Always Playing Catch Up

We finally shot the gun off Booker's back.  Worked in the arena for a while and shot from the ground and next to him and finally got on and shot from his back.  He actually did best under saddle than he did on the ground.  Next up is more work with the 22 and starting work with a 38 half and full load.  We figure if we keep doing the 22 a few times each time we work with him that should keep him fresh all winter while we work him up to 45s.

I did make it out another time in the past couple weeks and do some ground work.  Did some makeshift versions of the Parelli friendly game, circle game, and squeeze game.  Then we spent quite a bit of time working on backing out the barn door and down the step, a little make shift trailer unloading practice really.  He gets a little nervous backing out so we'll keep working on that when we can.

Pulled his shoes last week so we'll see how he's feeling as far as arena riding goes.  We don't want to do too many sharp circles but now that it's almost winter we're going to be confined to the arena with not much room for straight work.

Back on the Ranch

Lots of photos in this post.  Back to the ranch after having been gone a couple weeks.  This time I was able to get a friend to come out and help with hooves.  Cody hadn't thrown his other shoe and it took the two of us and a lot of elbow grease to get the darn thing off.  It also took 3 hours to trim up all three horses but they are finally done and looking good.  A little shorter than my previous farrier but since we aren't riding and it's been hard to get someone out, this is probably for the best.  Now I just need to keep up on the rasping myself.

We were actually at the farm for 2 extra days so in that time I spent some time putting up the new barn door, painting it, and cleaning up the shed.  Haji spent some time laying down while I worked.  It was a little weird but I'm hoping he was just happy I was there and decided he needed to nap.

We also pulled up the fence from the side yard and fenced in the end of the wheat field so we could turn them out there for a while.  There's quite a bit of volunteer wheat growing out there and lots of space so it gives them something exciting to do for a while.  They must still have enough grass since the round bale is still not gone and it's been out there for over a month.  I was expecting some exciting running and bucking when I put them out in the wheat but I guess the old guys are getting old.  They did run, a little.  But that was about it.

Sadly to get to the field they have to wade through a pretty decent patch of burrs and nasty things.  Not that they hadn't already found enough burrs.  Haji was covered.  I finally went out with some old cutter thing and chopped down a path so they can hopefully avoid a few burrs.

And then I decided I would put Haji's blanket on as it's been getting pretty chilly and he needs all the help he can get saving energy for gaining weight.  I made sure to moderate his introduction to Cody and Axel with the blanket on.  Sometimes they freak out when they see a blanket for the first time of the year.  Axel came prancing up like he was trying to impress that new purple horse.  Then he realized it was Haji and things were back to normal.