Updates from the barn

I haven't had a chance to get out and visit the horses since the big move on Saturday. It might have something to do with the -45F wind chill, you never know! But I have gotten a couple of updates on how things are going from the new caretakers.

From Tuesday, January 29
"They're good! They are staying in their herds of four and five. Red is more of a loner, and he hasn't been any trouble, at all. Kalani will stand with Red at times, but if Kiko comes over, Red will leave. Cody's gotten over his need to protect Kiko. Kalani, and sometimes Axel, feel the need to chase Gunner, but that thrill seems to be waning."

"Tom's/Elise's are in charge, so ours will move out of the way as they swarm over, but even so, there hasn't been any biting or serious kicking. They pretty much kept ours in the space behind the round pen on the first day! But now they are all quiet when tied up and waiting for dinner; however, we do have to tie "them" up before we tie "ours"; and we have to let ours go before we let theirs go. We've replaced all the lead ropes and hanging buckets with ties and bucket clips, so it's much cleaner looking. Not to mention, so much easier to feed."

"There was a possum, about the size of Koko [the cat], on the table with him last night! Koko was *so not* disturbed by that fact, that I'm expecting it's not an uncommon occurrence. The possum is no more, but Scott will be buying a gun tomorrow because - yuck, otherwise!"

"So, maybe more than you wanted to know, but every thing's good. We did harrow out there and it looks MUCH better. It's created safer traction, little clumps instead of frozen giant mounds."

And from today
"I can't believe how well this is going. The herds are starting to mingle - primarily it's Kalani, hanging out with Gunner and Poppy. Papillon and Kiko have been keeping company, too. But there's no more real chasing - and yesterday, when Axel pinned his ears back and shook his head at Daley, Daley didn't even pick up his head from the hay! (However, I did notice a bite on Daley's side - that's the only one of those I've seen on anybody so far.) They are settling down nicely."

"Yesterday, Poppy smelled like evergreen and right now, I can see Gunner scratching his behind on a tree - must feel good. Having prepped feed buckets yesterday, feeding this morning only took 20 minutes. I was surprised to find Poppy, Red, and Gunner under the overhang, waiting; Axel is always waiting at his tie. The horses are doing well and everyone's just fine."

"We should also mention that the horses are drinking a LOT more water. We put a second power strip in the tack room so we could hook up a better tank heater. It was freezing over pretty hard with the old one. They almost emptied the tank yesterday."

So that's the latest and greatest from the ever increasing herd at Pinto Creek Ranch. I plan to make a trip out there on Saturday to see how things are going, maybe do a little riding down the road, and some more ground work with Cody to see what his attitude is like.

New Horses

We lucked out with the weather today and had temperatures above zero for once. I got to the barn before everyone else arrived so I did some chores while I waited. Trailers pulled up pretty quickly after I started cleaning out the barn. They actually ended having to take 2 trips to get all 5 horses moved over. We kept the two herds separate for a while at first to see how things would go. Everything was fairly calm at first. There was the usual squealing but lots of happy and interested ears. Unfortunately Kiko decided she liked the new boys and went into season instantly. This did not make Cody happy and that's when he started getting really possessive about Kiko. He started to charge at Red through the fence and Cody is one to stay yards away from a fence whether it's hot or not, so he meant business.

When things calmed down a bit we turned out Kalani with the new herd. He was really calm about everything so we thought he'd be a good one to start with. He went straight for red and they stood and ate hay together nose to nose. We turned Axel out next and he just found a hay pile to eat by himself. Not much was happening and Cody finally stopped getting himself worked up into a sweat so we opened the gate so they could all meet if they wanted. It took a while for Cody and Kiko to figure out the gate was open. Things were a little hairy at first but everyone was able to keep their distance appropriately.

Cody made it his job to place himself between Kiko and any other horse at all costs. Kiko was very fond of Red and kept trying to hang out with him but Cody would come running and chase Red off. Red never made any attempts to get to Kiko so it was all her trying to visit the new horses. Cody doesn't seem really interested in randomly beating up new horses, he just wanted to make sure Kiko didn't leave him so we figured they would be fine all together right away. We waited around a while to see if anything would happen. The two herds kept themselves pretty separated and occasionally would switch positions in the pastures. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the next few weeks. Patti is going to have her hands full feeding 9 horses twice a day. I think I am going to have my hands full working with Cody. We might have taken several steps back in our manners. I predict Cody being quite unhappy when I try to work him in the barn away from his herd and especially his woman. Stay tuned.

