April Winds

It is windy today and has been for the past few days. Since I have a lot of farm land around me wind just rushes through the property like a freight train. The farmer has been disking his field so that adds dirt into the wind, not really a nice day to be outside. But the temperature is pleasant, and there is work to do to.

So I grab my hammer and fencing building materials and start fencing a new pasture. I am pounding away and watching the horses. Kinsey starts prances up and down the paddock. Her tail flips up and she empties herself getting ready to flee. When she does stop Kinsey looks like this:
Is she on high alert because of the farmer in his field?
Is it because of the wind? Or me hammering? I should also mention that she has calmed down a lot here. I had to get the camera, change the batteries and get back outside. Notice that all the other horses are not upset by this strange intrusion in to Kinsey's world. They are looking at me take pictures, she is solely focused on what is bothering her.
I guess I should show you what Kinsey is freaked about:
Now really are these two that scary?

Woo Hoo!! Driving Lesson # 6

Check out this dressage test!


Happy April Fools!


Driving Lesson:

I got out to my driving lesson and there were two horses hitched up ~ a team! Two haflinger geldings that are going to Midwest Horse Fair were hitched and waiting. I got to drive a team. Talk about fun! Talk about different!

It is so much different than driving a single in some ways. Keeping the trees lined up and watching where we were going was a lot more difficult than I thought. If one horse gets ahead of the other, you still pull both reins back, even though you want to just pull the one. The horses can be lined up correctly but drifting to one side. Just wild. I felt like such a beginner, only instead of staring at the horses ears I was staring at the tree.

Yet over all it was much easier to drive two that I thought it would be. Only one set of reins, but they criss cross each other, so although I only have one right rein, that one rein splits and each of those reins go to the right side of the horses. For the first time in a long time I was trying to use a leading/ opening rein. I was laughed at a little bit about that and reminded to "keep my hands in the box." Not sure when the last time I was told that! They only stopped once when they weren't supposed to and we never actually hit the electric fence, so that was good too! Although I never got them to "go" on my word, R had to tell them and then they went. I still get a real kick out of "gee" and "haw."

Most of the time I was in an enclosed area, until I had to start doing a lot of maneuvering. That was when we were outside the fence and putting the sled up. I kept trying to hand the reins off, but told that I could do it. And I did! It was a really neat feeling. One of those things that I have always wanted to do but never thought I could.

Now I am wondering if I should get another percheron or mini to make a team. Totally kidding!

Wordless Wednesday

Madison, Madison Let Down Your Tail. . .

Rapunzel has nothing on my mom's pony Madison. After I broke my wrist I could not keep up on her tail care. It was left in a braid, but got full of burrs. One of my goals this year is to actually get rid of all the burr dock. As you see her tail looked dreadful.














It took me two days, lots of careful combing, and bit of Main-N-Tail Detangler. After the first day I had managed to start to undo the braid and get the bottom half of her tail detangled. I banded the bottom half and pulled it up. I started off day two with this:





I sprayed the sections I was going to work on. Then groom the rest of her for a bit as I waited for it to dry. Then I held the tail and pull a few hairs out from the burrs with a comb, a few strands at a time. Finally an hour later I had this:














Now why would I go though all this when it is totally impractical and I could just thin the whole thing down to a normal looking tail? Well who hasn't wanted a real life "My Little Pony?" I have and so has my mom. It is her pony. So even though it is a major pain sometimes, I keep her tail looking like this just so I can take it down and let my mother enjoy looking at this tail. She gets such a kick out of it and when I say I want to cut it, she just sighs and says, "Oh okay." Well I don't have the heart. If it makes her happy what I can I do.

Today I have to wash her tail, which is another chore. Once I get it all washed and conditioned it goes back to the braid and bagged. Luckily the best tail care you can do is handle the tail very little.



I took one last photo of the braid before I put it up just to see how long it really is.

Sunday Stills

Sunday Still this week is a day in the life of . . . me.
We could only choose 4!! Well that is tough, it has been a long week.
It started off with this. Morning and night for a goat. She is doing well now. Thankfully I am done giving shots for now.
Every morning starts off with hay, it ends with hay, and has some hay in the middle. I drive the lawn tractor and deliver hay to the horses and goats.
No matter what I do I have diet coke. It is a bad habit, I know but it is every where. Here we have some in the barn. I would love to say that I had to go in the house and bring the coke out for the picture, but no, it was already there.

Finally I had to do some work in the pasture. I got lots of help from Abby, Sophie, and Dominick. Dom is trying to figure out how to spread the seed, Sophie is checking to see if I have enough seed down. I think Abby was making sure that the lawn tractor was working properly. LOTS of help from those three.

Driving #5 and Riding #2

I did not post about my driving lesson last week. Oops

I drove Corrie. She is a nice mare, but not the most cooperative. She has a bit of a stubborn streak. If you ask her to move up she will take one step with her front feet, but refuse to move her back. She really cracks me up! I actually like her.

We had a good drive until a German Shepard puppy, around 7 mos, came running up to us barking. Corrie spooked a bit. R put on the brakes and I handed of the reins. He kept tell me I could have handled it, which is probably right, but I had to make a quick decision. All in all it went well believe it or not. After that we went and talked to the woman with the dog, he had slipped pasted her and she was mortified. Corrie calmed down and then went about driving.

All in all it was a VERY good experience. It was a spook but we all ended up calmer than when we began. Frankly a spook with someone else there is great. I felt more confident, afterward that I could handle it.

Today I rode again. I rode Drew. Nice horse, not Bill though and I just have to get used to him. I was hoping to trot, but Drew had a little spook. Nothing big, but it was enough to put me on edge again. It was good though. I survived it, I didn't get off, I helped Drew to face what he was afraid of. I am learning how R. had his horses trained. We had some good discussion about training. We don't always see eye to eye, but we do mange to understand each other, or at least accept, the other's point of view.

Both of those spook were invaluable lessons. I am starting to remember that spooks happen. They happen all the time. As R. said once, when driving you may have 100 run aways that never happen because you catch it in time and defuse the situation. It is the same with a spook. Catch it in time and you can defuse the situation. Where I used to think I need to find a horse that doesn't spook, what I really need to find is the courage to deal with that spook and keep it under control.

Mean while back at the ranch:
Kinsey HATES needles. I mean I really should not be surprised, but I was hoping that I would be able to do shots on my own with her and that just is not going to happen. Luckily it was just a matter of finding a way to work with her. She needs to have her eye shielded. She can't see it, it was okay. The vet did a little neck twitch and then she was okay. No butt shot though, so we had to do one in the chest. We even got a coggins out of her.

Ropes don't seem to be a be deal with her either. So that is really encouraging. I would really like to get her working on the ground very well before I send her off. I am hoping to start ground driving her. I think that will be good for the both of us.

I was hoping to send her to a trainer in a few weeks, but unfortunately I had some terrible vet luck this week. It is goat related so I won't mentioned it here, but it put a damper on some future plans. I am going to keep riding and driving lessons though and maybe in a few months I can send her.

Wordless Wednesday