I had a really nice bareback hack on Tucker today around one of the pastures at the barn.  The mud finally cleared up and I managed to get my butt to the barn to spend some time with my horse and I am certainly glad I did.  Bareback riding over uneven terrain is certainly much more of a leg work out than riding with saddle, I suspect I will be feeling it tomorrow.  It felt like forever since I had ridden, but he did great and was pretty solid plodding through the high grass in the field.  He had more energy and was much more responsive than I would have thought given the fact that our temperatures are creeping up to the high 80's and low 90's.  He had one little spook at scary drain pipe water run off area but other than that life was good.

I have been thinking about my horse a lot lately and how the Parelli program fits into our life at this point.  I had an extensive conversation about it with one of my friends last night.  I explained to her that while I have learned a lot from Parelli and I think they have helped me immensely in my relationship with my horse, I just really do not see any need to go any further in the program.  I certainly do not see any reason to dump any more money into their pockets.  I know there is so much further Tucker and I COULD go, I'm just not sure I want to.  I love being a "happy hacker" (as Lisa-the friend from last night-referred to it).  I'm sure I could have a deeper relationship with my horse by going further into the program, but I'm not really sure I feel the need to devote my time and energy to that.  I know it sounds terrible, but Tucker and I are happy being trail partners and maybe that is all this partnership is meant to be.

I am in no way saying my horse is perfect, he still gets right brained (especially over farm animals) and he we still have to work through things, but for the most part he does everything I want him to do so I can hack around the barn, ride the trails and take him camping.  There are things we need to work on but, I feel pretty confident that the skills I have learned from the program so far will help me deal with those and get throug them.  As things pop up I will handle it with the tools I have been given.  If something shows up that I feel unprepared to deal with I may revisit lengthening my journey into the program, but I think at this point I am going to focus on just enjoying my horse, riding where and how I want in places that interest us both.  I will worry less about how much time I spend on patterns, tasks and games and just do what feels right at the time for Tucker and I at that moment in time.