Is it spring yet?

The weather this year has been very strange. One minute we are having blizzard conditions, the next minute it is 40* and beautiful followed up by a day or two of nonstop rain only to turn around and have blizzard conditions again and starting the cycle back over! Needless to say I haven’t managed to do a thing with my horses all winter and it isn’t looking like I will be able to anytime soon. So far none of them seem to mind.

So what do you do when it is cold outside and you can’t do anything? You get a puppy of course! (jk I don’t recommend getting a puppy based on the weather conditions) That is what we did and after standing out in the blowing snow for 5 minutes this am waiting for her to “tinkle” I’m wondering wth we were thinking!

Well this is what we were thinking – isn’t she cute!

Meet Molly









She is a tri colored miniature aussie & so far she seems to be very smart (although she’s going to get her butt kicked by the cat here shortly). Cy is taking things a lot better then I expected he would. He is growling at her but I think he’s more bark then bite. He just wants to let her know this is his house. I don’t think it will take long before she has him acting like a puppy again too.

So far the biggest problem we’ve run into with her is that she seems to get overheated in the house. I had to turn a fan on her last night to get her comfortable. She loves the snow!

Maiden Voyage

We had beautiful weather on Saturday (30* with no wind) so I headed out to the barn. I spent half of the day cleaning stalls, digging my back doors out of the snow drift so I could open them and doing a few other things in the barn that needed to be done.

I knew the lovely weather wasn’t going to last all day so I decided to stop what I was doing and play with ponies. I got Cat out and cleaned her up. She’d managed to find some mud and looked more like a buckskin vs. a palomino. Once she was cleaned up I grabbed my stick and my whirly gig (a spinning/flapping flag thing that I bought at the dollar store) and we headed out to find some decent footing.

She was a bit full of herself when I started LFR but it was slick so she wasn’t moving too fast. A few changes of direction and her mind was back on me. The one thing I’ve always loved about Cat is that no matter how much she gets distracted when you put her to work it only takes about 2 laps before she’s back on track and listening to me. I didn’t want to get her too hot and sweaty so I decided now was the perfect time to grab my whirly gig and desensitize her. It really flaps and cracks and tends to send most horses over the edge. It didn’t take long before she relaxed, cocked a leg and dropped her head.

I walked her back up to the barn and grabbed my mounting block and did a bit of Jefferies with her. She was staring at the neighbors place. Their grandson had gotten his 4-wheeler stuck in the snow/mud and couldn’t get it out. I just laid up on her back rubbing her barrel. She was very relaxed and soft. I’ve heard CA say he can tell if they will buck on not by how their ribs feel. I spent about 10 minutes or so just getting on and off and rubbing her when I decided to just sit on up. She wasn’t worried about it at all.

This is probably where most people would have stopped and said “I really shouldn’t push it”. But then I’m not most people. :D I flexed her to the left and then flipped the lead rope over her head and flexed her to the right. I asked her to walk off but she wasn’t sure what I wanted. My squeeze when to a cluck and finally to a spank. Once she moved I stopped. She is very smart so it didn’t take long before she was walking off by just a squeeze/cluck. I walked her over to the barn and then flipped the rein over her head and turned her around. She decided to go out to the pasture so I let her go out for a little bit and then turned her around again. I wanted to make the decision on where I stopped and where I got off so I flipped my lead over her head and turned her away from the barn and back towards the mounting block. I flexed her a bit more and then hopped off. Next time I’ll have to use reins!

Next it was Lucy’s turn. She was pretty full of it too but did well. She kept calling back to Cat in the barn, (I think they’ve become too good of buddies) but she did listen to what I wanted. She wasn’t thrilled with the whirly gig which surprised me. Normally she could care less. She finally got over it and stood so I could flap it on all 4 sides.

Sunday wasn’t quite as nice as expected so I didn’t get to ride Cat again like I had planned. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can get some more time in on her. I really do need to get her saddled again. It has probably been 6 months or so since I’ve saddled her up. Oh well – we’ll get there one day.

Snow, snow and more snow!

We’ve had more snow in Dec. and the first part of January then we typically have in an entire winter. It is beautiful but it is also starting to reach havoc. Saturday the horses ran out of hay and were unable to get to the bale that I had put in the back pasture as an “emergency” bale due to the drifts. I tried to ride Lucy down there to show the others they could make it but they weren’t having any part of it and neither was Lucy.

Since the Bobcat wouldn’t start I was forced to use the tractor. I guess I didn’t realize how spoiled I’d gotten because the tractor and I don’t seem to get along! It didn’t take long and sure enough I was stuck! Dad wasn’t too happy with me but I rolled my bottom lip and pouted and he eventually came out to save the day. I’ll bet he spent a good 2 hours on the tractor trying to push snow out of the way to make room for a bale (and so we could get to the bales). We finally got one out when dad asked “what now”. I asked him if he thought we could move one to the dry lot and he just looked at me. I knew my answer was no.

Later on in the day after pushing him a bit I got him talked into trying to start the Bobcat one more time. My cousin just happened to show up about the time we were trying to start it and he got it fired up for me. Woo hoo! Or so I thought. I spent another 2 hours out moving snow. I had to make a path down to where the old bale was so I could get the bale ring so this bale would last more then a week. When all was said and done I had a bale in each pasture. They still couldn’t access the back pasture but I did have an extra one in the dry lot.

When I turned the horses out it was like Christmas! They didn’t really care about the hay – they were just happy they had a place to run (the path I’d made to get to the bale ring). Lucy and Cat raced back and forth playing. It was a nice sight to see.

Last night it was so cold that Cat looked like she had a frozen troll doll on her head (forelock). I’ll have to see if I can get pics of all of the snow this weekend. Of course we are getting more today.