Here are some photos and video taken on January 3rd, during a training ride with Emily. I am writing this entry on Saturday, February 11th, after an eventful week. I've been upset about the Bad Penny and a kind friend gave me very good advice about how to diminish the power I let that person have over my feelings and wellbeing. She was so sage. And I got good advice about how to nurture both academic and creative writing. And I got to ride Violet, during her complete protest of the winter. Stacey had a fence set up as a bending line fence off the rail by one of the corners by the bad gate. I was riding Violet in our Tuesday private lesson and she was being tight and stiff and hollow-backed and when I cantered her by the gate, she did a crazy girl leap off the rail and found herself right in front of the jump, moving fast. So, we had to emergency jump it and I swore like Al Swearingen in Deadwood. It was funny. And I had no problem. Though it was annoying. It surprised Violet, so I had to ride her around and around at a trot and canter around that gate until she respected my leg and got off the inside. It was rough. But we closed out our lesson with a fun little exercise jumping a cross rail at a diagonal angle toward the other gate. We went both directions toward and away from the gate and the purpose was to jump, take a few steps, and halt. We managed that well, after our crazy wild emergency jump. I am so sick of the indoor arena!