New Tack Room

Sunday despite the negative temperatures, Jeff and I ventured out to the barn to work on the tack room. With 5 new horses arriving this next weekend, and at least 3 people's worth of tack we thought it might be nice to beef up the saddle racks so they stay on the walls. In the process we decided to totally remodel the room, much to Jeff's delight (not). But since he's such a nice husband he went along with it. We moved all the saddle racks to one wall and all the bridle hooks to the other wall so everything is easier to get at. I'm not convinced I liked the arrangement of the shelves for the grooming boxes but with a tiny room there is only so much you can do.

I emptied almost everything out of the room and Jeff put up some big 12x12x2s to anchor the racks to. I ended up parsing down a lot of our tack and putting a bunch of it up on top of the tack room in storage. Jeff put a few saddle racks up there for me as well. Cody and Axel's old saddles went up there until I find out what Ardy wants me to do with them. I'd like to consign them and buy a new western saddle for Axel and some nice saddle pads for both of them. But I'm not sure if he wants them back or not. There were 4 other saddles in the tack room that no one used so those went up above as well as some random tack, extra saddle blankets, and extra buckets. I swept the whole room and the only thing I didn't go through was the first aid cabinet. That will have to wait for a warmer day I think.

It wasn't too bad in the barn as far as cold, there wasn't any wind at least, but I don't think there was any wind outside either. It was actually really sunny out. But my soda froze just from sitting out and by 5pm I was frozen to the core and sick of breathing dust. In addition to all the tack we moved up above the tack room, we also hauled lawn chairs, lattice boxes, and other extra random stuff that was in the barn. And we stacked all the hay so there would be room for the next load. It was quite the undertaking.

I'm skipping on going out there during the week this week. Patti had mentioned that she thought Cody was a little gimpy out on the ice so I brought him in to see if anything was up. He lunged at the walk alright so I think he was just walking funny because of the hard ground and ice everywhere. He does have some arthritis in his one shoulder so that probably doesn't help. With Patti feeding twice a day we might start to see some changes in Cody and Axel as she'll be putting some senior flex in with their meals, hopefully that helps their joints a bit. When the senior flex is gone I want to switch to a 4-in-1 pelleted supplement that's supposed to be really good. I just have to save up the money for it first.

Watch out for a post this weekend after the new horses arrive. I'm going to drag my nice camera out there and try and take some shots of all the horses looking tall and impressive when the new kids arrive.

Barn Cleanup

Steph met me out at the barn this week. I brought Cody into the barn to do some ground work with him while Steph ended up raking the manure up that was inside the barn. Cody kept tripping over the frozen horse apples so she thought we better get them out of the way. We worked on the usual lunging and did some trotting over a pole. I also added a second pole but I'm having a hard time getting the spacing right so he can trot over both of them. After some of that ground work Steph showed me how to use her rope bitting rig. She wants some of the therapy horses to be lunged in it so she wanted to show me how to use it properly and what to look for if a horse is planning on flipping himself backward. We started just by walking Cody around so he could get used to it. It didn't seem to faze him so we went onto lunging at the walk and then the trot. We had to open the barn door to help get rid of some of the dust so Cody decided he'd rather pay attention to the open door. After I removed the bitting rig we did some more quick direction changes to get him to start paying attention before backing out of the barn twice. He's getting pretty calm at the backing but we'll keep at it until he's an expert. Next I want to hang a tarp from the rafters to create a narrow space to back him into and out of to simulate a trailer. That should be an interesting undertaking.

Axel Learns Skijorring!

So I've waited too long to remember what it was we ended up doing but I will do my best. I got to the barn pretty early for once and started grooming Axel. I ended tacking him up and still no Tricia. So I grabbed Cody and started some ground work with him in the barn. When Tricia showed up she took Axel out in the pasture and rode him a while to warm him up. Cody and I worked on our backing skills and actually got to a point that he'd back next to me as I backed up mid "lead." So that was pretty cool. We ended by backing out of the barn a few times which also went pretty well, even with "help" from Kiko. So Tricia went to get her skis and I jumped up on Axel and got the rope ready. We ended up tying the rope to the saddle horn so I could actually steer. Tricia just held her end of the rope so she was able to let go if she ever needed to. Axel pulled like a champ. It wasn't actually much work because the snow was really icy and slick. He had one minor issue with the rope must have bumped him in the butt but Axel's minor issues are pretty unnoticeable. We went around the pasture several times in both directions at the walk and the trot. All of this was in the dark of course. So now we're looking forward to some more snow so we can skijor down the road and really get moving.

