Vacationing

We're running out of grass at our place where the horses are.  So we're trying to squeak out a few more weeks without having to get a round bale out there.  I drove Cody and Axel down the street to stay at my brother-in-law's place for a couple weeks.  He's got a large property fenced in where he had 50 goats cleaning up the weeds.  He's also got his brother-in-law's 5 calves out there.  And now my two "big" horses.  Hehe.

The boys were a little on their toes when they got off the trailer and saw all the goats.  The goats weren't too interested in them though.  Cody visited with a calf nose to nose and Axel gave one his usual welcome of a nice kick (darn that Axel).  When they discovered they could move the goats pretty easily they started chasing them around a bit.  I'm waiting for the reports of napping horses and goats playing king of the mountain on them.  We had only been there for a few minutes and the boys had found the waterers and had a roll, so it looks like a good vacation home.  I went to check on them a couple hours later before we left and they were across the creek behind the grove standing in the wind.

So Haji is staying at our place alone for a couple weeks where he'll try and eat up the remaining grass and also have his meals in peace for a while.  Though I've been told the three are getting along well and they aren't chasing him away from his meals as much.  Haji might enjoy the vacation location, maybe he'll have to go join them at some point.

We'll have to move them back to town before the farrier is due so he doesn't have to run all over to trim my guys' feet.  I bought a round bale feeder this weekend and I just ordered a hay net from ChinchChix.com so I should be ready for round bales pretty quick here.

Another adventure!

Okay so we're trying another adventure with Booker.  Cowboy mounted shooting!  So far we've only just started getting our feet wet.  Booker's injury has given us a chance to get him used to a lot of things he wasn't appreciating before (like a hose and flyspray). And he seems to be learning really fast.  So last week we put him in the arena and smacked a couple 2x4s together to see what he'd do.  It was the only thing I could think of that would imitate gunfire without actually shooting a gun.  Obviously it's not as loud as gunfire but I think it was a decent test.  And of course he passed.  Twitched his ears a few times and that was about it.  He wasn't too happy when the scary noise was happening toward his left flank but the most he ever did then was take a couple steps on the forehand to move and see what we were doing.

So I ordered some cap guns from Amazon.  Partly to practice with the noise and partly to just practice handling a gun while riding.  I'd rather drop a 20 dollar cap gun in the dirt than a 500+ dollar Colt.  Plus I don't imagine the barn owners would look too kindly on us running around shooting off guns (without inviting them first of course).  So we fired the cap gun from the ground and Booker looked at us like we were crazy (we might be).

Of course the cap gun isn't very loud but it's a new sound so we fired all around him on both sides etc and he really didn't care one bit.  So N got on and fired a bit on both sides of his head and toward his rear etc and he really didn't care once again.

So we set up some poles to mimic an actual shooting course.  That got him a little excited.  But recall he was a game horse for a little while so he thinks poles/barrels/etc mean GOGOGOGO!  So he got the tiniest bit hot going through the poles with the cap gun but nothing scary or horrible.  When we finished off the last round in the cap gun N rode him at the walk and trot through the poles to just make sure he knew slow and calm were A-OK with us.

The pictures are pretty bad but it's just a bit too dark in the arena to photo a moving horse with my phone ;)  Anyway, I haven't given it a go yet but I know I'll need practice riding one handed and firing with the other hand.  And N is left handed so she needs to figure out how to shoot right handed and ride with her left hand.  We have some work to do.  Not to mention fashioning some sort of makeshift holster for our awesome cap guns to practice drawing.

And Booker, we'll have to see what he thinks of balloons and popping balloons. And maybe find some blanks for our .22s to get some louder noises going on (after we talk to the barn owners of course and not in the arena - ouch).  When we get all that figured out then maybe Booker will have to attend a shoot or a practice shoot just to get exposed to real .45 gun fire.  Hopefully we can get into a beginners clinic this coming spring or something.  

