Starting to Get Into the Routine

I don't have a whole lot to report yet.  Last night, Larry had his first date with my wonderful farrier.  (Who was kind enough to make a special trip out just for him. :)  He was a very obliging patient and had his front shoes pulled and quite a bit of toe taken off.  He has nice solid feet with good hoof wall so I'm happy that he can go barefoot.  Now that his feet are done, I can think about getting him under saddle and seeing how that goes.  Tonight, my friend M will come out to meet him for the first time and she's bringing her gullet gauge and I have my tape measure ready, so we'll do some saddle fitting and take some blanket measurements, and just generally play around with him.  Yes, sometimes we treat our horses like giant Barbie dolls, because they're fun to brush and dress up and take pictures of.  (And yes, I rebraided his mane last night.  It's ok, bc my farrier teased me about it.)  Larry's going to get the wrong idea and think that my place is a vacation home with nothing to do but eat and pose for pictures!  But M and I both have the philisophy of exposing our horses to as many odd experiences as we can and generally "torturing" them with odd trail obstacles and the like in the hopes of making them calmer and more trusting overall.  I have a basic trail course set up right now and worked Legs through it the other night.  From what I've seen of Larry so far, I doubt he will be fazed by it.  Starting next week, I hope to start riding him and get him into as much of a work routine as my schedule allows.  (Evening daylight is most certainly not on my side.  The fall colors are beautiful and the weather's still mild, but I really hate the dwindling daylight this time of year.)  I am thinking about setting up some "arena lights" to make it easier to work in the front.  More to report later.