Lady, please stay out of the fence

Lady is a baby. She loves to run and buck and kick. She is pretty smart most of the time, too. Now, she would have been smarter to not get into this situation, but she did. I already had the camera in hand to take pictures when she did this, otherwise I would not have these pics. I would not have stopped, found the camera, and then helped her get out of the fence. I love how Belle and Foxy are watching her, but not getting too close





After her left leg got caught under the fence, I quit taking pics and pushed it back under and then shoved her chest over. Then she scrambled up and tore off around the arena for about five minutes

Weekend Wanderings

For all of those that think that horses have no personality and can remember people. . . You are full of horse crap!

We made the trek down from Wyoming to the crowded freeways of Utah this weekend.




It was for a family reunion. Now I will not bore you with the millions of pics I took of that. Yeaaaah!!!! But I will post one pic memorializing the experience.

What is this? you ask. A couple of hummingbird moths. . . Joined. . .

All of the little kids made me trek out through the poison oak to look at them.

Hey, I have to get my kicks from somewhere. The Mr. and I were in the cabin with all of the little kids (ours? we sent with the grandparents, thinking that we were really smart -- yeah, right)
We had not taking into consideration that little kids wake up in the middle of the night screaming. My mares can handle all of the babies from now on, let me tell you!

We went to the barn to visit Bart. Now for those of you that need a refresher course, Bart is Belle's Brother and teammate. He is one of the best carriage horses on the street. His long Clydesdale legs eat up the distance and he is ready, willing, and able to work and work hard. He is also gorgeous.


He has an incredibly long forelock and beard. Belle does have a nicer mustache, though.
BELLE



I walked out to the corrals. I called Bart over. He immediately started walking towards me. He is not dumb. People calling his name generally have a treat.

Then he slammed on the brakes, gave me a very disgusted look, and walked away. He is still holding a grudge. He is furious with me for taking away Belle. BELLE


It doesn't help to tell him that it is my goal to have him up there in Wyoming, too. He likes his job and is not willing to retire yet. As much as I want him, I would hate to have anything happen to him to force him to retire. So I can be patient. I really need a new job before I pick up any more horses anyway. Maybe the hubbie will have to become Bart's personal Assistant. Yeah, right.

We are hoping to finally close on the horse property at the end of the week or early next week. We need to repair a lot of fence, but it should be worth it. I am busy packing (I still need to empty out my classroom) and playing with the 3 horses (Babe is still out to pasture), 1 dog (his coat is growing)1 cat (very angry that her owner is gone AGAIN to Utah, 2 rabbits (still only 2 Yeah!) 2 fish (way cool, too).

No word yet on the interview with Jackson Academy.

Corrupt them while they are young

My sister came for a visit. Actually, she had to bring Kid #1 home from Girl Scout camp and she had intended to paint the kids' bedrooms in the new house. Unfortunately, we have not yet closed on the house(we are currently only 9 days late)
With any luck we will have closed by next week. So, instead, she brought one of her students out and we played with the horses. Student has a Morgan mare. She has now been brainwashed. She fell in love with Belle. She called her mom and now wants a Clydesdale.

(See, horses DO come in bigger sizes! It IS possible for a horse to be taller than 15 hh.(just a dig at my sister's tiny herd:))

She does NOT want a mule. There was one at the arena that would not stop braying. It was really annoying and funny. She loves Belle's smooth gaits. Belle was not really sure of her ability for a while and did not want to canter, but eventually she did. I told her that she needs to move to Wyoming and that she will need to come visit or Lady will be rideable before she can convince her mother to move here. (She also fell in love with Lady -- What's not to love? She is such a love bug)



I had forgotten how good my niece is at riding. She loped around on Foxy like a fly on Flypaper. Her butt never left that saddle. Unfortunately, our new pony was still in Cheyenne until we move(I will get to that later), so we had 6 kids and two adults sharing 2 horses. Lady and I worked on halter training. Some days she leads better than others.