Warm January Day

It was beyond warm today. Everything was melting and it was 40F. I met Tricia out at the barn for some spring like riding. We donned our light weigh jackets and sunglasses for the ride. I kept up with my plan to keep Cody doing work to build our relationship and some respect. So I tried to drive him into the barn but he needed a little reminder and we had to circle once. He was a little concerned with Kiko being outside and him inside but he was pretty calm about it. Tricia groomed Axel and I worked on Cody. After I tacked him up we did a couple circles to get on the right page. I opted for a saddle since I had no idea what Cody's mood was going to be. He hasn't been ridden in a few months so you never know. Now believe it or not but Axel was really walking out (for Axel) and Cody was lagging behind. Once we finally go out of sight of the barn he was a little better but still lagging behind Axel. Axel was even stepping under himself and carrying his head nice for once. We ended up crossing the bean field through some pretty deep snow. Axel's head was really flying up and down. Cody ended up getting a little sweated up working through that snow. Even in deep snow though, he manages to keep that butter smooth trot. The road back was pretty calm. Only a few times where Cody wanted to trot and I wanted to walk. Nothing like he used to be. When we got back we passed the driveway and I dismounted in the cul-de-sac and walked him up to the barn. We groomed them up a bit and let Axel out. Cody had a few more things to work on. He did a few more circles, at first he was a total spaz but worked back into it. Then we worked on backing out of the barn and up and over the step. After a few tries he really go it. Tricia said he has really started to listen to me. So I'll definitely have to keep up the ground work.

Rocket the wonder pony!

Jeff and I swung by the barn to do a few minutes of ground work with Cody on our way to Tricia's. She got a harness, cart, and sleigh for Rocket and we wanted to check it out. We hooked him up to the cart and went out on the road. The sleigh runners are too narrow and dig into the snow too much and make it hard for Rocket to pull so they've been using the cart instead.

Rocket took the cart like a champ. A one point he got a little confused, reared up (in slow motion) and came back down with one of the shafts under his front leg. He just stood there waiting for someone to fix his predicament. When we got him all situated we were on our way. He pulled Tricia and I around and did some trotting. We even had him do some one wheel turns. He's a real trooper that's for sure.

We did hook him up to the sleigh to see if we could figure out what was wrong with it. He pulled it alright when it was empty but with people in it really scraped the gravel. Back to the drawing board on that one. Our next plan is to hook Axel up and have Tricia skijor behind him since she always has her skis with her. We just have to wait for some more snow on the road or a nice freezing rain.

Work in the barn

I haven't been in the mood to get the horses all tacked up and work in the snow so I've been using Cody as my excuse to not ride. It's a good excuse though, he needs the ground work. I actually got to the barn really early for once so I groomed Axel for while before bringing in Cody. My first step from now on is going to be driving him into the barn. Going in the first time isn't usually a big deal, he walks right in when I put the rope over his back and send him on his way. After that, I figured I'd start with seeing how his attitude about being in the barn without his herd. He was surprisingly calm. Still a bit anxious but manageable. We did a little basic lunging and some grooming as a reward. If we only trot once or twice around in a row it doesn't get too dusty in there but I think I'll shovel some snow in there next time it's not so crunchy. We spent a little time working on standing still which is another one of our issues. Tricia and Steph had arrived by that point. Tricia ended up jumping on Cody bareback and I lunged him. He was a little concerned with the change at first but figured it out pretty quick. So we set up a board on the ground to practice backing over. And I set up some chairs in the corner of the barn to practice lunging (and eventually driving) into small spaces. He got the lunging into the corner pretty well after a while. The backing up still needs a lot of work. He will back out of the trailer but it's usually pretty fast and frantic. He'll back on the ground but it's pretty hard to keep him in a straight line. But we'll keep working on that. I think the more confident he gets with backing on command the easier it will be to keep him straight. At the end of the lesson we backed him out of the barn door. There's a pretty decent step down so I thought it'd be a good practice spot for trailering. He was much more concerned with what was behind him while I was aiming him towards the door than he was just in the barn. He finally made it out of the barn but Tricia insisted he go back in and do it again. This time driving him into the door was much more difficult. It required some more circles so he would remember we weren't done work yet. Finally he did go in. Backing out the second time wasn't quite as difficult but still not perfect. I'll have to add a whoa in this game when he gets the back feet out so he learns not to fly backwards. After that it was the usual dinner time and off to the bar!

Skijorring!

So it was in the 20s yesterday and didn't seem too windy so it was off to the barn. I couldn't decide what I wanted to accomplish but I thought at the very least I wanted to see how the herd was doing since Corey left the week prior. Now we're down to a 4 horse herd. I wonder if the remaining horses worry about why their herd mates have disappeared and if they're next or if they just don't think that way. I'm hoping they just don't think that way.

