Nothing means nothing

If someone was watching us play tonight it might have looked like we were doing nothing, I took Nalle to the arena, took his cover off, gave him food, gave him a carrot while rolling around, let him run around like a crazy person for a while, put the cover back on, got up and rode back to the pasture.
But there's something I always keep at the back of my head, nothing means nothing. Therefor I think it's very important to always be aware of what you are doing, even if you just spend 5 min with your horse feeding it. In our world I did this: we went to the arena with the goal to have no pressure just fun and the thought "what can I do for you today", I knew he would love to roll in the snow to scratch his back after wearing his cover for some time while I was away, I always knew that he probably would like to run around for a while since they dont really can do that in their pasture.

Nalle got some problems with arenas, they're boooooring, or to be honest, I made them boring this spring when we were trailerloading, the first weeks he didnt like that at all. Now he got no problem with the trailer and we can make trailerloading fun, but arenas are still abit tricky.
I know I change how I think when we're playing in an arena compared to playing in a field or in the forest, I dont want to but I do think abit in terms of "work" in arenas. So we've been eating alot in the arena and doing fun things lately, he's learned so much this year so we dont have to "work" on anything for a very long time... So I gave his food, took the cover of, scratched him with the stick while eating and slaped the ground making him more insensitive to the stick (I've been feeding him around other horses so much chasing them around with the stick slaping mother earth so he dont really care about that anymore... nothing means nothing!).
After eating up he ran away to find a got spot to roll on, I followed him with a carrot ready, after he had done his scratching and was still laying down I gave him the carrot making him wonder "what can I do to get another one, hm... ".
Last week we started testing if I could lay him down, he was almost down on his knees so hopefully it's not that far away. He got no problem with me walking up do him, sitting down beside him or even sitting/laying on him if I find him resting in the pasture, he also allows me to sit on him while he's getting up so I would like to be able to lay him down to complete the circle ;) or in correct terms, be allowed to lay him down.
After the carrot and some thinking Nalle got up and started to canter, oh my he can canter!
It's interesting to watch them run on their own, Nalle can turn and canter the other way as good as any "cow-chaser", he looks like he's flying and everything is so easy for him. He ran around for about 10 min with his "arab-tail" up, pointy ears and a smile on his face. When he was done he came to hang with me for a while before putting the cover back on.
After that I got up on a barrel asking him to come sideways to me so I could get up. Im trying to save the things he's not yet doing willingly and easy to last to make them sort of a treat, "if you do this for me it's game over". I got up and then we rode of to open the gate and get back to the pasture, we're starting to hang of the opening part but we still cant close it behind us, it's a good thing we're arent cowboys driving cattle...
Today he got to the gate and stoped at a good spot, he knew what was coming, but then he changes his mind and turned around so he had his other side to the fence, perhaps it's easier for him passing that way, made a mental-note about it.

All this text to describe "nothing", makes you realise that nothing really do means nothing!