More Ride and Run (Ride and Tie)

We're still going once or twice a week over lunch and running and riding a couple miles.  Booker seems to enjoy it well enough.  In fact when I went to fetch him on Tuesday he came up to me in the pasture.  First time he's done that, usually he thinks about running away ;)

And not only are we trying to do a little improv ride and tie, I'm doing it in my Vibram FiveFingers.  Go figure.  It's very weird riding horse in them though.  Hopefully as fall rolls around and it cools down a bit we'll start running after work so we'll have more time and go further than just a mile and back.

Long distance horse-keeping

Well we're still trucking along.  This past weekend I went to get more horse feed only to find out the farm store hadn't restocked yet.  We're good til this coming weekend so I called today and bought some over the phone and someone will go pick it up for the boys.  We also went to a little threshing party and since their oats were kind of green they need to get them fed ASAP, so I guess I'll have a few bags of oats for the boys as well.

Other than that, there was nothing too terribly interesting to report.  I had planned on cleaning out the silo shed but we spent all day playing with a threshing machine so that didn't happen - maybe next time.  I have big plans for the existing shelves and cabinets as well as adding some saddle racks.  I ordered some zip up saddle covers so my saddles aren't exposed to the elements once we put everything away.  Can't decide if I'm worried about theft or not yet.  I suppose with them being fed twice a day someone is out there quite often to check on things.  I'll have to take some inventory photos for future reference just in case.

Haji is doing well and gaining weight, slowly but surely.  Cody and Axel are more attached at the hip than ever but they hang out with Haji as well so that's nice.  The three of them are usually not out of eyesight of each other.

Second Ride Out on the Farm

Another weekend out at the farm so during naptime I snuck out to see the boys and go for a ride.  Cody was much calmer about me removing him from the paddock this week.  Might have something to do with the fact that Haji and Axel stood on the other side of the fence right next to him while I tacked up.  It was slow going for most of the ride away from the barn.  I decided to go down to my inlaw's farm a mile down the highway.  Once we got past a few blocks of paved crossings, it was ditch the whole way.  Cody wasn't super thrilled but he plodded along, only turning for home a few times, and those time he was pretty calm about it.  None of his old spinning and trying to bolt for home.  We have a few little spurts of canter but not too much.

When we got to the farm everyone was either napping or out doing stuff so we headed towards my trailer to grab all the fly masks.  When Cody saw the trailer he thought this horrible trail ride was over and made a bee-line straight for it.  Heh poor guy.  My next ride to the farm I think I might go out in the pasture with the cows and walk around, start getting them used to horses a bit.

The walk home was in a whole new walk gear.  A really nice gear at that.  Wish we could get that kind of walk all the time!  But he was calm and it was a nice ride overall.

The flies were horrible so I threw the fly masks on everyone fully expecting to never see them again.  They're all in pretty poor shape so it wouldn't be the end of the world.  Surprisingly when I went to feed Saturday everyone was still wearing them.  I took them off overnight and then Sunday it was raining so I left them off.  When we had gone Saturday morning to feed Haji didn't come up to the barn.  Fearing the worst we went on a search to find the old man.  Turns out he was hanging out on the other side of the grove between the trees and fenceline.  Cody and Axel must have left him there and he couldn't figure his way out.  He followed me like a puppy through the down branches and back to the barn.

Sunday we drove by and all three of the horses were standing at the fence line.  Really makes the grove look huge when there's a horse standing there.

Our First Ride and Tie Training Session

Last week Thursday we met out at the barn to go for a little run/ride.  Our plan is to do this at least once a week.  There aren't any actual Ride and Tie races in Minnesota that we've found so we're just going to Ride and Run for now.  I started out running and N rode Booker and we went down to the town hall, not quite a mile.  Then we swapped and ran back to the barn.  I have to say that was a long mile. I hadn't run for quite some time so it was a toughy and then add on the fact that we were talking while we did it.  I was still hurting on Monday.

Booker even had a hard time keeping up at the end.  He's been out of work for several weeks now so we were all in the same boat on this one.  Interestingly enough both of us had a much faster and more stable pace on this run.  Booker for the most part trotted the whole ride so we were pacing with him I guess.

So that's our latest adventure.  We're still planning on picking up a couple single action .45s and doing some mounted shooting, but I think we need to spend the winter working on some desensitization and various things.