Things were pretty mellow when I pulled up, but that's not unusual for a mid winter day. I decided I was just going to do a tiny bit of ground work with Cody to see where he was at and then turn them out into the side pasture for some play time before I left. Cody lunged as well as usual. Drat though I do keep forgetting to pay attention to where his ears are. But he followed directions well so he must have been paying me a little attention at least. I don't have a surcingle yet and I was too lazy to get out a saddle to long line with so I just stood behind him with the lead rope to see if he'd "walk on" with me behind him. He was a bit confused but moved forward. So I think that's our next step, ground driving. I think if I can get him ground driving in and out of the barn the trailer loading should be a snap.

The snow was really crispy so playtime was a little more subdued than usual but there was a fair share of silliness going around. At one point Kiko kicked out at Cody like she tends to do in this situation. Usually Cody reacts much like the photo there. But this time he just went after her. Bit at her and chased her around the trees. My initial reaction is that Cody is competing to win the place of herd boss like I thought he would. Maybe Kiko is giving him a run for his money. She doesn't seem to care about that though, since she's the only mare she's more or less in charge of the herd in her own mind anyway. It will be interesting to see the changes in the coming weeks.

After all the fun at Tom's I ran over to Tricia's in-laws farm to help her with the pony. She has a mini/Shetland who's about 5 years old that the kids have been riding. She taught him to ground drive a few years back to start his training and she decided to teach him to pull. So we drove him around with big PVC pipes wacking at his sides with pretty much no reaction on his part. So we hooked up a kid's sled to his saddle (no harness yet to fit him) and we were going to have him pull that with a bit of weight in it to see how he did. He really didn't care about the sled and at the trot we lost our weight so as we approached a snowy field Tricia got in the sled and handed the reins over to me. Rocket pulled away like he'd been doing it for years. He trotted and cantered and only looked at us like we were insane a few times. I got way more exercise running next to him with the reins than I had planned. We swapped and I rode in the sled. Then we swapped back and Tricia took the reins while sitting in the sled. So Rocket passed his tests with flying colors. Children around the neighborhood will rejoice as they get pulled around by Rocket the pony. Believe it or not, that little pony didn't even break a sweat.

So after that we grabbed Oly and Cinder and jumped on (not very gracefully) bareback for a quick ride. Cinder has quite the vertical trot being the Arab he is so I was a little on edge, but we made it out okay. And despite the wind and cold that picked up on our way back both my ears are still attached to my head. So at least I got a little riding in and believe me, I was working on some of that visualization techniques from the Centered Riding book in order to remain on Cinder's back.

I think we should teach Axel to pull a sleigh. He'd look so cute with some jingle bells.

Sunday in the Snow

December 9, 2007
Sunday we put on all of our long undies and went out to the barn so Jeff could play with his new camera. We let the horses out in the side pasture for the first time which is always entertaining. They run around like fools, kicking up their heels. Then they went on to digging in the snow looking for grass to graze.

I tacked up Axel and took him for a spin in the snow. He was less than enthused about that idea. He just wanted to hang out with the "guys." We had a few minor words about moving but being as I stayed on his back I think I won. We did end up our kind of helter-skelter ride by doing some serpentines at the walk. He's pretty good at those and I need the practice using my seat aids for bending and turning.

I turned out Axel and grabbed Cody for some quick ground work. I'm trying to keep that up every time I visit, just for a few minutes at least. Cody did pretty well, he's definitely retaining the lunging lessons. I've got some notes jotted down for things to do with him to make things a little different and keep it interesting. I'm excited to work with him every day for a month when I'm out there house/horse/cat sitting. Ooo cat time, I totally forgot about that, what fun! Plus I think I'm going to start riding Cody more than Axel. Axel's knee is sore and he's just so slow that it's really difficult for me to improve my riding or see improvement in him. I might do a few lessons on Tricia's horse and then start riding Cody weekly. I'm hoping by spring Cody will be ready to jump in that trailer and head for the trails every time we go. I'm aiming for the Gary cattle drive as well. I still do want to do a dressage schooling show. I wanted to do it with Axel but we'll see.

