I'm having a great time with Tuck in level 3 online and liberty. Yesterday we played at liberty outside the round pen. It was perfect! He was very attentive even in the lush green grass we were playing in.
He has also been loading and unloading like a pro. Now we both just have to get comfortable with closing the divider and heading off down the road!
I feel like my ground skills far exceed my riding skills, and my freestyle still feels so sloppy. Tucker is bored with the round pen, but it's where I keep going to, to learn and teach whatever we're having difficulty with. It will be nice to have 4 weeks of guidance in this area. I guess I'll just continue to chip away at it until then. I have to remind myself that I spent over a year just on the ground...so it's no wonder I feel more comfortable and competent there.
I am still keeping up with Rascal and even Pepper as well. Pepper is weird, and just sort of checked out yesterday in the middle of the round pen. So I let him chill there while I played with Tucker.
I've ridden Rascal about 4 times now, and he's starting to understand the concept of "go" but I'm not pushing him. That plucky little guy sure is comfy though!

How many days? I think it's something like 64...

This time of the year is always so unpredictable as far as weather goes.

In the last week we've had 2 downpours of hail and slush, with bouts of rain and sometimes a brief sunshine. Yesterday I pulled Tuck out to give him some grain, I thought it would be nice to let him eat his calories in the warm sun while I ran in and did a few things in the house and we would play that afternoon...I was shocked when 15 minutes later we were in a downpour! I had to go rescue Tuck and let him into his shelter in the pasture. So much for my glorious plans!!

Tucker and I are well on our way through level 3 I watched all the new material yesterday, and really enjoyed what I watched, and feel good about where I was filling in the blanks about what I wasn't sure about. I could use a little refining on just about everything, but especially the yo-yo game.
We had a nice little session today with change of direction, sideways, stick to me, and advancing porcupine. He did lead by the leg(front and back), by the ears, and by the girth SOOOOO well that I just laughed and gave him a treat. I'm finding that once you've established your leadership with Tuck he offers you the world. It's making things fun as our relationship grows.

I have now ridden Rascal 3 times, and he it's like I have done it 100 times. I usually wait until we've played on the ground enough that he starts to yawn before asking if I can get on. He doesn't get very worried, and looks back at me with questions all the time. Our last ride, I started asking him to take a step or 2 forward. It took few tries, but he caught on!


For now we are getting my trailer in tip-top shape for our long journey...which means no more trailer loading until it gets back from getting cleaned up. I'll have to be patient and hope that I also have a few sunny days to take it for a spin with Tucker. So lots of study and practice time!