A wonderful 5 minutes!

I rode my pony Shadow today for the 1st time in 2 years. He looks so good,his weight is good, his eyes are bright and lately he walks over to me with a "Lets go do something fun" look. So today I took him out of the paddock with the thought of doing some ground work so I could brush up on somethings. He is wonderful to work with, very light, willing and he really has no issues so I can work on me without fear or emotions getting in the way. When we were done he wasn't ready to go back in the paddock, I was going to take him for a walk but his CC (his brother) was intently
looking for a place to go through the fence. That's when I decided to hop on. I grabbed my helmet, stood on a bucket and got on bareback. After about a minute of him getting adjusted to me on his back he walked to the gate and really wanted to go someplace. He isn't physically ready for that and I didn't want CC to go through the fence so we didn't go anywhere. I stayed on for about 5 minutes and it was great! He had that old look in his eyes, a spring in his step and was happy. And I haven't stopped smiling all afternoon!