November 28, 2007
Last week the girls gave me a hard time for wanting to go out to the barn. I say I wasn't forcing either of them, they are big girls! Anyway, Tricia trailered Oly over to ride. My black stirrup leathers finally arrived so I put those on my saddle. And I decided to try out my new bridle. Unfortunately it is a bit small so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. By the time we had the horses tacked up it was already mostly dark. And the wind picked up, a lot. We figured it would be less windy if we went down the back hill and rode down there. It was slightly less windy and a lot more dark by the time we got down there. Axel and I stumbled around for a while. He kept flipping his head since the bridle was too small, the brow band was the worst followed by the nose band. His head is just a bit too big for a regular bridle but probably too small for a draft size. He needs horse and a half or something. So Tricia and Oly and Steph and Kalani wandered around a bit as well before we decided we were cold and it was time to go back up. Sadly I couldn't tell if there were any changes in Axel since it was dark, the ground was full of holes so he kept tripping, and it was too cold to really do much. We fed as usual and when Cody was done eating I did a tiny bit of lunging with him just to remind him of the whole respect thing.

December 5, 2007
This week Tricia ran into some possum issues at her place so she wasn't able to make it out. Steph didn't sound terribly interested but she came out anyway. I wanted to get a hair sample of Cody's mane for a gal I ran across online that's doing a research project on lethal white overo. I groomed him and pulled some hair off him and then lunged him in the round pen for a while. He did pretty good so I tried free lunging him for a while. He did really well in one direction but wouldn't turn into the circle in the other direction without the lead rope. He turned fine to the inside in the one direction so I assume it was just a side favoring issue and not really a respect issue.

After that I groomed up Axel and Steph brought in Corey. We jumped on bareback with just halters and lead ropes and cruised around the round pen for a while. Axel felt pretty good but once again it's hard to tell without having the space to really move out. Maybe we'll get a chance this weekend. We pulled up all the ground poles from the round pen so they won't get frozen to the ground in our way, fed everyone, and went on our way .. to the bar.

Corey is going to WCR this weekend so things are going to be interesting next week. I'll have to make sure to keep up the ground work with Cody because he's the likely horse to step up to herd boss and that could have some adverse affects on his attitude. I guess we'll see.

When I left work it was 14F. When I got to the barn it was 4F. When we left after riding it was -4F and when I got home it was -10F. But that -4F felt more like 10F because it was not windy at all. Hopefully Sunday will be nice enough, Jeff wants to come with and try out his new camera.

Chiropractor Visit

Well since I sold my old car I was able to afford to have the chiropractor out to adjust both Cody and Axel this time. Cody needed a follow up visit from his spring adjustment. I of course got to the barn 5 minutes after 3. Dr. Westman said he'd be up to the ranch sometime around 3 or 4. Well I guess he was there at 3. So I was late. It was kind of a bummer because I had wanted a bit of time to groom everyone so they didn't look like total neglect cases. Oh well, it's that time of year I guess. I grabbed Cody and brought him into the barn. I was really surprised, he was pretty calm about the whole thing. He usually gets pretty worked up when he has to stand alone without his buddies. He stood really well for his adjustment and might have even enjoyed it. There was a lot of licking and chewing going on. In the end he had one rib on each side out (an improvement from the 4 that were out in the spring), his croup was out, and his withers were pretty bad still (his adjustments are on the left there if you can read them).

Axel hadn't been adjusted before and he's so stoic it's really hard to tell when he's in pain. But he's been so slow lately that I thought maybe he is in pain and at least this can't hurt. He in fact was out: a couple ribs, his withers were pretty out, and his poll. He didn't show much pain upon palpitation but he was out enough that I might see some changes in him the next time I ride him. The Dr. did find out that Axel has an issue with his left front knee. He's got a lump and it's really stiff, possibly the beginning of arthritis. So I put some senior flex in his dinner for the night and we'll see about getting him on that supplement for a while. I had asked to put him on that a while ago but I don't think that had happened. I'm hoping he maybe just tripped and smacked his knee but I think it's been an ongoing issue. Poor Axel. He enjoyed the adjustment well enough, he didn't really appreciate having his poll adjusted but the rest he was fine with (Axel's adjustments are on the right).

Tricia was able to make it over with Oly for his adjustment. I had sort of wondered if he'd even need anything done since he's been pretty good lately. Hasn't tried to kill Tricia in a long time. But he was out in a quite a few places on his back and ribs, enough that the Chiropractor suggested she give him a few extra days before he goes back to work.

So we'll probably do a bit more ground driving and such for Axel while he's still putting on a bit more weight and hopefully building back some muscle before I start riding him again. And lots more ground work for Cody is in our future, especially after how well he got in the trailer the other night after their little adventure. Gotta keep up that good work.