I also made the 6 kids walk the 6 dogs.

I have Shooter, my sister has a small beast that yaps, and my friend has four. It was pretty funny watching three aussies, a corgi, a heeler, and a beast go for a walk. The beast was carried alot. The heeler and Shoot love to run. But it was hot, so the kids walked from shade to shade. Shooter had to go on the trail later to get his exercise.

The bugs are really bad. I finally remembered to buy some fly spray when we drove up to the city to go shopping. Lady was her normal self. I sprayed her down, she stood there, not caring. Belle spun around her stall wigging out until she finally stood there and took it. They all got wormed, as well. Belle thought about being a brat, but I think that it had more to do with the horde of people, than the wormer. Fox was a brat, but my sister hung on until I could get the tube into her mouth, then Fox let me squirt it in. Lady stood, let me put the tube in her mouth, spit out the wormer. I adjusted the dial, put more in, she ate it, all while not having a halter on. The imprint training with spray bottles, tubes, clippers, and tons of time; it has all paid off. As feisty as that little girl is, I would have an out of control three month old with out the constant work.

So back to the pony. I bought the kids a welch pony. She is 13'1. (at least she is supposed to be small, not like two of my sister's Morgans that are 13'3)
A Friend of mine bought her for her daughter a few years ago, put a ton of training into her, but the girl would not ride her and then my friend's mom bought her daughter a horse that she loves and adores and she now the daughter has a reason not to ride Babe (Yes, it has been pointed out that I seem to have a fetish with feminine horse names i.e. Belle, Foxy, Lady, and now Babe, I can't explain it)
So now I have a small sorrel mare that Kid #1 and #2 can ride. Technically, I can ride her too( my friend did and although I might outweigh her, I have longer legs and can probably distribute it better), she never tires and is a speed demon on barrels. Lady loves to tease her. I was trying to get my sister to buy her for my "fly on flypaper" niece, but My sister was not biting. So she went out to pasture in Cheyenne. I broke down and agreed to buy her (I agreed when my friend was in Vegas and she called in a panic that her daughter was given the new horse -- the girl had quit riding the pony months ago) but she is still in Cheyenne until we move to the new house. I don't want to pay board on a fourth horse while the kids are back in Utah. (two left today, then we all leave for the weekend. Then they won't be back until we move) This is not the greatest pic, but it was before we decided that we NEEDED her so, I don't have any great pics.

(yep, the stirrups are way too short, Kid #1 is not wearing boots, helmet, etc. It was a warm up in the round pen, which reminds me; when my sister was here, she mentioned helmets for her kids. For a split second, I was confused,my kids rarely wear helmets while riding. not the best option, but it is what it is)

1 day left!!

I have one day left of Summer school.

And then I am officially UNEMPLOYEED!!!

It's a little scary and unknown.

I don't even have driving carriages to fall back on.

I guess that it will give me time to pack up the house to move.

Nerves have already proven dangerous.

This is Shooter.


This is Shooter after owner stress.


Actually, he loves it. He just looks like a giant puppy.


Normally I just take stress out on my own hair. After my divorce, I chopped almost a foot off. Shaving Shooter is mild. He seriously needed it with the insane weather anyway. Low forties and constant rain to high eighties and humidity.
Maybe I will chop the hair. . .

Black?:) Blue? :(

Lady's baby fur is starting to shed out. The skin underneath is fairly dark. I am hoping that she goes dark brown like Foxy or even black like her sire. Unfortunately, her left eye is turning blue. Ick! Fortunately she is not my horse. She is my daughter's. She would prefer Lady to stay a bay, and get a blue eye. We will have to see.


