Knowledge Comes In Different Forms

The fillies are going through another growth spurt. Coffie's withers come up a little above my chin, and I'm 5'4". She is looking a whole lot heftier than her skinny younger self. Her mane looks awful. She's been reaching through the fence to eat the grass on the other side, and tears off her mane in the process. I might cut it all off after winter so that it grows straight.
I haven't ridden for 2 weeks and it really is a pain. I am having a hard time making the time. Cross Country ends soon though (Wednesday next week). That should free up quite a bit of my time.
I rode Misstack on a short trail ride... after two weeks off. I like riding her on trail rides. She looks to me more, and more often, and does what I ask. I love that she doesn't mind being away from the other horses. And plus it gives us something to do sense I am not training her in the barrel pattern. After fair I quit with barrels, and poles, and all those other events, just to give them a break and do something different. So we'll go on trail rides, I'll work on getting them more supple, and teaching them new things like sidepassing. I don't have them do a whole lot of work, we're kinda lazy.
I think I got somewhere with Toffy today. I gave her a reminder course in ground work and getting her to do what I ask. I've started doing rollbacks with her and am telling her "Hip!" before every turn so that she can relate it when I get in the saddle and do it. Then I had a little bit of fun and threw a small ball at her. I don't know what it was made of, but it was really squishy. Squishy is the wrong word, but describes it accurately enough. Believe me I was not abusing my horse. Just getting her used to different things. I also emphasized things hitting her legs. I took a hard whip and tapped her legs, I bumped her legs with a tire, and I threw the ball at her legs. I am trying to fix how touchy she is about things hitting her legs. Then we did the tarp. I started out shaking it. It didn't take too long for me to be able to shake it while it was on her back. I'll keep doing random object training. We'll do that with all the fillies. Dash is brilliant at it though.
That is my story... wait I'm not done yet.
Yesterday I went up to some place to a Horse Evaluation contest for FFA. I discovered something. Horse people are weird. They make me laugh. I couldn't even really tell you why. I was just listening to a random conversation of a couple girls that  sounded like they knew what they were talking about. I think that's why I think it's funny. Horse people act like they know what they are talking about. When in reality we just know slightly more than the next person. My limited experience has taught me a lot, but there is so much more I could learn, and there is always someone who knows more than you or I do.