Rest in Peace, Beau

The Great Escape

1. We switched our riding day to Tuesday this week since Steph was going to be out of town.
2. Tricia wasn't going to come but later decided it was too nice out to pass up and planned to come over with Oly in the trailer.
3. I turned down a meeting with some IT people at the WCR office.

Because of these three things we were able to rescue 5 very naughty horses.

I show up at the barn and Tricia comes along right behind me with Oly in the trailer. There's no horses in the front pasture so I head to the back hill to call for them. I can't whistle loud enough so I just yell "horses!" that usually gets them to at least look my way. I see Beau peek out from behind some trees and start heading up my way. I let him into the barn and figure everyone else won't be too far behind. No luck.

We decide that Tricia is going to ride Oly and I will drive Axel down the road to the bean field. I'll work Cody in the round pen when we return. I grab a halter and head down the hill to find the horses, yelling most the way just in case they decide to help me out so I don't have to walk all the way down the hill. No horses. I check the bottom of the hill where they spend most of their time grazing. No horses. Okay, maybe they went up the other way when I was coming down the hill. I call Tricia's cell to see if she's seen the herd but she doesn't have her phone on her. So I walk down near the creek to the bridge. There's no grazing over there but sometimes they hang out in the sand. No horses.

What I do find is a broken gate. The gate to the bridge is snapped. The bridge leads to the trails on the back hill and beyond the trails are fields and farms and roads. There is some really good grass at the top of the hill so my thought is that once they got to that point they probably stopped to graze. I couldn't get a hold of Tricia on her cell so I run up the hill nearly causing me a heart attack in the process (apparently I need to do a bit more aerobic work). She has Oly tacked up and ready to go. I tell her the news as Steph drove up. We gathered some lead ropes and halters and sent Tricia and Oly ahead of us thinking Oly would call and the horses would come looking. I guess Oly knew better because he didn't call.

When we got to the top of the hill Tricia set out across the first field to the farm house to ask if they had seen any horses. Steph and I walked down the trail in the woods to see if they were out there at all. Tricia called my cell and told me that the people at the farm house knew where the horses were so we were going to meet her back at Tom's and drive over and get them.

As the crow flies, they ended up a mile away. We had to drive 4 miles to get there though. They had ended up on the other end of one of the fields and someone spotted them and rounded them up. A guy with a bunch of horses at a farm up the road was going to try and trailer them back to us but they couldn't get Kiko in the trailer (apparently they got everyone else in the trailer though). So instead of fighting her they just put them all in a pen until we got to them.

We made two trips with Tricia's trailer to pick them all up. Kalani, Cody, and Kiko in the first trip. Both Kalani and Cody loaded really well. Kiko was a bit more of a fight but she got in. Then Axel and Corey on the last trip and they both load just fine. So we didn't get to work the horses we had planned but everyone got a few trailer loading lessons anyway. We saw some trailers at this farm, and they were big slant load goose neck trailers. My question is how in the world did they get Axel out if they had him loaded. He doesn't back out of a trailer well. I want to know their secret! Tom ended up taking us out for dinner after that in thanks for running around to find everyone.

Whew, quite the night.

Sunny Sunday

So I show up at the ranch this morning and Beau is in the barn which is not unusual. However, he's standing on the pallets on the wrong side of the fence. He must have been there for a while eating hay. When I came he was more than happy to move to the other side of the fence when I opened it for him. Actually he was ready to go outside, grab a drink of water, and head down to the pasture where the rest of the horses where.

I grabbed Cody's rope halter and went down to fetch him out of the pasture. He wasn't terribly thrilled to come up to the barn with me so we did a couple circles until he was ready to follow me up. When we got to the top of the hill he called back to the herd, luckily everyone was far too busy grazing to respond so we were able to work alone. Cody really picked up on the circling and the direction changes from Wednesday. He was pretty worked up and would only canter at first and then finally trot but walk was not in our vocabulary today. Despite his "frenzy" he kept an ear on me most of the time. We practiced standing outside of my "personal space" but he's still having issues with creeping forward. Particularly, he's creeping towards the herd. I worked on scratching his face a lot and when he'd creep forward he'd have to move out again on the circle. He got pretty sweaty again but it was 63F out so it stands to reason. Luckily it was early enough that I could just turn him out when I was done and not worry about him getting chilled.

When I figured we had enough circling I decided I wasn't going to just let him run down to the herd. I was going to walk him down to the herd and let him go as a reward. We had to do a few more circles on the way down the hill because he wasn't totally paying attention. When we got close to the herd I asked for a few more circles before taking his halter off. And surprise surprise, he just stands there looking at me. I walk towards the herd, he follows. I walk up to Kiko, he follows. I walk past Kiko, he follows. Finally when I put the halter on Axel he figures it out and stops following me around. Goofy horse.

