I asked I dismounted and we worked on some turn on the forehand for a while as well as some bending particularly to the left. I untacked him and grabbed some treats and we did some "carrot stretches." He was really good at them and kept his feet in once place while bending to each side and down between his legs. He didn't really want to stretch up to get a treat though, so I'm not sure what that's about. I also did some leg stretches with him that I think he actually enjoys, or at least he tolerates them well and stands still and doesn't yank his feet away. He even seems to not mind the tail circles. I might have to do some of the bending after some lunging circles for warm ups and before riding to try and get him bending better.

When Cody was eating his extra food I ran out and gave Axel some MSM and a little grain in the lean-to. After I turned out Cody I stood in the shelter for a while while Axel proceeded to chew the wood off the inside of the building. I smacked him a couple times with the rope when he started to chew and scared him a bit so he wandered off. I put some manure on the spot he was chewing in what will probably be a feeble attempted to keep him from doing it again. Grrr ... kids!