Right after I took these pics, I started dealing with Belle's scratches. Belle currently has a bad case of scratches that I made a whole lot worse with some iodine/aloe that I left on overnight. She butchered her legs. So now we are back to desitin, which works, sort of. It will work, but only if I clean her legs regularly. It is fairly impossible to do this in the winter. With all of the rain lately, it just makes it worse. Anyway, back to Belle. The three of them were all out in the arena, I was crouched down with Belle, when Foxy decided to lay into her, double barreled mule kick to the right side. One hoof clipped her hock. Belle tried to get out of the way, but she wasn't fast enough and she blocked until I scrambled out of the way. Belle limped off. Foxy nailed her pretty good. Foxy has been in a bad mood. It was bad before, but then Sunday, I took Belle on a trail ride with out Foxy and Lady. She spent the whole time screaming and running around. Foxy does not like vacations. The kids have been gone for a week and a half. I don't ride her because of her ringbone. She will go lame. Tomorrow, I will either lunge her for 30 minutes or pony her off of Belle, depending on how Belle's leg looks in the morning. Belle walked it off the lameness tonight, but it may be fairly sore tomorrow.

Catching up with the Rainstorm and PonyPlaytime

Although Wyoming is not a tropical rain forest, we have been having some pretty crazy rain storms lately. Not like Stacey's storms in Hawaii (those are insane!!!)but they have been enough to bring the rabbits inside once or twice. The nice thing is though, that the water can soak into the ground, we have not yet reached saturation point, so the water can still disappear fairly quickly.
This pic was taken 15 minutes after it started to rain, then let up for about 5 minutes before it started again. That's a lot of rain for 15 minutes.
Then it started to rain again on the trip home. Yes, my children are crazy, and yes they are the ones with the camera, I was trying to drive.



This is my planter (fortunately my plants are still in the greenhouse) full of hail.(Trust me -- it hurt)

This picture isn't the best, but if you look carefully, you can see a stick in the road that has water rushing over it. It's about 6 inches deep on that side of the road. It pushed a lot of debris in the street. I did not stay out long enough to get good pics. It started hailing again and my poor camera was getting wet.

The inside arena was always being taken so the girls were not able to get out and run for a few days. Lady was not particularly happy about this. She tried to escape once, but I grabbed her quickly and manhandled her back into the stall with Foxy. Yesterday when she was able to get out she was a terror. She ran non stop for five minutes, bucking, kicking, and rearing all over Belle and Fox. The kids had to go to Utah for a couple of weeks, so they had one last play session with the girls before they left.
This video was shot after the boys had thrown the ball back and forth for about 10 minutes. Belle and Foxy have only their halters on. This video makes me wonder who is getting better trained, the kids or the horses? Kid #3 doesn't even flinch as Lady runs around. Kid 1 and Kid 2 are now hopping on without any aids.(They are so excited about moving so that their horses are in the backyard! I was wondering how fast they would figure out how to put bridles on and get on without help, but apparently, I don't need to worry about that!)
Kid #2 mentioned to me that training with the ball will help train Lady to not be afraid of things. Duh to the rest of us, but pretty smart for a kid. He said that he remembered it from the clinic that we when to in February. I am impressed. Most of my high school students can't remember what the class was about yesterday, let alone three and a half months ago. Yes, my kids are brilliant. Sorry Slave Driver, I am talking about CHILDREN!!! Ick, I know, but deal with it.
Foxy is not keeping weight on, Lady is sucking it all out of her, so hopefully without any riding for the next few weeks, she can put some weight back on, plus she is on as much hay as she can eat without wasting it and the same grain regimen as Belle. She used to let Lady nibble at the grain, but now she is VERY protective of her grain bucket. I can't blame her, Lady already gets plenty from the hay and the milk.

Tired people should not be allowed around blogs

***amendment-- I did not realize that I had posted these pics. I thought that I had saved it to add to later. I was goinf to talk about Lady's pretty markings on her legs. I was going to say something about the psychotic cat, but I can't remember what. At least I have not gotten food poisoning in a while. Oops, I did eat the nasty cake at a retirement open house. I am doomed.