After chasing Axel around the paddock a few times, I put the surcingle on him and ground drove him around the pasture for a while. We did some basic big circles, some sort of lopsided figure eights, and then to avoid boredom we wove (weaved?) the trees. Then we did get some long lining for a few circles. We just stuck to the walk, I was without a carriage whip so getting a trot would have been a lot of work.

The farrier is due out this coming Thursday. And the chiropractor is supposed to call back on Monday to schedule an appointment for Cody and Axel. I think I'm going to keep doing the ground work with both horses until after their chiropractor visit. Cody needs the ground work for respect so maybe one day we can get him in the trailer happily. Axel needs to work on using his hind end and needs to build up a little more top line as he's lost quite a bit of muscle lately. We've increased both of their grain and it looks like it might be working, hard to tell with the fuzzy winter coats.

A Ground Work Lesson

Tricia was without a truck and trailer and by the time everyone got to the barn it was going to be dark pretty quick. Steph decided to not work Kiko or Kalani and just lend a hand with Cody and Axel. We decided it was time for more ground work (it's always time for more ground work but with only being out there once a week it's hard to squeeze it in). Tricia started with Cody since I deemed him the most difficult. I began with ground driving Axel with Steph coaching us. Axel did really well and moved out pretty good for once. We still have some issues with turning and not getting totally confused but we do pretty good. At the very least Axel will learn to move forward without me kicking the crap out of him all the time. We even attempted a little trot which probably looked a bit more like water skiing.

Steph took over with Axel and worked on long lining (like a combination of ground driving and lunging) at the trot. I went and worked with Cody and Tricia. Basically with Cody we're working on a few things:

1. Moving forward without questioning (respect)


2. Being content away from the herd


3. Letting us work with his nose (he's been rearing when we try to worm or do much of anything to his face)

Tricia already had Cody working pretty well on the lunge. She showed me how to get him to circle on command and then switch directions when I asked. He started to understand the direction change pretty well. The point is that he should nearly jump to the next direction when told to and not have to have the handler force him to move. When I'd ask him to stop I'd "reward" him by scratching his nose. In the end Cody had worked up quite the sweat so we put him in the barn with a cooler on while we finished up with Axel.

Axel was doing pretty good with the long lining but at this point it was really dark so it was hard to see what he was doing. Apparently he did really well to the right but we were watching the left side and that's his stiff side. After cooling out Cody (who did not want to calm down in the barn away from his buddies), we fed and all the usual stuff.

Still riding in the bean field

So last night we booked out to the barn to do some riding. It's getting dark faster and faster so we can't waste any time. Jeff came along to shoot some video instead of his bow this time. Tricia brought Oly over again. He's getting a whole lot of good practice trailering with and without a buddy and standing quietly waiting. He's a lucky horse. Cody needs that practice for sure. So eventually I'll have some more video to post. Hopefully good enough video that won't get eaten by YouTube. We worked on some circles and figure 8s. Axel has forgotten how to turn. He has a real issue when there's other horses around doing other things, he stops listening to me and chips in all the corners to try and get near the other horse. Or try and menace Oly by pinning his ears at him. But we probably have some video of Axel trotting a little, bending a little, pretending to frame up a little, and even cantering a little. He was feeling pretty cranky though, lots of little kicks and tossing his head. Probably several factors contributing to that; he might be sore from Sunday, he might be sore and need the chiropractor (someone buy my car so I can afford the chiro visit), he might be sore from trying to frame up for the first time in several months. He was pretty willing to canter, I wonder if he's finally figured out he isn't totally unbalanced or if it just hurts less to canter. I'm looking forward to seeing the video. Jeff also got some video of Kiko cantering and then bucking. Should be very entertaining.

When we got back we fed and de-wormed everyone. Cody is kind of a pill when it comes to de-worming, or doing anything that involves going at his face. I can never put anything like sun screen on his nose, he tries to rear up a little as he did last night. Not sure why that bothers him so much. So that all reminds me to update my horse records for all their shots and stuff. And it reminds me to stop rambling so much and make real posts!

The long awaited video from Jeff. I was just going to post some clips (which I may still do) but Jeff made us a little music video instead. Sorry it was really dark out now that Daylight Saving Time is over. And Axel isn't really the overgrown pony he looks like in this video.

