What's the baby horse been up to?

The center Goggles came from requires monthly check-ins with photos. 

HI

The white eye has the ability to make him look excited and overstimulated and then a few seconds later deeply bored and over my photography 

Dats a pretty cute butt

Emailing the photos is a good reminder of the passing of time. It's been a little over a month. We haven't done a whole lot still, but we're putting in some building blocks. I was pretty amazed when I was stalking event entries this weekend and saw 2019 horses popping around beginner novice. Not in a they shouldn't be kinda way or even in an I need to catch up kinda way. Just... different journeys. And maybe for the first time in my life I'm starting to accept that. 

I did sit on him once. He was super good. Walked around the back field by himself. Did kick up his heels at one point when we turned away from the barn again, but got over it pretty quickly. Grand total saddle time of 10 minutes

We've also stood in more puddles. This was when he realized it was WATER like stuff he could DRINK. He was much more enthused after that. 

JT and I have long-lined him once together. I did it again Monday by myself. He was EXCELLENT. I put him just on the lunge first. He kicked up his heels for a lap or two right after I asked for the first trot. But then he settled down nicely. Then I put on the lines, and he put up with my ineptitude at handling the two long lines. We walked and woahed and trotted and woahed. Good boy. He also walked through the puddle in the round pen. Double good boy. He was mentally EXHAUSTED afterwards. He fell asleep in the cross ties. SO much braining required. 

I've also been doing "blocks" of ground work with him. Block one is staying out of my space, the space dictated by the length of the parelli style stick. When he enters he gets tick-tocked back out of the space. He was a major creeper for about 5 minutes. Instructor said he was either going "mommmy, mommy, mommy" or was pushing to see if he could enter the boundaries of my space. Either way, he got it eventually and has been pretty solid on it since then. The later blocks involve walking and doing things and moving his parts. I'm not there yet though because I had to leave early to go to work the day the instructor was there. Gogs has done the blocks with JT's working student a few times though. It's made him much more polite on the lead in and out from the paddock. He has been pushing the boundary with his older friend in the paddock. He's got some bite marks from it, I am pretty sure they're well deserved. 

He's a pretty confident horse, and I am really enjoying that. I've been doing the ground work in various areas of the back field and he doesn't really seem to care where we are or what we're near. He is VERY interested in staring at other horses doing things, but doesn't so much care if they come or go.

Occasionally he stands in a way that gives me a glimpse of the horse he can become 

And then other times he still looks like a super awkward baby 

So we toddle along. Balancing two in two different places hasn't been that hard timewise yet because I do things with Gogs twice a week. It has been hard in regards to remembering what gear needs to move between places. I've done all the things above sans gloves. Smarter choices have been made, but baby horse has been so good I haven't lost all the skin on my hands, yet.