Awesome Trail Ride

Lexi decided we needed to go on another trail ride before winter so Sunday we packed up with the intention of just going down the road to the MN Valley Trail for a nice easy ride. On my way up to the barn I passed the trail and noticed a big orange sign that said "Trail Closed." Tricia was already at the barn so we decided we'd figure out some other place to go. Our assumption was that the trail was closed because of hunting and perhaps other trails would also be closed. We could go up north to Crow Hassen or just stick around the area and go to Carver. We knew Carver was open so that was what we opted for. It turned out to be a really nice ride. There's only 9 miles of trails but they are wide, grassy, easy trails with plenty of hills and good stretches for cantering (or galloping as the case may be). It was a gorgeous day and we made the best of it knowing before long it'd be snowing and we'd be huddled in the round pen trying not to freeze while we worked.

Axel kept up a little better but he's still pretty slow. By the end of the trail ride we figured at the very lease that western saddle is not helping matters. He's lost enough weight that it's not fitting him well and it's resting on his withers, not good. Poor Axel is so stoic he just doesn't protest his pain. It wasn't long into the ride before we all settled into a mindset that we were there just to have some fun and let the horses enjoy themselves. We ran up most of the hills and had some runs on some nice flat wide areas. Lexi frequently cantered ahead with Cinder and then walked back to meet us since Axel was so slow. We did come to the conclusion that bicycle trails and horse trails should not go together. I think I'd prefer 4 wheeler trails and horse trails to the existing situation. Bikes are silent and scary. You don't hear them coming until they are right on you and by then the horse is midair having a coronary. Even Axel, the stablest of stable horses, had a nice spaz when a bike snuck up on us. I'm not sure if that's what woke us up or what but after that our next gallop was the fastest we had done all day. Which of course ended by Oly and Axel moving 3 feet to the left in mid air when a scary clump of grass appeared. I managed to stay on, thank goodness!

After we stopped for lunch we went back out for one more short loop with intentions to take some video of us cantering around. The video of Lexi and I isn't the greatest (okay none of the videos are the greatest), by the time we got to the camera Axel had given up on the canter. YouTube kind of compresses the heck out of these videos so the quality isn't so great either.

We made it back to the barn before dark for once. I had to coax everyone up from the pasture to be fed. Which apparently was their first supper as Tom fed when he got home too. Heh oh well, trying to get Axel and Cody to bulk up a bit anyways, they're getting kind of ribby. And I even oiled my saddle so it doesn't squeak as much. So I'm on a roll, I cleaned and oiled my bridles the other week as well.

Cattle Drive

Somehow I forgot to post about the Gary Cattle Drive. Tricia and I went out to South Dakota for the Gary Cattle Drive, unfortunately I was without a good camera and my mother-in-law's camera ran out of space so I only got a few kind of boring photos. They drive the herd right through the middle of town. We're going to try and weasel our way into the drive next year.

Love the bean field

This is Beau. Clearly he has no issues with the white fence. It's not on, but my horse, Cody, still won't go anywhere near a white line thinking it might be hot. Beau, on the other hand, has no issues with that. We gave him all sorts of hay but apparently we didn't hand pick all the best bits for him so he decided to find some for himself.

Jeff came out with me again so he could shoot his bow while I rode and Tricia wasn't able to get a truck so no Oly. But we lucked out again and they still haven't plowed the bean field by the ranch. Unfortunately it's still a slow ride to get there since Axel is the king of slowness. But once we get there we do quite alright. Tricia rode Cody bareback on a saddle blanket. Steph rode Kalani after already having worked Kiko in the field before we got there. And I rode Axel. My goal was to stop nagging and figure out how to relax my rear end. I tend to squeeze from the waist down which is not a good deal. Firstly it leaves my inner thighs killing me the next two days, it confuses the horse who thinks I'm trying to half halt, and it makes me super bouncy in the saddle.

So lesson #1 for me was to not squeeze and hold too much. Bump, click, whip. The bump isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm so used to squeezing Axel to get him to move. We'll have to keep working on that one.

Lesson #2 for me was too keep my lower back and rear end relaxed. We did a lot of bizarre posting and twisting to try and get my lower leg independent from my upper leg. Then we worked on seat bones and bending Axel in a serpentine using one seat bone at a time. I did some wiggling back and forth to try and find each hip. Axel might have thought I was nuts.

Realization #1 Axel is stiff to the right because I cannot get my right seat bone down to cue him to bend around in that direction. He does awesome with very little leg or rein and only left hip when we go that direction. But right is not so good.

We did end up cantering once or twice. I think the one time Axel finally started from his rear end (that's a good thing). I was also threatened with lunge line lessons. Luckily my horses don't lunge well yet. ;)